North Korea has returned to its missile testing or showboating of power on Saturday when it fired several short-range ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast while the United States and South Korea are continuing their 10-day military drill in the Korean Peninsula that began last week. According to United States’ Pacific command, three short range ballistic missiles were fired within a span of 20 minutes. One appeared to have blown up almost immediately while two flew about 250 km (155 miles) in a northeasterly direction, Pacific Command said, revising an earlier assessment that two of the missiles had failed in flight. The South Korean Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectiles were launched from the North’s eastern Kangwon province into the sea. Later on Saturday, the South Korean Presidential Blue House said the North may have fired an upgraded 300-mm caliber multiple rocket launcher but the military was still analyzing the precise details of the projectiles. Pacific Command said the missiles did not pose a threat to the U.S. mainland or to the Pacific territory of Guam, which North Korea had threatened earlier this month to surround in a “sea of fire”.

The test just came days after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson praised North Korea by showing restraint over further missile testing. These were the first set of tests conducted by the isolated regime since the United Nation’s Security Council members including Russia and China voted unanimously to impose new sanctions on North Korean exports aimed at reducing the country’s export revenues by almost a billion dollar. Speaking to Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, the Secretary of State said in response to the latest missile launches, “Well, the firing of any ballistic missile is a violation of UN Security Council resolutions, and we do view it as a provocative act, a provocative act against the United States and our allies. And we continue to want the Kim regime to understand there is a different path that he can choose. The international community has been quite clear with the unanimous 15 to nothing approval of the UN Security Council resolution imposing the most stringent sanctions ever to be imposed on North Korea. There is also a unified international voice echoing our messages that no one wants to see a nuclear Korean Peninsula. So we are all unified in our mission to see a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. We hope for the opportunity to engage with them as to how we might achieve that.”

We at FxWirePro believe that these missile launches were more than an act of aggression or just showing off power. One needs to include the ongoing U.S. – South Korea military drill in the picture. It is a message that as long as such drills continue and North Korea continue to feel threatened, missile tests would continue as well. It can be seen as an effort by North Korea to push for the resolution proposed by China and Russia, where North Korea stops this provocative acts while U.S. stops its drills with South Korea and stop deploying THAAD missile defense in South Korea.

FxWirePro launches Absolute Return Managed Program. For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/invest