Tensions soared as Pyongyang tested a record number of missiles in 2022 - what comes next?
Seoul correspondentIt fired more missiles than ever before in a single year. In fact, a quarter of all missiles North Korea has ever launched hit the skies in 2022. It was also the year that Kim Jong-un declared that North Korea had become a nuclear weapons state and that its weapons were here to stay.
Top of his list is to "exponentially increase" the production of nuclear weapons. This must include, he said, the mass production of smaller, tactical nuclear weapons, which could be used to fight a war against South Korea. One line of thinking is that he is waiting until he has maximum leverage. Not until he has proven beyond doubt that North Korea is capable of inflicting destruction on the US and South Korea, will he return to the table, to negotiate on his terms.Instead, over the past year, North Korea has drawn closer to China and Russia.
He re-started large-scale joint military exercises with the United States, against which the North protested and launched more missiles. This set off a tit-for-tat cycle of military action, which has involved both sides flying warplanes near to their border, and firing artillery into the sea.In his new year address Mr Kim vowed to exponentially increase the production of nuclear weapons
Then in May 2022, North Korea admitted its first outbreak of the virus, but mere months later claimed to have defeated it.
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