A new balance of terror: Why North Korea clings to its nukes
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Early one winter morning, Kim Jong Un stood at a remote observation post overlooking a valley of rice paddies near the Chinese border.
The North Korean leader beamed with delight as he watched four extended range Scud missiles roar off their mobile launchers, comparing the sight to a team of acrobats performing in unison. Minutes later the projectiles splashed into the sea off the Japanese coast, 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from where he was standing.
It was an unprecedented event. North Korea had just run its first simulated nuclear attack on an American military base.
This scene from March 6, described in government propaganda, shows how the North’s seemingly crazy, suicidal nuclear program is neither crazy nor suicidal. Rather, this is North Korea’s very deliberate strategy to ensure the survival of its ruling regime.
Back in the days of Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s “eternal president” and Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, the ruling regime decided it needed two things to survive: reliable, long-range missiles and small, but potent, nuclear warheads. For a small and relatively poor country, that was, indeed, a distant and ambitious goal. But it detonated its first nuclear device on Oct. 9, 2006.
Today, North Korea is testing advanced ballistic missiles faster than ever — a record 24 last year and three in just the past month. With each missile and each nuclear device, it becomes a better equipped, better trained and better prepared adversary. Some experts believe it might be able to build a missile advanced enough to reach the United States’ mainland with a nuclear warhead in two to three years.
So forget, for the moment, how erratic Kim Jong Un and his generals may seem. North Korea conducted two nuclear tests last year; one was of the strongest nuclear device it has ever detonated and the other, Pyongyang claims, of its first H-bomb. The U.S. for its part is also escalating — in an explicit warning to Pyongyang, it successfully shot a target ICBM launched from a Pacific island out of the sky with a California-based interceptor missile on Tuesday.
The question is this: if war breaks out and North Korea launches a pre-emptive nuclear strike on an American military base in Japan — for real — would the U.S. recoil and retreat? Would it strike back, and risk losing Washington DC in a second wave of nuclear attacks?
For Pyongyang, forcing Washington to seriously weigh that calamity is a win. And it may become a real-world possibility on President Donald Trump’s watch.
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RISING FROM THE RICE PADDIES
The 7:36 a.m. launch on March 6 was conducted in North Pyongan Province near North Korea’s Sohae Satellite Launching Center. It sent the four Scuds into the ocean 300 to 350 kilometers (185 to 220 miles) from the coast of Japan.
Reporting on it the next day, North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun, the ruling party’s newspaper, stated it was not a test to see if the missiles would work, but rather a “drill” to train the troops who will “strike the bases of the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces in Japan in a contingency.”
To back that up, the North released several photos of Kim in a black overcoat holding a plastic pointer to a map laid out on a wooden table that showed the missiles’ flight path and other data. Analyst Jeffrey Lewis and his colleagues at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, quickly realized the Scuds were on a trajectory that, with a simple southerly tweak, would have sent them raining down on Marine Corps Air Station, Iwakuni.
Iwakuni, located 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Hiroshima on the southern tip of Japan’s main island, is home to some 10,000 U.S. and Japanese personnel. It was used as a staging area during the 1950-53 Korean War, when it was called the “Gateway to Korea” by U.S. and U.N. forces, and continues to be one of the largest and most important U.S. military facilities in Japan.
Such an attack wouldn’t need to be nuclear to be effective. The deadly Sarin nerve agent or some other chemical weapon could also cause tremendous casualties. But training a nuclear attack on Iwakuni had a special psychological twist for those who follow the ceaseless military game of cat and mouse in the region. North Korea’s media stressed Kim was accompanied at the launch by nuclear weapons specialists.
You can read the full news Here
The North Korean leader beamed with delight as he watched four extended range Scud missiles roar off their mobile launchers, comparing the sight to a team of acrobats performing in unison. Minutes later the projectiles splashed into the sea off the Japanese coast, 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from where he was standing.
It was an unprecedented event. North Korea had just run its first simulated nuclear attack on an American military base.
This scene from March 6, described in government propaganda, shows how the North’s seemingly crazy, suicidal nuclear program is neither crazy nor suicidal. Rather, this is North Korea’s very deliberate strategy to ensure the survival of its ruling regime.
Back in the days of Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s “eternal president” and Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, the ruling regime decided it needed two things to survive: reliable, long-range missiles and small, but potent, nuclear warheads. For a small and relatively poor country, that was, indeed, a distant and ambitious goal. But it detonated its first nuclear device on Oct. 9, 2006.
North Korean soldiers with nuclear symbol packs. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
Today, North Korea is testing advanced ballistic missiles faster than ever — a record 24 last year and three in just the past month. With each missile and each nuclear device, it becomes a better equipped, better trained and better prepared adversary. Some experts believe it might be able to build a missile advanced enough to reach the United States’ mainland with a nuclear warhead in two to three years.
So forget, for the moment, how erratic Kim Jong Un and his generals may seem. North Korea conducted two nuclear tests last year; one was of the strongest nuclear device it has ever detonated and the other, Pyongyang claims, of its first H-bomb. The U.S. for its part is also escalating — in an explicit warning to Pyongyang, it successfully shot a target ICBM launched from a Pacific island out of the sky with a California-based interceptor missile on Tuesday.
The question is this: if war breaks out and North Korea launches a pre-emptive nuclear strike on an American military base in Japan — for real — would the U.S. recoil and retreat? Would it strike back, and risk losing Washington DC in a second wave of nuclear attacks?
For Pyongyang, forcing Washington to seriously weigh that calamity is a win. And it may become a real-world possibility on President Donald Trump’s watch.
___
RISING FROM THE RICE PADDIES
Four extended range Scud missiles lift off. (KCNA/KNS via AP)
The 7:36 a.m. launch on March 6 was conducted in North Pyongan Province near North Korea’s Sohae Satellite Launching Center. It sent the four Scuds into the ocean 300 to 350 kilometers (185 to 220 miles) from the coast of Japan.
Reporting on it the next day, North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun, the ruling party’s newspaper, stated it was not a test to see if the missiles would work, but rather a “drill” to train the troops who will “strike the bases of the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces in Japan in a contingency.”
To back that up, the North released several photos of Kim in a black overcoat holding a plastic pointer to a map laid out on a wooden table that showed the missiles’ flight path and other data. Analyst Jeffrey Lewis and his colleagues at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, quickly realized the Scuds were on a trajectory that, with a simple southerly tweak, would have sent them raining down on Marine Corps Air Station, Iwakuni.
Kim Jong Un at the missile launching. (KCNA/KNS via AP)
Iwakuni, located 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Hiroshima on the southern tip of Japan’s main island, is home to some 10,000 U.S. and Japanese personnel. It was used as a staging area during the 1950-53 Korean War, when it was called the “Gateway to Korea” by U.S. and U.N. forces, and continues to be one of the largest and most important U.S. military facilities in Japan.
Such an attack wouldn’t need to be nuclear to be effective. The deadly Sarin nerve agent or some other chemical weapon could also cause tremendous casualties. But training a nuclear attack on Iwakuni had a special psychological twist for those who follow the ceaseless military game of cat and mouse in the region. North Korea’s media stressed Kim was accompanied at the launch by nuclear weapons specialists.
You can read the full news Here
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