North Korea has moved some 250 new tactical ballistic missile launchers to its heavily militarized border with South Korea in its latest attempt at saber rattling and in a warning message to Seoul over its ongoing close military cooperation with the United States.

Kim Jong Un used the transfer as occasion for a large ceremony over which he presided, which took place Sunday night, and featured row upon row of camouflage-colored launcher trucks positioned in a city square, amid a fireworks display backdrop.

Kim hailed the launchers as an “up-to-date tactical attack weapon” which he had “personally designed”. The current consensus is that these are for short-range projectiles, which would seek to overwhelm the south’s defenses by being fired in large numbers simultaneously.

He also touted that this will establish “overwhelming” firepower to defend the country in the event of an assault from South Korean forces.

A spokesperson for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff told a press briefing, “We believe [the missile launchers] are intended to be used in various ways, such as to attack or threaten South Korea… Deploying near the border would mean that the range is not long.”

The Associated Press pointed to Kim directly invoking the threat that Washington poses to the peninsula in his Sunday speech:

In his speech at Sunday’s event, Kim called for his country to brace for a prolonged confrontation with the United States and urged a relentless expansion of military strength. He justified his military buildup as a counter to the “outrageous” military cooperation between the United States and its regional allies, which he claimed are now showing the characteristics of a “nuclear-based military bloc.”

“Negotiations and confrontation are among our options, but we must be more thoroughly prepared to cope with the latter — this is the review and conclusion we have derived from the 30-odd years of dealing with the United States,” Kim said.

“The United States we are now confronting is by no means an administration that remains in power for a tenure of some years, but a hostile state that our descendants, too, will have to counter, generation after generation,” Kim said. “This fact testifies to the inevitability of the steady improvement of our defense capability.”

But interestingly, he has also of late appeared to hold out an olive branch alongside the proverbial big stick. There have been recent reports saying that if former President Donald Trump enters the White House again, Kim willing to restart nuclear talks with Washington.

This assessment is based largely on the words of a recent high level diplomatic defector from DPRK’s embassy in Cuba, Ri Il Gyu:

“Kim Jong Un doesn’t know much about international relations and diplomacy, or how to make strategic judgment,” he said. “This time, the foreign ministry would definitely gain power and take charge, and it won’t be so easy for Trump to tie North Korea’s hands and feet again for four years without giving anything,” the diplomat continued.

Trump’s foreign policy team will also likely have a major impact on the chances of success in negotiations. During the first round of talks between Trump and Kim, the two inked a deal that started to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula. 

North Korea just held a party to celebrate the deployment of 250 nuclear-capable Hwasong-11 missile launchers.

Each launcher carries 4 missiles. That’s 1,000 new missiles, not counting reloads.

North Korea plans a much, much bigger nuclear arsenal than you may think. A short… pic.twitter.com/8u3FUWPOLd

— Dr. Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) August 5, 2024

Pyongyang has been fuming since last year over the US at times docking a nuclear-armed submarine at a South Korean port.