Us South Korea Plan To Bolster Military Drills That Anger Kim#Xj4Y7Vzk
BloombergFeb 07, 2023
Top North Korean army officials have said they will expand and intensify military drills to ensure war readiness, state media reported Tuesday ahead of a military anniversary.
North Korea’s declaration reportedly came at a meeting Monday overseen by leader Kim Jong-un and followed last week's joint air drills by South Korea and the US.
Joint drills between the US and South Korea won't be stopped just because North Korea throws a fit. The US is steadfast in its commitment to defending South Korea, and Kim's threats of military action — and increasingly worrisome nuclear tests — are unacceptable. The US and South Korea are rightly committed to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Although the joint military drills are being portrayed as a defensive response to alleged North Korean military threats, they need to be called out for what they really are – large-scale provocations. Rather than trying to de-escalate the situation with North Korea, the US has once again deliberately inflamed tensions in the region.
There's a 40% chance that North Korea will possess enough fissile material to make at least 100 warheads before 2024, according to the Metaculus prediction community.