While on Tuesday VP Harris and former president Trump were squaring off in a debate which only touched on foreign policy a couple of times, and briefly related to Ukraine and Gaza, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un issued statements vowing to "exponentially" boost the nation's nuclear arsenal.
Kim gave a speech marking the 76th founding anniversary of his government at the start of this week. He said that a nuclear overhaul is needed to defend the country from "hostile" forces and that North Korea faces "a grave threat" as a result of the "reckless expansion" the United States-led military bloc in the region.
North Korea will "redouble its measures and efforts to make all the armed forces of the state, including the nuclear force, fully ready for combat," he sated.
In particular Kim was reacting to a new US-South Korean defense agreement signed in July. The new agreement allows for the integration of US nuclear weapons and South Korean conventional weapons to defend the peninsula from the nuclear-armed north if need be.
Pyongyang has been seen as engaged in heightened nuclear saber-rattling over the last year, especially following the US decision to at times park a nuclear submarine at South Korean port. The north has also frequently condemned joint US-South Korean military drills, which it denounces as "invasion rehearsals".
Seoul and the West at this point are deeply worried that the north could renew banned nuclear tests. The last known North Korean nuclear test was in 2017.
Regional analysts have pointed out that these warnings of 'exponential' increases in nukes began in 2022. Yang Uk, a research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, has been cited in international reports as saying, "From the end of the following year, they started to mention 'exponential increases'," - he said in reference to the 8th Party Congress held in 2021.
"We believe that by 2027 North Korea can secure enough nuclear material for about 200 warheads and by 2030, this can reach 300," Yang added.
