As speculation mounts that Kim Jong-un and Trump could meet this month, analysts say Pyongyang will continue to see nuclear weapons as a matter of survival
North Korea’s launch last week of a missile from a naval destroyer elicited an uncharacteristically prosaic analysis from the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un. The launch was proof, he said, that arming ships with nuclear weapons was “making satisfactory progress”.
But the test, and Kim’s mildly upbeat appraisal, were designed to reverberate well beyond the deck of the 5,000-tonne destroyer-class vessel the Choe Hyon – the biggest warship in the North Korean fleet.
His pointed reference to nuclear weapons was made as the US and Israel continued their air bombardment of Iran – a regime Donald Trump had warned, without offering evidence, was only weeks away from having a nuclear weapon.



That’s the overwhelming message of the 20th and 21st centuries. If you don’t have nukes then the US or Russia is gonna mess with you. Get nukes.
Am Canadian. Want nukes.
Am German. We can definitely be trusted with nukes.
I think the lesson here is no one can be trusted with nukes, which is why I want them.
Secretly get nukes.
All but impossible, the major players keep an eye on all the things necessary for nuclear weapons.
Actually, Canada got in on the ground floor and we have everything we’d need. They say we’re about two months out at any given time, going the plutonium route.
Then again, we’re pretty used to the luxuries of not being an isolated pariah state.