North Korea's Threat Of Nuclear Attack

This picture, released Tuesday by North Korea's official KCNA news agency, is said to show a rally by citizens and soldiers to support a statement by the Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army that it will scrap the armistice signed in 1953 that ended a three-year war with South Korea if the South and the United States continue with annual military drills. KCNA / Reuters

North Korea Threat Of Nuclear Attack Predictable But Worrisome -- NBC

Thursday’s announcement by North Korea that it could launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack against the United States in the face of new U.N. sanctions is a predictable escalation of the isolated nation’s increasingly aggressive stance toward Washington over the past year. But experts note that Pyongyang’s recent advances in its nuclear weapons and missile programs mean that such bellicose rhetoric cannot be taken lightly.

The escalation of the North’s oratory began not long after the country’s 28-year-old leader, Kim Jong Un, took over from his late father, Kim Jong Il, on Dec. 28, 2011. It has been accompanied by two space launches – one successful – and a third nuclear weapons test.

It is not unusual for the North to make threats against the U.S., Japan or South Korea. And on occasion -- as in the case of the 2010 artillery barrage of Yeonpyeong Island and an earlier attack on a South Korean gunboat -- it has carried out these threats. It has never taken any military action after threatening the United States, however.

Read more ....

My Comment: Threatening a pre-emptive nuclear attack against the U.S. is something new for the North Koreans. Should we take it seriously .... yes. What should we do .... now that is a good question of which I have no good answers..