SEOUL, Aug. 22 -- South Korea's Defence Minister sat in an emergency security meeting Friday as the news came in: more than ten KN-25 missiles, short-range ballistic type, launched from the Pyongyang area and flying roughly 300 kilometres into the sea east of the peninsula. His ministry's own assessment, shared at the meeting, was that North Korea now holds between 80 and 120 nuclear warheads and that the KN-25 is already capable of deploying tactical nuclear weapons. The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, shortened by President Trump from eleven days to five, had just ended early.

This is what Trump's goodwill gesture produced.

The president had ordered the Pentagon to scale back the annual joint exercises substantially, framing the reduc...