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Video:SouthKorea's response to NorthKorea's artillery & rockets firepower demonstration.

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North Korea, Iran’s Advances Fuel Demand for Regional Missile Defense

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Advances in ballistic and cruise missile capabilities among potential adversaries are putting U.S. forces and allies at greater risk. The Pentagon is looking to industry to provide solutions to the growing problem, as it beefs up its theater missile defense shields and invests in new technologies.

One asset the Defense Department is buying is the terminal high altitude area defense system, or THAAD, which is produced by Lockheed Martin. THAAD is intended to shoot down incoming missiles both inside and outside the atmosphere with “hit-to-kill” interceptors.

The Army currently has five batteries, but the Pentagon is increasing that number. Seven are fully funded, and the sixth and seventh batteries are slated to be delivered to the Army by 2018, said Vice Adm. James Syring, commander of the Missile Defense Agency.

In its fiscal year 2017 budget request, the Defense Department is asking for $370 million to procure THAAD equipment, and an additional $270 million for research, development, test and evaluation. The Pentagon plans to continue interceptor procurement over the next five years, for a total of more than 400, Syring said.

In December MDA awarded Lockheed Martin a $528 million contract for production and delivery of additional interceptors.

While seven THAAD batteries have been funded, the Army has set the requirement at nine. “We continue to discuss with the Army that requirement and when it would need to be fulfilled and … what the budgeting year would be for that,” Syring said. “It’s not off the table in any respect, but [it is] not included in this year’s budget.”

The system is designed to shoot down short- and medium-range missiles, but the Pentagon is planning to test it against an intermediate range ballistic missile in the 2017 to 2018 timeframe. “That would be similar to what we would expect from either North Korea or Iran,” Syring said.

The Defense Department is considering permanently basing a THAAD battery in Guam, Gen. Vincent Brooks, commanding general of U.S. Army Pacific, told reporters at a breakfast in Washington, D.C. in December. “It’s first about making sure we have a continuous presence” for readiness and deterrence purposes, he said.

Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, recently told lawmakers that he expects the rotational THAAD battery currently in Guam to achieve permanent status later this year.

The United States is also interested in potentially stationing THAAD in South Korea in the wake of recent North Korean missile and nuclear tests. Washington and Seoul have agreed to hold formal consultations on the issue. “The goal … is to bilaterally explore the feasibility of THAAD deploying to and operating on the Korean Peninsula at the earliest possible date,” U.S. Forces Korea said in a news release in February.

Another key tool in the U.S. arsenal is the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System, developed by Raytheon, which gained fame during Operation Desert Storm for shooting down Iraqi Scud missiles.

The Defense Department requested $423 million in fiscal year 2017 to procure 85 Patriot missile segment enhancements, which are expected to improve the range and capability of Lockheed-built Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptors.

Raytheon is developing a gallium nitride-based active electronically scanned array radar as a potential upgrade to the Patriot system. The new technology would give the Patriot 360-degree capability to defend against missiles, manned aircraft and drones, according to a company press release. Raytheon expects to have a full-scale main array prototype operational this year.

The Aegis Combat System, manufactured by Lockheed, is also making advances. Baseline 9.C1 — the first integrated air and missile defense version — was recently certified and has already been deployed on several Navy destroyers. It is also at the Aegis Ashore site in Romania, said Jim Sheridan, director of Aegis U.S. Navy programs at Lockheed.

“We’ll continue to field that until 9.C2 in the 2018 timeframe is available for fielding,” he told reporters.

The Aegis Ashore system is part of the European phased adaptive approach initiative, a U.S.-led ballistic missile defense project designed to protect Europe from potential Iranian attacks. The site in Romania achieved technical capability declaration in December. The Defense Department has requested $630 million for phase 3 of EPAA, which will include an Aegis Ashore site in Poland. Construction of that site is slated to begin this year, with a technical capability declaration expected by the end of 2018.

The Defense Department is also considering making the Aegis Ashore test site in Hawaii an operational system. Syring recently held talks with Pacific Command’s Harris about the possibility.

“This facility was built as a test facility and nothing more,” Syring noted. “But the question … [is] a logical one in terms of what could be done? And what could it provide in terms of either sensor or engagement capability? … We’ve not made any movement or decision on this … [but] we’re discussing and considering options.”

The Standard Missile-3 interceptor is a key component of the Aegis Ashore system.

It is designed to shoot down incoming missiles outside the atmosphere. An intercept test of the upgraded SM-3 Block 1B in December against a medium-range ballistic missile was “very successful,” said Amy Cohen, director of the SM-3 missile program at Raytheon. The first Block 2A intercept is slated for the second half of 2016, with additional tests to follow.

“That will lead us into having the 2A missile present in Poland to support the EPAA phase 3 Aegis Ashore in the 2018 timeframe,” she said.

The Pentagon plans to procure 35 additional Aegis SM-3 Block 1B interceptors in fiscal year 2017. It has also requested $106 million for Block 2A development.

Last year Raytheon was awarded a $543 million contract to produce the Block 2A. “By the time we get to … the 2018 timeframe we will have rounds from this first lot of production missiles ready to support the [European phased adaptive approach] or to support the fleet — whatever the government decides to do with these missiles,” Cohen said.

The company is also developing the Standard Missile-6, which is designed to shoot down enemy warheads inside the atmosphere in their terminal phase.

“If you have both of those [SM-3 and SM-6] … on a ship, you have the ability to have a layered defense,” said Thad Smith, manager of SM-6 business development at Raytheon. “If you have multiple raids coming down against a defended asset and they get by the SM-3s … the SM-6 will be able to get that in the terminal phase.”

The Defense Department plans to buy 125 SM-6s per year over the next five years. The total program of record is 1,800 missiles, Smith said. Full operational capability is expected in late 2016 or 2017 depending on additional test and evaluation, he added.

Hit-to-kill interceptors are not the only capabilities that the Pentagon is looking at to counter enemy missile threats. The Missile Defense Agency wants to mount a laser weapon on an unmanned aerial vehicle for “boost phase” intercept.

“The investments that we’re making are in the early stages of [determining] how do you get there?” Syring said during recent remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. There is “important work going on at the laboratories and universities and industry down this path, and we have significantly ramped up our program in terms of investment and talking about ... what else needs to be done to mature this capability.”

A viable system must be able to direct a laser beam at “much longer ranges and much higher power” than any military laser capability that exists today, he said. “It obviously needs stand-off range because this platform theoretically would not be protected” from enemy air defenses.

The directed energy weapon needs to fit on a small aircraft such as a UAV that could fly at 65,000 feet and stay aloft for days at a time. It also needs a deep magazine, a rapid retargeting capability and a power density of 5 kilograms per kilowatt or less, he said.

“To be able to field a package at those power levels and at a low size, weight and power form — the technical challenge is significant,” he noted. “What I’m trying to do is competitively drive towards a decision in 2019 with all these efforts progressing … [to determine] is it feasible to scale this up to a platform? And I think we’ll know a lot by the 2019 timeframe.”

The missile defense chief hopes to have a laser demonstrator by 2021.

The Pentagon is also pursuing rapid-fire, ground- and sea-based lasers, electromagnetic rail guns and hypervelocity projectiles to protect ships and other assets from saturation attacks.

It would be challenging to build a sufficient number of elaborate interceptors to shoot down waves of incoming missiles, said Michael O’Hanlon, co-director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institution. “For protecting airfields in Okinawa or some place, it’s going to be pretty hard to do that against a peer adversary [such as China] unless we have some kind of a game-changer technology.”

Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Defense Department needs less expensive methods of thwarting enemy attacks.

“In this missile defense space, we actually have gone for … the most elegant interceptors that exist to go after individual warheads,” he said during remarks at the Brookings Institution in January. “That is the absolute wrong end of the cost and position curve. We are doing a $10 solution for the 10-cent problem. We need a 10-cent solution for the $10 problem.”

A laser shot could cost less than $1, according to defense officials, whereas traditional interceptors can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars or more per unit. In December, the Office of Naval Research awarded Northrop Grumman a $53 million initial contract to develop a 150-kilowatt solid state laser for ship defense.

“When you think about directed energy weapons, potentially powdered cannons with hypervelocity rounds and a variety of others, where you can mass a defense against an incoming threat, whether it is [a] cruise missile or ballistic missile … your opponent is actually having to build more and more elegant weapons to try to defeat a relatively inexpensive and relatively certain defense,” Selva said. “I think we need to get into that space.”

The Pentagon also wants more advanced sensors for tracking, targeting and discrimination. In addition to seeking improvements for Aegis, Patriot, THAAD and other systems, the Defense Department is pursuing space-based kill assessment, or SKA.

The SKA project aims to put a network of sensors on commercial satellites to help detect whether an interceptor successfully hit its intended target. The increased detection capability could make missile defenses more efficient.

An MDA fact sheet on space-based kill assessment said: “The faster we can determine a threatening missile has been eliminated, the fewer the number of interceptors are needed in the fight.”

The SKA sensors, built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, are expected to be placed into orbit in 2017. The Pentagon has requested $20 million for the effort.

That experiment “is going to help a lot in terms of informing that mission — the kill assessment information that we need,” Syring said. “That will inform what is the long-term end state” of this effort.

'Suspicious' activity at N. Korea nuclear complex: US think tank

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NorthKorea releases images of new KN-06 long range Surface-to-Air-Missile test - rpt based on Russia S-300 series

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#BreakingNews:North Korea fires another missile, jams GPS systems

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An undated handout file photograph made available on 04 March 2016 by the North Korean news agency KCNA shows the test-firing of new-type large-caliber multiple launch rocket system by the North Korean military (EPA Photo)

North Korea fired another short-range missile off its east coast on Friday, South Korean officials said, as regional leaders met in Washington to discuss the threat of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

It was the latest in a series of North Korean missile launches during what has been an extended period of elevated military tension on the Korean peninsula, triggered by Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test on January 6.

The launch came as the South Korean coastguard reported that around 70 fishing vessels had been forced back to port after GPS navigation issues caused by North Korean radio-wave jamming.

South Korea's defence ministry said the surface-to-air missile was fired at around 12:45 pm (0345 GMT) from the eastern city of Sondok.

The range and precise trajectory could not immediately be confirmed, a ministry official said. The South's Yonhap news agency said it flew 100 kilometres (60 miles) into the East Sea (Sea of Japan).

The launch came in the middle of a two-day nuclear security summit being hosted by Barack Obama in Washington, at which North Korea has been the focus of the U.S. president's talks with the leaders of China, South Korea and Japan.

Obama spoke Thursday of the need to "vigilantly enforce the strong UN security measures" imposed on the North after its latest nuclear test and subsequent long-range rocket launch.

Pyongyang's state media has labelled the summit a "nonsensical" effort to find fault with the North's "legitimate access to nuclear weapons".

Existing UN sanctions ban North Korea from conducting any ballistic missile test, although short-range launches tend to go unpunished.

Last month, the North upped the ante by test-firing two medium-range missiles, which were seen as far more provocative given the threat they pose to neighbours like Japan.

Earlier Friday, Seoul said North Korea was using radio waves to jam GPS signals in South Korea, affecting scores of planes and vessels.

"GPS jamming is an act of provocation. We urge the North to stop such provocative acts and behave in a manner that would help improve inter-Korean relations," Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee told journalists.

The coastguard said 71 out of 332 fishing boats that set out for sea on Friday morning had to return after GPS problems compromised their navigation systems, Yonhap reported.

Meanwhile, North Korea has officially announced it is blocking Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and South Korean websites in a move underscoring its concern with the spread of online information.

The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications announcement was posted this week at the country's main mobile service provider, Koryolink, and other places serving Internet users.

It said "anti-republic false propaganda websites, sex and adult websites" are blocked, along with YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Voice of America and South Korean media sites. Such sites had been informally blocked for months, and they could not be accessed Friday in a Web search from Pyongyang.

Very few North Koreans have Internet access. Typically they can only see a sealed-off, government-sanctioned intranet. But foreigners in the country had previously been able to surf the Web freely.

What does North Korea want from America ?

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Ah, North Korea. Just when you forgot that the reclusive dictatorship existed, it’s back in the headlines after another productive month of saber-rattling. Over the past few weeks, Kim Jong-Un’s regime has sentenced an American tourist to 15 years of hard labor, test-launched a long-range missile, and threatened, for the umpteenth time, to drop nuclear weapons on the United States and South Korea. So what gives? Why are they doing this? Would they really start a war?

A military parade is no unusual sight in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.

To understand just what is going through the minds of the leadership of the Hermit Kingdom — as North Korea is popularly known — it helps to take a look at what the powers-that-be in Pyongyang want. And the answer is surprisingly clear: North Korea wants to maintain its government. Like many of the strongmen of yore, Kim Jong-Un’s primary goal is merely to stay in power. Everything he does fits, somehow, into that grand design.

North Korea wants to preserve its government. Like many of the strongmen of yore, Kim Jong-Un’s primary goal is merely to stay in power. Everything he does fits, somehow, into that grand design.

The first takeaway from that strategic aim is that no, an all-out armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula is but a remote possibility. For all the fuss that North Korea kicks up, its leaders aren’t stupid. They know that their poorly-trained soldiers, equipped with outdated weapons and vehicles, would be no match for the tactically- and technologically-superior US military — and hence are not going to, in their right minds, start a war.

Meanwhile, Pyongyang also seeks to prevent a war from being started against it — and that’s where its nuclear program comes into the picture. The development of atomic weaponry has been a pet project of North Korea’s rulers for decades now, and it too goes toward the country’s drive for self-preservation, designed to deter any American invasion. After the US toppled like-minded dictators Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, in the eyes of the Kims, they were next, and scrambled to develop the only thing they could think of that might give Washington pause — the Bomb. So, by maintaining a modest nuclear arsenal that could, theoretically, be dropped on the US, the North Korean regime ensures its external security — but that still doesn’t explain the offensive threat-mongering.

Pyongyang also seeks to prevent a war from being started against it — and that’s where its nuclear program comes into the picture.

This North Korean rocket probably won’t be delivering armageddon to your doorstep anytime soon.

Well, equally important to Kim Jong-Un’s long-term survival as despot is preventing internal unrest. While Pyongyang may seem like a unified front with Kim as its leader, it’s not, and behind the scenes, there’s a bevy of generals, bureaucrats, and other officials jockeying for power. And there’s no better way for Kim to consolidate his power and stave off a potential palace coup from disgruntled elites who view him as entitled and inexperienced than by orchestrating an international standoff and getting the US to the negotiating table. There, he can try to extract some piecemeal concessions in exchange for backing down and releasing foreign prisoners.

While Pyongyang may seem like a unified front with Kim as its leader, it’s not, and behind the scenes, there’s a bevy of generals, bureaucrats, and other officials jockeying for power.

Ultimately, Kim Jong-Un does want to improve on the status quo, and likely plans to follow the model of next-door China by bringing in some element of free enterprise to try and jumpstart his stagnant country—after all, the North Korean budget today is made up largely of Chinese and Russian loans, some small tax revenues, and the proceeds from organized crime that the government partakes in abroad. In order to make the kind of investments he wants to in his economy and military to ensure the long-term viability of his family’s dynasty, Kim needs international legitimacy and relief from western sanctions that he can only get through crisis-induced diplomacy.

As a whole, what North Korea seeks is simple — existence. But the means to that end are anything but clear. Total war is unlikely, but neither is total peace — if history is any guide, Pyongyang will be a thorn in the west’s side for generations to come.

North Korea released a new propaganda video Saturday titled "Last Chance" : Directly Threatening To USA

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North Korea released a new propaganda video Saturday titled "Last Chance", showing a submarine-launched nuclear missile laying waste to Washington and concluding with the US flag in flames.

The four-minute video romps through the history of US-Korean relations and ends with a digitally manipulated sequence showing a missile surging through clouds, swerving back to the earth and slamming into the road in front of Washington's Lincoln Memorial.

The US Capitol building explodes in the impact and a message flashes up on the screen in Korean: "If US imperialists budge an inch toward us, we will immediately hit them with nuclear (weapons)."

The video was published on the North's propaganda website DPRK Today and shows images from the Korean War, the capture of US spy ship Pueblo in 1968 and the first crisis over North Korea's nuclear programme in the early 1990s.

Pyongyang has upped the rhetorical ante in recent weeks, with near daily threats of nuclear and conventional strikes against the South and the US mainland in response to large-scale South-US war games.

The threats have turned increasingly personal, and North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un on Friday watched a live-fire long-range artillery drill simulating a strike on the official residence of his South Korean counterpart.

Tensions between the two Koreas been on the rise since Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test in January, and a satellite rocket launch a month later that was widely seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.

North Korea has been pushing to acquire submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) capability which would take its nuclear strike threat to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and the potential to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack.

The North has conducted a number of what it says were successful tests of a SLBM.

But experts have questioned the veracity of those tests, suggesting Pyongyang had gone little further than a "pop-up" test from a submerged platform.

North Korean 2 Military Units In Syria Civil War

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North Korea sentences US tourist to 15 years in prison

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PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea's highest court sentenced an American tourist to 15 years in prison with hard labor for subversion on Wednesday, weeks after authorities presented him to media and he tearfully confessed that he had tried to steal a propaganda banner.

Otto Warmbier, 21, a University of Virginia undergraduate, was convicted and sentenced in a one-hour trial in North Korea's Supreme Court.

He was charged with subversion under Article 60 of North Korea's criminal code. The court held that he had committed a crime "pursuant to the U.S. government's hostile policy toward (the North), in a bid to impair the unity of its people after entering it as a tourist."

North Korea regularly accuses Washington and Seoul of sending spies to overthrow its government to enable the U.S.-backed South Korean government to take control of the Korean Peninsula.

Tensions are particularly high following North Korea's recent nuclear test and rocket launch, and massive joint military exercises now underway between the U.S. and South Korea that the North sees as a dress rehearsal for invasion.

The University of Virginia said it was aware of news reports about Warmbier and remained in touch with his family, but would have no additional comment at this time.

A message seeking comment from Warmbier's family was left at a Wyoming, Ohio, telephone listing for his father, Fred Warmbier. Susanna Max, a spokeswoman for Wyoming City Schools, said last month that the district, where Otto Warmbier attended school, had been in touch with the family. She said Wednesday that the district continues "to respect their privacy" and declines to comment.

Before the trial, Warmbier had said he tried to steal a propaganda banner as a trophy for an acquaintance who wanted to hang it in her church. That would be grounds in North Korea for a subversion charge. He identified the church as Friendship United Methodist Church. Meshach Kanyion, pastor of the church in Wyoming, declined to comment Wednesday.

Ohio Gov. and Republican presidential hopeful John Kasich issued a statement Wednesday calling on North Korea to immediately release Warmbier and let him return to his family. "His detention was completely unjustified and the sentence North Korea imposed on him is an affront to concepts of justice," Kasich said.

Trials for foreigners facing similar charges in North Korea are generally short and punishments severe. Warmbier was arrested as he tried to leave the country in early January. He was in North Korea with a New Year's tour group.

U.S. tourism to North Korea is legal. Arrests of tourists are rare but the U.S. State Department strongly advises against such travel.

Further complicating matters, Washington and Pyongyang do not have diplomatic relations. The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang acts as a go-between in consular issues when U.S. citizens run afoul of North Korean authorities.

North Korea announced Warmbier's arrest in late January, saying he committed an anti-state crime with "the tacit connivance of the U.S. government and under its manipulation." It remains unclear how the U.S. government was allegedly connected to Warmbier's actions.

Warmbier had been staying at the Yanggakdo International Hotel. It is common for sections of tourist hotels to be reserved for North Korean staff and off-limits to foreigners.

In a tearful statement made before his trial, Warmbier told a gathering of reporters in Pyongyang he was offered a used car worth $10,000 if he could get a propaganda banner and was also told that if he was detained and didn't return, $200,000 would be paid to his mother in the form of a charitable donation.

Warmbier said he accepted the offer because his family was "suffering from very severe financial difficulties."

Warmbier also said he had been encouraged by the university's "Z Society," which he said he was trying to join. The magazine of the university's alumni association describes the Z Society as a "semi-secret ring society" founded in 1892 that conducts philanthropy, puts on honorary dinners and grants academic awards.

In previous cases, people who have been detained in North Korea and made a public confession often recant those statements after their release.

In the past, North Korea has held out until senior U.S. officials or statesmen came to personally bail out detainees, all the way up to former President Bill Clinton, whose visit in 2009 secured the freedom of American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling.

In November 2014, U.S. spy chief James Clapper went to Pyongyang to bring home Matthew Miller, who had ripped up his visa when entering the country and was serving a six-year sentence on an espionage charge, and Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, who had been sentenced to 15 years for alleged anti-government activities.

Jeffrey Fowle, another U.S. tourist from Ohio detained for six months at about the same time as Miller, was released just before that and sent home on a U.S. government plane. Fowle left a Bible in a local club hoping a North Korean would find it, which is considered a criminal offense in North Korea.

North Korea threatens to WIPE OUT the whole of America after hydrogen bomb launch: Is North Korea Signaling For Wold War 3?

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NORTH Korea has threatened to “wipe out the whole of the US all at once” after “successfully” testing out its hydrogen bomb.

A statement from North Korean media revealed scientists “are in high spirits” following the first ever H-bomb test.
Washington and Pyongyang have been driven to the brink of war after the secretive state conducted the test before declaring it is on the verge of war with South Korea just days later.

A spokesperson said: "North Korean scientists are in high spirits to detonate H-bombs of hundreds of kilotons and megatons, capable of wiping out the whole territory of the US all at once."
The rogue state also released video footage last week of a successful submarine-launched ballistic missile test in an attempt to bolster its nuclear weapons arsenal.
The threats come shortly after a statement from Pyongyang claimed its secretive tests marked a "new high stage" and the test was "neither to 'threaten' anyone, nor to 'provoke' someone for a certain purpose".

US experts have raised eyebrows at the latest bravado and remain doubtful of North Korea’s nuclear prowess.
Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies said: "The rocket ejected, began to light, and then failed catastrophically.”
"North Korea used heavy video editing to cover over this fact."
According to Hanham, the video splices together multiple angles of a single launch to make it appear as if several missiles are being fired.

John Schilling, an aerospace engineer, said: ”The failed launch, combined with testing from a barge, shows that North Korea still has a long way to go to develop this system."
He added: "An initial operational capability of a North Korean ballistic-missile submarine is not expected before 2020."
Experts have questioned the validity of Pyongyang's hydrogen bomb claims, pointing to relatively small seismic waves detected after Wednesday’s explosion.
Tensions are at boiling point on the Korean peninsula.

Pyongyang claimed it had detained an American citizen on charges of spying for South Korea.
In response to the alleged nuclear test, the Pentagon flew a B-52 bomber just miles from the North Korean border and on Monday put all US forces stationed in South Korea on high alert.

North Korean People’s Navy submarine is missing and presumed sunk

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North Korean People’s Navy submarine is missing and presumed sunk

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North Korea fires missiles, liquidates Seoul's assets in its territory

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North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea on Thursday in defiance of a U.N. Security Council resolution, as South Korean and U.S. forces conducted massive war games.
The North also announced on Thursday it has scrapped all agreements with the South on commercial exchange projects and would "liquidate" South Korean assets left behind in its territory.
North Korea has a large stockpile of short-range missiles and is developing long-range and intercontinental missiles as well. The missiles fired on Thursday flew about 500 km (300 miles) off its east coast city of Wonsan and were likely from the Soviet-developed Scud series, South Korea's defense ministry said.
Japan, which is within range of the longer-range variant of Scud missiles or the upgraded Rodong missiles, lodged a protest through the North Korean embassy in Beijing, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported.
North Korea often fires short-range missiles when tensions rise on the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang gets particularly upset about the annual U.S.-South Korea drills, which its says are preparations for an invasion.
The U.S. and South Korea remain technically at war with the North because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armed truce instead of a peace agreement.
Around 17,000 U.S. military personnel are participating alongside some 300,000 South Korean troops in what South Korea's Defence Ministry has called the "largest-ever" joint military exercises.
North Korea on Sunday warned it would make a "pre-emptive and offensive nuclear strike" in response to the exercises.
"LIQUIDATING" ASSETSAfter Thursday's missile launches, North Korea announced it would "liquidate" South Korean assets left behind in the Kaesong industrial zone and in the Mount Kumgang tourist zone.
Seoul suspended operations in the jointly-run zone last month as punishment for the North's rocket launch and nuclear test.
Mount Kumgang was the first major inter-Korean cooperation project. Thousands of South Koreans visited the resort between 1998 and 2008. Seoul ended the tours in 2008 after a North Korean soldier shot dead a South Korean tourist who wandered into a restricted zone.
North Korea is also livid about stepped up United Nations sanctions adopted last week following its recent nuclear test and long-range missile launch.
South Korea's foreign ministry said the Thursday's missile launches again violated a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions and it would refer the matter to the Council sanctions committee mandated to enforce the resolutions.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hong Lei described the situation on the Korean Peninsula as "complex and sensitive".
"All sides should stop their provocative words and deeds to avoid a further rise in tensions," he MINIATURISED WARHEADSNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country has miniaturised nuclear warheads to mount on ballistic missiles, state media reported on Wednesday, and called on his military to be prepared to mount pre-emptive attacks against the United States and South Korea.
It was his first direct comment on the technology needed to deploy nuclear missiles. North Korean state media released photographs it said showed Kim Jong Un inspecting a spherical miniaturised warhead. State media has previously made that claim, which has been widely questioned and never independently verified.
South Korea's defense ministry said it did not believe the North has successfully miniaturised a nuclear warhead or deployed a functioning intercontinental ballistic missile.
State Department spokesman John Kirby declined to comment on Kim's claim to have miniaturised nuclear warheads and accused him of "provocative rhetoric."
"I'd say the young man needs to pay more attention to the North Korean people and taking care of them than in pursuing these sorts of reckless capabilities," Kirby said.
The Pentagon said this week it had not seen North Korea demonstrate a capability to miniaturise a nuclear warhead. But Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the department was working on U.S. ballistic missile defences to be prepared.
North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 but its claim to have set off a miniaturised hydrogen bomb last month has been disputed by the U.S. and South Korean governments and many experts, who said the blast was too small to back it up

The annual US-South Korea military drill that freaks out North Korea is happening right now

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north korea accuses the us of using the exercises as a practice run for an invasion

Reuters

Amphibious assault vehicles of the South Korean Marine Corps throw smoke bombs as they move to land on shore during a U.S.-South Korea joint landing operation drill in Pohang March 31, 2014

South Korean and US troops began large-scale military exercises on Monday in an annual test of their defenses against North Korea, which called the drills "nuclear war moves" and threatened to respond with an "all-out" offensive.

South Korea said the exercises would be the largest ever following North Korea's fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch last month that triggered a UN Security Council resolution and tough new sanctions.

The joint US and South Korean exercises, known as Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, involves approximately 17,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Koreans.

"Things could get dicey in the next couple months,"Bruce Klingner, a Korea expert at the Heritage Foundation told Marine Corps Times.

"We're already seeing North Korea starting to issue threats: If the US doesn't stop these exercises or doesn't cancel these exercises, North Korea may take appropriate action. They also highlight that there are a number of strategic assets that will be part of it: nuclear-capable submarines, B-52s, F-22s, etc., special forces Marines - all of which, in North Korean eyes, or the North Korean depiction, is a prelude to an attack on North Korea," Klingner said.

Reuters

Isolated North Korea has rejected criticism of its nuclear and rocket programs, even from old ally China, and last week leader Kim Jong Unordered his country to be ready to use nuclear weapons in the face of what he sees as growing threats from enemies.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea routinely issues threats of military action in response to the annual exercises that it sees as preparation for war against it.

The threat on Monday was in line with the usual rhetoric it uses to denounce the drills.

foal eagle involves 12500 us troops and approximately 200000 south korean military personnel

Reuters

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei noted that North Korea had already said it opposed the drills, adding that Beijing was "deeply concerned" about the exercises.

"China is linked to the Korean Peninsula. In terms of the peninsula's security, China is deeply concerned and firmly opposed to any trouble-making behavior on the peninsula's doorstep. We urge all sides to keep calm, exercise restraint and not escalate tensions," he told a daily news briefing.

The latest UN sanctions imposed on North Korea were drafted by the United States and China as punishment for its nuclear test and satellite launch, which the United States and others say was really a test of ballistic missile technology.

Department of Defense/Missile Defense Agency/Lockheed Martin

THAAD.

South Korea's spy agency said it would hold an emergency cyber-security meeting on Tuesday to check readiness against any threat of cyber attack from the North, after detecting evidence of attempts by the North to hack into South Korean mobile phones.

South Korea has been on heightened cyber alert since the nuclear test and the rocket launch.

South Korea and the US militaries began talks on Friday on the deployment of an advanced anti-missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system in South Korea.