By So Yeon Kim
In both South Korea and the United States, there’s little patience for North Korea’s duplicity and threats.
While there is a lot of commentary on the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, there are other storms brewing in East Asia, posing a fresh threat to the security of the United States and its allies. North Korea, the Hermit Kingdom, has been boasting about its nuclear breakout in recent weeks.
Last week, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) claimed that it had successfully miniaturized nuclear warheads to fit on the head of a missile, meaning that it can produce smaller and more diversified nukes. The statement comes days after North Korea reported that it had successfully carried out an ejection test of its KN-11 ‘Polaris-1’ submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) earlier this month.
Although both U.S. and South Korean officials appear to downplay the announcement and raise questions about the reliability of the Kim Jong-un regime, they acknowledge that North Korea is working on nuclear weapons and a ballistic missile development program, which could eventually threaten the United States and its partners in East Asia.
Read the full story at The Diplomat