North Korea's ambassador to the UK defiantly said his nation would carry on with missile launches and the awaited 6th nuclear test regardless of what sanctions the US would impose it on it. The USA could probably send a hundred aircraft carriers off its coast and this would probably make the regime in Pyongyang more determined.
The nation just wants to survive and if nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them ensure this so be it. At the end of the day, North Korea may be bluffing as it knows full-scale war with the US and others would mean the possible destruction of the regime in Pyongyang.
On the other hand, Kim may feel that having nukes and the power to deliver them would make any potential enemy think twice before instigating a military attack as the North could hit back hard with nuke tipped missiles.
North Korea's goal
It seems for a while now the North Koreans have been pressing ahead with the idea of ICBMs or Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles that could hit the west coast of the U.S. Also testing shorter range missiles capable of hitting Japan and South Korea have been on the agenda so North Korea is looking at all aspects of its defence or offence it seems.
North Korea also has a substantial military in conventional terms well capable of doing damage in the air, at sea or on the ground.
How well it would fare against South Korean, American or Japanese forces is open to question and could North Korea totally rely on China in any crisis or conflict?
North Koreas response to Trump
Despite the poisonous atmosphere that currently surrounds the situation between the U.S. and North Korea Pyongyang has responded positively to Trump's overture.
The overture was that Donald Trump would be willing to sit down and talk with his North Korean counterpart Kim if circumstances were right.
Of course, any talk of talks has to be seen as welcome in this atmosphere of tension between the two sides. Kim Jong-un has been painted in the western media as a buffoon or an overgrown kid but in reality, Kim may be smarter than the western media give him credit for.
Despite all the aspirations to run with the big boys in the nuclear club, Kim knows his people suffer starvation and deprivation on a large scale and his nuke tests and missile launches may not only be for the survival of his regime but also to re-start talks: talks that might lift the sanctions on his crippled nation which relies on outside charities to feed a good number of its population.
Trump's new sanctions and a new kind of missile
In the wake of the missile launch which successfully flew this time and crashed into the sea of Japan, Trump is threatening tougher sanctions. Trump also stated that the missile would upset the Russians more than the Japanese as it landed nearer to them than it did to Japanese territory.
It would appear if the Japanese and South Korean statements are anything to go by, that the North Korean missile was a new type. Whether it was an ICBM as mentioned earlier in this article can only be speculated upon.
So the tense and often confusing situation between all sides in the standoff grinds on.
