Pyongyang’s Foreign Minister boldly accused the US of declaring war yesterday, after US President Donald Trump claimed in a tweet that leader Kim Jong-un “won’t be around much longer”.
The furious North Korean response was branded “absurd” by Washington, but fears of conflict remain.
Earlier on Tuesday the world sat on a knife edge when it was reported that North Korean aircraft were spotted moving to the country’s east coast.
With tensions seemingly about to boil over, one statistician warns the possibility of another “really huge war” is on the table.
Professor Michael Spagat, from the Department of Economics at Royal Holloway University of London, told Express.co.uk how the history of past conflicts and the development of war points towards another mass conflict.
Writing a guest article for Statslife.org in 2016, he said: “The bottom line is straightforward: in light of our sad human history, only a fool would rule out the possibility that we will immolate ourselves one more time.
“If the future world resembles most of human history then we probably will suffer another really huge war.
“Yet there are good reasons to think that humans can make and are making a better future for themselves despite the development of super-powerful weapons.
“Thus, a really huge war is possible but, in my view, extremely unlikely.”
Now a year on from writing his original article, Professor Spagat said things are looking a bit more volatile.
But the good news is that despite this, neither Kim Jong-un nor Donald Trump are “crazy” enough to push the red button, according to the professor.
He said: “The whole 2016 article was a challenge for various reasons but among them was the difficulty in conveying in words a probability that is very low but not zero.
“If I say that I think it’s really really small would you hear 0.001 over the next century? Or 0.000000001? It’s hard to pin these things down.
“I do think that the developments in North Korea move the needle a tiny bit.
“That said, despite how things may appear to some people, we’re talking about fundamentally rational people on both sides.
“Both Trump and Kim Jong-un are very far from being people I like or respect but I don’t think either one is just a crazy person who would like to have a nuclear exchange.”
Yet despite these assurances, the US military is still prepared for the eventuality of war on the Korean Peninsula.
Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that Pyongyang is still a nuclear ticking bomb.
Underlining that Pyongyang would develop a nuclear tipped warhead “soon”, General Dunford said: “North Korea certainly poses the greatest threat today.
“We clearly have postured our forces to respond in the event of a provocation or a conflict.”