N. Korea has nuclear missile able to reach US, Trump has no plan

08/09/2017

North Korea now possesses a missile able to reach the US mainland, and a nuclear warhead small enough to be mounted to the missile.

On July 28th, North Korea tested yet another long range missile, it’s 14th missile test of the year. The missile was aimed mostly upward, and reached an altitude of 2300 miles. If the trajectory had been aimed towards the US, experts fear it may have been able to reach as far as Chicago or Detroit. Witnesses in Japan believe the missile may have burned up in the atmosphere upon reentry, which would have probably destroyed any warhead on the missile had it been carrying one. According to multiple sources familiar with the analysis of North Korea’s missile and nuclear program, US intelligence analysts have assessed that North Korea has produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead. The combination of both a long-range missile capable of reaching the US mainland and a miniaturized nuclear warhead places the US in an extremely dangerous situation.

While on vacation at his golf resort, Trump warned North Korea not to make any more threats against the United States or they will “face fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Hours after Trump spoke, and apparently in response to military exercises by the US earlier in the week, Pyonyang warned that it would carry out preemptive military strikes against the US, including the Pacific territory of Guam.

Experts worry Trump’s rhetoric could hurt the US by feeding North Korean insecurities and adding instability to an already tenuous situation. Joe Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation, told CNN on Monday, “We have two inexperienced, impulsive presidents in control of these massive military machines,” “It’s one thing to make a mistake intentionally, its another thing to stumble into a conflict … either one — Kim Jong Un or Donald Trump — could miscalculate and let loose a war unlike anything we have seen since World War II.”