… Months of Silence.
Cotton, who uses modeling techniques and satellite images to geo-locate North Korea’s nuclear sites and runs a database on missile tests, noticed that the country accelerated its missile test program in 2014.
It pulled back in 2015 and advanced it last year with 24 big trials. Pyongyang has initiated 19 tests this year, with the last one before Tuesday coming in September.
The pause since September fell in line with patterns from previous years. The average number of missile tests during the fourth quarter since 2012 is 0.8, compared to an average of 4.1 to 4.8 for each of the first three quarters of the year, according to Cotton.
It is possible that the North has fired up its testing activity because it got some major domestic tasks out of the way, such as harvest time, which begins in September and diverts troops and resources to tend the crops.
Pyongyang also may be coming out of a months-long period of intense military training that occurs each year, according to The Atlantic.
Any gap in missile testing should not be disregarded. North Korea has no intention to honor U.S. demands to denuclearize, and it is sticking to its commitment to build a nuclear arsenal capable of striking America.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said it himself in a statement responding to President Donald Trump’s threat in September to “totally destroy” the regime if provoked.
“The path I chose is correct and that is the one I have to follow to the last,” Kim said.
Jessica Kwong
This article was first published by the Newsweek
The 21st Century