World War III set to start? North Korea's Kim Jong Un issues nuclear threat after US- South Korea wargames, joins Russia's Putin in nuke sabre rattling

Time of India

8 hours ago

Fresh tensions began simmering in the Korean Peninsula after North Korean leader
Kim Jong Un
said his country needed to rapidly expand its nuclear arsenal after the US and South Korea started a joint military exercise. The region has been a flashpoint ever since the 1953 Korean War, which, in theory, continues, as the two warring sides never signed a peace deal.
Kim Jong Un's threat signals that North Korea is gearing up for a war with its southern neighbor, which could quickly spiral out of control and draw in major powers like the US and China. The world is already witnessing two major wars—the Russia-Ukraine one since February 2022 and the one in the Middle East, where Israel has been pounding its neighbors relentlessly since October 7, 2023, after the Hamas terror strikes.
While speaking about the nukes, Kim Jong Un called U.S.-South Korea military exercises an "obvious expression of their will to provoke war," state media KCNA reported on Tuesday.
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South Korea and its ally, the United States, kicked off joint military drills this week, including testing an upgraded response to heightened North Korean nuclear threats. Pyongyang regularly criticizes such drills as rehearsals for invasion and sometimes responds with weapons tests, but Seoul and Washington say they are purely defensive.
The 11-day annual exercises, called Ulchi Freedom Shield, will be on a similar scale to 2024 but adjusted by rescheduling 20 out of 40 field training events to September, South Korea's military said earlier. Those delays come as South Korean President Lee Jae-myung says he wants to ease tensions with North Korea, though analysts are skeptical about Pyongyang's response.
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The exercises were a "clear expression of ... their intention to remain most hostile and confrontational" to North Korea, Kim said during his visit to a navy destroyer on Monday, according to KCNA's English translation of his remarks. He said the security environment required the North to "rapidly expand" its nuclear armament, noting that recent U.S.-South Korea exercises involved a "nuclear element."
After Putin, now Kim Jong Un calls for boosting nuclear weapons
Kim Jong Un joined the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin in issuing a nuclear threat after he claimed that North Korea needs to rapidly expand nuclear arms. Putin has increasingly used the threat of the Russian nuclear arsenal to pressure the West over its military and diplomatic support for Ukraine following Russia's invasion in February 2022.
As part of this campaign of nuclear pressure, Moscow has placed its weapons on heightened alert, tested and deployed new nuclear capabilities, threatened to resume nuclear testing, and suspended participation in a key nuclear arms control treaty with the US, according to the UK Parliament's House of Commons Library.
In December 2024, Belarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko said that his country is hosting dozens of Russian nuclear weapons and will prepare facilities for the planned deployment of Moscow's newest hypersonic ballistic missile, according to the news agency AP.
His remarks came after he and President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty that gave security guarantees to Belarus, Moscow's closest ally, including the possible use of Russian nuclear weapons to help repel any aggression.
The pact followed Moscow's revision of its nuclear doctrine, which for the first time placed Belarus under the Russian nuclear umbrella amid the tensions with the West over the conflict in Ukraine.
Will the Korean Peninsula see a war after Russia-Ukraine and the Middle East?
Starting with Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and then later the rise of tensions in the Middle East, the world has to date seen a massive trail of destruction and loss of resources. In October 2023, Hamas launched an attack on Israel from Gaza, leaving at least 1200 killed, including children and women. The attack later escalated as both countries traded attacks, pounding each other with rockets and missiles.
The Middle East remained on the boil after the Israel-Hamas war, after Israel got involved in a proxy war with Iran. It is also known as the Twelve-Day War, which began on June 13 and ended on June 24. It was an armed conflict in the Middle East fought amid the Gaza war and its broader regional spillover.
China-North Korea partnership a headache for the US
China has been supportive of North Korea in several ways, be it economically or diplomatically, helping it resist US-led sanctions. North Korea faces wide-ranging US sanctions, including export bans, asset freezes, and secondary sanctions on its trade partners. The alliance between North Korea and China creates a buffer zone against US influence in East Asia. Beijing is also a concern for Washington, as it is the second-largest economy and is witnessing constant growth in terms of technology and trade, among other things.