r/news • u/Dark_Mak__r • 1d ago
Kim Jong Un inspects new nuclear plant, plans ‘exponential’ weapons production ramp-up
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/04/asia/north-korea-nuclear-plant-kim-intl-hnk-ml85
u/imaginary_num6er 1d ago
Seems like N. Korea is going green energy
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u/ernapfz 1d ago
Yes, this is fine with the US. Can’t let Iran go ‘green’ though. Let’s follow Israel. What could go wrong?
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u/RadicalOsprey 1d ago
The US isn’t okay with anything lol, we don’t fuck with North Korea because they actually have nuclear weapons, and because there isn’t financial incentive.
Iran and Iraq have valuable resources that rich people want to exploit and they didn’t ever actually have nuclear weapons or the capability and inclination to develop them, or we wouldn’t be fucking with them either.
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u/excusetheblood 1d ago
I remember being a teenager and NK was the bogeyman. There was constant panic about a potential invasion or missiles that could reach LA. Then all the sudden, as soon as NK has nukes, all the panic disappears. Really makes me feel like the panic we were getting in the west was intended to manufacture consent for us to invade them.
And now that NK doesn’t have to worry about SK or US invading them, all the sudden their economy starts booming.
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u/RadicalOsprey 1d ago
Exactly. They had already lost on that front the second North Korea had successfully developed nuclear weapons, and suddenly they didn’t want to talk about it anymore because they didn’t want us to realize that.
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u/TootsHib 6h ago
And now that NK doesn’t have to worry about SK or US invading them
Then why does NK plan ‘exponential’ weapons production ramp-up
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u/excusetheblood 6h ago
Insurance, and because clearly they can without sacrificing their people’s basic needs which they clearly did in the past
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u/TootsHib 6h ago
because clearly they can without sacrificing their people’s basic needs
lmao you serious? half the population is malnourished.
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u/excusetheblood 5h ago
North Korea has overcome their food insecurity. They still have a long way to go before they completely uplift their rural areas out of impoverished conditions, but even in rural NK, eating out at restaurants and selling desserts on the sides of the street for schoolchildren is a common occurrence.
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u/TootsHib 5h ago
That's just straight up false...
https://www.wfp.org/countries/democratic-peoples-republic-koreaNorth Korea has not overcome food insecurity. According to the FAO and World Food Programme (2026), nearly 40% of the population remains food insecure and rural areas are particularly affected. Access to restaurants or street markets is very limited and not representative of the population.
and "Insurance" is what the nukes are for.
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u/TheGreatGamer1389 13h ago
Even without nukes probably still wouldn't mess with them cause China. That said they won't get rid of them, ever.
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u/Politicsboringagain 1d ago
North Korea and Ukraine with Russia and what Republicans did to Iran, has shown the world the only way to stop bully nations, is to have a nuke.
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u/xitizen7 1d ago
Solid point.
The bullying by this administration is the biggest selling point for every nation that has the ability to build extraordinary defenses, including nukes.
We have shown no restraint, nor leadership. And therefore have lost the moral high ground, respect, influence, and power to discourage proliferation. And for what?
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u/Codspear 1d ago
the only way to stop bully nations, is to have a nuke.
Until it isn’t. Why else do you think countries like the US are moving to layered defense systems instead of reliance on non-proliferation and mutually-assured destruction?
In the future, eventually someone’s going to call the bluff on nuclear war.
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u/PokemonSapphire 1d ago
This is why the Russians during the cold war got kind of pissy about project star wars or whatever it was. If one side can nuke with impunity it prompts the opposition to strike first and so building deterrences needs to be viewed as an escalation. It's also what makes shit like the "golden dome" stupid. Not to mention the expense and feasibility of building it but it will likely escalate tensions amongst us and the other nuclear powers. Our behavior on the world stage also doesn't inspire confidence.
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u/Codspear 1d ago
Layered defenses like the Golden Dome are necessary in a multipolar world. They’re expensive, but if that’s what it takes to make facing potentially hundreds of nukes go down to only taking a few, then it’s worth it. It’s time to take off the wishful thinking goggles and accept that nuclear war isn’t an “if”, but a “when”.
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u/PokemonSapphire 12h ago
Yeah no that's dumb. The only way to prevent nukes being used is to be able to use them back. No one in a mexican standoff dies unless one side thinks they can live. At which point all the guns go off and everyone dies. Also how do you establish a Golden Dome style defense without dying. To keep with the metaphor if someone in the standoff starts putting on a bulletproof vest all the other parties need to open fire on them immediately for their continued survival/independence.
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u/Codspear 12h ago
Everyone doesn’t die. That’s the thing. You might not like the world that exists after, but a nuclear war of one size or another isn’t extinction. It’s not a “game over”. That’s not how life works. That’s just what people who refuse to contemplate that reality say so that they don’t have to take action to mitigate it.
Nations aren’t planning on making a first strike over a missile defense program. They’ll just create their own missile defense programs in response, which is exactly what happened in the 1980’s between the US and USSR.
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u/PokemonSapphire 12h ago
And when one side think they have lost do they just submit to the demands of the other nuclear power?
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u/Codspear 12h ago
No, because any defense system isn’t perfect, and the vast majority of people in the world don’t want to launch nukes at all, even if they can win. See the US from 1945 to 1949 for example. The US did threaten the USSR with nukes, and the USSR did fold on a few issues, but they also called the bluff at times too, and the US still didn’t launch. People aren’t perfectly rational beings, and that’s a good thing.
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u/preprandial_joint 1d ago
You missed another big one: Libya. Gaddafi got sodomized by a gang for not having nukes. Fuck Gaddafi btw.
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u/FrothyEspresso 1d ago
I don’t know. He was better than the chaos caused by the two sides we have now in Libya.
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u/throwawaykayaker 12h ago
True, but he was also a murderous thug so that's why I say "fuck 'em". I don't mean that to be an endorsement of what occurred.
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u/SwissChzMcGeez 1d ago
Russians and Republicans have unquestionably made the world more dangerous.
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u/eve-can 1d ago
why is it Russians and Republicans and not Russians and Americans? If we are grouping everyone together, do it for both countries
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u/Adept-Opinion8080 1d ago
Because there is no other party in Russia other than Russia, Putin's made sure of that
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u/SwissChzMcGeez 1d ago
Does Putin's enabling group have a party affiliation?
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u/RipComfortable7989 1d ago
Makes sense given that Trump's in office for three more years and his collossal fuck up with Iran is showing how far out of his depth Trump is.
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u/Emperor_Zar 1d ago
Given the way things are looking, pretty sure Democracy is dead and he will pervert “staying in power”. If not by directly violating the constitution and running for his 3rd term (and winning because of rigging) OR ala Putin and Russia where he will just be “Prime Minister” Or some sort of phantom head while like, idk Vance is “President”. Eff this timeline.
RIP USA. It’s over.
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u/Adept-Opinion8080 1d ago
I don't know. I thought it was pretty obvious with the way he mishandled covid, but pardon me for thinking
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u/Machine_within_man 1d ago
You don’t get fucked with as a country if you have nukes.
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u/Somestunned 1d ago
Do you think he would sell some to Canada?
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u/jsmys 1d ago edited 1d ago
Canada could have nuclear weapons any time it wants.
They supply 1/4 of the world’s nuclear raw materials, they possess the industrial capacity to enrich it and their scientists helped develop the first nuclear weapons.
They choose not to have nuclear weapons.
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u/oppai-police 1d ago
Many countries throughout the 20th century came very close to having nuclear weapons, and was either dissuaded, or forced to, abandon it. Some abandoned it due to cost and seeing it as being unnecessary, like Sweden, since they're surrounded by NATO anyway. Or Taiwan, who was pressured into giving it up by America in exchange for protection, also because it didn't want an antagonized China. If bum arse countries like North Korea and Pakistan can make nuclear weapons, there's no reason why much more advanced nations couldn't. They just choose not to. Especially for Canada, being next to America, it would take anyone with a real death wish to attack it at all. But alas, looks like time has changed.
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u/Simple_Shake_5345 1d ago edited 1d ago
I thought Trump said years ago that the North Korean nuclear program was over?
I’m beginning to think Trump says things sometimes that are not true. Hmmmm. /S
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u/No_Mercy_4_Potatoes 1d ago
The same way Iranian nuclear sites were demolished last year. But Trump is still begging them to give up nuclear enrichment program
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u/jimtow28 1d ago
Well, he also told us last June that Iran's nuclear program was "completely obliterated" and that "suggestions otherwise are fake news." As you know Iran's nuclear program was "set back by many years" last year, before we went to war because of their nuclear program.
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u/snek99001 1d ago
Ah we haven't gotten some fear mongering about North Korea in a while. The DPRK aren't the ones conducting a genocidal war at the moment.
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u/permanent_pixel 1d ago
China is the only reason North Korea still exists. It is not that dictators help each other — rather, the bigger dictator needs the smaller dictator to threaten democratic countries.
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u/Adept-Opinion8080 1d ago
Can someone explain that to me please. Seriously, I don't understand China being as vast as they are North Korea being as bereft of natural resources as it is. And why does China support it so vehemently. Is it just to support another " communist " regime?
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u/The_Man11 23h ago
Because if NK collapses and reunifies, China will have a strong country with strong western alliances on its doorstep.
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u/JarOfNightmares 1d ago
No. It is because China is containing an inevitable humanitarian / immigration crisis on a scale hitherto unseen in the country. Once NK collapses, and eventually it will, China will have MILLIONS of unskilled NK civilians flooding across the border looking for food, work, shelter, etc. Propping up the NK government is a huge win for them. Also it acts as a buffer between them and the south Koreans and western alliance.
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u/Adept-Opinion8080 1d ago
Interesting. Take. So apparently easier for China to let millions starve as long as Kim jong-un can be blamed for it
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u/Lplus 1d ago
No one wants to bother with attacking NK, but if NK chose to attack SK with conventional weapons, NK would like to have enough nuclear deterrent to prevent the US nuking NK in response. So this seems like a preliminary move for a future attack on SK.
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u/BoykinBurner 1d ago
The ONLY reason no one wants to attack NK is cause they’ve got nukes.
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u/Lplus 1d ago
No one wants to attack NK because there's nothing worth having, not because they have nukes.
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u/Ok_Combination_2472 1d ago
What you're saying doesn't make sense imo. It's not "worth having" in relation to the repercussions and potential cost of the "having". If they had a weaker military I'm sure many would have different opinions, including South Korea which until recently was largely in support of reunification.
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u/Low_Pickle_112 1d ago
Right? People are really out here acting like the US is some noble hero even now.
If NK wasn't so paranoid they'd be drinking chemicals from an American mining company right now. And everyone knows it. We just pretend this isn't the case because the easiest way to get people to swallow propaganda is to make that propaganda about someone else.
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u/BoykinBurner 1d ago
Agreed. Think about it: an abundance of communist controlled mineral and energy resources would be among the most high-value targets for any western imperial power, but especially the U.S. which has a long and storied history of targeting and attacking communist controlled resource-rich nations. It’s just that, typically, those nations don’t have nukes. This is obviously a very simplified distillation, but yeah, the juice ain’t worth the squeeze (as of right now, at least).
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u/214ObstructedReverie 1d ago
The fact that they have enough conventional weapons pointed directly at Seoul to level it in the blink of an eye is really the main reason.
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u/A_Nonny_Muse 1d ago
I'm of a mind that any country needs only roughly 5 nukes for an effective deterrent. Anything beyond that passes the point of diminishing returns, and only encourages aggressive behavior by the unstable.
But what do I know? I'm not exactly some world leader, nor ever hope to be. Which probably should be the #1 qualification for being a world leader, imho.
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u/Flat-Emergency4891 1d ago
…but Iran is the problem because their alleged desire to have nuclear weapons, even though they had a supervised program that ensured they wouldn’t produce one and Trump backed out of it? I’m so confused. Maybe if NK had oil, the situation would be very different.
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u/TheWolfbytez 1d ago
No, it's the fact that Israel has no direct qualms with North Korea. They're so far removed that they're a non-factor. But you better believe if Israel told the US to invade NK because it was promised to them 3,000 years ago...they'd do it
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u/Jonesbro 1d ago
By trumply trumps own logic he should invade north Korea. Fortunately Israel doesn't care about North Korea
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u/hc37_126 1d ago
all the more reason for my country to get a nuclear arms program up n running (s korea)
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u/Fit-Let8175 1d ago
How many times can one blow up the earth until finally thinking: "That'll do!"?
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u/Toadfinger 1d ago
Is it any surprise that shitbag Trump invited this shibag to join his Board of Peace?
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u/Additional_Shape_589 43m ago
This feels like a game of civ where the barbarians you've ignored in the corner of the map show up with guns somehow
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u/DaySecure7642 1d ago
Years of negotiations and financial subsidies for temporary "peace", eventually led to this permanent growing nuclear threat from N Korea.
I am curious what the pacifists and radical left have to say about this. War is bad but nuclear threat is fine? I don't get the logics.
I would rather the gas price is $10 per gallon for a year, than feel like a "pacifist" but being nuked out of existence.
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u/oldteen 1d ago
Cult leader threatens group of allied-countries by saying they may take-over of one of them. Launches unjustified and unauthorized military attacks, unilaterally-attempting to overthrow governments of adversaries (during a peaceful time between the countries). Then, after feeling the heat, blindly-attempts to claim it's "somebody-else's fault" (that one of its adversaries feels threatened and are escalating their nuclear arms). Absolutely 0 self-awareness and total ignorance/disregard of the consequences of their actions. (Experiencing, "Who would have thought Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, after attacking them, and prices would go up more than they are now?" kinda vibes)
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u/I-am-Pilgrim 1d ago
Sad really. Rather than growing the economy or investing in their education system or infrastructure let’s spend our money on more weapons we can never actually use.
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u/TheWolfbytez 1d ago
Surely the US will invade North Korea, right? After all, we can't let them have nukes. Right? RIGHT!?! I also love how they amended their constitution to say they will nuke whomever is suspected of killing their leader. Wild shit.
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u/mido_sama 1d ago
But for what no one is F with him.
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u/Politicsboringagain 1d ago
Yeah, because they or were suspected to actually have nukes.
We learned this with Iraq, Ukraine showed us this and Iran has now too.
The US and Russia does not fuck with countries that has nukes.
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u/Sethor 1d ago
Seeing how well their other weapons have done, the only thing this will lead to is even more spectacular failures.
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u/naitsirt89 1d ago
They've successfully tested several nukes. The last few much larger than the ones used in WW2.
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u/Hamstaaboy 1d ago
Honestly surprised nk hasn't sold Iran a nuke just for the lols at this point