North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the “exponential” expansion of his country’s nuclear arsenal and the event of a more powerful intercontinental ballistic missile, state media reported Sunday, after he entered 2023 with one other weapons launch following a record variety of testing activities last yr.
Kim’s moves are in step with the broad direction of his nuclear program. He has repeatedly vowed to spice up each the standard and quantity of his arsenal to address what he calls U.S. hostility. Some experts say Kim’s push to supply more nuclear and other weapons signals his intention to proceed a run of weapons tests and ultimately solidify his future negotiating power and win greater outside concessions.
“They at the moment are keen on isolating and stifling (North Korea), unprecedented in human history,” Kim said at a recently ended key ruling party meeting, based on the official Korean Central News Agency. “The prevailing situation calls for making redoubled efforts to overwhelmingly beef up the military muscle.”
Throughout the six-day meeting meant to find out latest state objectives, Kim called for “an exponential increase of the country’s nuclear arsenal” to mass produce battlefield tactical nuclear weapons targeting South Korea. He also presented a task to develop a latest ICBM missioned with a “quick nuclear counterstrike” capability — a weapon he must strike the mainland U.S. He said the North’s first military reconnaissance satellite shall be launched “on the earliest date possible,” KCNA said.
“Kim’s comments from the party meeting reads like an ambitious — but perhaps achievable — Recent 12 months’s resolution list,” said Soo Kim, a security analyst on the California-based RAND Corporation. “It’s ambitious in that Kim consciously selected to spell out what he hopes to perform as we head into 2023, however it also suggests a dose of confidence on Kim’s part.”
Last month, North Korea claimed to have performed key tests needed for the event of a latest strategic weapon, a probable reference to a solid-fueled ICBM, and a spy satellite.
Kim’s identification of South Korea as an enemy and the mention of hostile U.S. and South Korean policies is “a reliable pretext for the regime to supply more missiles and weapons to solidify Kim’s negotiating position and concretize North Korea’s status as a nuclear weapons power,” Soo Kim said.
Later Sunday, South Korea’s Defense Ministry reiterated a warning that any try to use nuclear weapons by North Korea “will result in the tip of the Kim Jong Un government.” The U.S. military has previously made similar warnings.
“The brand new yr began but our security situation remains to be very grave,” South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol told top military officers during a video conference. “Our military must resolutely punish any provocation by the enemy with a firm determination that we dare to risk fighting a battle.”
Senior diplomats from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan spoke by phone and agreed that provocations by North Korea would only deepen its international isolation and prompt their trilateral security cooperation. They still reaffirmed that the door to dialogue with North Korea stays open, based on the South Korean Foreign Ministry.
Since his high-stakes summitry with then-President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019 resulting from wrangling over U.S.-led sanctions, Kim Jong Un has refused to return to talks with Washington and brought steps to enlarge his arsenal. Some observers say Kim would eventually intend to make North Korea a legitimate nuclear power in order to win the lifting of international sanctions and the tip of the regular U.S.-South Korean military drills that he views as a significant security threat.
“It was during his 2018 Recent 12 months’s speech that (Kim) first ordered the mass production of warheads and ballistic missiles, and he’s doubling down on that quantitative expansion goal in the approaching yr,” said Ankit Panda, an authority with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Panda said the reference to a latest ICBM appears to concern a solid-propellant system, which may very well be tested soon. He said a satellite launch could happen in April, a month that features a key state anniversary.
Worries about North Korea’s nuclear program have grown for the reason that North last yr approved a latest law that authorized the preemptive use of nuclear weapons in a broad range of situations and openly threatened to make use of its nuclear weapons first. During last week’s party meeting, Kim reiterated that threat.
Earlier Sunday, South Korea’s military detected a short-range ballistic missile launched from the North’s capital region. It said the weapon traveled about 400 kilometers (250 miles) before falling into the water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said that the U.S. commitments to defend South Korea and Japan “remain ironclad.”
North Korea test-fired greater than 70 missiles last yr, including three short-range ballistic missiles detected by South Korea on Saturday. The testing spree indicates the country is probably going emboldened by its advancing nuclear program. Observers say the North was also in a position to proceed its banned missile tests because China and Russia have blocked the U.S. and others from toughening U.N. sanctions on the Security Council.
KCNA confirmed Sunday that the country conducted the test-firings of its super-large multiple rocket launcher on Saturday and Sunday. Kim Jong Un said the rocket launcher puts all of South Korea inside striking distance and is able to carrying a tactical nuclear warhead, based on KCNA.
“Its recent missile launches weren’t technically impressive. As a substitute, the high volume of tests at unusual times and from various locations reveal that North Korea could launch several types of attack, anytime, and from many directions,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
Animosities between the rival Koreas have further deepened since early last week, when South Korea accused North Korea of flying drones across their heavily fortified border for the primary time in five years and responded by sending its own drones toward the North.