V. Bradley Lewis, associate professor, philosophy, published commentary in National Catholic Register on just war theory and the current threat posed by North Korea.
"It has been widely reported that the outgoing Obama administration told the incoming Trump team that their most urgent problem would be North Korea. They were not exaggerating.
"North Korea is probably the worst political regime on the planet: The vast majority of its 25 million inhabitants are best described as inmates. While the communist monarchy has worked hard to keep itself thoroughly isolated, reports trickle out, often from defectors, of horrific atrocities perpetrated by the regime against its own people.
"For the outside world, however, and especially for the new U.S. administration, North Korea’s significance is tied to its increasingly frantic pursuit of nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them. Since 2006, Pyongyang has conducted five underground nuclear tests; the most recent produced an estimated yield of 30 kilotons (about twice as powerful as the bomb detonated over Hiroshima) in September 2016."
Continue reading the National Catholic Register commentary.