North Korea's Missile Test Heightens Tensions Ahead of Drills

Seoul - 08/08/2026: North Korea fired a short-range missile toward the sea on Thursday. South Korean and Japanese authorities detected the launch shortly before the start of the annual joint military exercises by the United States and South Korea. Pyongyang regularly describes such drills as rehearsals for an invasion and has responded to them for years with weapons tests, harsh rhetoric, or both. The latest launch therefore comes as no surprise, but it raises the political cost of every military demonstration on the Korean Peninsula.According to the information released so ...