(RightWing.org) – The United States military has been gearing up for an armed conflict with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) for decades. Relations briefly improved during former President Donald Trump’s time in office but quickly returned to its customary adversarial nature. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appears to have escalated his saber-rattling with the US since President Joe Biden assumed office. Most recently, DPRK officials announced their administration’s decision to deploy a new spy satellite.
On May 30, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published an article detailing the anticipated June launch of a spy satellite. Citing Central Military Commission’s Vice Chair Ri Pyong Chol, the report said the DPRK’s armed forces intended to use “military reconnaissance satellite No. 1” to track and monitor the “dangerous military acts of the US and its [feudalistic] forces.” Ri attributed the need for heightened security in the region to the recent agreement between the US and South Korea to hold a series of live-fire drills near the North Korean Border.
The Associated Press reported that those joint military exercises, dubbed “combined joint fire annihilation drill[s]” by Ri, coincide with the 70th anniversary of the establishment of a military alliance between the US and South Korea. The first of those exercises occurred on May 25 and will conclude in June. The live-fire training missions are the largest of their kind, according to a report from the South Korean Defense Ministry.
French state-owned television network France 24 reported that Japanese officials said Pyongyang informed them that the satellite launch could happen anytime. However, it also noted that Tokyo warned that the DPRK could be planning to conduct a “sanctions-defying ballistic missile test.” The report didn’t specify whether officials believed the test would replace the satellite’s launch or occur at the same time.
The Biden administration hadn’t commented on the proposed launch of the satellite or Japan’s warning. As it is now, however, the N. Koreans did indeed launch the satellite, but it met with abject failure and crashed soon after.
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