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Kim Jong Un amends North Korea's constitution to mandate automatic nuclear retaliation if killed
Posted: Sun May 10, 2026 10:55 pm
by Gunnar
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ki ... r-AA22ONZW
PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA: North Korea has amended its constitution to ensure a nuclear strike is launched automatically if leader Kim Jong Un is assassinated or incapacitated by a foreign enemy. The move was reportedly sparked by the swift elimination of top Iranian leadership during recent US-Israeli attacks on Tehran.
The constitutional revision was approved during the first session of the 15th Supreme People’s Assembly, which opened on March 22 in Pyongyang. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service later disclosed the changes during a briefing to senior government officials on Thursday, May 7, the Telegraph reported.
Andrei Lankov, a Russian-born professor of history and international relations at Kookmin University in Seoul, said the policy may have existed informally before but now carries far more weight because it has been written into the constitution. “This may have been policy before, but it has added emphasis now [that] it has been enshrined in the constitution,” he said.
Lankov pointed directly to the strikes that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several senior advisers at the beginning of the joint US-Israeli operation against Tehran.
“Iran was the wake-up call,” he said. “North Korea saw the remarkable efficiency of the US-Israeli decapitation attacks, which immediately eliminated the greater part of the Iranian leadership, and they must now be terrified.”
Re: Kim Jong Un amends North Korea's constitution to mandate automatic nuclear retaliation if killed
Posted: Mon May 11, 2026 12:47 am
by Everybody Wang Chung
It's sort of a reverse Nephite logic. Pyongyang has determined that it is better for the entire world to dwindle in nuclear unbelief than for one dictator to perish at the hands of his enemies.
Re: Kim Jong Un amends North Korea's constitution to mandate automatic nuclear retaliation if killed
Posted: Mon May 11, 2026 7:35 am
by Some Schmo
I miss the days when world leaders tried to hide the fact that they were immature screw-ups.
Re: Kim Jong Un amends North Korea's constitution to mandate automatic nuclear retaliation if killed
Posted: Mon May 11, 2026 5:40 pm
by Res Ipsa
Isn't it a perfectly natural response to another nuclear power kidnapping or killing the leadership of other countries as a matter of policy. The incentive for non-nuclear powers to obtain and threaten to use nukes has grown immensely over the last 16 months. It's why expecting Iran to permanently agree to stop enriching uranium is insane.
Re: Kim Jong Un amends North Korea's constitution to mandate automatic nuclear retaliation if killed
Posted: Mon May 11, 2026 8:17 pm
by Gunnar
Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2026 5:40 pm
Isn't it a perfectly natural response to another nuclear power kidnapping or killing the leadership of other countries as a matter of policy. The incentive for non-nuclear powers to obtain and threaten to use nukes has grown immensely over the last 16 months. It's why expecting Iran to permanently agree to stop enriching uranium is insane.
I agree! I can't believe that simply assassinating the national leaders of a nation with which one's own nation has a dispute, like Trump and his administration did with Iran's leaders, is or ought to be acceptable under international law. Doesn't international law prohibit state sanctioned assassination of the leaders of rival nations? Isn't that yet another war crime according to the Geneva Convention?
Re: Kim Jong Un amends North Korea's constitution to mandate automatic nuclear retaliation if killed
Posted: Mon May 11, 2026 8:36 pm
by Res Ipsa
Gunnar wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2026 8:17 pm
Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2026 5:40 pm
Isn't it a perfectly natural response to another nuclear power kidnapping or killing the leadership of other countries as a matter of policy. The incentive for non-nuclear powers to obtain and threaten to use nukes has grown immensely over the last 16 months. It's why expecting Iran to permanently agree to stop enriching uranium is insane.
I agree! I can't believe that simply assassinating the national leaders of a nation with which one's own nation has a dispute, like Trump and his administration did with Iran's leaders, is or ought to be acceptable under international law. Doesn't international law prohibit state sanctioned assassination of the leaders of rival nations? Isn't that yet another war crime according to the Geneva Convention?
I'm fairly confident that international law addresses assassinations of national leaders. The Geneva Convention does not. The first three deal with combatants. The fourth deals with certain non-combatants, defined as "protected persons." I don't think the leader or leaders of a country fall within the definition of "protected persons."
Re: Kim Jong Un amends North Korea's constitution to mandate automatic nuclear retaliation if killed
Posted: Mon May 11, 2026 8:57 pm
by Gunnar
Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2026 8:36 pm
I'm fairly confident that international law addresses assassinations of national leaders. The Geneva Convention does not. The first three deal with combatants. The fourth deals with certain non-combatants, defined as "protected persons." I don't think the leader or leaders of a country fall within the definition of "protected persons."
Thanks for clarifying that for me!
I knew you were probably the best qualified here to answer those questions!
Re: Kim Jong Un amends North Korea's constitution to mandate automatic nuclear retaliation if killed
Posted: Tue May 12, 2026 4:14 am
by Philo Sofee
Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2026 5:40 pm
Isn't it a perfectly natural response to another nuclear power kidnapping or killing the leadership of other countries as a matter of policy. The incentive for non-nuclear powers to obtain and threaten to use nukes has grown immensely over the last 16 months. It's why expecting Iran to permanently agree to stop enriching uranium is insane.
And they will have a nuclear weapon if they don't already, and in short order. It is strictly logical now that the United States has become the rogue terrorists of the world picking on and warring against those who do not have nukes. It is world wide incentive for everyone to get nukes and do it very golly gosh damn fast, or the United States and Israel will terrorize you.
Re: Kim Jong Un amends North Korea's constitution to mandate automatic nuclear retaliation if killed
Posted: Tue May 12, 2026 4:54 am
by Gunnar
Philo Sofee wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2026 4:14 am
Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2026 5:40 pm
Isn't it a perfectly natural response to another nuclear power kidnapping or killing the leadership of other countries as a matter of policy. The incentive for non-nuclear powers to obtain and threaten to use nukes has grown immensely over the last 16 months. It's why expecting Iran to permanently agree to stop enriching uranium is insane.
And they will have a nuclear weapon if they don't already, and in short order. It is strictly logical now that the United States has become the rogue terrorists of the world picking on and warring against those who do not have nukes. It is world wide incentive for everyone to get nukes and do it very golly gosh damn fast, or the United States and Israel will terrorize you.
You're right, of course. Trump and the U.S.A.'s attempts to bully and threaten non-nuclear nations (especially ones with Authoritarian type governments like Kim Jong Un) into abandoning all efforts to develop nuclear weapons of their own is probably the surest way to reinforce their determination to acquire them. It is tragic that Trump and others like him are too stupid to realize that.