North Korea increased its nuclear arsenal after realizing the threat posed by Iran

Kim Jong-un’s speech to North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly last week could have been reduced to a simple “I told you so.”

Since becoming leader in 2011, Kim has made his nuclear weapons program a national goal – almost a doctrine – saying it is the only way for small powers to avoid being “ruthlessly violated” by superpowers.

The current war in the Mideast, he told North Korea’s parliament, proves that the “real guarantee of the existence of the state” is the nuclear deterrent – and he vowed to expand it.

“That’s their life insurance policy,” said former Canadian ambassador James Trottier, who led four official delegations to Pyongyang.

After watching US efforts to force regime change in Iran — and earlier in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan — “it reinforces their belief that they need their nuclear program to survive,” Trottier said.

Kim has made no secret of his nuclear and missile ambitions. This past weekend, official photos included the supreme leader observing the exercises of advanced “military muscle”, a combustion engine designed to carry nuclear weapons to the US mainland.

In early March, Kim made a show of sending 10 ballistic missiles 350 kilometers into the Sea of ​​Japan, protesting military exercises between the US and South Korean forces.

And so went cruise missiles, tanks and artillery, on display in North Korea as the war raged in the Middle East.

Bitter words also came out of Pyongyang, criticizing the US and the “king” of Israel as “violent nations” committing “horrible acts” of war – reminiscent of Iran’s chants of “death to America.”

And yet, there is no major US military campaign against North Korea. There are no loud threats from Washington. There has been no mention of North Korea lately US National Security Strategycounting the dangers of the world.

Iran, by contrast, is called a “major destabilizing power” in the same report.

The US is worried about Iran, but not North Korea

The US and Israel have justified the war against Iran as necessary because they say it has a nuclear weapons program. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls the threat “present.” Without the military, he said, “we will face a nuclear Iran … that will work to destroy us.”

Iran has always insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian purposes only, pointing to a “fatwa,” or religious ban, on nuclear weapons development issued by former Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the mid-1990s.

So why is Iran the target and not North Korea?

That’s because Kim Jong-un already has “solid” nuclear weapons, says Ankit Panda, a geopolitics expert and author. Kim Jong-Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea.

Any attack by North Korea could quickly escalate into dangerous tensions between the two nuclear powers, with Kim better armed than seven years ago, when talks with US President Donald Trump to curb Kim’s weapons collapsed.

North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capabilities are better tested and more advanced than during Trump’s first term.

“They are mature nuclear workers,” Panda said.

Washington-based Arms Control Association measurements North Korea now has at least 50 combined nuclear warheads and enough radioactive material for 70 to 90 nuclear weapons.

Before the US-Israeli campaign against Iran last June, North Korea had 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, but had not yet assembled a nuclear weapon. The system is built in underground shelters, and is largely hidden from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, who said last month that as far as they knew, “Iran had no plan.”

Has Trump lost interest in North Korea?

Nevertheless, the allegations persist. International observers they say Iran could assemble five to eight weapons within weeks. Making that into an arrow would take too long.

“That work has not gone ahead, as far as we know” after a US-Israeli attack on Iran in June 2025, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.

Despite the threat from North Korea, Trump appears to have lost interest in Pyongyang as he has decided to “walk away” from efforts to negotiate and end Kim’s nuclear ambitions with three high-level summits.

That bromance — complete with what Trump called “love letters” between them — may have changed, but there appear to be no hard feelings. Since his reelection, Trump’s only gripe with Kim came when the North Korean leader joined the presidents of Russia and China at a military summit in Beijing last September. Trump called the trio “a center of chaos” in a social media letter.

Washington says Russia gave North Korea “defense cooperation” – including possible technical assistance for its nuclear program – in exchange for at least 10,000 North Korean troops joining Russia’s war against Ukraine.

In the heart of Pyongyang, Kim continues to regularly celebrate his achievements with huge parades, parades of colorful dancers and deadly missiles.

All this despite further UN sanctions and economic hardships endured by the North Korean people – 40 percent of the population is undernourished, said the World Food Programme – because of the hundreds of millions of dollars diverted to nuclear weapons.

Trump has never said why he considers Iran so dangerous — or, at the very least, an attractive target for his military muscle. Its oil storage is probably one factor.

Israel is also reportedly playing a major role, as Netanyahu has been itching to attack for years to stop the regime’s nuclear program, as well as its regular missile threats and funding of a network of opposition groups, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, targeting Israel.

Netanyahu he urged Trump to join him in this. Israel has the military power to be a powerful ally, financed billions a year by Washington – $21-billion US alone since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in Oct. 7, 2023.

North Korean denuclearization ‘off the table’

North Korea can also be considered an existential threat to two of America’s allies – South Korea and Japan – both of which have American bases that host more than 70,000 American troops. Politicians in both countries have thought about arming themselves with their own nuclear deterrents, but it never happened.

Seoul is within 50 kilometers of the nearest North Korean missile site – half the distance from Vancouver to Victoria.

And there is strong evidence Kim has already helped Iran with its weapons program.

“North Korea’s Nodong missile, for example, is a replica of the Iranian Shahab-3,” said analyst Panda.

Even during the Trump-Kim summit four years ago, Kim’s expertise is so reliable that American presidents “will not take the opportunity to attack North Korea in the coming crisis,” Panda said.

But if Trump decides that a military strike is too dangerous, what options does Washington have?

Many experts are urging talks, although Kim will now pursue a more difficult deal after watching how the US has acted against Kim, said Rachel Minyoung Lee from the Stimson Center’s Korea Program.

He says denuclearization of North Korea is now “off the table.”

“If it was possible for there to be a meaningful dialogue between the two countries before what is happening now in Iran, I think the level has gone up a lot. Any future nuclear talks become difficult to continue,” he said.

After last June’s attack on Iran, Pyongyang did by force “recognition of irrevocable position [of North Korea] as a nuclear weapons state” as a condition of any agreement on the limitations of its weapons.

For any country considering building a nuclear deterrent — including Iran — the best way for the US to deal with it is to try to negotiate “very serious nuclear power, and a path to a bomb,” said Kimball of the Arms Control Association.

Even the most successful military campaign “can’t blow up a well-established, well-distributed nuclear infrastructure and the knowledge behind that,” he said.

Iran may now be more willing than ever to arm itself, to fend off future attacks…. as Kim seems to have done.