North Korean state media has been touting new claims of mass enlistments amid "an atmosphere of war" and urgent defense preparedness in response to ongoing joint US-South Korea drills, which are the largest in five years.

Nearly 800,000 people signed up to join the North Korean military in a single day, the country’s state-run media claimed Saturday. The North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun says 800,000 students and workers signed up to fight the U.S. on Friday, just one day after North Korea fired a ballistic missile into the sea between South Korea and Japan. The total number included many North Koreans who sought to re-enlist, the paper noted.

Kim Jong-un has ordered his troops to prepare for an 'immediate and overwhelming' nuclear counterattack against his enemies - as he accused the US of holding aggressive military drills with South Korea.  

He warned that North Korea was ready to launch just hours after commanding his own 'guided' military exercises - which included firing a ballistic missile with a mock nuclear warhead.

Here's What You Need to Know: While Russia’s military is smaller than during the Cold War, it still fields a powerful force of howitzers, multiple rocket launchers and ballistic missiles.

The U.S. Army’s big guns have problems.

The Army’s field artillery is outgunned by Russian weapons. And, it would face difficulties in knocking out entrenched North Korean artillery, or mobile Iranian weapons.

State Department spokesman Ned Price answered a question on North Korea diplomacy today, and his answer unwittingly demonstrated the folly of the U.S. approach:

 North Korea test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile Thursday just hours before the leaders of South Korea and Japan were to meet at a Tokyo summit expected to be overshadowed by North Korean nuclear threats.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Japan on Thursday as Tokyo and Seoul seek to thaw relations, an initiative backed by the US as it seeks to rally its allies in the region against China.

According to Nikkei Asia, the two leaders agreed to bolster cooperation against North Korea and to resume a working-level bilateral security dialogue that has been on a five-year hiatus.

A team of defence scientists in Beijing says it has simulated an intercontinental ballistic missile attack against the United States mainland by North Korea.

The North Korean missile could hit the central US in 1,997 seconds, or about 33 minutes, if the US missile defence network failed to intercept it, according to the simulation.

 North Korea launched a pair of "strategic cruise missiles" from a submarine in the waters off its east coast, state media reported Monday, in an apparent warning as the United States and South Korea kicked off their largest joint military drills in five years.

The missiles were fired from the "8.24 Yongung" submarine Sunday morning, state-run Korean Central News Agency reported. They flew in figure-eight patterns for over two hours and covered a distance of roughly 930 miles before hitting a target in the sea.

North Korea launched two missiles from a submarine in waters off its east coast over the weekend, according to state media, and vowed to take “the toughest counteraction” against the largest joint military drills by the United States and South Korea in years that kick off Monday.