Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Re

Countering the North Korean Threat Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Re

For many years, North Korea's nuclear weapons program has been a concern. In 2016, North Korea conducted two tests of an atomic weapon and 20 separate tests of their intercontinental ballistic missile system, including a test in which a submarine fired an ICBM. North Korea is trying to miniaturize the size of their nuclear weapons in order to fit a nuclear warhead on an ICMB. With each test, the North Koreans learn more about how to perfect their illegal weapons, and with each test our allies in Seoul and Tokyo are reminded of just how dangerous their neighborhood has become. That's why the South Korean Government is moving ahead with the deployment of a THAAD anti-ballistic missile, a purely defensive system. This threat is not limited to Northeast Asia. The best minds working on this problem agree that North Korea is just a few years or even less from a weapon that could reach the United States. There is a critically short period of time left to stop that from happening.