North Korea: The next Armageddon?

Iran isn’t the only Axis of Evil ally in pursuit of a nuclear arsenal to ensure regime survival. North Korea –– long since far ahead of Iran –– is already there, and the threat is getting worse.

Speaking in Seoul, South Korea, Rafael Grossi, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned that the North Korean threat is rapidly increasing. The rogue state, he said, is making “very serious” advances in its capacity to add to its steadily growing nuclear arsenal.

The Federation of American Scientists –– a nuclear watchdog group founded in 1945 by Manhattan Project scientists and engineers –– estimates that North Korea, as of early 2026, has assembled an arsenal of 60 nuclear warheads.

Grossi is basing his risk assessment on satellite-confirmed increased activity at the Yongbyon Nuclear Science and Weapons Research Center –– the country’s primary nuclear facility located in Nyŏngbyŏn, 100 miles north of Pyongyang.

Its 5 MW nuclear reactor, he said, is “capable of producing six kilograms of plutonium a year that can be used by Pyongyang to continue expanding the size of its nuclear weapons stockpile.” 

David Albright, the founder of the Institute for Science and International Security, assesses that North Korea needs about 4 kilograms of plutonium — a baseball-sized chunk — for a plutonium-only nuclear warhead.

Yet, as Grossi observed, it is the other activity at Yongbyon that is more alarming. This suggests that North Korea is expanding beyond plutonium-only and simple highly enriched uranium fission warheads toward more efficient composite-core designs, which mix plutonium and uranium in a single stage.

Additionally, Pyongyang is likely pursuing a smaller number of true two-stage thermonuclear weapons capable of far more powerful........

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