The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, known as North Korea

President Obama is reported to have told President-elect Trump that his biggest foreign policy issue was likely to be North Korea. Testing a missile after Trump was sworn in, this prediction quickly became reality. The US believes that North Korea is rapidly developing the capability to deliver a nuclear weapon to the West Coast of the US. It already has several nuclear bombs. In US terms, such a development by an adversary will threaten not only its own national security but also that of its allies, Japan and South Korea. Its conventional army already poses an immediate threat to Seoul, the capital of South Korea and its industrial areas.