North Korea said on Monday that a recent joint military exercise by the United States and South Korea showed Washington still intended to threaten it with nuclear weapons, and vowed to strengthen its own nuclear deterrent at a faster pace.
The statement, carried by state media KCNA, came from Kim Jong Sik, a deputy department director in the ruling Workers’ Party. He described the exercise, known as Iron Mace, as a rehearsal for nuclear war aimed at North Korea, and said the United States remained unchanged in what he called its “wild ambition to stifle North Korea with nukes”. He added that such threats were escalating with each passing day.
Iron Mace was held from 29 September to 2 October, according to South Korea’s military. The exercise was designed to integrate American nuclear capabilities with South Korean conventional forces, a combination that reflects how the allies plan to respond to a major attack on the peninsula.
Analysts noted that the choice of messenger was unusual. Kim is a senior official associated with the development and production of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles, a role that has not usually involved setting out the country’s nuclear policy in public. That task has more commonly fallen to the defence or foreign ministry. Yang Moo-jin, a professor emeritus at the University of North Korean Studies, said Kim’s role could be expanding beyond weapons development into nuclear and missile policy.
The statement comes against a backdrop of rising tension between the two Koreas. Relations deteriorated after a border mine explosion in September, and Pyongyang later threatened to resume loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts towards the South by the end of October. South Korea’s military said on Monday, however, that there were no confirmed indications yet that Pyongyang had followed through on that threat.
No new weapons test or timetable was announced in the statement reported on Monday. The vow to bolster North Korea’s nuclear forces more quickly is, for now, a political signal rather than a demonstrated change in capability, and Pyongyang’s characterisation of Iron Mace as a nuclear war rehearsal is its own account; the allies describe the exercise as an integration drill. Readers should also note that this account rests on KCNA reporting via Reuters, with no independent confirmation of the internal deliberations behind the statement.
Note: the featured image is a file photo from a Victory Day military parade in Pyongyang in July 2013, not a photograph of the Iron Mace exercise.
Sources: Reuters, “North Korea says US-South Korea nuclear drill shows need for stronger nuclear deterrent”, 2 November 2026, https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-says-us-south-korea-nuclear-drill-shows-need-stronger-nuclear-2026-11-02/
