Trump has "just been shown the finger" by North Korea

"The U.S., and Trump personally, has been just been "shown the finger" by a small underdeveloped state. One wonders how Trump and the official U.S. it will react to that."

"... And the rocket's red glare ..." - North Korea Wishes A Happy 4th of July

Moon of Alabama,

4 July, 2017

In recognition of the U.S. Independence Day the Democratic People's Republic of Korea launched some remarkable fireworks.

DPRK State TV confirmed a successful launch and the basic data others had measured (video).

The announcement comes nearly exactly six month after President Donald Trump issued this prediction.

That forecast turned out to be false.

Jonathan McDowell @planet4589 - 7:02 AM - 4 Jul 2017
Recap: North Korea launches Hwasong-14 ICBM at 0040 UTC Jul 4 from Kusong's Panghyon Airport 933 km eastward to Sea of Japan, 2802 km apogee

More official pictures of the launch were published. The North Korean head of state Kim Jong-Un attended.

North Korea fired the missile at a steep trajectory reaching a very high apogee. This limited the range of the test launch. The flight time of 37 minutes was extremely long. Recalculating the data into a more normal trajectory the maximum flight range of the missile is estimated to be 6,700 kilometers with a normal payload. Launched from North Korea it could cover Alaska but not the lower 49 states. With a light warhead, possibly a small nuclear load, the range could be up to 10,000 kilometer and cover at least the north-western states.

Trump will be rightfully blamed for the braggadocious formulation of his tweet. But one can not blame him for not stopping North Korea's missile development. A war on North Korea would also destroy South Korea and have implications far beyond the peninsula. Only the end of U.S. military maneuvering around Korea and the perspective of a full peace agreement could have achieved a stop of North Korea's development. The U.S. Congress would support neither. Trump tried to press China to reign in North Korea, But China has no reasonable way to do that. 

One could just as easy blame former U.S. presidents - Clinton for breaking his agreements with North Korea, Bush for his general hostility and Obama for his do-nothing excuse of "strategic patience".

North Korea has very good reasons to perceive the U.S. as vicious enemy and to never trust any U.S. statement or agreement. It needs nuclear weapons for its self-defense. As it can not trust any of its neighbors it needs strategic independence. That has now been achieved.

The U.S., and Trump personally, has been just been "shown the finger" by a small underdeveloped state. One wonders how Trump and the official U.S. it will react to that.

US & S. Korea fire tactical missiles, demonstrate ‘deep strike capability’ to Pyongyang

The American and South Korean militaries have conducted live fire exercises, launching surface-to-surface tactical missiles into neutral waters as a show of force against the latest North Korean ballistic test that coincided with American Independence Day. 

READ MORE:https://on.rt.com/8h0s

Russia, China: N. Korea must freeze nuclear activities, US halt THAAD deployment

Moscow and Beijing have agreed that North Korea should freeze its nuclear and missile programs, while the US and South Korea should abstain from holding war games in the region, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

“We’ve agreed to promote our joint initiative, based on Russian step-by-step Korean settlement plan and Chinese ideas to simultaneously freeze North Korean nuclear and missile activities, and US and South Korean joint military drills,” Putin said at a press conference after meeting with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in Moscow.

READ MORE: Missile launched by North Korea was intermediate range, not ICBM – Russian Defense Ministry

“We believe that the outer world is turbulent, local conflicts are emerging constantly, such issues as the Korean peninsula problem, Syrian question, remain very complex,” Xi Jinping said.

Russia’s president stressed that the two countries have either the same, or very close positions on many international issues.

“We intend to further develop our foreign policy coordination,” Putin said.

Moscow and Beijing stressed the importance of taking North Korea’s concerns over its safety into consideration, calling them “justified.”

“The two sides stress that justified North Korean concerns should be respected,” a joint statement by Russia’s and China’s foreign ministers reads. “Other countries should make certain moves to resume the negotiations, creating a peaceful disposition and mutual trust.”

“A possibility of the use of military measures to solve the problems of the Korean Peninsula must be ruled out,” the joint statement stressed.

While condemning Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests as violating UN Security Council resolutions, Moscow and Beijing urged the United States to immediately halt its deployment of THAAD anti-missile systems to South Korea.

“The sides agree that the deployment of THAAD anti-missile systems to Northeast Asia gravely damages strategic safety interests of regional powers, including Russia and China and do not contribute to the de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, as well as towards establishing peace and stability in the region,” the statement reads.

“Russia and China oppose the deployment of the said systems and call on the countries involved to immediately halt and cancel the process of their deployment.”

Russia and China’s calls for de-escalation and negotiation are clearly a step into right direction if the ongoing Korean crisis is to be untangled, Asia-Pacific defense consultant Jack Midgley believes.

“North Korea now has at least a limited ballistic missile capability; they have at least a limited nuclear weapons capability. The question is: how will the world deal with the emergence of this new set of facts,” Midgley said, adding “the experience of the last 60 years is very consistent there – it’s that the only way forward that actually works is to bring the parties together and to negotiate.”