North Korea: Who's Most At Risk?

North Korea’s sinister announcement that it will launch ‘thousands-fold’ revenge against the U.S. in response to its tough UN sanctions have re-ignited fears over the nation’s potential as a nuclear threat.

North Korea has been showing an unprecedented amount of nuclear activity in recent months, and amid the furore, we ask: who is most at risk from North Korea?

The country possesses a number of different intercontinental ballistic missiles, with varying ranges and capabilities.

The Nodong missile has a range of 1,300km and can reach South Korea, Japan and Eastern China, whilst the Musudan has a range of 2,000km and can target Japan, China and Russia.

Perhaps the most worrying, however, is the Taepodong 2.

The missile has a huge potential range of roughly 8,000 km, although it has never achieved this distance in testing.

However, if it does, it has the ability to reach much of America and even parts of Europe.  

Although many have suggested that the missile tests are simply a deliberate attempt to intimidate the nations within their reach, there’s no doubt that their recent increase in frequency is cause for concern.

As it currently stands, the nations most at risk are South Korea, Japan, and the U.S.

And if North Korea miscalculated one of its many tests, South Korea is directly in its firing line.

It is, of course, the only rival of the nation’s with a land border, meaning that in terms of proximity it is far closer than any of Pyongyang’s other targets.

The tension between the two countries is long standing; although separately governed since the 1950s, each side maintains claims to the other.

This year, relations between Japan and North Korea have also reached an all-time low after one of Pyongyang’s ICBMs landed in Japanese waters during recent testing.

Since the 1940s, when North Korea proclaimed itself a state, relations between Pyongyang and Tokyo have become increasingly frosty.

Japan is in close geographic proximity to North Korea, and well within range of the majority of its ICBMs.

The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that the recent test ‘clearly shows the threat to our nation’s safety is severe and real’.

Of course, the U.S. is another of the nation’s big targets.

After the recently agreed sanctions on North Korea, Pyongyang vowed to take ‘righteous action’ against the U.S.

The nations have been hostile towards one another since the Korean war in the 1950s and it was the nation’s potential as a nuclear threat that led to George W. Bush declaring it part of the ‘Axis of evil’ in 2002.

The threat of North Korea only increases as it continues the testing of its ICBMs with the potential to reach American shores.

In response to the threat to U.S. allies and interests, the U.S. military is steadily increasing its forces in the Pacific.

But in terms of hostility and proximity combined, it’s hard to dispute the fact that South Korea are most at risk of a nuclear strike from the North.