EVEN as terrorism in Marawi continues to hog national attention, our leaders and policymakers should keep tabs on regional security issues and their impact domestically. If anything, reports of foreign fundamentalists joining local terrorists underscore the overlap between problems here at home and those from abroad.

As far as regional threats come, none loom larger than North Korea. That small pariah state represents the proverbial Achilles heel to the Asian century. The economic gains of Asia, including that of Southeast Asia and the Philippines, in the past few decades could be lost if tension in the Korean peninsula erupts into war or even if it just continues to fester. Granted, North Korea’s threats in the past have been more bluster than real. But two particular advances under the present regime in Pyongyang should worry the world – its development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, and its nuclear weapons program.

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