North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes dominated Asia-Pacific’s geopolitical landscape in 2017, and will loom large throughout the year ahead. Pyongyang is enjoying better returns on each test, with the rest of the world seemingly helpless to resist its self-sponsored application to join the global nuclear club. Its most recent launch involved a powerful intercontinental ballistic missile that, in theory, puts all of America’s major cities within range. Evidence that the regime is mastering the technology needed to guide a missile back into Earth’s atmosphere could emerge in the first few months of 2018.
