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I don’t really follow North Korea (mostly, I try to stay up-to-date on a few countries that begin with the letter “I”), but it seems to me that we are looking at recent events in the wrong context. North Korea is a charter member of the Axis of Evil, and works hand in glove with the other surviving regime of that infamous trinity, Iran. I’ve been writing for years about the intimate relationship between the two, ranging from North Korean assistance in digging tunnels in Iranian mountains and in the Tehran subway system, to Iranian cooperation with North Korean missile...

MOSCOW – North Korea has advised foreign diplomats to consider evacuating their embassies there, in light of increasing tensions in the area, Russian and British diplomats said Friday. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters traveling with him in Uzbekistan Friday afternoon that Moscow was seeking more details about the North Korean statement before making a decision about whether to evacuate. Lavrov said Russia was treating the statement from Pyongyang as a suggestion and not an order.

ROGUE state North Korea today sparked fears that it could trigger a nuclear strike as early as next WEDNESDAY. Crackpot Kim Jong-un’s regime today issued a chilling threat to British diplomats warning them to get out of Pyongyang. Alarmingly the North Korean government said it would not be able to guarantee the safety of embassies from April 10. Russian diplomats have also been advised to evacuate. Today the Foreign Office added that it is “considering next steps” after the threat. It is still unclear why next Wednesday has been set as a deadline – but it is sure to spark...

The most probable outcome of all these tensions is a low-level "tactical" strike from North Korea. But don't worry, it'll be "a relatively small attack that won’t leave many people dead," Sue Mi Terry, a Columbia University professor who served as a senior analyst on North Korea at the CIA from 2001 to 2008, told Wired's Spencer Ackermann.

The most probable outcome of all these tensions is a low-level "tactical" strike from North Korea. But don't worry, it'll be " a relatively small attack that won’t leave many people dead," Sue Mi Terry, a Columbia University professor who served as a senior analyst on North Korea at the CIA from 2001 to 2008, told Wired's Spencer Ackermann. Analysts in the military, political, and intelligence fields have all pretty much said the same thing: Kim Jong-Un has painted himself into a corner, and the only way out is a gunfight. Luckily they also say it won't be World War...

HH: We begin every Thursday when we are lucky with Columnist To the World, Mark Steyn. You can read everything that Mark writes at www.steynonline.com. You can follow him on Twitter @marksteynonline. Mark, one of my favorite Steyn books is The Passing Parade. And I begin today with the sad news, because I liked him, Roger Ebert. He was a left winger, but he was a pretty good movie critic. If you were writing an obit about Roger Ebert, how would it begin? MS: Well, as you say, he was a left winger, but he was a great movie critic...

National Security: The administration moves an advanced missile defense system to Guam because it knows a single low-yield nuke detonated at high altitude could send America back in time a hundred years. The announcement Wednesday by the Defense Department that it would soon deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD), a missile defense system inherited from the Bush administration, to Guam underscores the seriousness of the threat from North Korea, whose actions, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel rightly said, "present a real and clear danger." This move comes after the Obama administration reversed its previous scuttling of Bush administration...

China has placed military forces on heightened alert in the northeastern part of the country as tensions mount on the Korean peninsula following recent threats by Pyongyang to attack, U.S. officials said. Reports from the region reveal the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) recently increased its military posture in response to the heightened tensions, specifically North Korea's declaration of a "state of war" and threats to conduct missile attacks against the United States and South Korea.

WASHINGTON – U.S. officials quietly are expressing concern that North Korea could use its “space launch vehicle” to explode a high-altitude nuclear device over the United States, creating an electromagnetic pulse that would destroy major portions of the U.S. electrical grid system as well as the nation’s critical infrastructures. The concern is so great that U.S. officials who watch North Korea closely are continually monitoring the status of the North Korean “space launch vehicle,” whose status could suggest a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States. They are aware of the three-stage missile North Korea launched last December that also...

AUSTIN, Texas (CBS Houston) – In response to perceived threats against the city from the North Korean government, officials in Austin have said they are willing to do whatever federal officials feel may be necessary to protect civilians. -- Austin city officials are keeping an eye on the situation. “Our regional intelligence center has been staying apprised of the current situation,” City Manager Marc A. Ott told CBS Houston in a statement.

SEOUL — The North Korean army said Thursday it had final approval to launch "merciless" military strikes on the United States, involving the possible use of "cutting-edge" nuclear weapons. In a statement published by the official KCNA news agency, the General Staff of the Korean People's Army (KPA) said it was formally informing Washington that reckless US threats would be "smashed by... cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means". "The merciless operation of (our) revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified," the statement said.

The US is moving an advanced missile system to the Pacific island of Guam as a precaution following threats by North Korea, the Pentagon has said.The Department of Defence said it would deploy the ballistic Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (Thaad) in the coming weeks.Pyongyang has threatened to target South Korea and the US in recent weeks.The state's warlike rhetoric follows new UN sanctions and joint military drills by the US and South Korea.

U.S. to Send Missile-Defense Battery to Guam By JULIAN E. BARNES And ADAM ENTOUS WASHINGTON—The U.S. is preparing to deploy an advanced missile-defense system to defend American military bases in the Pacific, a defensive signal indicating the Pentagon doesn't believe the threat of a possible North Korean attack is likely to fade quickly. The U.S. will deploy the system, known as a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery, or THAAD, to Guam to protect against short- and medium-range missiles from North Korea. It will be the first global deployment of the system. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said North Korea has threatened...

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said Tuesday that the United States had the right to take preemptive military action against North Korea if there was "solid evidence" that Kim Jon Un planned to attack the U.S. or South Korea. "If we have good reason to believe there's going to be an attack, I believe we have the right to take preemptive action," King said on CNN's "Erin Burnett Outfront.""I don't think we have to wait until Americans are killed or wounded or injured in any way," he continued. "I'm not saying we should be rushing into war, don't get me wrong,...

President Obama has a situation on his hands where charisma and media support do him no good. He is dealing with a nuclear-armed regime with a history of military attacks, provocations as a means of extortion, and brutality. Now they have announced they are restarting a reactor that produces enough plutonium to make a bomb a year -- a reactor that had been shut down before as part of a previous deal in which the North Koreans got things of value in exchange for shuttering it. Worse yet, the dictatorship is now in the midst of a possible power struggle....

The moves of the U.S. imperialists to violate the sovereignty of the DPRK and encroach upon its supreme interests have entered an extremely grave phase. Under this situation, the dear respected Marshal Kim Jong Un, brilliant commander of Mt. Paektu, convened an urgent operation meeting on the performance of duty of the Strategic Rocket Force of the Korean People's Army for firepower strike and finally examined and ratified a plan for firepower strike. The important decision made by him is the declaration of a do-or-die battle to provide an epochal occasion for putting an end to the history of the...

Nuclear War to Be Conducted on Korean Peninsula Pyongyang, March 29 (KCNA) -- A nuclear war has turned out to be an established one on the Korean Peninsula. Despite the repeated warnings of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the United States, for the first time, made B-2A fly from Whiteman air force base in Missouri State over south Korea on March 28 to launch an exercise of striking ground targets aimed at the DPRK. Earlier, a formation of U.S. B-52 based in Anderson air-force base on Guam flew to the sky above south Korea and staged nuclear war exercises...

North Korea said on Saturday that it was entering a "state of war" with South Korea, following a call to arms by the country's young leader Kim Jong Un and days of increasingly belligerent rhetoric from the isolated state. The North's official news agency KCNA published the joint statement issued by the government, political parties and other organizations. "From this time on, the North-South relations will be entering a state of war and all issues raised between the North and the South will be handled accordingly," it said. The statement also warned that if the U.S. and South Korea carried...