An American journalist is sitting in a hectic newsroom trying to come up with a headline
for his latest story.
He’s well aware that just a few days ago, on October 3, 2022, residents of Hokkaido,
Japan, looked into the sky and heard an intermediate-range ballistic missile flying overhead.
One of them later said, “You can’t ever get used to that sound.”
The journalist then writes, “North Korea Is An Imminent Threat” with the subheading,
“Recent Missile Tests Should Worry Everyone.”
What the hell is going on in that strange and secretive country?
Indeed, North Korea has somewhat upped the ante of late when it comes to testing its
nuclear Being as secretive as it is, we can’t be
sure how many nuclear weapons North Korea has, but it’s thought to be around 30 to
40.
According to experts, the bad news is that it has enough material to make another six
of them every year.
Before we tell you why you ought to be very concerned about what’s happening, let us
explain a few things.
North Korea was thinking about building such weapons as far back as the 1950s, although
it wasn’t until the 60s that it started its nuclear program.
It asked the Soviet Union for help but received the reply, “Nah.”
It also asked China and, again, was snubbed.
But the Soviet Union said, well, we can throw you a few of our top scientists, and they’ll
help you build the facilities so you can have a nuclear energy program.
This wasn’t about weapons, just nuclear energy.
Why not?
It wasn’t as if North Koreans were bathing in electricity back then, as they’re not
now.
Then in the 1980s, North Korea took things a little bit further.
It concentered not just on making energy to light up its often potholed streets but on
building weapons of mass destruction.
This wasn’t great news for the USA, a country North Koreans were taught was the epitome
of evil.
Folks would watch reels of outlandish propaganda on their TVs daily and be told in no uncertain
terms that the US intended to ruin their tremendous, outstandingly tremendous society.
But on December 12, 1985, North Korea signed the “Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons.”
Later, the International Atomic Energy Agency read a report handed to it by North Korea
and proceeded to do some inspections.
The agency said something didn’t feel right, accusing North Korea of “inconsistencies”
and then saying it believed the country wasn’t telling the truth about how much plutonium
it had.
In 1993, North Korea told the agency it wouldn’t allow a special inspection.
This didn’t look good in the arena of global politics.
The country almost pulled out of the treaty, although reversed that decision at the 11th
hour.
Things didn’t get much better in the years ahead, with the US often accusing North Korea
of not being upfront about its nuclear ambitions.
In 2002, Pakistan told the world that North Korea had already used its nuclear technology
for years.
By this time, the US had already imposed sanctions on North Korea, warning there’d be more
to come if it didn’t start doing as it was told.
It didn’t.
And then, in 2006, BOOM.
North Korea detonated its first bomb, albeit underground.
It became the eighth country in the world to do such a thing.
Americans quivered when they read the headlines.
Some people got into hate mode when they read that the “most unstable and most dangerous”
country in the world was now capable of causing a right old mess.
Even China condemned North Korea, as did the United Nations Security Council, after which
a bunch more sanctions were laid down.
These were mostly about various materials that could be used to make weapons of mass
destruction, but the UN even put sanctions on luxury goods.
This was mostly to antagonize North Korea’s elites, who loved fine whisky and other pretty
goods made in the wretched capitalist West.
Those same elites told the US and other leading powers that it needed nuclear weapons to ensure
its survival, and anyway, they said, if you’ve got them, why shouldn’t we have them?
North Korea was already regarded as an odd country that refused to play ball on the world
stage, but 2006 made it even more estranged from western powers.
Maybe some of you remember the time when just about every day, there was another news article
about the threat of North Korea.
The trigger-happy president of the US, George Bush, said a new era had dawned.
He said President Kim Jong-il, the so-called “Ever-Victorious, Iron-Willed Commander,”
was enemy number one.
Well, he was in the top three, at least.
The “Eternal President” wasn’t as eternal as some people had imagined, though.
He died in 2011 from a heart attack.
The North Korean media said that when he went, a raging snowstorm just stopped, and the sky
glowed red.
The thick ice of a lake ostensibly cracked open and shook “the Heavens and the Earth.”
After all, this was a man with out-of-this-world powers.
The first time he ever played golf, he got a 38 under par, a score that would have made
Tiger Woods envious.
The Korean people didn’t hear about Kim Jong-il’s fondness for rich food.
They weren’t told about his $800,000-a-year cognac habit, or that chain-smoking isn’t
great for a man’s heart.
A new Supreme leader replaced him, Kim Jong-un, The question was, would relations with western
powers get any better under him?
In 2007, North Korean leaders had met with representatives from South Korea, China, Russia,
Japan, and the United States.
They said North Korea would scrap its nuclear ambitions and close its nuclear facilities.
And then, in 2009, BOOM, another bomb was detonated.
But in 2012, under the new great leader, North Korea said there was no way it would conduct
any more nuclear tests.
The US said, ok, but we’ve heard this one before.
North Korea held out a metaphorical pinky finger and said it would do what it said this
time.
It said, come and inspect our sites; we welcome you with open arms.
The US said, ok, if that’s the case, we might even send you some food aid.
Then less than a year later, BOOM.
This was BOOM number three.
It was another test that happened underground.
It was a big boom, too.
South Korea said it might have been around 6 to 7 kilotons of TNT, but Japan said it
was more like 8 to 10 kilotons.
Germany said 40 kilotons, but on revision, it said more like 14 kilotons.
The US said something along the lines of fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame
on me.
Relations were certainly not improving.
They got worse in 2016 when another test happened.
This time North Korea said it was not a uranium or plutonium device but a much more devastating
hydrogen bomb.
Some experts questioned this, but no one questioned the fact North Korea was telling the truth
when it said the test was an “act of self-defense” regarding the threat of the USA.
News channels in North Korea told the people that the US was acting hostile and had time
and again been slanderous in criticizing human rights abuses that they swore hadn’t happened.
A North Korean newsreader said, “It is just to have H-bomb as self-defense against the
US having numerous and humongous nuclear weapons.
The DPRK’s fate must not be protected by any forces but DPRK itself.”
We guess you are starting to see a pattern here.
North Korea gets friendly.
Everyone shakes hands.
North Korea does another test, and then the US, EU, and most other countries condemn the
test.
This happened again later in 2016 after North Korea conducted its biggest test, thought
to produce a yield of 20 kilotons.
The North Korean government proudly announced that it had tested a “nuclear warhead that
has been standardized to be able to be mounted on strategic ballistic rockets.”
South Korea wasn’t happy at all, saying the North’s act was pretty much “self-destruction.”
And Japan, another neighbor, was less than pleased.
The country said North Korea had just become a “graver threat to Japan's safety.”
In fact, no one really was on North Korea’s side.
Both China and Russia said come on, North Korea, give it up will ya.
It didn’t help matters that North Korea bragged that it could produce "at will, and
as many as it wants, a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of
higher strike power” and use them with ballistic rockets.
As for Japan’s relationship with North Korea back then, you could compare it to the relationship
between a cat named Tom and a mouse named Jerry.
The friction goes back a long way but got much worse when North Korea started testing
nuclear weapons.
In fact, a poll by the BBC revealed that the Japanese public had a more negative view of
North Korea than any country in the world.
After that last 2016 test, relations had never been as bad.
Then in 2017, President Donald Trump condemned North Korea after discovering that the country
had conducted an intercontinental ballistic missile test.
CNN wrote, “The missile was launched from Mupyong-ni and traveled about 1000 km before
splashing down in the waters off the Japanese coast, according to the Pentagon.”
Trump said the US would support Japan and South Korea if anything bad should happen.
South Korea noted that the missile was more advanced than others that had been tested
in the past.
US intelligence said there was little doubt that North Korea would soon have “reliable”
nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Nonetheless, no one knew exactly just what North Korea was capable of.
Sure, they could guess, but even with the tests, it still wasn’t certain what kind
of world-wrecking potential the country had.
In 2017, things became clearer.
North Korea launched four ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan.
Japan was enraged, and it seemed North Korea didn’t care.
At one point, North Korea called Japan’s leader an “imbecile and political dwarf.”
Sticks and stones may break your bones, but nuclear warheads will really harm you, is
the expression that comes to mind.
Later that year, North Korea announced that it had conducted a perfect hydrogen bomb test.
This was 10 times more powerful than anything else it had tested and perhaps more than 250
kilotons.
Soon after, Trump re-listed North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Things then went a bit quiet.
The next two years didn’t see headlines featuring North Korean nuclear tests.
Still, US intelligence said it might be quiet out there, but North Korea was busy making
a lot more weapons.
It just wasn’t testing them.
Then in 2020, news clips showed North Korea wheeling out what the western press said was
possibly the “world's largest liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile.”
Ouch.
This might not have been tested, but soon experts in the West were saying this thing
could carry a number of nuclear warheads and travel a long, long way.
It looked bigger than anything North Korea had come up with in the past, with US analysts
saying that it likely had the potential to hit the US mainland.
Kim Jong Un got on a podium to his adoring fans and stated:
“We will continue to strengthen war deterrence as a means of self-defense.
Our war deterrence will never be abused or used preemptively, which will contribute to
protecting the sovereignty and survival of the country and pursuing regional peace.
However, if anyone hurts the national safety or threatens to use military force against
us, I will preemptively mobilize all of our strongest offensive forces to punish them.”
Ouch again.
But then there was a period of quiet again.
Maybe North Korea had settled down a bit to deal with the pandemic, although, as usual,
the country wasn’t exactly forthcoming when it comes to providing data.
We do know it started a vaccine program, although when the leader talked about a million cases,
he said “fever,” not explaining what kind of fever.
During the era of lockdowns and attendant mayhem, it doesn’t seem North Korea was
in the testing mood.
Then came 2022, the year of records.
It started by testing a bunch of weapons at what the media said was a “frenetic pace.”
This included a test of a hypersonic glide vehicle, what CNN called “potentially one
of the most powerful weapons on the planet.”
But North Korea wasn’t done there.
It also tested an intermediate-range ballistic missile and some cruise missiles.
Then, to put some icing on an already-explosive cake, North Korea declared in September that
it was officially a nuclear weapons state, and there was about as much chance of denuclearizing
as the USA outright banning public ownership of high-powered firearms.
After hearing about North Korea’s volley of tests, you could hear a great big sigh
from the less-war-supporting segments of the US public, each admitting to themselves that
peace in our time and less money spent on arms was pretty much out of the question now.
The other part of the US was screaming, “USA, USA, USA,” with the addition of “NUKE
THOSE BLEEPERS.”
Meanwhile, North Korean websites were printing news that might have made its own nationals
say something similar.
You could read such things as: “Currently, the U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier
Ronald Regan's Strike Group is conducting a joint naval maneuver exercise against us
in the high seas of the East Sea of ​​Korea with South Korean puppet naval ships.”
In North Korea, there is only one truth, and that’s usually a pack of lies, or at least
some truth dressed up in a fair amount of extreme bias.
On one website alone, just this month, there must be 20 stories of other countries congratulating
the Supreme leader on what a great, stand-out chap he is.
You can look at a review on another website of a movie called “The Day Before.”
The film's summary goes, “The Japanese imperialists map out the plan of the ‘Sakura operation’
to destroy a whole city before their defeat.”
A recent documentary film called “Outcry of Mothers” is summarized:
“It depicts the historical facts of the hot-blooded outcry of souls massacred cruelly
by the US imperialists and class enemies.
They cry out for revenge on the US imperialists at the cost of blood.”
You get the drift.
This is why most people in North Korea might forgo a meal or two, knowing that those expensive
weapons will ensure their safety from the infinitely nasty Japanese and American imperialists.
Another website explained that one of the most recent tests was to “send a severe
warning to the enemy.”
The story said the US has been conducting threatening military exercises in the Korean
Peninsula, which it said was an open threat and created heightened tension in the area.
The story added, “For this reason, it was decided to organize and proceed with practical
military exercises of various levels.”
The “respected comrade Kim Jong” was said to have been very pleased with the launches.
He told the nation that they had the nuclear capabilities to defend the country.
The tests, said the story, only happened because of the “continuous, intentional, irresponsible,
aggravating actions of the US and South Korean regimes that will provoke a greater response
from us.”
So, there you have it, that’s the North Korean tale of the tape.
The website also said that if the US keeps messing about in the Korean Peninsula, we
can expect more tests or even worse.
Over in the US, President Joe Biden’s administration already has its hands full with what’s been
going on in Ukraine, and as one person said, Biden is presently “showing no fire and
no fury” in regard to North Korea.
He is, apparently, open to talking it over with the supreme leader, perhaps over some
diplomatic kimchi burgers.
Some US hardliners think Biden should stick it to Pyongyang, but then some hardliners
don’t always look like they understand what nuclear war means, whether in Europe or Asia.
We aren’t going to criticize anyone today.
We’re just here to understand what North Korea is up to.
It seems the country isn’t telling fibs when it says the US has been doing a few military
exercises in the Korean Peninsula.
So have Japan and South Korea, which obviously makes North Koreans a bit nervous.
The New York Times wrote, “North Korea is frustrated, isolated, and uncertain about
its future.”
God knows what Americans would think if North Korea started doing its own military exercises
in the Atlantic.
But another reason for the tests is the sanctions.
When Trump was sitting in the big chair, North Korea tried to use its nuclear capabilities
as leverage to try and get the US to lift sanctions, but that never worked out.
Maybe North Korea is now thinking if it does a few more tests, and big ones at that, the
US might consider lifting those sanctions.
Some analysts are now saying North Korea might actually step down from having longer-range
missile capabilities if the US lifts the sanctions and makes life easier over there.
This is mere speculation.
Also, remember that North Korea has been a bit tricky in the past.
What’s certain is the North Korean people will be behind their leader, whatever happens.
They have been taught, Clockwork Orange style, that the US is evil and wants to destroy them.
You might have heard something similar about North Korea, but let’s face it, you had
the choice to read different takes on that.
They don’t.
With this in mind, you can bet your bottom dollar that North Koreans won’t be asking
their leaders anytime soon to back down from all that aggression.
It also has to be said there are certain factions in the US that seem to bristle with anger
every time they hear about North Korea.
You can’t say North Koreans have nothing to fear.
Try being in their heads when the next military exercise happens close to them.
Then again, South Koreans are also understandably shaken.
As for the Japanese people, when they hear about North Korea testing weapons that travel
longer and longer distances, of course, they get upset.
The BBC recently talked to an analyst about a test who said, “This is the longest-range
missile it's ever fired over Japan.
It could be the precursor to it testing another nuclear warhead, which has been predicted
for some time.”
The Japanese know more than anyone about the destructiveness of nuclear weapons.
People have family and relatives who lived in Japan when a 15-kiloton nuclear bomb hit
Hiroshima, and another bomb hit Nagasaki.
Now, these people are reading that North Korea has a similar weapon that could have a yield
of between 100 and 370 kilotons.
It seems some negotiating needs to be done.
It feels like a bit of good old-fashioned diplomacy needs to happen, but one problem
with this is that the US is not quite on the same terms with Russia and China as it was
when the three countries agreed in the past on the North Korean nuclear problem.
And if we try and take a North Korean point of view, what do the people think when they
hear that Japan and South Korea have drastically increased nuclear spending of late, with the
US supplying city-wrecking arms to the latter?
The New Statesmen just wrote that South Korea’s new leader always planned to “take a harder
line on North Korea.”
That might not sound great if you live north of the border.
Is it really surprising that North Korea is conducting tests?
We think not.
What’s worrying is some people are talking about a “dangerous cycle of escalation”
and China and Russia closing “ranks with Kim Jong Un.”
We, the people, need some grown-ups in the room that prevent this cycle from happening.
To think that the big wigs of the world cannot agree to avoid mutually assured destruction
sounds like madness on steroids, but then look at what happened at the start of the
20th century.
It seems a lot of backing down from every side needs to happen and happen fast.
Otherwise, historians in the future might be talking about the utter stupidity of those
reckless savages that almost brought down the human race as half the public was filming
it on TikTok.
Now you definitely have to watch “What If North Korea Launched a Nuclear Bomb (Minute
by Minute).”
Or, have a look at “What It Is REALLY Like Living In North Korea?.”