He vowed to continue work on his wish list of weapons, while noting that South Korea was doing the same by building up its defence force in recent years. This is Mr Kim's way of telling those criticising his arms programme that they are hypocrites. He wants Pyongyang to have the right to build up its military - just like Seoul.
Yet, just days earlier he urged his officials to focus on improving the lives of North Korean people as they face a "grim" economic situation. With limited funds and under strict economic sanctions, can he really build an "invincible" force and help his people?
North Korea is banned from testing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons by the UN. It has repeatedly flouted these bans and has been heavily sanctioned as a result. Last month, the UN atomic agency said North Korea appeared to have restarted a reactor which could produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, calling it a "deeply troubling" development.
North Korea has always maintained that it needs to continue developing weapons for defence. But observers say it is also being used as a way to rally the impoverished country. North Korea is thought to be in dire economic straits after authorities shut borders to stop the spread of Covid Since then, the United States has maintained a significant troop presence in the South; it now has about 28, troops there. Supporters say such a declaration could help build trust with North Korea.
Detractors say, at best, it would only be a formality, and, at worst, could undermine the U. Vincent Brooks, the former top U. Many experts predicted an end of war declaration would be announced at the summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, between former U.
Instead, the meeting ended abruptly when the U. Broader U. Since then, North Korea has refused to talk with the United States, despite repeated offers from the administration of President Joe Biden.
But in order to have that conversation, you've got to have that conversation. Some analysts have questioned whether the Biden administration is proactive enough in pursuing talks with Pyongyang.
Should there not be transparent and credible national accountability processes, the High Commissioner calls for an independent international investigative mechanism. The High Commissioner stressed the urgent need for sustained, inclusive political dialogue with the genuine intention, on all sides, to reduce tensions, to protect civilians to avoid more civilian suffering, and further damage to civilian objects and essential infrastructure, and find peaceful solutions to the underlying disputes between the parties.
Allegations of violations and abuses documented after 28 June the cut-off date of the joint report. The following weeks saw the conflict spread into Afar and Amhara regions amid advances by Tigrayan forces, resulting in further displacement of civilians, increased humanitarian needs and food insecurity, and disruption of livelihoods.
This update offers a brief survey of serious human rights violations and abuses committed since the end of June up to the present, based on both remote and physical monitoring, including a mission to Sudan in July to interview Ethiopian refugees.
On 18 October, three boys, who were looking after cattle, were killed and eight other civilians injured when airstrikes hit farmland 15km from Mekelle.
In another incident on the same day, seven civilians were injured following airstrikes near a market in Mekelle. On 28 October , an airstrike reportedly launched by the ENDF killed six civilians, including two children, and injured some 24 others. The airstrike caused extensive damage to property, with the parties again offering conflicting accounts as to its military justification. If the US were no longer willing to defend Seoul, then South Korea — which has no nuclear weapons of its own — would be a lot easier to invade and defeat.
But how do you break up that alliance? Being able to credibly threaten to destroy New York or Washington definitely helps. North Korea has missiles capable of reaching the West Coast and is thought to have nuclear warheads that would fit on top of them.
They could destroy a major nuclear city. If Kim decides the answer is no, using a nuclear weapon against South Korea no longer seems crazy or suicidal. It starts to seem rational. And one particular South Korean city starts to seem like the likeliest target. That was widely seen as an implicit threat to use nuclear weapons against the South Korean port city of Busan, which would play a vital role in any Pentagon effort to build a force big enough to defend the South or to lead a preemptive strike on the North.
The US currently has around 28, troops stationed in South Korea and would need to deploy hundreds of thousands more if war broke out with the North. The US would also have to send in thousands of additional tanks, armored personnel carriers, bombers, fighter jets, helicopters, and artillery pieces. That means the vast bulk of the US troops and equipment would need to come by boat, a laborious process that could take six weeks or longer to complete. The American ships would unload at Busan, and the best way for Kim to destroy those ports — and significantly slow US efforts to send in enough troops to make a difference in the fight — would be to nuke the city.
Bruce Klingner, a year veteran of the CIA who spent years studying North Korea, told me that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had stood by in as the US methodically built up the forces it used to invade the country — and oust Hussein — the following year. We also have to prepare for the fact that if the US and North Korea do actually come to blows, China will get involved — and not in the ways that either Washington or Pyongyang might expect.
Things would get really complicated, and really dangerous, once Chinese troops made their way to the nuclear facilities. The problem is that Chinese troops would almost certainly be sent into North Korea at the same time, and with the same goal, as the US forces. Are we going to shoot at each other or shake hands?
But Beijing would be intervening to protect its own interests, not those of the US. In this, and this alone, a war with North Korea would bear some similarities to the war in Iraq. All of which is to say that China, like Iran, would be trying to stabilize postwar Korea on its own terms, not those of the US. Most, like Jung Pak, a former North Korea analyst for the CIA, believe that Kim is a rational leader who has been careful during his years in power to walk right up to the edge without going over it.
He knows how to dial things up, but he also knows how to recalibrate and dial them back down. Pak and others note there have been some recent, fragile signs of diplomatic progress.
North and South Korea just announced plans for their athletes to train together in advance of the Winter Olympics and enter the opening ceremonies as one team, under the flag of a reunified Korea.
The North and South Korean governments are holding ongoing talks, and South Korea and the US agreed to postpone new military exercises until after the Olympics, a move widely seen as a goodwill gesture to North Korea. King continued :. Joseph Dunford, who was testifying at the session, if the US and North Korea had any direct lines of communication that could be used to defuse a tense situation before it spirals out of control.
Maybe next week Kim will test-fire a missile that flies too close to Guam or Hawaii and Trump will decide enough is enough. With no lines of communication, a simple mistake could set off a cascading series of responses that ultimately lead to all-out war.
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