Donald Trump has previously referred to North Korea as a nuclear power, which drew a rebuke from our allies in South Korea.
Trump has also claimed that nuclear weapons testing is taking place in the country, but added that it is being hidden.
While not a confirmation of nuclear weapons testing, the unveiling of a new nuclear-powered submarine by North Korea does seem to vindicate Trump’s concerns.
Right after Trump took office, he shook South Korea while discussing North Korea and Kim Jong Un, stating, “Now, he is a nuclear power. I think he’ll be happy to see I’m coming back.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also recognized North Korea as a “nuclear power,” a move that drew a rebuke from the South Koreans.
A spokesperson for the South Korean Foreign Ministry stated, “North Korea’s denuclearization remains a consistent principle upheld by the international community, including South Korea and the U.S.”
Some say Trump is doing all of this to justify more money for the military and to ramp up our own nuclear weapons program, but the president seems pretty convinced that Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, and several other nations are hiding their nuclear testing.
In November, North Korea started to get antsy after the United States deployed an aircraft carrier in South Korea.
North Korea’s defense minister, No Kwang Chol, according to state media, stated, “We will show more offensive action against the enemies’ threat on the principle of ensuring security and defending peace by dint of powerful strength.”
He continued, “All threats encroaching upon the sphere of the North’s security” will become “direct targets” and be “managed in a necessary way.”
With Trump’s positioning of assets in the Caribbean against Venezuela, everyone is paying attention. There is a real threat of a domino effect here, with China and Russia now getting involved. And if they are in, North Korea will be in. And if North Korea makes a move against South Korea, that would really stretch out military assets, which are already spread too thin for my liking.
On Christmas Day, reports started to blow up that North Korea had unveiled a new nuclear-powered submarine, and it was massive.
Common sense says that if North Korea has a submarine of that size, it is likely to be armed with nuclear weapons.
The scary part about this is that while the United States and Russia have similar-sized fleets, the United States is the more advanced, but China is quickly making up ground on that front and also expanding its fleet. North Korea is now in fourth place, with a fleet of about half the size, but if its military leaders are now producing nuclear-powered submarines, we are looking at a massive deficit.
When three of the four largest submarine fleets in the world belong to your enemies, and two of them are now trying to catch up to American technology, Trump is quite right to be concerned that our status as the world’s strongest military power is now in jeopardy.
