North Korea is quickly becoming an Unstoppable Nuclear Threat
By Todd Strandberg
Last week, North Korea made another successful test of its new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Pyongyang says the missile reached an altitude of 4,475km (2,780 miles) and flew 950km in 53 minutes, which matched independent estimates made by South Korea’s military. The missile was so far above the surface of the earth, it reached more than 10 times the height of the International Space Station.
The latest test was the highest and longest any North Korean missile had flown, landing in the sea near Japan. What is most troubling about the potential trajectory of this new Hwasong-15 missile is that it puts the entire U.S. mainland within range of leader Kim Jong Un’s nuclear program.
The test, which defied international sanctions imposed over the North’s weapons program, drew swift international condemnation. The UN Security Council had yet another emergency session. South Korea responded by carrying out live-fire exercises, launching one of its own ballistic missiles.
Sanctions and exercises have had no effect on North Korea’s nuclear work. Kim Jong Un has been on site for nearly every launch. He is like a demented child playing with his favorite toy.
Experts believe North Korea is still two to three years away from the ultimate goal of being able to deliver a nuclear warhead successfully using an ICBM. However, North Korea’s military is making incredible strides in overcoming all remaining technological barriers that would prevent it from producing an ICBM that could deliver an atomic bomb to our shores.
David Albright of the Institute For Science and International Security recently told Congress that North Korea’s nuclear weapon inventory consists of 25 weapons each with a yield equal to 20,000 tons of TNT, and that North Korea will be able to build four additional weapons per year. Now that North Korea has demonstrated ability to construct thermonuclear weapons, Albright assumes that all new weapons will have a yield equal to 250,000 tons of TNT.
If the assumption is made that North Korea can deliver its nukes, the outbreak of war would cause 1.4 million Japanese-South Korean-U.S. deaths. The number of deaths resulting from war would increase by 1.1 million per year now that North Korea has thermonuclear capability.
The fecklessness of the Obama administration’s policy towards North Korea has left America facing a horrendous dilemma. What we know now could have caused better leadership to bomb North Korea back into the Stone Age. If we could look into the future and see the results of this arms race, there might now only be one nation on the Korean peninsula. The upper portion would need 100 years before it could be repopulated.
North Korea has such a massive military that it doesn’t need to use its nuclear force to cause a massive loss of life in the south. They have thousands of conventional missiles aimed at Seoul, the capital of South Korea. In just a few hours of bombardment, a million South Koreans could be dead.
We could bomb anything that looks like a military base. The massive nuclear fallout would have China and Russia threaten nuclear war with us. Since the North Koreans have taken the extraordinary step to hide its military weapons, there is need for us to penetrate every major bunker.
The only real option that President Trump has: find Kim Jong Un’s current location and take him out with a precision strike. He is not hard to pick out of a crowd. Once he’s dead, the cult of Kim Jong Un could cause the nation to collapse. There is always the chance that Fat Boy has in his will, “Nuke America if something happens to me.” In most cases of warfare, once you cut off the head of the military, the rest of the body dies.
I still think God is holding things back because now is the time of “peace and safety” (1 Thessalonians 5:3). I would support Trump making a bold move, but I think the odds are greater for all talk and no action. As we reach the Tribulation hour, situations like North Korea will likely continue to get worse and worse. Once the rapture takes place, evil men will be unrestrained like never before.
“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13).
–Todd