The Kim Playbill

"From previous launches and the altitude and ranges of those missiles, it has been assumed that Guam is within range of the North's missiles, but this latest test is proof."
Garren Mulloy, defence expert, associate professor international relations, Daito Bunka University, Japan

"[Of a certainty all 15 United Nations Security Council members] will be condemning this outrageous act."
"It is, of course, a grave threat to our own security but ... it is a real threat to the peace and security of the world as a whole."
UN Ambassador Koro Bessho, Japan

thewest.com

"[The ] combat efficiency and reliability [of the Friday missile launch, demonstrated amply that the tests prove North Korea is increasing its military strength]."
"Our final goal is to establish the equilibrium of real force with the U.S. and make the U.S. rulers dare not talk about military option for the DPRK [Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea]."
North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches a Hwasong 12 missile being fired in Pyongyang in this photograph released September 16 by North Korea's KCNA news agency. KCNA

Kim Jong Un appears to be having one whale of a time. Defying the bombast emanating from U.S. President Donald Trump in reaction to the North Korean leader's own belligerent bombast; two leaders of two nations, one with a large and advanced nuclear arsenal, the other a come-lately barging into the Nuclear Club, making incredible headway leaving political critics, western nuclear scientists and intelligence agencies agape at the swift progress and success realized by the North Korean push toward nuclear ascendancy; anything good enough for the U.S. is fine for North Korea.

The latest launch of an intermediate-range weapon that saw an early Friday launch from Sunan hard by Pyongyang's international airport sped its way over Japan to finally land in the northern Pacific Ocean. As a conveyor of audacious hostility to the condemnation raining on Kim's parade and the biting economic and political sanctions meant to convince Kim to pull back, past history with this regime amply presages that there is no threat dark enough, no bribe useful enough and no concerns of peace and security capable of prompting a turn-about for North Korea.

This was the furthest yet that Pyongyang has been able to propel one of its projectiles. Should Kim decide to proceed with his threat to the United States that Guam may be next on its agenda, what then? There is little doubt that this question is uppermost on the minds of those living on Guam, just as it must consume the frenetic attention of Japanese on Hokkaido. Japan's northernmost island has now been the recipient of its second overflight.

The "fire and fury" threatened by President Rump last month should the North dare to continue its blatant provocations to prod the powerful United States military into a response that could unleash not only a disaster for South Korea in the North's immediate response, but threaten a far larger conflagration that could consume the region entirely and thus set off sparks for a Third World War even while China and Russia are cautioning for cooler heads to prevail certainly focuses the mind.

Kim Jong Un oversaw launch of Hwasong-12 on Friday: KCNA

That was some impressive flight; 3,700 kilometres in distance and as it happens somewhat greater than the distance it would take from Pyongyang to the American territory of oh-so-vulnerable Guam. This test of an ICBM understudy, aligned with the powerful utility of a nuclear device similar to the sixth one that shocked the world a few weeks back provides more than ample warning of the tentative nature of security in east Asia.

The sanctions banning well over 90 percent of the North's exports are, it would seem, mere yet distracting irritants to Kim, failing to deter him from his self-aggrandizing mission of terrorizing the international community into placating his ambitions and accepting the presence of a nuclear-armed and 'respected' North Korea forever verging on the edge of jittery psychological insecurity, requiring constant assurances that it has indeed become a world power.

"[All countries and in particular China must] demonstrate that they are doing everything in their power to implement the sanctions of the Security Council and to encourage the North Korean regime to change course", fulminated Britain's UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft. As though 'all countries' doing just that is all that it will take to persuade this juvenile paranoid megalomaniac to feel chastened and apologize for his rash and unacceptable behaviour, eager to take his place in the church choir.

Thomson-Reuters