Pyongyang reportedly tested several types of ballistic missiles, including the Taepodong-2, which may be developed to hit targets as far as Alaska and the U.S. West Coast.

According to the Washington Post, Japanese foreign minister Taro Aso announced Tokyo was considering economic sanctions on the DPRK in retaliation for the missile testing, starting with a six-month ban on north Korean ships from entering Japanese ports.

U.S. national security advisor Stephen Hadley called the tests “provocative behavior.” Top officials of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the U.S.-led military alliance of 26 states based in Europe, made similar statements.

Others have used the conflict to beat the drums for war with the DPRK.

In a June 22 Washington Post column William Perry and Ashton Carter, the former Clinton administration secretary and assistant secretary of defense, respectively, called on Washington to attack the DPRK’s missile sites. “[T]he United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched,” they wrote. “This could be accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched from a submarine carrying a high-explosive warhead.”

The following day Bush administration officials rejected the proposal. “If you’re going to launch strikes at another nation, you’d better be prepared to not just fire one shot,” Vice President Richard Cheney said on CNN.

Tokyo and Washington have used the missile tests in north Korea as a pretext to deepen their military cooperation in the region.

In May, Washington agreed to install an advanced radar system and the latest version of its Patriot missile system. According to the Associated Press, Japan’s Defense Agency announced that in light of the Korean missile tests these steps will now be expedited.

Last October, top defense and foreign affairs officials of the two states released a document after a joint meeting, titled “U.S.-Japan Alliance: Transformation and Realignment for the Future.”

That document and a second one released in May outline sweeping changes in Washington’s and Tokyo’s military forces in Japan and the region.

These include the transfer by 2014 of the headquarters of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force—8,000 Marines and their 9,000 dependents—from Okinawa, where the U.S. base is extremely unpopular among the Japanese, to a base in Guam, a U.S. colony.

At the same time, the documents outline steps for further shared use of facilities between the military forces of the two governments in Japan.

The Japanese military established a new “joint operation system,” which will allow it “to respond more swiftly and effectively” through “unified operations by the Ground, Maritime and Air SDF [Self Defense Forces],” Joint Staff Office chief of staff Hajime Massaki wrote in the March 2006 edition of Japan Defense Focus. The changes, which parallel moves being made by the Pentagon in its “transformation” of the U.S. military, will improve the “smooth conduct of bilateral actions with the U.S. military,” Massaki said.

While objecting vociferously to the DPRK’s missile tests, Washington, working with the governments of Japan and other allies, has staged large-scale war games in the region recently. In June, U.S. forces conducted the largest such operation in that region since the Vietnam War, involving three aircraft carriers, 22,000 troops, and 280 warplanes off Guam.

On June 25 Washington initiated the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises off Hawaii, involving the U.S. Navy working with those of Australia, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, Chile, Peru, and south Korea. The exercise includes missile-firing tests and antisubmarine warfare.  
 
 
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