At noon local time on Sunday, North Korea tested its most powerful nuclear weapon yet which caused a 6.3 earthquake and was roughly five times as large as the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan.
The test came hours after North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un claimed that it now had a h-bomb to put onto its long-range ICBM missiles.
This is the first nuclear test that North Korea has conducted while Donald Trump has been President.
President Trump replied with three tweets early Sunday morning saying “North Korea has conducted a major Nuclear Test. Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States.”
Donald Trump Tweet (Twitter)
Trump continued, “…North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success.”
Donald Trump Tweet (Twitter)
Trump’s conclusion tweet, “South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!”
Donald Trump Tweet (Twitter)
Last month President Trump threatened, twice, to bring “fire and fury like the world has never seen” to North Korea if it continued to threaten the United States with nuclear missiles.
That threat was the latest in a constant back and forth between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R1VVc1nGgM
Read: North Korea claims it has H-Bomb for its ICBM long-range missiles
China condemned the test and said that it “resolutely opposes and strongly condemns” the launch and test. South Korea also condemned the test.
The United States Geological Survey measured the earthquake by the underground nuclear test at 6.3.
The test’s timing seems to be timed to coincide with the opening day of a summit that China was hosting. The summit, hosted by China’s President Xi Jinping brought together BRICS countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa together to discuss a range of issues.
The AP is reporting that Japan is deliberating a pre-emptive strike:
TOKYO (AP) — Japan is debating whether to develop a limited pre-emptive strike capability and buy cruise missiles – ideas that were anathema in the pacifist country before the North Korea missile threat.
With revisions to Japan’s defense plans underway, ruling party hawks are accelerating the moves, and some defense experts say Japan should at least consider them.
Japan has a two-step missile defense system, including interceptors on destroyers in the Sea of Japan that would shoot down projectiles mid-flight and if that fails, surface-to-air PAC-3s on land.
In a pre-emptive strike, by Japanese definition, cruise missiles, such as Tomahawk, fired from destroyers or fighter jets would get the enemy missile clearly waiting to be fired, or just after blastoff from a North Korean launch site, before it approaches Japan.
