Remember the North Korea missile launches from last week? John Schilling on 38 North notes this occurred at the same time of joint South Korean – American exercises:
This was probably the point of the latest exercise. Foal Eagle is a training exercise aimed at maintaining and demonstrating the ability of the US-ROK alliance to wage war against North Korea. They’ve just demonstrated that they can wage war right back, with weapons they have in operational service today. And the trajectory also carried a not-very-subtle message to Japan: that North Korea understands the role Japanese ports and airfields play in allied plans for war on the Korean peninsula, and that Japan will be a battleground if those plans are carried out.
The four-rocket salvo was likely intended to demonstrate the ability to saturate allied missile defenses, such as the THAAD anti-missile defense system that the US recently started to deploy to South Korea. THAAD, in conjunction with the existing Patriot system, should have no difficulty stopping a four-missile salvo at a high-value target; it has successfully stopped a five-missile salvo in tests. But four missiles at once almost certainly isn’t the limit of North Korea’s capabilities, nor is it in their interest for us to know what those limits are. We don’t know how many missiles they can launch simultaneously, or from how many sites. They don’t know how well our missile defenses can deal with large salvos. Even we are not absolutely certain.
John also notes no new capabilities were revealed by this launch, making it more likely to be a message than a true test.
