Who has crossed the Styx?

The North Korean nuclear issue is in the realm of despair that seems to have already crossed the Styx, but I won’t let go of the strand of hope that he will not become Pyongyang’s Prometheus.

CHUN SU-JINThe author is the head of the Today-People News team at the JoongAng Ilbo. An image came to mind while watching the movie “Oppenheimer.” It is a photo of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s field guidance, released by the Rodong Sinmun on March 9, 2016. Kim is confidently pointing at a ball-shaped object. If North Korea’s claim is correct, it is a miniaturized nuclear implosion detonator that can be loaded on ICBMs and can reach the continental United States.

In “Oppenheimer,” there is a scene in which physicists of the Manhattan Project put pentagonal and hexagonal high explosive lenses together into a spherical shape. It is the predecessor of the implosive device the North Korean leader proudly presented.

The nuclear bomb was named Fat Man, a result of assembling 32 high explosive lenses. It destroyed Nagasaki, Japan. Assuming that North Korea’s claim is true, the implosive device it unveiled in 2016 is estimated to have been made of about 72 high explosive lenses. Kim might have seen the movie with more excitement than anyone else.

“Oppenheimer” cannot be just a blockbuster movie for us, who were born and live south of the 38th parallel on the Korean Peninsula. America’s nuclear bombs brought liberation to Korea in 1945, but we in the South in 2023 are living with the North’s nuclear weapons over our heads. The fact that we are not aware of the scary reality is even scarier.

North Korea’s nuclear materials and nuclear capabilities have only increased since 2016. South Korea has only repeated its pendulum movement and political strife whenever the administration changes — without a consistent North Korea policy. The contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plants is serious, but many people become mum on the North Korean nuclear threat and human rights issues. In the meantime, Kim Jong-un appeared on the site of a missile test, holding the hand of his 10-year-old daughter and pretending to be the head of a normal country. He likes to call a ballistic missile a “military reconnaissance satellite.”

Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) is said to have blamed himself after the successful atomic bomb test, reciting a verse from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita. “Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.” I want to tell Kim Jong-un — who dreams of being a destroyer of the 21st century and extending the life of the dictatorship — what Oppenheimer said. In the book “American Prometheus,” he confessed that it was a very dangerous idea to believe that having a nuclear bomb can save the country and win peace. The North Korean nuclear issue is in the realm of despair that seems to have already crossed the Styx, but I won’t let go of the strand of hope that he will not become Pyongyang’s Prometheus.