The Risk of a North Korean Nuclear War Is Rising
There are more signs that North Korea’s dictator, having amassed an arsenal of nukes and missiles, could miscalculate and use them.
Fantasies of annihilation.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Just what the world needed: Another enemy of the West is promising to “thoroughly annihilate” the US and its allies. The menace in this case is North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In several recent speeches, he’s made clear that the chosen weapon for said annihilation would be his “treasured sword” — that is, his growing arsenal of nuclear weapons.
The ravings of a half-mad dictator who makes himself risible by riding white steeds through snow-capped mountains? Far from it, according to Robert Carlin and Siegfried Hecker, two scholars and veteran observers of the regime in Pyongyang. They believe that, “like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war.” And they’re not alone.