<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;">North Korea had a record-busting 2022.</span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">It fired more missiles than ever before in a single year. In fact, a quarter of all missiles North Korea has ever launched hit the skies in 2022. It was also the year that Kim Jong-un declared that North Korea had become a nuclear weapons state and that its weapons were here to stay.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This has raised tensions on the Korean peninsula to their highest since 2017, when then US President Donald Trump threatened North Korea with "fire and fury".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nuclear weapons development</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2022, North Korea made significant progress on its weapons. It began the year by testing short-range missiles designed to hit South Korea, followed by mid-range ones that can target Japan.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">By the end of the year it had successfully tested its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile to date - the Hwasong 17, which in theory is capable of reaching anywhere on the US mainland.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mr Kim also lowered his threshold for using nuclear weapons. After announcing in September that North Korea had become an irreversible nuclear weapons state, he revealed that these weapons were no longer designed just to prevent war, but that they could be used pre-emptively and offensively, to win a war.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As the year drew to a close, he gathered the members of his ruling Workers' Party, to set out his goals for 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Top of his list is to "exponentially increase" the production of nuclear weapons. This must include, he said, the mass production of smaller, tactical nuclear weapons, which could be used to fight a war against South Korea.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is the most serious development, according to Ankit Panda, a nuclear weapons expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To make tactical nuclear weapons, North Korea first must produce a miniaturised nuclear bomb, which can be loaded onto a small missile. The world is yet to see proof that Pyongyang has been able to do this. The intelligence community spent most of 2022 waiting for it to test such a device, but the test never came - 2023 may well be the year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Other items on Mr Kim's new year list are a spy satellite, which he claims will be launched into orbit this spring, and a sturdier solid-fuelled ICBM, which could be fired at the US with less warning than his current model.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We can therefore assume 2023 will have a distinctly 2022 feel, with Pyongyang continuing to aggressively test, refine and expand its nuclear arsenal, in defiance of UN sanctions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Indeed, less than three hours into the new year it had already conducted its first missile test.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But, Mr Panda says, "most missile launches in the coming year may not be tests, but training exercises, as North Korea now prepares to use its missiles in a possible conflict".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To make tactical nuclear weapons, North Korea first must produce a miniaturised nuclear bomb, which can be loaded onto a small missile. The world is yet to see proof that Pyongyang has been able to do this. The intelligence community spent most of 2022 waiting for it to test such a device, but the test never came - 2023 may well be the year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Other items on Mr Kim's new year list are a spy satellite, which he claims will be launched into orbit this spring, and a sturdier solid-fuelled ICBM, which could be fired at the US with less warning than his current model.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We can therefore assume 2023 will have a distinctly 2022 feel, with Pyongyang continuing to aggressively test, refine and expand its nuclear arsenal, in defiance of UN sanctions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Indeed, less than three hours into the new year it had already conducted its first missile test.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But, Mr Panda says, "most missile launches in the coming year may not be tests, but training exercises, as North Korea now prepares to use its missiles in a possible conflict". BBC</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>