North Korea's Next Steps

I was struggling with what to say about the increasingly dire situation in North Korea, when I discovered that Sig Hecker did it for me in the Bulletin:

In summary, North Korea is capable of carrying out its threat to restart the Yongbyon plutonium production facilities; however, it is limited to adding roughly one bomb per year to its small arsenal of nuclear weapons. The greatest threat of a restart is that it may embolden Pyongyang to test another weapon in order to improve its arsenal’s sophistication or that it would give it an additional incentive to link up with Iran in a troublesome alliance of nuclear and missile technology cooperation—an action that could further endanger Northeast Asia and the Middle East.

It is one of a very nice series that the Bulletin has compiled.