Soldiers march past the podium during a military parade in Pyongyang (Reuters)
Daniel R. DePetris, The National Interest: Is North Korea's Military the Ultimate Paper Tiger (That Could Still Kill Millions)?
Iran’s regional aggression. Budget turmoil at home. Domestic politics. An establishment in Washington resistant to reform. Ongoing wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. President-elect Donald Trump will have all of this to focus on and more, including the possibility of a Republican Party—a party that, let’s be honest, wasn’t especially happy that Trump won the GOP
nomination—opposing a Trump White House on the construction of a border wall and on a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan.
None, however, will come as close on the Richter scale as rising instability on the Korean Peninsula, powered first and foremost by a North Korean nuclear and ballistic-missile program that is advancing in both quality and quantity. Indeed, just like his predecessor, Trump comes to office dealing with a North Korean government that isn’t particularly interested in negotiating its nuclear deterrent away—except today, Pyongyang for all intents and purposes is a nuclear-weapons state, whether Washington will accept that reality or not.
Read more ....
WNU Editor:The South Koreans have invested tens of billions of dollars in their military because of their fears on what North Korea is capable of. In their eyes .... North Korea is not a "paper tiger".
None, however, will come as close on the Richter scale as rising instability on the Korean Peninsula, powered first and foremost by a North Korean nuclear and ballistic-missile program that is advancing in both quality and quantity. Indeed, just like his predecessor, Trump comes to office dealing with a North Korean government that isn’t particularly interested in negotiating its nuclear deterrent away—except today, Pyongyang for all intents and purposes is a nuclear-weapons state, whether Washington will accept that reality or not.
Read more ....
WNU Editor:The South Koreans have invested tens of billions of dollars in their military because of their fears on what North Korea is capable of. In their eyes .... North Korea is not a "paper tiger".
