Talk with experts on North Korea's nuclear arsenal, and it soon becomes clear that the biggest threat the world faces isn't an intentional act of evil, but a confluence of stupidity and error. After all, the most frightening close calls during the Cold War started with trivial mistakes — a dropped socket from a socket wrench, for example, or a training tape put in the wrong computer.
With nine missile tests just this year, North Korea is quickly advancing the range of its nuclear weapons. The distance record goes to a missile called the Hwasong-12, which was launched May 14. It traveled about 800 km, but on a steep trajectory that demonstrated the power to have gone more than 3,800 km.
Some experts, such as Jeffrey Lewis of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, say that missile had an innovative design and showed evidence of real engineering competence, while others, such as German aerospace engineer Markus Schiller, aren't so sure. Experts also disagree about how close North Korea is to being able to strike San Francisco or Washington, or whether the United States should negotiate a deal to prevent this from happening. But they do tend to agree that the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, is unlikely to launch an unprovoked attack, since the retaliation would obliterate his country.