Blog 13: US officials warn failed North Korea missile launch paves way for future tests

The very public failure of North Korea's latest missile launch lays the groundwork for more testing and potentially more provocative acts by the budding regime of Kim Jong-un. The rocket tested last week failed about a minute after it was deployed. Kim Jong-un, in his first public speech, went on to declare that his "first, second and third" priorities are to strengthen the military as the regime unveiled a huge display of weapons in a Pyongyang military parade including a purportedly new missile. "The acknowledgment of failure was unprecedented, but it lays the groundwork to say more testing is needed to validate research. We probably haven't seen the last North Korean provocation," the official said. Regional observers saw the public display on Sunday as another example of the importance North Korea's leaders place on their weapons-development program, though it's unclear whether the missile on display was real. U.S. officials are not denying that preparations have begun for a third nuclear weapon test. They do not deny that activity had been picked up through satellite imagery that shows North Korean workers digging tunnels into the existing mines that were used for tests in 2006 and 2009.

Throughout this semester, I’ve been very interested in this story and have been following the events happening. Since it seems like North Korea is very persistent to keep going with this missile launch, despite the recent failure, this could only result into conflict. Hopefully a war with North Korea isn’t in the near future, but many see this as a problem that needs to be stopped and who knows what lengths the United States and other countries that are trying to stop this will go. Optimistically North Korea will start to cooperate and end this missile launch but this is very unlikely. 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/16/us-officials-warn-failed-north-korea-missile-launch-paves-way-for-future-tests/