This is part of NK News’ series of opinion and analysis of the first five years of Kim Jong Un’s rule.
When it comes to North Korea, nothing has quite dominated headlines like the nuclear issue. For all of the country’s eccentricities and troubling human rights record, it’s Pyongyang’s nuke tests, and the triumphant rhetoric that follows them, which most alarms the world about North Korea. Could this small nation on the northern half of the Korean Peninsula really have the power to unleash an apocalyptic war on its enemies?
Five years since the death of Kim Jong Il and the rise of his son, Kim Jong Un, the answer is now a very concrete yes. Since Kim the younger took over, there have been three nuclear tests of increasing magnitude, and in September the country claimed they had successfully tested a warhead which could be mounted on a rocket.
Can Pyongyang be stopped? And how does the world deal with a nuclear North Korea? In the fourth part of a six-part series examining how Kim Jong Un has spent his first half-decade in power, NK News reached out to experts from across the world with three key questions on how North Korea’s nuclear program has developed.
