They smell weakness - today's edition

Bill Gertz at the Washington Times spells out the details of the uptick in momentum of missile tests by our enemies and adversaries in recent weeks:

U.S. intelligence agencies that monitor foreign missile tests have been working overtime in the past several weeks keeping tabs on test firings by China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

The surge in missile tests began April 12 in central China with Beijing’s newest and longest-range intercontinental ballistic missile, the DF-41. The missile carried two dummy warheads that are the latest feature of China’s large-scale nuclear buildup — the addition of multiple, independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs, to its forces.

The Pentagon was silent on the test, but China’s Defense Ministry confirmed the test on April 21, describing the launch as a “normal” scientific experiment.

Then on April 19, Russia tested a revolutionary new hypersonic glide vehicle that travels at several thousand miles per hour and is capable of maneuvering to defeat missile defenses. The Yu-71 was launched atop an SS-19 long-range missile from a base in central Russia and flew east.
On the same day, Iran conducted the first test launch of what the Pentagon says is a covert long-range missile known as Simorgh. Iran has called the rocket a space launcher. The missile, which is believed to contain North Korean missile technology and equipment shipped to Iran in the past year, was fired from a launch facility at Semnan, located about 125 miles east of Tehran.

Defense officials said the missile landed within Iranian territory and did not send any objects into orbit, as would be expected. Iranian media were silent on the launch, which the State Department said might have violated the U.N. Security Council resolution on the Iran nuclear deal. The resolution calls on Iran to refrain from any rocket development that could have applications for long-range missiles. 

The Iranian rocket launch was following by Saturday’s test of a North Korean submarine-launched ballistic missile aboard a Gorae-class submarine in the Sea of Japan.
Intelligence analysts judged the launch a partial success since the missile, known as the KN-11 by the Pentagon, was launched from underwater at a depth of about 45 feet but only flew about 17 miles. Still, it is considered a significant step forward in Pyongyang’s drive for an underwater-launched nuclear weapon delivery system.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the flurry of recent launches is an indication of the growing ballistic missile threat and is “something that we take very seriously with regard to all those countries.”
The spokesman added, “Clearly these countries have decided this is a moment to test those capabilities and enhance those capabilities and we see that as a concern, obviously, particularly in those cases when they are violating U.N. resolutions.”

That's because the Most Equal Comrade, the dictator of post-America, architect of the Great Leveling Project, thinks foreign policy can be conducted with the mindset of a senior seminar panel. Meanwhile, the real world rolls on as it has throughout the history of this fallen species.