Kim Jong Un is ready for using his nuclear power to launch a devastating strike against the US at the first sign his nation was about to get invaded, an expert in North Korea has warned, as per reports. The Supreme Leader will also keep his long-range ICBM in reserve to use against the targets in the US, said Ankit Panda.
Panda made the shocking claims in his book named Kim Jong Un and the Bomb-Survival and Deterrence in North Korea, where he takes into consideration the history of the country and the prospects for future conflict.
The Supreme Leader created worldwide alarm in 2017 with the help of a series of missile tests that resulted in him giving a declaration that he got the realization about the historic cause of completing the state nuclear force. The situation appeared to have calmed down, but the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Nuclear Policy Program, Panda said that it will not be wise to think that the threat has receded.
Kim Jong Un and North Korea's Nuclear Strategy
"North Korea has signaled rather explicitly that it reserves the right to use its nuclear weapons first to degrade the ability of the United States, South Korea, and Japan to carry out an invasion of its territory. Pyongyang has studied the manner in which the United States fights expeditionary wars, far from home, and learned that these operations are susceptible to disruption if critical logistics, supply nodes, and military bases are destroyed," Panda told Express.co.uk.
He mentioned that in order to stop further action against the country, North Korea likely has intentions to keep the intercontinental-range ballistic missiles in reserve. As the US homeland will remain vulnerable to a nuclear retaliatory attack, the Asian country may calculate that a president of the US might be forced to give in. The expert claims that however, there are several risks in this strategy, but the basic outlines of the nuclear strategy are orientated around these ideas.
"If Kim waits for his territory to be struck first, it may be too late: the allies might be capable of destroying most of his nuclear warheads or missiles, leaving him completely vulnerable. The option of using nuclear weapons is not good for North Korea: in any situation where it has to contemplate first use, the situation in its neighborhood will have deteriorated to a total crisis," he wrote in his book. The expert stated that Kim sees nuclear weapons as his best bet.
However, Robert Adams, the commander of the US forces in South Korea said that there was no indication so far of a resumption of the tests in advance of a big military parade getting planned in North Korea for October 10. It will be interesting to see what happens in North Korea in the near future.
