Last week, as tens of thousands of US and South Korean soldiers gathered at a base in Iwakuni, Japan for an annual joint military exercise, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles from Pyongyang into the sea off Japan’s northwest coast. In a world where the US is headed by a Twigger-happy political neophyte and the risk of a Cold War reboot looms larger with each Wikileaks disclosure, this demonstration wasn’t just an empty display of dictatorial propaganda.

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