North Korea’s latest missile tests are “tactical nuclear exercises” overseen by leader Kim Jong Un personally, state media said on Monday, adding the launches were in response to joint US military exercises in the region.

Kim has long wanted to develop tactical nuclear weapons – smaller, lighter weapons for use on the battlefield – and made it a top priority at a key party convention in January 2021.

The country revised its nuclear laws last month, envisaging a variety of scenarios in which it could use its nuclear weapons, with Kim declaring North Korea an “irreversible” nuclear power – effectively ending the possibility of denuclearization talks.

Since then, Seoul, Tokyo and Washington have intensified their combined naval exercises, including twice deploying the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan to the area, infuriating Pyongyang, which sees the joint exercises as rehearsals for an invasion.

In response, “North Korea decided to organize military exercises under the simulation of an actual war,” the official KCNA reported.

North Korean army units involved in “the tactical nuclear weapons operation” conducted military exercises from Sept. 25 to Oct. 9 to review and assess the country’s war deterrence and nuclear counterattack capabilities, the report said.

“Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and chairman of its Central Military Commission, led the military exercises on the ground,” she added.

KCNA said that “tactical nuclear operations units” conducted seven launch exercises that allowed North Korea’s nuclear forces to demonstrate their “militant effectiveness and actual war capability,” KCNA added.

North Korea also released several photos of recent missile launches, tests and drills, showing Kim Jong Un overseeing them all, giving orders and posing with smiling soldiers.

“They are certainly pursuing a tactical nuclear weapon,” said US-based security analyst Ankit Panda.

“I suspect they will gradually nuclearize many of their new short-range missiles, including the maneuver missiles.”

The fact that North Korea has described all seven of its recent missile launches as linked to “tactical nuclear operations units” is telling, he added.

“This is interesting because it includes (everything) from short-range ballistic missiles to IRBMs (and a new short-range SLBM),” he wrote on Twitter.

The fact that North Korea viewed the recent launches as tests not of the missiles themselves but of the units that launch them was also significant, analysts said.

“This indicates that these systems are being deployed,” Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies wrote on Twitter.

After talks long stalled, Pyongyang doubled down on its banned weapons programs and launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) over Japan last week, with officials and analysts warning that preparations for another nuclear test were complete.

The United States moved the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to waters east of South Korea as part of a wide-ranging military response to the Pyongyang IRBM test, which also included joint bombing and missile exercises.

North Korea has repeatedly criticized the airline relocation, saying on Monday that the US “openly poses a military threat to the DPRK,” KCNA said, using the North’s official name.

North Korea also said it had conducted “a large-scale combined air strike exercise,” also overseen by Kim, which said “for the first time in history, more than 150 warplanes from different missions launched simultaneously.”

Seoul’s military said it grounded 30 warplanes on Thursday after 12 North Korean warplanes conducted a rare “formation flight north of the inter-Korean air border.” [and] air-to-ground firing drills conducted”.

“Kim probably wants to tell the US and South Korea that any demonstrations of solidarity and alliance readiness will be in vain,” Soo Kim, an analyst at Rand Corporation, told AFP.

“We’re not likely to see North Korea giving way any time soon, and it looks like the allies aren’t going to back down that easily this time either.”