North Korea’s alarmed neighbors

 North Korea’s rapidly advancing nuclear program has prompted politicians in Japan and South Korea to push for the deployment of more powerful weapons, in what could lead to a regional arms race, The New York Times reported.
Some of the new capabilities under consideration in Tokyo and Seoul, Washington’s closest Asian allies, are politically contentious. Adopting them would break with decades of precedent and could require delicate diplomatic finessing. Other military options are already being rolled out or will be soon.
President Trump also suggested on Tuesday that military options were at least under consideration. Using chilling language that evoked the horror of a nuclear exchange, Mr. Trump threatened to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea if it endangers the United States.
Undaunted, North Korea responded several hours later, saying that it was considering a strike that would create “an enveloping fire” around Guam, the western Pacific island where the United States operates a critical Air Force base
In a military policy review published on Tuesday, the Japanese government focused on the threat from North Korea, whose leader, Kim Jong-un, has ordered more than a dozen missile tests this year. Some of those missiles have splashed into waters close to Japan.
“North Korea’s development of ballistic missiles and its nuclear program are becoming increasingly real and imminent problems for the Asia-Pacific region including Japan, as well as the rest of the world,” the government in Tokyo said in its annual defense white paper. “It is possible that North Korea has already achieved the miniaturization of nuclear weapons and has acquired nuclear warheads.”
That bleak assessment is likely to feed a growing debate in Japan about whether the country should acquire the means to launch pre-emptive military strikes — attacks that could destroy North Korean missiles on the ground before they are fired at Japan or other targets. Lawmakers are already pushing for such capacities; acquiring them would amount to a profound change for Japan, whose post-World War II Constitution renounces war.
Even more than Japan, South Korea is working to build its monitoring and striking abilities, including with radar and remote-controlled reconnaissance planes to track and neutralize North Korean missiles in pre-emptive attacks. 

Source: Mena