2017 saw eleven missile tests, the announcement of the “completion” of the DPRK’s strategic forces, and ended with Kim Jong Un’s public condemnation of “ideological poison” created by “anti-socialist phenomena” within the country.

The year began with Kim’s New Year speech, in which he declared that “the project of test-firing an intercontinental ballistic rocket enters into the final stage.”

From February to November, Kim Jong Un’s focus was on this “final stage”: the perfection of the country’s missile and nuclear program, leading to a major standoff with the United States and