What a war between The United States and North Korea could mean

What+a+war+between+The+United+States+and+North+Korea+could+mean

Devin Morton

United States President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un have had large and well-publicized issues with one another over the course of 2017.

Kim Jong-Un spent the better part of 2017 threatening the United States with nuclear war. According to The Independent, an unnamed North Korean official stated that they “refuse to attempt making peace with President Trump and the US until he has a weapon that can destroy the East coast.”

On August 8, 2017, President Trump threatened to unleash “fire, fury and power, the likes of which this world has never seen before,” if nuclear war were to commence between the US and North Korea. In September of the same year, Trump began to refer to Kim Jong-Un as “Little Rocket Man” and stated that he would “destroy North Korea” if he’s provoked, as per Fox News.

The refusal to make peace makes a nuclear war with North Korea a legitimate possibility, especially since both Trump and Kim Jong-Un have made nothing but threats to each other over the last year.

The United States Air Force tested an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile in August 2017. It was the fourth ICBM test of the year and came shortly after North Korea’s test. The weapon flew 4,000 miles into the Pacific Ocean after being launched, a number that would have likely reached 5,000 had it been a normal launch.

North Korea also tested an ICBM in November 2017, which would reportedly be capable of hitting the United States if it were on a normal trajectory. “North Korea has a missile that can reach the US, but we still have the strongest military in the world,” AFSE freshman Rasec Firmat says.

However, iLearn teacher Ms. Coughlin believes that if nuclear war broke out, “Everyone would be toast! It’d be Chernobyl and Japan almost everywhere on Earth.” The situations she’s referring to are the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 (during World War II) and the Chernobyl power plant accident in 1986.

North Korea’s weapon would be enough to make most of New York City’s Lower Manhattan area, as well as parts of Queens, Brooklyn and New Jersey uninhabitable, according to Business Insider. A United States warhead would make a large part, possibly upwards of 50% of the DPRK, uninhabitable.

According to Alex Wellerstein’s NUKEMAP, the warhead that North Korea tested last year would result in 959,000 injuries and 1.5 million fatalities if it were detonated in New York. For comparison, those numbers would be 1.33 million fatalities and 1.1 million injuries if the United States were to launch the largest bomb in their arsenal, the B-83.

If these two leaders fail to come to an agreement, nuclear war is very likely. Neither country wants this to happen, given the potential damage it could cause. It seems that even though President Trump sees this as a last resort, Kim Jong-Un seems to be using threats to instill a sense of fear into United States citizens.