Norks launch missile from submarine, demand end to U.S./South Korea military exercises

Before you consider North Korea's demands, or assess the intensity of the military exercises going on between the U.S. and South Korea, you should remember that existing agreements already prohibit the Norks from everything they've been doing lately. The missile tests. The use of submarines as a launching pad. It's all banned already, so when they come forward with their demands for what might make them stop, realize that even the slightest consideration of said demands would allow them to move the goalposts yet again. And yes, they took it up a notch over the weekend:

"At the observation post he was briefed on the plan for the test-fire and gave an order for it," KCNA reported. "As soon as the order was issued, the submarine submerged as low as the biggest depth of waters for launching and fired the ballistic missile. The test-fire was aimed to confirm the stability of the underwater ballistic launching system in the maximum depth of waters." One U.S. official said Saturday the launch "was provocative but not a threat to the U.S. and the missile was fired away from South Korea and Japan." But another U.S. official noted that after previous launch attempts by Pyongyang that didn't appear to be successful, this one seems to have gone much better. "North Korea's sub launch capability has gone from a joke to something very serious," this official said. "The U.S. is watching this very closely." South Korea condemned the act. "(North Korea) should refrain from additional provocations," its foreign ministry said in a statement. "This act was a serious threat against the security, against not just Korea and northeast Asia, but the world."

If they can successfully launch a missile from a deeply submerged submarine, then you can forget about reassuring yourself that they can never hit the U.S. mainland because North Korea is too far away. All they have to do now is get the sub close enough to the U.S., which surely means operating in waters where they're not supposed to be, but since when do they care? Sanctions don't bother them, since they can always take some idiot American tourist hostage or something, then bargain for the lifting of the sanctions as a condition for releasing the guy. Let another country take out a sub and they've got a further excuse for war with the South, which I'm not so sure they wouldn't welcome. And while the U.S. insists it won't entertain a demand to pull back on the joint military exercises with the South, I'd wait and see what happens. The exercises currently happening are the biggest we've ever done with South Korea, and that's been prompted by Bowl Cut Jr.'s continued and increasing bellicosity. Are you sure we won't quietly pull back to try to appease him? It sounds right out of John Kerry's playbook to me.