Crisis in Northeast Asia becoming more intense

The past two days have been somewhat different from other days with regard to the spiraling tit-for-tat actions raising tensions in Northeast Asia, which now worryingly seem to be taken for granted to some extent.

On Monday, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea fired four, maybe five, ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan in protest against the ongoing military drills being staged by the United States and the Republic of Korea, which it has condemned as a rehearsal for an invasion.

And the first of 14 US C-130J Super Hercules military airlifters, its "meanest, toughest, most tactical machine", arrived in western Tokyo in a show of strong commitment to its ally, whose leader asserted the DPRK missiles were a "new stage of threat".