Siegfried Hecker, a prominent scientist with direct experience in North Korea's nuclear facilities, argues that ever-tightening financial restrictions by the U.N. and individual countries have spurred leader Kim Jong Un to carry out a basic reorientation of North Korea's diplomatic posture.
"In the past year and a half or so, Kim Jong Un has made a fundamental strategic decision to give up a 30-year effort of all three [North Korean leaders] to seek normalization and instead to go back to China and to Russia," Hecker said at a news conference on Tuesday.
Hecker is the former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. Between 2004 and 2010, he made seven trips to North Korea to inspect nuclear facilities there.
In response to such North Korea's development of nuclear weapons, international bodies such as the U.N. tend to issue condemnations and seek to tighten sanctions to make it more difficult for Pyongyang to make the money needed to fund its weapons programs.
Hecker argues that these measures to isolate Pyongyang have backfired. "The bottom line is that North Korea has a very threatening nuclear program in spite of these sanctions," Hecker said, adding, "The sanctions have actually worked the other way around. Sanctioning the economy, I believe, has turned North Korea more toward China."
North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and its most recent such test in 2017. Since then speculation has simmered over when another test, which would be Pyongyang's seventh, might be carried out. On Monday, North Korea's state media claimed that the country's nuclear program had reached "the world's strongest level."
Hecker added that, according to his assessment, the North has been technically ready for the past two years to carry out a nuclear test. He said that the reason that test has not gone ahead is due to a "political or policy reason," not a technical shortcoming.
Last week, the North Korea affairs website 38 North published an analysis of satellite imagery showing new activity at the country's main nuclear production base. The images indicate renovation of existing uranium conversion facilities and the construction of new buildings, 38 North said.
The report said the purpose of the new buildings is not clear but "the activity is consistent with broader efforts to modernize and upgrade the country's fissile material production capacity to support the expansion of its nuclear weapons programs."
Also, in September, state media announced a "tactical nuclear attack submarine" that Pyongyang said marked a "new chapter" for the country's navy.
But there are signs that international sanctions are hurting North Korea financially. Last week, reports emerged that the country will shut down diplomatic outposts in Angola, Hong Kong, Spain and Uganda. Experts say the closures indicate both a shortfall of funds caused by sanctions and a more decisive turn toward traditional allies China and Russia.
Hecker believes that with North Korea deeply isolated, prospects for a resumption of talks toward denuclearization are dim. "In the short term, the outlook is very bleak. In the long term, we can have some hope," Hecker said.
"Never say never," he added.