North Korea Is About To Give Trump The Nuclear Arms Race He's Lusting After

[HAB911]

A North Korean defector said Kim Jong-un is demanding the country go all out to produce nuclear weapons by the end of 2017.

Out of the many things that simply scare the bejesus out of people about Donald Trump, the scariest may be his seemingly cavalier attitude about nuclear weapons. Last spring he said he thought more countries should have nukes for their own self-defense. But when he got called out on that remark he backtracked and claimed he had never said it.

Last week, in a tweet that seemed to contradict itself, Trump said the U.S. should greatly expand its nuclear arsenal.


snip


When MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski asked the president-elect to clarify what he meant in the tweet, Trump responded "Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass." Now a North Korean defector says he may be about to get his wish.

Thae Yong-ho, a North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea in July, said in a December 27 news briefing that the country's leader Kim Jong-un is pushing for the development of nukes "at all costs by the end of 2017." He says Kim believes that neither South Korea nor the United States will be in a position to stop the country's nuclear development "due to domestic political pressures."

snip

According to Thae, Kim's goal is to pressure both the U.S. and South Korea into "stability-focused" policies by adopting a provocative military posture. That plan may have worked with a normal American president of either party, but we all know Trump isn't normal. His entire posture is based on dominance rituals in which he must humiliate his opponents. That's a dangerous type of arrogance to bring to a nuclear standoff.

http://thedailybanter.com/2016/12/north-korea-wants-to-give-trump-his-arms-race/

[House of Roberts]

1. Who's writing Kim Dung's checks to pay for their 'side' of this race?

????

[HAB911]

3. The starving peasants........n/t

[HoneyBadger]

2. If wishing and threatening made it so, Kim Jong-un would already rule the world

The NK nuclear program is defined by outlandish claims, and rockets that fizzle out. Guessing that they are at least 50 years behind us.

[HAB911]

4. I spent a year on the DMZ

it's only 121 miles from Pyongyang to Seoul, 798 to Tokyo

[TheBlackAdder]

5. An excuse to test out the new B61-12 warheads. I'm sure China, South Korea and Japan won't mind.

.


Gotta justify that $8.25 BILLION program somehow.


.

[PearliePoo2]

6. China is going to have to take care of their 'problem' neighbor (and soon)

They know what has to be done. They definitely do NOT want a toxic, smoking, radioactive mess on their border.

[PearliePoo2]

7. The North Korean nuclear threat is looming larger.

http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korean-nuclear-threat-growing-2016-12

Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow of Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation and former CIA deputy division chief for Korea, says the North Korean threat isn't four years away — it's nearly here.
"After the December 2012 launch, the South Korean navy dredged up off the ocean floor the stages of the North Korean missile," Klingner said. "South Korean and US officials assessed the missile had a 10,000-kilometer range, which covers a large part of the US."

Fast forward to this year, on February 7, a month after North Korea's purported hydrogen-bomb test, the rogue regime fired a long-range rocket it claimed was carrying a satellite for its space program.

The launch, which was largely viewed as a front for testing an intercontinental ballistic missile, was not only successful but also showcased the North's technological advancements.

"After the February 2016 launch, experts assessed it could have a range of 13,000 km, covering the entire US," Klingner said, which makes the Seattle range estimate "outdated," Klingner added.

According to Klingner, even the rocket with a range of 10,000 km would compromise approximately 120 million people in the US.