With the Fourth of July fireworks show put on by North Korea as the backdrop, security analysts and pundits had a field day dissecting what the event signals for the holdout Stalinists in Pyongyang. Writing in the New York Post, the Heritage Foundation’s Peter Brookes said the provocation will turn out to be “a complete loser” for the North Korean regime. In addition to looking foolish after their prized Taepo Dong II failed in its launch, making their game of brinkmanship seem ridiculous, other potential missile shoppers will now think twice about adding a North Korean missile to their arsenal. The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Anthony Cordesman takes a different tack, saying that regardless of the diplomatic reprisals for Pyongyang ahead, the regime has reminded everyone how serious its threat can be and how limited most military options are. Cordesman believes Pyongyang was, among other goals, “sending an even more direct signal to its neighbors: Japan and South Korea. It was showing that it could ignore their main military ally, and efforts at regional persuasion from both those states and China.”
Pentagon Task Force, FAA to Test Counter-Drone Laser
March 7, 2026
The Pentagon’s counter-drone task force announced it would conduct a high-energy laser test with the Federal Aviation Administration less than a month after the use of a military counter-drone laser on the southwest border prompted the FAA to shut down the airspace over El Paso, Texas.