My guess is theses little missile tests are probably a mix of internal propaganda and external bargaining chip. Probably a 75/25 split. Internally regardless of how the test goes they can spin it as look how powerful the central government is. Externally if it works it's another thing to trade on when they want another round of talks. If it didn't go well no big deal.
What it is not is a prelude to an attack on anyone. KJU likes his situation to much to risk an attack on anyone else.
You can look at it as a "strategy." Maybe you can think that it has a certain "logic" from a central point-of-view.
But first, it is a dangerous game. I live on the West Coast, and I could have some misgivings over a mere fraction of a worst-case chance. But I sleep the same, go about my day just the same. I remember around October, 1962, walking home from school on a sunny and temperate day, as -- not one -- but two B-47s Strato-fortresses roared above, louder and more unsettling at the low altitudes taking off from March AFB. My ears were ringing by the time I made it indoors.
So imagine what Japan, Taiwan, South Korea -- perhaps even China -- think when the little asshole and grandson-of-his-father's-father pulls these worrisome and perversely PR stunts.
Second, as a "strategy" of a nation-state that refuses to be one of "citizens of the World," it is pathetic. It is a form of hijacking, or kidnapping, to get on the front pages of newspapers around that World.
Third, we all hope that pudgy Little Kim's days are numbered. Any further delays in such realization will be a perverse testament to how a group of criminals devised their repression of the inevitable.
Of course, DPRK doesn't have the B-1 Stealth bomber "blackbirds" the Pres has twice sent for exercises with the South. But more than that, they fear "Re-Unification" of the only sort that makes sense. They also know that the aftermath could involve trials in the Hague.
