North Korea’s flurry of missile launches — 20 of them just in the past year — are a new and alarming fact of life for Japan and its other neighbors. But Pyongyang’s recent demonstrations of its capacity to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles, while worrying, are…
North Korea’s flurry of missile launches — 20 of them just in the past year — are a new and alarming fact of life for Japan and its other neighbors.
But Pyongyang’s recent demonstrations of its capacity to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles, while worrying, are drawing shrugs from many in the region who reckon there’s not much anyone can do about them.
„We have no idea when and where (a missile) would strike. Honestly, I don’t think there is any way to prepare for it, “ Akira Fukatsu, a 65-year-old retiree, said as he sat drinking a beer on a bench in a park overlooking a U. S. Navy base in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo. „We’re simply unlucky if one strikes here.“
Many Japanese, South Koreans and Chinese appear to share that sense of resignation over North Korea’s apparent newfound capacity to launch missiles capable of reaching much of the continental United States.
The July 4 firing of a Hwasong-14 ICBM, its first test, and another last weekend suggest that major U. S. cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago are within range of North Korean weapons.
