PBC News: North Korea test-launched what it called a newly developed tactical guided missile Thursday, violating international sanctions.It was the country’s first ballistic missile test in a year and its first provocation to the Biden administration, prompting President Joe Biden to warn that there will be “responses” if North Korea continues to escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
A senior North Korean official, Ri Pyong Chol, replied defiantly Saturday, warning that if the United States keeps making “thoughtless remarks without thinking of the consequences, it may be faced with something that is not good.”
The United States has tried both sanctions and dialogue to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programs.
Neither has worked.
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Instead, North Korea has rapidly expanded its nuclear program and modernised its missile fleet under Kim Jong Un, the country’s young leader. The expansion of the arsenal is a growing threat to the United States and allies in the region. Here’s what’s in it.
There are nuclear warheads and more.
North Korea’s ballistic missiles can carry nuclear warheads, and the country conducted six increasingly sophisticated underground nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017. The last four of them happened under Kim.
Its last and most powerful nuclear test was conducted in September 2017, when North Korea claimed to have detonated a thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bomb. Estimates of the device’s explosive power ranged from 50 to 300 kilotons.
