DPRK fires three ballistic missiles in new show of force
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired three ballistic missiles on July 19 which flew between 500 and 600 km (300-360 miles) into the sea off its east coast, the Republic of Korea (RoK)'s military said, the latest in a series of provocative moves by the isolated country.
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The US military said it detected launches of what it believed were two Scud missiles and one Rodong, a home-grown missile based on Soviet-era Scud technology.
The DPRK has fired both types numerous times in recent years, an indication that unlike recent launches that were seen as efforts by the DPRK to improve its missile capability, July 19's were meant as a show of force.
"This smells political rather than technical to me," said Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the US-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California.
"I think the number and distance of the missiles lets them remind the RoK of what they are up against," she said, referring to the RoK by its official name.
The DPRK and the rich, democratic RoK are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. The DPRK regularly threatens to destroy the Japan, the RoK and the RoK's main ally, the United States.
The launches came nearly a week after the RoK and the United States chose a site in the RoK to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system to counter threats from the DPRK, which had prompted Pyongyang to threaten a "physical response."
