North Korea has been launching to test nukes haphazardly, and this issue has always been a subject of fear by their neighbors and allies. That Kim Jong Un will initiate a nuclear war out of the blue.
In Pyongyang this week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un commended his senior military leaders for conducting a large military display and warned that the North might use its nuclear weapons as a preventative measure if threatened.
According to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, Kim Jong Un expressed a “firm will” to continue developing his nuclear-armed military to “preemptively and thoroughly contain and frustrate all dangerous attempts and threatening moves, including ever-escalating nuclear threats from hostile forces, if necessary.
Military personnel was praised for their efforts on Monday’s parade, in which North Korea displayed its nuclear arsenal, including intercontinental missiles that could reach the United States, as well as an increasing number of shorter-range solid-fuel missiles. KCNA gave no time or date for the meeting.
Even as Kim Jong-un revived his nuclear brinkmanship, North Korea’s army celebrated its 90th anniversary with a military parade in Pyongyang today.
Kim promised to build up his nuclear arsenal as quickly as possible and threatened to use it if provoked by the tens of thousands of military and onlookers gathered for the occasion. If the North’s unnamed “fundamental interests” are threatened, he warned, his nukes would “never be limited to the solitary duty of war deterrence.”
Including its first long-range ICBM test since 2017, North Korea has undertaken 13 missile launches in 2022 alone, as Kim takes advantage of the split and largely paralyzed United Nations Security Council over Russia’s conflict in Ukraine to push up his weapons development.
Washington and Pyongyang have not been able to move on with their nuclear talks since 2019 because of their differences over a possible relaxation of sanctions imposed by the United States in exchange for North Korean disarmament measures.
North Korea’s terrible economy and Kim Jong-nuclear un’s weapons development ambitions have remained unchanged in international criticism. The North Korean leader has shown no readiness to give up his nuclear arsenal.
Last month, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, also claimed that Pyongyang would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons if the South Koreans attacked.
