North Korea Becomes Latest Country to Restart Nuclear Threats

By Sam Dantzler

North Korea has reengaged in nuclear saber rattling over the last few weeks with missile launches into its eastern waters, artillery flashes near disputed zones, and South Korean intelligence warning of North Korean nuclear sites being reactivated on short notice. None of this is happening in a vacuum. The global conversation around nuclear testing has heated up again, thanks in no small part to President Trump’s sudden declaration that he’d ordered the United States to “start testing our Nuclear Weapons… immediately,” and Russia’s own flurry of exotic weapons tests. 

South Korean and US intelligence have been pretty explicit – Kim Jong Un could greenlight a nuclear test whenever he feels the politics align. His regime has already been busy test firing ballistic missiles, extending ties with Russia, and openly pledging to “exponentially increase” its nuclear stockpile. While Pyongyang doesn’t need encouragement to flex its nuclear arsenal, Washington and Moscow both showing signs of escalation certainly doesn’t raise the political threshold for restraint. 

At the same time, it’s important not to confuse talk with policy. Full-scale US explosive nuclear tests remain unlikely, mostly because reopening test sites would be enormously expensive, politically toxic, and strategically counterproductive. Modern stockpile management already relies on computer modeling, not actual physical tests. But the danger is how this talk shifts the norms. 

When Trump frames testing as something the United States should do “on an equal basis,” and Putin toys with novel delivery systems like Poseidon or the Burevestnik, they make it easier for Kim Jong Un to claim that he’s simply keeping pace with the big leagues. The real risk isn’t that North Korea wakes up tomorrow and decides to crater another mountain, it’s that the global guardrails against testing are quietly eroding while the world’s most volatile nuclear state sits ready to act. If the United States and Russia normalize even the idea of testing, Kim gets political cover and China gets strategic justification, an outcome no one should be excited about.