Missile launch follows show of force by U.S., Japan

Just days after a flotilla of U.S. and Japanese warships left the sea between Japan and the Korean Peninsula, where they had been deployed in a show of force toward Pyongyang, North Korea tested missiles designed to hit such ships.

The launches Thursday morning of what appeared to be surface-to-ship cruise missiles were meant to demonstrate that the North could repel forces staging a strike on the Korean Peninsula, analysts said.

South Korea’s newly elected president, Moon Jae-in, convened his first national security meeting in Seoul on Thursday to discuss the latest missile tests, which were the fifth the North had conducted since he was elected last month, and the 10th this year.

“North Korea will only face further isolation from the international community and economic difficulties with its missile launches,” Moon said at the meeting, according to a statement released by the presidential Blue House.

The launches came less than a week after the U.N. Security Council expanded its sanctions against Pyongyang over previous missile tests.

They also came less than 24 hours after Moon’s administration said it had suspended the deployment of a U.S. antimissile defense system — called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD — that is meant to detect North Korean missiles and prevent them from hitting their targets.

Critics had suggested that the suspension — which appeared to be a concession to China, whose leaders strongly objected to the THAAD system, and a break with the United States on policy toward North Korea — signaled that Moon was taking a much softer stance toward the North than his predecessors had.