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North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un has called President Trump’s bluff. After conducting a succession of ballistic missile tests, including two ICBM tests in July and its most recent ballistic missile test over Japan, the rogue regime carried out its sixth nuclear test this past weekend. It reportedly was at least four times more powerful than the previous nuclear test North Korea conducted last year. North Korea acted despite strident warnings from President Trump, enhanced demonstrations of U.S. and its allies’ joint military prowess in the region, and increased sanctions imposed collectively by the United Nations Security Council and unilaterally by the United States.

When this powerful nuclear bomb test is coupled with North Korea’s successful test launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles and with intelligence reports indicating that North Korea has mastered the capability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead that can fit onto its missiles, the regime appears to be closer than ever to presenting a credible nuclear threat to the United States mainland. It still has one problem to solve in order to successfully launch direct nuclear strikes on U.S. cities – missile re-entry into the atmosphere. However, without even bothering about re-entry, North Korea may already have the capability today to detonate a nuclear bomb in the upper atmosphere, generating an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could virtually destroy the US.’s electrical grid and communications systems. An EMP attack would affect transportation as well as critical food, water and medical supplies. Millions of people could die as a result. North Korea has in fact threatened just such an attack.

In short, the U.S. and its allies are facing a very serious threat of catastrophic proportions from an erratic megalomaniac, with limited options to prevent it from becoming a grim reality at a time of Kim Jong-un’s choosing.

President Trump responded to North Korea’s latest nuclear test provocation via his usual channel of choice, twitter. The president first tweeted: “North Korea has conducted a major Nuclear Test. Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States…..” He also announced that he was meeting with his White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and military leaders at the White House to discuss North Korea.

After then criticizing China for not doing enough to stop North Korea and criticizing South Korea for its “talk of appeasement with North Korea,” President Trump ramped up the pressure on any countries still doing business with North Korea. He tweeted: “The United States is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.” China, North Korea’s biggest trading partner and principal supplier of oil, would seem to be the main target of this threat.

China condemned North Korea’s latest nuclear test and urged North Korea to “stop taking erroneous actions that deteriorate the situation.” It has previously backed the United States in voting for the toughest economic sanctions resolution yet at the UN Security Council, and has in fact curtailed some trade with North Korea. Yet Kim Jong-un remains unfazed.

Following North Korea’s sixth nuclear test, advertised by Pyongyang as an ICBM-ready hydrogen bomb, it was good to hear Defense Secretary James Mattis talking tough. But that won’t stop North Korea from building nuclear missiles. It won’t stop North Korea’s threats against the U.S. and our allies. I’d wager it won’t even interfere with Kim Jong Un’s enjoyment of his apparently ample meals.

Mattis stressed Kim’s peril in his remarks on Sunday, when he said: “Any threat to the United States or its territories, including Guam or our allies will be met with a massive military response.” Mattis added the backhanded threat that “we are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely, North Korea, but as I said, we have many options to do so.”

But does Kim have any reason to think the U.S. would exercise those options?

North Korea has long been a geyser of threats, including its threat last month to use the U.S. territory of Guam for missile practice, its launch last month of a ballistic missile over Japan, and its threat accompanying Sunday’s nuclear test that it could use thermonuclear weapons for a “super-powerful EMP attack.”

The U.S., Japan and South Korea have responded with shows of force, but like a multitude of displays done before, the de facto message is one of great muscle but no will to fight. None of that force has been used to strike North Korea. Kim holds Seoul hostage, and America, while groping for a solution to North Korea’s rapidly compounding threats, has no appetite to risk a replay of the carnage of the 1950-1953 Korean War, potentially amplified by nuclear weapons in the hands of Pyongyang.

With the caveat that I have no inside information, it’s intriguing to imagine what’s going on right now in Kim Jong Un’s head. He’s a young tyrant, now in his mid-thirties, who inherited power upon the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in December 2011. Some young men inherit a family fortune. Kim inherited supremacy over a totalitarian ruling party, fully accessorized with a nation state, a gulag, a nuclear weapons program and one of the world’s largest standing armies — with artillery already dug in to threaten the fat prize of capitalist Seoul, with its population of 10 million South Koreans just the other side of the Demilitarized Zone.

Since inheriting the keys to this grotesque family estate, Kim has presided over four of North Korea’s six nuclear tests to date (one in 2013, two in 2016 and the latest this Sunday). Under his rule, North Korea has amassed a nuclear arsenal estimated by various experts to be in the double digits, perhaps now including thermonuclear weapons. On Kim Jong Un’s watch, North Korea has advertised its pursuit of the ability to launch nuclear missiles from submarines, and acquired the ability to miniaturize nuclear warheads and mount them on missiles. In July, North Korea succesfully tested two ICBMs. And, as mentioned, in August North Korea threatened the U.S. territory of Guam and launched a missile over Japan. And of course there was the test on Sunday of what North Korea celebrated as a hydrogen bomb.

From international obscurity half a dozen years ago, Kim has vaulted to erstwhile godhood on his totalitarian home turf, and become a celebrity tyrant who makes headlines around the globe. With tactics worthy of Stalin, or Caligula, he has consolidated power — recall the execution in 2013 of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, and the assassination earlier this year, with VX nerve agent, of his half-brother, Kim Jong Nam. Under his rule, North Korea has become a global player in cyber warfare. In the tradition of his enterprising forebears, he continues to cultivate strategic alliances and illicit weapons networks that funnel North Korea’s military wares to the likes of Syria, Iran and their terrorist mascots.

SEOUL—North Korea is making preparations for the possible launch of another intercontinental ballistic missile, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said Monday, just one day after Pyongyang detonated a nuclear device far more powerful than any that it has previously tested.

Maj. Gen. Jang Kyung-soo, acting deputy minister for national defense policy, said Seoul had detected signs of activity that suggested North Korea, which conducted its first two ICBM test launches in July, was preparing to launch another ballistic missile.

Gen. Jang didn’t say what the signs of activity were, nor did he give a time frame for a possible launch. But many experts have been preparing for a weapons test around Sept. 9, when North Korea marks the anniversary of its foundation in 1948.
The assessment was echoed by South Korean intelligence officers, who said North Korea could test launch another ICBM toward the northern Pacific Ocean or a submarine-launched ballistic missile, according to lawmakers who attended a closed-door legislative meeting on Monday.
The Threat From North Korea’s Missiles

The intelligence officers also said North Korea could conduct further nuclear tests at any time, based on construction work on two tunnels at its test site that appear to be near completion, these lawmakers said.

The warnings came as South Korea’s Defense Ministry formally said it would proceed with the temporary deployment of four U.S. missile-defense launchers that have become a political hot potato in recent months.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in took office in May. His platform included opposing his predecessor’s decision to deploy the missile-defense system, called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, in the country. Thaad, which is designed to protect South Korea from Pyongyang’s missiles, is fiercely opposed by China, which says the system undermines its national security.

Mr. Moon suspended the deployment shortly after the U.S. military installed two of the Thaad battery’s six launchers, which made it operational. But North Korea’s recent string of missile launches and Sunday’s nuclear test have pushed Mr. Moon to move ahead with what he has called the temporary deployment of the four remaining Thaad launchers.

On Monday, the Defense Ministry in Seoul said it completed a small-scale environmental impact assessment, a prerequisite for the deployment, and would push ahead with installation “shortly,” without specifying a date.

Separately, Gen. Jang said the U.S. and South Korea are in talks about deploying an aircraft carrier or stealth bombers to South Korea as part of the response to North Korea’s recent actions.CONTINUE AT SITE