North Korea — which fired at least 23 missiles into the sea Wednesday, including one landing about 40 miles off South Korea's coast — wants to take advantage of the conflicts going on in Ukraine and elsewhere and show its strength, retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt said on Newsmax Wednesday.
"Well, you certainly don't want to be a fish in those waters," Holt, a Newsmax contributor, said on "Wake Up America." "They are now saber-rattling at each other. North Korea wants now to be recognized by South Korea as a nuclear power. They want their nuclear status recognized by the world."
And North Korea, he added, is "using all this strife in the world, the war in Europe, this new threat of Iran against the Middle East to say, Well, we're here too, and we'll be ready to take advantage of any opportunity that comes from global conflict.
"That's what they're clustering for, just one more thing that we're keeping an eye on what's happening outside of this country."
Wednesday marked the first time a ballistic missile landed near South Korean waters since 1945, when the peninsula was divided; and it was the most fired by North Korea in a single day. South Korea, in response, fired missiles of its own.
Holt also discussed the Pentagon's announcement this week that it sent in weapons experts to Ukraine to inspect the U.S.-supplied arms that are being used in the fight against Russia, as reported by The Hill.
"I want to hold back judgment," Holt said. "I am urging defense leaders and diplomatic leaders in our nation to stand up and talk to the United States and have a conversation about the use of U.S. military force.
"We need to understand where we could have our troops in contact and most assuredly in contact with a nuclear power. It's very scary, and I think we certainly need to know a lot more about that."
He also called a New York Times report that Russian military leaders had discussed the use of nuclear weapons "very serious" because "it means that our intelligence community is willing to give away that we understood that they had these conversations."
"It is a strategy to put that out there to say we know what you're discussing; and hopefully, that alone — telling the world that — deters you from taking those actions. But I still don't hold out much that that's going to be the path for the Russians," he said. "If you look right now, strategically, the war is going in their direction."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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