{"id":4920,"date":"2022-03-10T07:21:03","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T12:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/?p=4920"},"modified":"2022-03-10T07:21:03","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T12:21:03","slug":"construction-spotted-at-north-korea-nuclear-test-site-for-first-time-since-2018-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/2022\/03\/10\/construction-spotted-at-north-korea-nuclear-test-site-for-first-time-since-2018-report-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Construction Spotted at North Korea Nuclear Test Site for First Time Since 2018, Report Says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/construction-spotted-nkorea-nuclear-test-site-first-time-since-2018-report-2022-03-07\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ever a hanging threat, the North Korean nuclear program is one of the most unpredictable, and therefore frightening, in the world. The current closest estimate of nuclear weapons possessed by North Korea is anywhere from 30 to 40 weapons, which is still causing worldwide alarm despite this being the smallest arsenal out of the nine countries in the world to have obtained nuclear weapons (the other eight countries being the United States, China, Pakistan, Israel, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and India). Now, intelligence gathered from satellite images has picked up on activity at North Korea\u2019s nuclear testing site, Punggye-ri, possibly a revival of the facility which has been out of use since 2018 as far as the rest of the world is aware. Hence, nuclear testing could once again commence as early as sometime this year. This would be blatant defiance of the United Nations\u2019 ban on North Korean nuclear testing, and therefore North Korea subjecting itself to a continuation of the strict sanctions placed upon it by the United Nations as the declared punishment for this behavior. North Korea\u2019s missile testing increased significantly over the course of January of this year, which has then given rise to the suspicion that North Korea might be developing Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) that would exacerbate even more their threat to the Asia Pacific region of the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a country under a dictatorship such as in North Korea, everything comes down to the individual level. It is Kim Jong Un\u2019s decision to advance North Korea\u2019s nuclear program that has caused the country to continue such aggressive actions. In 2018 when the Punggye-ri testing facility was suspended from use, North Korea was in the process of receding from further expansion in their nuclear technology. Moreover, North Korea had installed a general pause not just at the Punggye-ri site but on the nuclear program as a whole as a way to lessen the damage inflicted by sanctions on the economically isolated country. This was a temporary state of progress: in 2019, this policy made somewhat of a complete about-face when efforts to push denuclearization in North Korea were halted and Kim Jung Un himself declared that he would not be enforcing denuclearization or the suspension of their nuclear program. This was largely a result of talks between Kim Jung Un and Donald Trump in 2019 that failed to negotiate a new plan for denuclearization and instead was taken by Kim as a sign that the west was alleviating some of the pressure that it had previously placed on North Korea as backlash for their nuclear weapons development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, in connection with our International Relations class, I would assert that this is yet another instance of a tension between the Intergovernmental Organization that is the United Nations and a single state actor that is North Korea where both are pushing against each other in a contest to see who will push the hardest before the other concedes. In 2018, the UN sanctions finally gained ground when North Korea committed itself to a moratorium on its nuclear program and the power of the UN seemed to be winning out. However, now it is clear that North Korea still believes it can withstand sanctions brought down upon it by the UN which indicates that, since there is not much more that the UN can do, it will likely take more than an IGO to complete their denuclearization goal in North Korea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/construction-spotted-nkorea-nuclear-test-site-first-time-since-2018-report-2022-03-07\/ Ever a hanging threat, the North Korean nuclear program is one of the most unpredictable, and therefore frightening, in the world. The current closest estimate of nuclear weapons possessed by North Korea is anywhere from 30 to 40 weapons, which is still causing worldwide alarm despite this being the smallest arsenal out of the nine countries in the world… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":220,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/220"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4921,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4920\/revisions\/4921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}