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Trump's threats can't stop North Korea from doing whatever it wants

President Donald Trump has once again said that “all options are on the table” on North Korea.

President Donald Trump has once again said that “all options are on the table” on North Korea. The White House released his statement just hours after Pyongyang’s latest ballistic missile test flew over Japan in a brazen violation of the country’s sovereignty.

South Korea responded with a live fire drill that saw four fighter jets drop bombs on a site close to the border with North Korea. Seoul called it an “overwhelming show of force” designed to “display a strong capability to punish” Pyongyang should it decide to attack.

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also reacted angrily, calling the test “an unprecedented, serious, and grave threat to our nation.” China said the situation had reached a “tipping point,” and Russia said it was “extremely worried” about the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

But we’ve been here before. Back in April, Trump told Abe that “all options were on the table,” including military action, in response to provocations by North Korea. Such threats clearly didn’t work, and Tuesday’s missile test will be seen as a direct attack against North Korea’s enemies, and Trump in particular. Earlier this month, the U.S. president promised “fire and fury” against Pyongyang, but Tuesday’s test shows that words and sanctions are having little impact on Kim Jong Un’s plans.

“North Korea is sending an audacious message that it can do what it wants, when it wants, to whatever country it wants,” Jasper Kim, director of the Center for Conflict Management at Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, told VICE News. “It fears little or no repercussions beyond sanctions, and sanctions alone are not the silver-bullet solution to end the ongoing standoff.”

Millions of Japanese woke up Tuesday to ominous text alerts and blaring sirens after Pyongyang launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile — designed to carry a nuclear warhead — from near the North Korean capital, which flew over Japan’s northern Hokkaido island before breaking into three pieces and landing in the Pacific Ocean.

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North Korea justified the test as a response to increasingly severe U.S. sanctions. An editorial in the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper Tuesday said: “The U.S. should be aware that any economic pressure and military blackmail cannot surprise us and we will not flinch an inch from the path of our choice.”

In response to the attack, Trump and Abe have called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, and Trump issued a statement saying “The world has received North Korea’s latest message loud and clear: This regime has signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior.”

Trump added: “Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime’s isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table.”

The test was among the most provocative yet conducted by the hermit kingdom, raising tensions that were already at unprecedented levels following a flurry of missile tests this year. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un had indicated he was willing to fire a missile over Japan last month when he revealed details of a plan to fire four ballistic missiles toward the U.S. territory of Guam, with the suggested flight path crossing Japan.

A month earlier, North Korea said: “Even if what we launch flies over Japan, Japan cannot say anything, even if it has hundreds of mouths.”

Trump recently praised Kim for his decision to “back down” on his plans to attack Guam, but many experts pointed out that this was premature as Kim’s statement didn’t say anything about reconsidering his decision, simply that he was waiting to see what the “foolish Yankees” were going to do.

North Korea has surprised many people with its rapid development of missile technology and nuclear weapons in the last 12 months. While most experts don’t expect Pyongyang to launch a nuclear first strike against the U.S., the threat is enough to deter Washington from taking any decisive military action.

“North Korea stages provocations like this, and worse, because it improves deterrence,” Jeffrey Wright, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies Monterey, tweeted. “Nuclear weapons enable this strategy because Pyongyang can ‘spend’ the security they provide on provocations.”