North Korean missile launch in context

The US launched a Minuteman III ICBM 4000 miles into the Pacific from Vandenburg the same day.

https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1977228/afgsc-tests-minuteman-iii-missile-with-launch-from-vandenberg-afb/

We also had Moon Jae In's speech yesterday for Armed Forces Day extolling South Korean military strength, accompanied by flights of its newly acquired F-35s. Japan took the opportunity to formally complain and reassert its bogus territorial claim to Dokdo which was overflown by one of the South Korean fighters covered live on South Korean television.

Another observer pointed out that the Russians test launched an ICBM on Sep. 30. Yesterday, China displayed it's new ICBMs at a military parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of the PRC.

The new US defense secretary has been promoting the deployment of US IRBMs in the far east now that the US is no longer constrained by the treaty with Russia on that category of weapons.

So the test launch of a SLBM today near Wonsan North Korea takes place in this international context as well as the context of UN sanctions and US-DPRK negotiations.

addendum: I omitted this report of multiple US SLBM unarmed test launches in early September. This is another context which is really quite significant if one understands the nature of the new "low yield" warheads intended for use on these missiles:

In this most recent series of Trident II test launches, Nebraska fired two missiles on Sept. 4, 2019, and another two on Sept. 6, 2019. The submarine fired all of the weapons from an unspecified location off the coast of Southern California. Based on U.S. government warning notices to aircraft and ships, it appeared that the missiles may have come down in the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii and/or near Guam. To date, there have been 176 total test launches of the Trident II, also known as the Trident D5.

*

And:

The Navy was also supposed to reach initial operational capability with the W76-2 warhead, which is redesigned to produce a lower-yield, by the end of this year. NNSA says it produced the first of these in January 2019. This is a particularly controversial development, which advocates say is necessary to provide the United States with a more flexible nuclear weapon to respond to more limited contingencies.

* U.S. Ballistic Missile Sub Fired An Impressive Four Trident II Missiles In Just Three Days, Joseph Trevithink, Sep. 7, 2019;
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29714/u-s-ballistic-missile-sub-fired-an-impressive-four-trident-ii-missiles-in-just-three-days