The 600 kilometers of the missile flight is the distance that separates the North Korean base from Busan, where the American aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan is located. also a welcome to Vice President Kamala Harris, who is coming to Seoul.
Overwhelmed by the noise of the war in Ukraine, Kim Jong-un also tries to make his threatening voice heard: On Sunday morning, North Korea launched a ballistic missile that flew for 18 minutesmaking a parabola of 600 kilometers, at a speed of Mach5, about 6 thousand km per hour. test number 17 of 2022, the first since August 17, when it fired two cruise missiles. yet another signal addressed to the United States, given that the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan has dropped anchor in the South Korean port of Busan these days. The 600-kilometer missile flight is the distance that separates the North Korean base from Busan. also a welcome to American Vice President Kamala Harris, who is coming to Seoul. South Korean intelligence also took over preparations for the launch of a SLBM (Submarine-launched ballistic missile): Satellite photos have identified maneuvers at the Sinpho naval base on the east coast of North Korea, in particular a crane placed on top of a Gorae-class submarine equipped with a vertical launcher.
Tension is mounting on a front that has been neglected in recent months. Two weeks ago Kim Jong-un had the Supreme People’s Assembly (the Parliament of Pyongyang) vote for a law that sanctions the automatic and preventive use of nuclear weapons in case of danger for the regime. Among the circumstances for the use of nuclear devices mentioned the case that hostile forces attack state leaders or the military chain of command and control of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (the official name of the Northern regime). The law specifies that the hostile action does not need to have already taken place or is in progress to trigger nuclear retaliation, as long as it is judged imminent. It means that Kim would be ready, in the event of a dramatic crisis, at the first strike, the first use of nuclear devices, even without the enemies having fired a nuclear shot.
The message, as well as military, political: Kim has sworn before the Supreme Assembly that North Korea will remain a nuclear power as long as imperialism exists and that the new law draws an indelible line on our nuclear weapons, states that there will never be negotiation and agreement on them, we will never give it up, even if we still have to face a hundred years of sanctions. In theory, the refusal to give up the arsenal of weapons of mass destruction is not new. evident since the negotiations with Donald Trump failed in February 2019 (at the Hanoi summit where The Donald had to acknowledge that his friend was playing with rigged cards) that Kim will never deprive himself of the nuclear devices, which make up his life insurance (he thoroughly studied the end of Gaddafi in Libya and Saddam in Iraq, who did not have them). And clear that its goal is for the international community to recognize North Korea’s status as a nuclear power. Washington estimates that Pyongyang currently has 60 nuclear weapons and the capacity to build another 6 a year.
With such a clear and articulate statement, which goes so far as to threaten a first strike against Americans and South Koreans, the Marshal seems to have wanted to give a definitive blow to the hopes of a negotiation with the United States. Denuclearization has always been the goal of every American president, Republican or Democrat. There is one last path, narrow and bumpy. Negotiations on arms control and the reduction of the Northern arsenal in exchange for a relaxation or cancellation of UN sanctions explains Andrei Lankov, director of Nk News recognized as one of the greatest connoisseurs of the North Korean question. The problem, the Russian scholar warns, is that the failure of the Trump administration’s attempt at an exchange between international sanctions and the freezing of the Northern nuclear development program it has reduced the negotiating space. In the United States, any agreement with Pyongyang would encounter strong resistance, because it would lead to the recognition of the enemy as a nuclear power.
If such talks were to resume, the opposition and the American press would accuse the White House of weakness and defeatismof surrender to a small Asian dictatorship (close to China, ndr). Lankov, who also attended Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, concludes with a bold suggestion: It would take a little dishonest to get the negotiations going again. That is, the White House should sell an attempt to reduce Kim’s nuclear arsenal as the first step in a process towards complete denuclearization to the Washington Congress, public opinion and the press. The alternative to this dishonest approach to at least freeze Kim’s nuclear race is to stand bywhile its scientists develop new, more sophisticated and dangerous missiles and launch systems.
September 25, 2022 (change September 25, 2022 | 13:38)
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