Pyongyang’s threats to carry out “a preemptive nuclear strike of justice” and that “all bases of provocations will be reduced to seas in flames and ashes in a moment” in response to the current joint U.S.-ROK military exercises appear to be standing operating procedure for North Korea. White House press secretary Josh Earnest stated that the “comments and provocative actions … are not new” while CNN noted that “North Korea's bellicose words are typical around the time of annual military exercises.”

While this is all true enough, Pyongyang has periodically demonstrated a steely resolve to move the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war. Since Kim Il Sung’s famous miscalculation of President Harry Truman’s own resolve in 1950 – partially abetted by some intemperate remarks by Truman’s then-Secretary of State Dean Acheson omitting the Korean Peninsula from the defense perimeter of the United States – Pyongyang has repeatedly carried out bloody strikes against both the United States and its South Korean ally.