North Korea launched multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea on Sunday, firing them from the North’s Sinpo area and sending them about 140 kilometers each toward the country’s eastern waters, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The launch, another display of state-controlled firepower, came hours before South Korean President Lee Jae Myung left the country to visit India and Vietnam.
Who Gets the Message
The people who live under this machinery of militarized power were not the ones deciding the timing, the target, or the escalation. South Korea’s military said it was analyzing whether the latest launches were made from a submarine, a land-based launcher or both platforms, according to South Korean media. Japan’s Defense Ministry said Tokyo strongly protested to Pyongyang, saying the launches threaten regional and international peace and violated U.N. Security Council resolutions that bans any ballistic activities by North Korea.
The U.S. and Japanese militaries also said they detected the launches. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said it remains committed to the defense of the U.S. homeland and its allies in the region. Japan’s Deputy Minister of Defense Masahisa Miyazaki told reporters that Japan was analyzing launch details in coordination with the U.S. and South Korea. The choreography of states, commands, and ministries keeps moving while ordinary people are left to absorb the risk.
Sinpo and the Machinery of War
Sinpo, the launch site, is an eastern coastal city in North Korea where it has a major shipyard use for building submarines. If the launches involved a submarine, it would mark North Korea’s first submarine-launched ballistic missile test in four years. North Korea obtaining a greater ability to fire missiles from underwater would be a worrying development because it’s difficult for its rivals to detect such launches in advance.
Last year, North Korea unveiled a nuclear-powered submarine under construction for the first time. Sunday’s launches were the latest in North Korea’s run of weapons tests this year. The pattern is not subtle: more tests, more platforms, more ways for the apparatus to project force while everyone else is told to call it “security.”
Last week, North Korea said leader Kim Jong Un supervised missile tests from the country’s destroyer. In the previous week, North Korea said it had three days of testing activities to examine ballistic missiles armed with cluster-bomb warheads and other new weapons systems. Last month, it said it tested an upgraded solid-fuel engine for missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
The Diplomacy Game Above Everyone’s Heads
Kim has focused on enlarging his nuclear and missile arsenals since his high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019. Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to restore diplomacy with Kim, and the North Korean leader has recently left open the door for dialogue with Trump but urged Washington to drop demands for the North’s nuclear disarmament as a precondition for talks. Trump is to travels to Beijing for a rescheduled summit with Xi Jinping in May.
Some observers North Korea’s recent testing activities were likely meant to increase its leverage in future dealings with the U.S., as the Trump-Xi meeting could provide a diplomatic opening with Pyongyang. That is the usual elite script: missiles on one side, summits on the other, and everyone else expected to live inside the consequences.
On Wednesday, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi said that his agency has confirmed “a rapid increase” in activities at nuclear manufacturing facilities in North Korea. Grossi told reporters in Seoul that activities in North Korea point to “a very serious increase” in its nuclear weapons production capabilities. His comments echoed a view by many outside observers that North Korea has taken steps to expand its main Yongbyon nuclear complex and build additional uranium-enrichment sites in recent years. Last September, South Korea’s Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said that North Korea was operating four uranium enrichment facilities and that they were running everyday.