The Rising North Korean Nuclear Threat

While Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe played golf and talked politics with President Trump last week, North Korea launched a nuclear-capable, mid-range ballistic missile in yet another provocative test. 

A strategic shot across the bow, the launch prompted the President to address the press with Trump assuring the world that the United States stands behind its Japanese ally one-hundred percent. 

It remains to be seen what can done in the face of this rising North Korean threat.

The media was quick to remind the world that on December 13th of 2012 it was Trump that pointed out the weakness of Obama and the U.S. government regarding Korea when he tweeted, "We can't even stop the North from blasting a missile. China is laughing at us. It is really sad," one day after North Korea had used a three-stage rocket to place a satellite in orbit. 

Now that Trump is in the driver's seat, it may very well be that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is testing his resolve.

In the face of the toughest sanctions the modern world has seen, North Korea has accelerated rather than slowed the rate of both nuclear weapons and missile tests. 

In the past nine years, the Hermit Kingdom has carried out five nuclear tests with two of those coming in 2016, January and September. The obstacles that remain are miniaturization and perfecting intercontinental ballistic missile technology.

As the regime struggles to shrink its bombs enough to mount them in warheads, progress has been shown off there too with official photos leaked in March of 2016 that show Kim Jong Un visiting a factory capable of miniaturizing the bombs. 

Just in the past year, North Korea has conducted 20 missile tests, up from 42 in the previous seven years. Experts believe that North Korea will possess nuclear missile technology capable of hitting the West Coast of the United States by the year 2020, or possibly sooner.

Kim Jong Un, as was his father before him, is known for making outsized claims and wild threats. His New Year's message in January this year, however, was taken more seriously when he announced that his military was in the "final stages" of developing ICBM technology, that is to say capable of both carrying nuclear payloads and surviving atmospheric re-entry. 

Then President-elect Trump's response was simply to tweet, "It won't happen!"

President Trump wasted no time in dispatching Secretary of Defense James Mattis to visit South Korea and to offer renewed threats to North Korea that any use of North Korean nuclear weapons would be met by an "effective and overwhelming response." 

It remains to be seen if there are any options left on the table that would prevent the rogue nation from developing nuclear ICBM technology.

North Korea continues to grow in strength even as Kim Jong Un warns his people to prepare for another period of starvation due to both sanctions and severe weather conditions. 

Growing distance between China and Trump's White House has also increased doubt that the two countries will be able to continue to work together to isolate North Korea. 

With sanctions already as tough as they can conceivably be on the US side, pressure on China, which has hesitated to enforce the full weight of sanctions, is virtually the only card left in the President's deck, short of preemptive military action.

Congressmen such as Rep. Ed Royce of California are extremely concerned about the North Korean threat and are looking for new ways to squeeze the rogue nation financially. 

Royce warned, "At this point it is clear that very, very soon, North Korea is going to be able to target all 50 states in the United States, as well as target our allies." 

Proposals to initiate caps or limits on North Korean's nuclear capability, many argue, would expose the inherent weakness in the world's position and embolden the regime further.

The first quarter of the year is a key time for the Korean peninsula as it marks the 105th birthday of Kim Il Sung on April 15th, the 5th anniversary of Kim Jong Un's 'election' as Chairman on April 11th and Kim Jong Un's 5th anniversary as the Supreme Leader on April 13th. 

The South Korean Presidential elections take place in May and there is little doubt that we can expect to see renewed missile tests from the North, a country that has preferred to time its 'force braggadocio' with key dates.

As an aside to the central story of North Korean nuclear ambitions, which can also be seen a domestic show of force for Kim Jong Un, news broke on Tuesday of the assassination in a Malaysian airport of Kim Jong Nam, the exiled older half-brother of Kim Jong Un. 

Killed by two female assassins with poisoned needles while in the airport arrival area, Kim Jong Nam's death is likely another move by Jong Un to eliminate any possible threats to his rule. 

This sheds light on the domestic motivations of an increasingly unstable North Korean regime, desperate to cling to power.

Facing an increasingly bellicose and nuclear-capable regime, both the US and the rest of the world may soon need to make tough choices on how to respond with an effective and overwhelming answer that doesn't bring the deaths of millions on both sides of the 38th parallel.