Background

North Korea, a third world country, has declared war on the United States in 2016. In the beginning, no one really took them seriously since they had extremely poor technology combined with the distance between North Korea and the United States. However, as of recently, North Korea’s latest missile strike missed Japan. Not because it was short of distance, but because it flew over Japan.

On Friday, September 8th, that morning North Korea nearly reached one of their many targets. They launched a preemptive attack with the missile flying over the island of Hokkaido, just a day after Pyongyang said “Japan should be sunken into the sea.”

This is concerning, but what’s even more concerning is that the missile flew 2,300 miles in 17 minutes. This range means that the U.S territory of Guam, a total of 2,100 miles from North Korea, is now in reach.

To make matter worse, in early August, a North Korean spokesman said the country planned on sending missiles in the sea around Guam.

Should We Be Worried?

The natural question right now to ask ‘are we in range? Can we get bombed?’ The short answer would be no, but the long answer is, not immediately.

Currently, North Korea’s radiation is measured to be at approximately 10 to 30 kilotonnes. To compare that, the U.S bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki 13 and 21 kilotonnes respectively. Technically speaking, North Korea may have the potential to bomb us and create heavy damage.

The technicalities out of the way, having a look at Guam, Guam currently has a population of 167, 358. 7,000 of these people are U.S troops. This being said, the potential for thousands of American lives lost, and hundreds of thousands of innocent lives in general being lost is a prominent threat. Not only that, North Korea is located to the west of us. If they are able to continue and advance in their development, they’re will be able to potentially bomb Alaska and some parts of Canada. So while no, we won’t be bombed on the east cost any time in the near future, the threat is very, very real for the western side of America.

What To Expect

Guam is a U.S territory, and because North Korea is now the U.S’s enemy, it’s highly likely Guam is in danger. That would be hundreds of thousands of lives lost to the start of a nuclear showdown. The U.N plans to hold an emergency meeting in an attempt to settle any and all qualms. Trump has announced his plan for the emergency meeting, focusing on confronting North Korea’s Nuclear program.

While the U.N is taking action as of right now, unfortunately, the chances of it not being too late are slim. North Korea has already advanced far enough in nuclear technology in a span of two years to the point they are now able to hit U.S territory. It’s more frightening to even think about the potential damage they can do in another two years time. There isn’t much of a choice at this point as to how to handle North Korea’s advances. At this point, much is unknown about the future of the United States, and possibly the world itself should nuclear war become a nightmare turned into a reality.