This video doesn’t just record the insanity of North Korea and its dictator Kim Jong Un but of the entire geopolitical zeitgeist of 2022. This is peak-level propaganda and the humor in it is only outweighed by the horrific implications it carries.
It’s ludicrous to the point of absurdity yet threatening to a distressing level. Like COVID and its consequent culture-war politics in the U.S. or Putin’s sub-moronic war in Ukraine, it really feels as well stupid to be genuine.
Yet it might additionally wind up killing you before you understand it.
Being a gent of a particular age, the cringy music and also slo-mo take me back to my young people. This is what a B-movie (or straight-to-video) activity flick appeared and looked like in the 1980s. Which makes feeling, as that may be one of the most current direct exposure an outfit as separated as the North Korean leadership has actually needed to American culture.
Either that or this level of manufacturing was all they can pay for after having blown their budget plan on nuclear warheads and ICBMS.
You’re going to see the oppressor himself whip off his sunglasses and stare at the camera as the projectile launches in a minute so suffused with theatrical tough-guy bravado that you’ll come away encouraged the video is an elaborate trolling move, a sh*tpost of epic proportions. It was definitely made with western target markets in mind (“there has been virtually nothing like this on North Korean screens before,” the BBC reports). Whether Kim actually believes he looks bad-ass or is just aping dumb American stereotypes of what looking like a 1980s movie bad-ass involves is completely beside the point. He’s acting regardless, to unintended comic effect.
But the real celebrity (No, not Kim Jong Un) of the show is no joke. That’s a Hwasong-17 ICBM, introduced by North Korea 18 months ago as well as test-fired there for the very first time.
Thursday’s launch was the first full ICBM test by nuclear-armed North Korea since 2017. Flight data indicated the missile flew higher and longer than any of North Korea’s previous tests before crashing into the sea west of Japan. read more
What North Korea calls the Hwasong-17 would be the largest liquid-fuelled missile ever launched by any country from a road-mobile launcher, analysts say.
Its range and size suggest North Korea plans to tip it with multiple warheads that could hit several targets or with decoys to confuse missile defences, they say.
Mobile launchers are crucial for North Korea, which is afraid a U.S. preemptive assault. If their nukes are mobile * and * fitted atop incredibly big projectiles with global range, that’s even more of a trouble.
According to the Japanese Ministry of defense, the Hwasong-17’s range puts the entire continental United States in Kim’s crosshairs. If we assume that North Korea can get it to strike the target, what you’re seeing in this clip is Kim’s ace in the hole should hostilities in between the DPRK and also the U.S. break out.
Ridiculous? Yes. Frightening? Oh, hell yes.
Watch at the very least the first few mins, as that’s the cheesiest part. Although if you ditch out early, you’ll miss out on the slow-motion applause for Kim Jong Un at around 6:30. But at least there’s a silver lining: You do not need to stress over Putin nuking us over Ukraine anymore. North Korea nuking us is far likelier.
H/T Hotair
