CHAPTER ONE BOMB THREAT A missile flies through the air crossing the globe from North Korea to the United States of America It slams into Washington DC its nuclear warhead exploding in a red mushroom cloud and devastating the city and its surroundings Such an act of war seems unimaginable to many Americans But this exact scene played out in a propaganda video posted to YouTube in March 2016 A North Korean website run by the country's government created the video which featured computer animated scenes of a nuclear strike on the United States and a burning US flag The video also showed tests of real missiles and other weapons Some of the Korean text superimposed over the video translates to If the American Anti US propaganda is a feature of daily life in North Korea
imperialists provoke us a bit we will not hesitate to slap them with a pre emptive nuclear strike The United States must choose It's up to you whether the nation called the United States exists on this planet or not Earlier that month the same website had boasted that North Korea had a hydrogen bomb that could wipe out Manhattan If this H bomb were to be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile and fall on Manhattan in New York City all the people there would be killed immediately and the city would burn down to ashes said the article North Korea has made such threats before The country has been promising to wipe out its enemies with nuclear strikes since the late 1990s and early 2000s One of the most regularly repeated threats involves blowing up Seoul the capital city of South Korea In April 2017 a North Korean newspaper stated that the country's army NORTH KOREA NEEDS TO GET THE NUCLEAR WARHEADS DEPLOYED FOR NATIONAL DEFENSE ALWAYS ON STANDBY SO AS TO BE FIRED ANY MOMENT had its nuclear arsenal aimed at US military bases in South Korea on islands in the Pacific KIM JONG UN LEADER OF NORTH KOREA Ocean and on the US mainland
No nuclear strikes have actually occurred And since North Korea has been making threats for decades without acting on them the world tends to shrug off the disturbing videos and articles If you follow North Korean media you constantly see bellicose language directed against the US and South Korea and occasionally Japan is thrown in there and it's hard to know what to take seriously says John Delury of Yonsei University in South Korea However North Korea's threatening behavior goes beyond propaganda The country has also built up a nuclear arsenal and tested weapons technology in violation of international law EXPLOSIVE POWER North Korea's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or the DPRK The country was founded on September 9 1948 Approximately the same size as the state of New York North Korea is located on a peninsula extending from Eastern Asia bordering China to the north and South Korea to the south The leader Kim Jong un heads a communist government that tightly controls its population North Korea's 25 million people are subject to
