Though North Korea’s nuclearization efforts have faded from the headlines, the country has continued to improve its capabilities and can now plausibly reach any location in the continental United States with a nuclear weapon. In the absence of a deal to curb its nuclear and missile programs, North Korea’s arsenal will only grow more lethal.
North Korea
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has abandoned the country’s long-standing policy of seeking peaceful unification with the South. This substantial change in Pyongyang’s inter-Korean policy should not be regarded as mere bluster or rhetoric. It marks a significant and dangerous shift in North Korea’s posture toward the South.
In January, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists set their “Doomsday Clock” to 90 seconds before midnight, in an assessment of how close the world is to “global catastrophe”—the prospect of nuclear war. Three recent events over the past few weeks have reinforced the idea that the world is entering a dangerous era of nuclear risk.