North Korea releases video threatening strike on DC, if provoked

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea released a propaganda video on Saturday that depicts a nuclear strike on Washington, along with a warning to “American imperialists” not to provoke the North.

The four-minute video clip, titled “Last Chance,” uses computer animation to show what looks like an intercontinental ballistic missile flying through the earth’s atmosphere before slamming into Washington, near what appears to be the Lincoln Memorial. A nuclear explosion follows.

“If the American imperialists provoke us a bit, we will not hesitate to slap them with a pre-emptive nuclear strike,” read the Korean subtitles in the video, which was uploaded to the YouTube channel of D.P.R.K. Today, a North Korean website. “The United States must choose! It’s up to you whether the nation called the United States exists on this planet or not.”

Such remarks are in line with recent threats and assertions from North Korea about its nuclear and missile capabilities.
D.P.R.K. Today, via Stimme Koreas/YouTube

The North recently threatened a nuclear strike against Washington in retaliation for new United Nations sanctions, which were imposed this month to punish North Korea for its most recent tests of a nuclear device and a long-range rocket.

The new video mostly chronicles what it calls “humiliating defeats” suffered by the United States at North Korea’s hands over the years, including the North’s capture in 1968 of an American ship, the Pueblo, and the shooting down of an American helicopter in 1994.

It goes on to depict a barrage of artillery, rockets and missiles — including a submarine-launched ballistic missile, which North Korea recently claimed to have successfully tested — and it ends with the American flag in flames.

Hatred for America has long been a prominent theme in North Korean propaganda, and as the North’s nuclear and missile programs have advanced in recent years, a sense of empowerment through those weapons has become another key element of the messaging.

The video released Saturday is not the first of its kind. North Korea released one in 2013 that showed Lower Manhattan being bombed, and another soon afterward that showed President Obama and American troops in flames.