N. Korea’s 2nd ICBM test augurs a new normal

Associated Press

For all its bluster and over-the-top propaganda, North Korea often does just what it says it will do when it comes to its weapons development.

So it goes with its lightning-quick push to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile. The clear message after Friday’s late-night test, the second in a month of a missile that may be able to reach most of the U.S. mainland: Get used to this – it’s the new normal.

So what exactly does that mean?

From the West’s point of view, it portends more and scarier missile and nuclear tests, each one more powerful than the last; a dogged determination by the North to ignore, as it has for decades, financial sanctions and other outside pressure, including a slightly more forceful clampdown from its biggest enabler, China; and an increasing likelihood that a determined, unchecked North Korea will soon turn its rhetoric about being capable of nuking America’s heartland into a reality.

All this is meant to force the United States to accept terms that Pyongyang favors: a formal end to the Korean War that would remove U.S. forces from the Korean Peninsula, weaken ties between Seoul and Washington, and make it much more likely that the North’s ultimate dream of a Korea united under its rule comes true.

Outsiders have long dismissed or ignored North Korea’s atomic boasts and propaganda, even as they’ve failed through sanctions, threats and isolation to hinder the North’s progress. It remains to be seen whether an effort led by a Trump administration distracted by political infighting can rise to the most serious challenge yet in what has been a decades-long nuclear standoff.

Unless Seoul, Washington and their partners can find a way to stop the North, the near future looks pretty clear.

More tests. More instability. More pressure to pursue indigenous nuclear programs among North Korea’s other presumed targets, Seoul and Tokyo, as they lose faith in the U.S. “nuclear umbrella.” And more possibility that a miscalculation in one of the world’s most heavily armed regions could lead to fighting.

That’s the new normal.