70 years on, the first ‘Axis of Evil’ celebrates proliferation in Pyongyang

FPI / August 2, 2023

Geostrategy-Direct

By Richard Fisher

In 1950 it was former Soviet leader Josef Stalin who engineered the first “Axis of Evil,” when in January that year he approved of North Korean Workers Party leader Kim Il-Sung’s plan to invade South Korea.

What are they looking at? From an aft view, the three Axis of Evil representatives are looking at North Korea’s new Hwasong-18 mobile and solid fueled intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), most likely a copy of the Chinese DF-41mobile ICBM. / KCNA

This fateful action then convinced newly victorious Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong to put aside his plans to invade Taiwan and support Stalin’s and Kim’s plans for the Korean war.

Related: North Korea threatens U.S., showcases visiting Russian defense minister, August 1, 2023

While the fighting stopped, that war was not ended by the 1953 Korean War Armistice, so it is with great foreboding that 70 years later, the inheritors of that first Axis of Evil met again and even took to the parade dais.

They came together on July 27, to celebrate the growing nuclear and conventional weapons strength of North Korea, which as in 1953, remains a concentration camp masquerading as a country.

There to celebrate with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un was Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chinese Communist Party Politburo Member Li Hongzhong.

This was the first North Korean parade starring-role appearance by a Russian Defense Minister, who was taken on a tour of North Korea’s new nuclear and conventional weapons exhibit just before the parade, and likely affirmed deals for North Korea to supply more weapons to fuel Russia’s war against Ukraine, like recently-captured North Korean made 122mm artillery rockets.

But the key point in the parade, where all three showed their concentration, was when North Korea’s new Hwasong-18 mobile and solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) rolled by.

This 15,000-km range ICBM is very likely a copy of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation DF-41 ICBM, which is assessed of being capable of lofting up to 10 nuclear warheads.

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