North Korea, the evolution of a nuclear state

On September 28, in an address to the Supreme People’s Assembly, the North Korean leader declared a significant shift, stating that “[t]he DPRK’s nuclear force-building policy has been made permanent as the basic law of the state”. Emphasizing the imperative to “push ahead with the work for exponentially boosting the production of nuclear weapons and diversifying the nuclear strike means and deploying them in different services”, Kim Jong Un laid out an ambitious nuclear agenda.

This pronouncement garnered widespread international media coverage, with headlines echoing the integration of North Korea’s nuclear status into its Constitution« La Corée du Nord inscrit son statut d’État nucléaire dans sa Constitution », Le Monde avec AFP, 28 septembre 2023.. Remarkably, Pyongyang managed to capture Western attention without making any truly new announcements, showcasing its adept communication strategy.

North Korea stands out as a unique entity, being the sole state to conduct nuclear tests in the 21^st century, the only non-nuclear-weapon state to develop nuclear armament after joining the NPT, and the only nation to declare its withdrawal from the NPT. The country boasts a considerable arsenal of nuclear fuel plants, reactors, reprocessing facilities and research establishments, possibly possessing several dozen nuclear weapons.

The purpose of this article is to provide a brief history of North Korea’s nuclear program, highlighting key dates and recent developments. This contextualization aims to offer insights for understanding and analyzing the ongoing proliferation crisis amid international condemnations and sanctions, especially in the face of looming concerns about a potential seventh nuclear test on the Korean peninsula.