A few weeks ago, after some rather pointed threats from President Donald Trump, North Korea backed away from its alleged plan to launch a missile attack on Guam. Weeks of sabre-rattling (and left-wing panic) ended with the Nork's portly dictator blinking first, and slinking off to sulk. Last night, the world's respite came to an end.
Shortly after 5:00PM, we got word that Kim Jong Un had fired up another one of his shoddy-but-dangerous missiles - this time sending the projectile sailing over northern Japan.
BREAKING: Yonhap agency says South Korean military confirms North Korean ballistic missile flew over Japan.
Eventually, the missile broke into several pieces and splashed down in the sea near Hokkaido.
This marks the first time that North Korea has launched a missile over Japan, though North Korean rockets have overflown the country several times as Pyongyang attempted to place satellites in orbit. Obviously, this represents a disturbing escalation of Kim Jong Un's already erratic behavior.
Tuesday morning, President Trump issued a statement saying that "all options are on the table" in terms of the world's response.
“The world has received North Korea’s latest message loud and clear: this regime has signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior.
Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime’s isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table.”
What exactly that means is a bit up in the air. Just over ten days ago, former White House strategist Steve Bannon gave an interview in which he said there was "no military solution" to the North Korean situation. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson immediately contradicted that claim, telling reporters that "We are prepared, we're prepared militarily, we're prepared with our allies to respond militarily," though that's not the administration's "preferred path."
So, for now, everyone is waiting to see how the United States (not to mention the United Nations) will react to this latest bit of provocation.
The unfortunate truth is that no one seems to know what comes next.
