“The Korean peninsula is dashing toward the cliff of a nuclear war,” says the North Korean government publication Rodong Sinmun. Here’s why.

For 73 years, the goal of North Korea has been to swallow South Korea in a “peaceful reunification.” On Monday, January 15th, that changed. Forty-year-old North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un gave a speech to his Supreme People’s Assembly in which he called for two amendments to the North Korean constitution.

Those two amendments would declare South Korea the North’s “principal enemy.” Yes, in North Korea’s very constitution, South Korea would be named “primary foe and invariable principal enemy.”

What’s more, Kim called for reflecting “on the issue of completely occupying, suppressing, and reclaiming [South Korea] and incorporating it into the territory of our” North Korean Republic. In other words, Kim Jong Un called for South Korea’s utter conquest.

Why was Kim so obsessed with war? Because the Axis of Evil is on a roll. And that roll gives Kim strength. The Axis of Evil is a military alliance between China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.

This Axis has watched the United States pull back from the world since 2016, first under Donald Trump’s America First philosophy and Trump’s suggestion that NATO be disbanded.

Then with a Trump-manipulated Congress currently holding up aid to the Ukraine and seemingly inviting Russia to roll its tanks into Europe’s NATO countries.

Meanwhile, Axis of Evil member Venezuela is making moves to seize a part of its neighbor, Guyana.

And Axis of Evil member Iran has started a war in Gaza using one of its proxy armies, Hamas. On top of that, two other Iranian proxy armies, Hezbollah and the Houthis, have jumped in. What’s more, Iran has taken the liberty of attacking a site in Pakistan.

All of this means that the United States is tied up on two fronts, Ukraine and the Middle East. And the US may soon have a problem in South America.

What’s more, the North Korean news outlet Rodong Sinmun announces that “the US [is] going to ruin.” So this is a good time to take advantage of the fact that America is stretched thin.

In addition, South Korean dictator Kim Jong Un now has something he did not have a few years ago: roughly 60 nuclear warheads mounted on ballistic missiles. Ballistic missiles on easy to hide trucks that double as mobile launchers. Missiles that could wipe South Korea off the map. Missiles that could also wipe out cities in Japan, and, just possibly, in the United States.

As if that’s not enough, Sunday January 14th, Kim tested a new hypersonic missile, a weapon we may not be able to counter.

Meanwhile, 38 North, a site that specializes in North Korea, traces Kim’s current belligerence back to 1990, when Kim’s father, Kim Il Sung, decided to woo the United States as a buffer against Russia and China. North Korea continued its attempt to cozy up to the USA for 30 years, says 38 North. But Kim Jong Un felt the United States ignored his dad, then ignored him.

The straw that broke North Korea’s back came in 2019, when Kim bet all of his prestige on a summit in Hanoi with President Donald Trump. Kim wanted agreement on five points. He got none of them. This was a bitter “loss of face for Kim,” says Cambridge University’s John Nilsson-Wright.

How did Kim heal the wound? He built intercontinental ballistic missiles and showed them off as space rockets. In December, he launched his first successful spy satellite. A rocket that launches satellites could easily reach any target in the United States.

A few weeks later, at a series of “year-end policy meetings,” Kim “threatened a nuclear attack on the South.”

Over the decades of North Korea’s existence, it has been common for its leaders to make grandiose threats that don’t come true. But this time may be different.

38 North is convinced that “Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war,” Let me repeat that. Kim Jong Un, the ruler of North Korea, has made a decision to go to war. That war would almost certainly start with a surprise attack. And that war would almost certainly be nuclear.

Meanwhile, underlining the connection of all this to the Axis of Evil, “North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui is” now “in Russia” to arrange a visit to North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, by, guess who? Vladimir Putin.

References:

https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-01-16/national/northKorea/Kim-Jongun-urges-constitutional-change-to-define-South-as-No-1-hostile-country/1959646
http://www.rodong.rep.kp/en/index.php?OEAyMDI0LTAxLTAzLUgwMDVAQEBzb3V0aCBrb3JlYUAxMw==
http://www.rodong.rep.kp/en/index.php?OEAyMDIzLTEyLTE5LUgwMDJAQEBzb3V0aCBrb3JlYUAxNg==
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/North-Korea-fuels-war-rumblings-with-hypersonic-missile-launch
https://www.38north.org/2024/01/is-kim-jong-un-preparing-for-war/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67990948
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/16/unification-with-south-korea-no-longer-possible-says-kim-jong-un

Howard Bloom of the Howard Bloom Institute has been called the Einstein, Newton, and Freud of the 21st century by Britain’s Channel 4 TV. One of his seven books–Global Brain—was the subject of a symposium thrown by the Office of the Secretary of Defense including representatives from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. His work has been published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Psychology Today, and the Scientific American. He does news commentary at 1:06 am Eastern Time every Wednesday night on 545 radio stations on Coast to Coast AM. For more, see http://howardbloom.institute.