SEOUL – New U.S. president, same old North Korean playbook. But this time, there’s a twist. Two months after President Joe Biden took office, North Korea is again turning to weapons tests to wrest outside concessions.
But while launches in past years were big and aimed at drawing a big response, the tests welcoming Biden have, so far, been relatively small.
That indicates Washington has a window of engagement before North Korea pursues bigger provocations. This week, North Korea’s neighbors reported the country fired four short-range missiles into the sea in its first missile launches in about a year.
The launches, two of them Thursday banned under U.N. resolutions, come days after the North said it had rebuffed dialogue offers by the