In the early hours of a Saturday morning, North Korea launched several ballistic missiles from its eastern coast near Wonsan, sending them roughly 250 kilometers into the sea — a deliberate gesture timed to follow joint maritime exercises among South Korea, the United States, and Japan. The act belongs to a long pattern in which Pyongyang uses allied military drills as both grievance and occasion, asserting its own power precisely when others demonstrate theirs. As diplomats weigh the possibility of renewed dialogue and Washington recalibrates its posture on the peninsula, the missiles remind