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North Korea has a military nuclear weapons program and, as of 2024, is estimated to have an arsenal of approximately 50 nuclear weapons and sufficient production of fissile material for six to seven nuclear weapons per year. North Korea has also stockpiled a significant quantity of chemical and biological weapons. In 2003, North Korea withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Since 2006, the country has conducted six nuclear tests at increasing levels of expertise, prompting the imposition of sanctions.
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The United States is known to have possessed three types of weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. As the country that invented nuclear weapons, the U.S. is the only country to have used nuclear weapons on another country, when it detonated two atomic bombs over two Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. It had secretly developed the earliest form of the atomic weapon during the 1940s under the title "Manhattan Project". The United States pioneered the development of both the nuclear fission and hydrogen bombs. It was the world's first and only nuclear power for four years, from 1945 until 1949, when the Soviet Union produced its own nuclear weapon. The United States has the second-largest number of nuclear weapons in the world, after the Russian Federation.
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Beginning in the mid-1930s, Japan conducted numerous attempts to acquire and develop weapons of mass destruction. The 1943 Battle of Changde saw Japanese use of both bioweapons and chemical weapons, and the Japanese conducted a serious, though futile, nuclear weapon program.
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The Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), better known by its French name Centre D'Etudes et de Recherches Scientifiques (CERS), is a Syrian government agency that has the goal of advancing and coordinating scientific and military research activities in the country. It works on research and development for the economic and social development of Syria, especially the computerization of government agencies. It is considered to have better technical capacity and equipment than the Syrian universities. Jane's Information Group Intelligence Services and other analysts believe it is responsible for research and development of nuclear, biological, chemical and missile technology and weapons, including ballistic missiles, as well as advanced conventional arms.
The Iran–Israel proxy conflict, also known as the Iran–Israel proxy war or Iran–Israel Cold War, is an ongoing proxy conflict between Iran and Israel. In the Israeli–Lebanese conflict, Iran has supported Lebanese Shia militias, most notably Hezbollah. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran has backed Palestinian groups such as Hamas. Israel has supported Iranian rebels, such as the People's Mujahedin of Iran, conducted airstrikes against Iranian allies in Syria and assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists. In 2018 Israeli forces directly attacked Iranian forces in Syria.
The United States chemical weapons program began in 1917 during World War I with the creation of the U.S. Army's Gas Service Section and ended 73 years later in 1990 with the country's practical adoption of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Destruction of stockpiled chemical weapons began in 1986 and was completed on July 7, 2023. The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense (USAMRICD), at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, continues to operate.
Syria's chemical weapons program began in the 1970s with weapons and training from Egypt and the Soviet Union, with production of chemical weapons in Syria beginning in the mid-1980s. For some time, Syria was believed to have the world's third-largest stockpile of chemical weapons, after the United States and Russia. Prior to September 2013 Syria had not publicly admitted to possessing chemical weapons, although Western intelligence services believed it to hold one of the world's largest stockpiles. In September 2013, French intelligence put the Syrian stockpile at 1,000 tonnes, including Yperite, VX and "several hundred tonnes of sarin". At the time, Syria was one of a handful of states which had not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. In September 2013, Syria joined the CWC, and agreed to the destruction of its weapons, to be supervised by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), as required by the convention. A joint OPCW-United Nations mission was established to oversee the destruction process. Syria joined OPCW after international condemnation of the August 2013 Ghouta chemical attack, for which Western states held the Syrian government responsible and agreed to the prompt destruction of its chemical weapons, resulting in U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry declaring on 20 July 2014: "we struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out." The destruction of Syria's chemical weapons that the Assad government had declared was completed by August 2014, yet further disclosures, incomplete documentation, and allegations of withholding part of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile since mean that serious concerns regarding chemical weapons and related sites in Syria remain. On 5 April 2017, the government of Syria allegedly unleashed a chemical attack that killed 70 civilians. A suspected chemical attack on Douma on 9 April 2018 that killed at least 49 civilians has been blamed on the Syrian Government.
Egypt had a history of weapons of mass destruction and used chemical weapons during the North Yemen Civil War. Although it has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it still remains one of only four countries not to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and has not ratified the Biological Weapons Convention.
Iraq–North Korea relations are relations between North Korea and Iraq. The two states are part of what is called the "Axis of Evil", countries presented by the George W. Bush administration as wishing to obtain weapons of mass destruction and supporting terrorism, along with Iran. Iraq was removed from the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism list in 2004.
References
- ↑ The Spies Inside Damascus Foreign Policy Magazine, BY RONEN BERGMAN, 19 September 2013
- ↑ "Middle East | Deadly blast at Syrian arms depot". BBC News. 26 July 2007. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
- ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 12 August 2013. Retrieved 27 August 2013.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ↑ "The Times & the Sunday Times". Archived from the original on 16 November 2007.
- ↑ "North Korea and Syrian chemical and missile programs - North Korea News". NK News - North Korea News. 19 June 2013. Retrieved 27 February 2018.
- ↑ Schwirtz, Michael (18 January 2018). "U.N. Links North Korea to Syria's Chemical Weapon Program". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 February 2018.
- ↑ John Pike. "Chemical Weapons - Syria". Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
- ↑ John Pike. "Missile Programs - Syria". Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved 5 September 2013.