The concern of the US over reports that North Korea is in the final stages in the development of a nuclear missile or weapon capable of reaching parts of America is all over the tweet of incoming US President Donald Trump on January 2.
Trump said that it won’t happen but his social media post actually mirrors a concern not only of the US but its allies especially, the neighboring countries of North Korea including Japan, South Korea, Russia, among others.
North Korea is actually the only country in the world to have tested nuclear weapons in the 21st century so it has just as much of a say in whether its potential nuclear arms can or will reach the US as Trump and the US do, reports the Business Insider.
It is obvious that North Korea’s nuclear program has become a subject of deep concern for the international community.
While there have been efforts to talk Pyongyang out of it, nobody seems able to stop North Korean President Kim Jong Un from proceeding with the nuclear tests. In fact, the country has already conducted five nuclear tests in the past 10 years and will likely have a few more as part of its ongoing nuclear weapons development program.
North Korea has conducted five successful nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, 2013, and in January and September 2016. The yield of the bombs appears to have increased.
In fact, during its September 2016 test, it came up with a device with an explosive yield of between 10 and 30 kilotons, which made it North Korea’s strongest nuclear test ever, assuming it was true.
Significant advances
According to Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation policy and a North Korea expert, it can be very difficult to assess North Korea’s nuclear capabilities since there is hardly an access to the country’s missile facilities.
She added however that it is quite clear that North Korea has made significant advances both with nuclear warheads and with ballistic missiles.
While North Korea has already conducted several tests with nuclear bombs in the past, it still needs to be able to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit into a missile in order to launch a nuclear attack on US-allied neighbors.
The country has recently claimed that it has successfully miniaturized nuclear warheads, but such has never been independently verified, and some experts have cast doubt on the claims, notes BBC.
The kind of bombs North Korea is testing
The other big question in the international community is whether the devices being tested are atomic bombs, or hydrogen bombs, which are more powerful.
Hydrogen bombs use fusion or the merging of atoms to unleash massive amounts of energy, whereas atomic bombs use nuclear fission or the splitting of atoms.
The 2006, 2009, and 2013 tests were all atomic bomb tests. North Korea claimed that its January 2016 test was a hydrogen bomb. But experts cast doubt on the claim given the size of the explosion registered.
There is no consensus on exactly where North Korea is in terms of miniaturizing a nuclear device so that it can be delivered via a missile.
US, Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea have engaged North Korea in multiple rounds of negotiations known as six-party talks. There were various attempts to agree on disarmament deals with North Korea, but none of it has ultimately deterred Pyongyang.
North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is still in its early phases, but Kim Jong Un commands about 100 missile launchers with several missiles for each.
In comparison, the US has 1,796 nuclear missiles deployed, another 4,500 stockpiled, and 2,800 retired and waiting to be dismantled.
North Korea presently has no way of reaching any part of the US with a missile of any sort, but Pyongyang is likely at the point now where it could mount a nuclear warhead on a medium-range missile, and that would put South Korea, Japan, and US military installations in range of the North Korean nuclear threat.
North Korea is a tiny, poor, backward nation with limited missile capabilities and a small nuclear stockpile, but it poses a very serious threat to the US and its allies.
The US and its allies have three major forms of missile defense against North Korea.