North Korea’s military threats are getting serious |
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People watch a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test at a railway station in Seoul on Jan. 24, 2024. | Jung Yeon-je/AFP via Getty Images |
ANXIETY INDUCED — North Korea’s recent bump in military activity, a fairly common intimidation tactic, has often led to false alarms regarding its intentions. Its latest initiatives, however, warrant close attention. In the past two weeks, North Korea has made several alarming moves: It has warned of a possible war with South Korea, newly rejected its decades-long ideology of unification with the South and cozied up with Russia by supplying missiles for the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. Although the so-called Hermit Kingdom has often used threatening rhetoric and aggression as a means to make demands on the world stage, veteran Korea watchers say these events feel a bit different. And to the alarm of both Washington and Seoul, Robert L. Carlin and Sigfried S. Hecker, both veteran North Korea analysts who have participated in U.S.-North Korea negotiations, published an article earlier this month titled, “Is Kim Jong Un Preparing for War?” — a prospect that would spell disaster for crucial allies to the U.S. “The situation on the Korean Peninsula is more dangerous than it has been at any time since early June 1950,” the two authors wrote. “That may sound overly dramatic, but we believe that, like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war.” Up until now, despite its sporadic belligerence, North Korea’s policy has focused on being acknowledged as a nation worthy of respect and building diplomatic ties with other governments — especially with the U.S. — even as it has leveraged its strained relationships as justification for overwhelming military spending. North Korea’s methods for achieving such respect might have been questionable, but its leaders have always believed normalizing relationships with other democracies would help establish the nation’s place in the world, Carlin told Nightly. Kim’s stark pivot in this strategy suggests one important, and concerning, point: North Korea believes it has exhausted all means for the U.S. and its allies to treat them as economic and defense equals, and they believe the relationship is “hopeless,” Carlin said — even if Donald Trump, who claims he has a cozier relationship with Kim, comes into office. “I suspect that Kim finally decided what I worried about for many years: You cannot deal with the U.S. government. It has nothing to do with the administrations. The U.S. government [as a whole], in their view, is incapable of sustaining a policy,” Carlin said. “Moreover, the U.S., in their view, wants to see North Korea disappear from the face of the earth ... That’s what they think.” A perfect storm of events appears to have created this scenario in the last five years. First, Kim’s failed Hanoi summit with Trump in 2019 was an embarrassment to the dictator and served as the final straw in severing ties with the U.S. Then, in 2021, North Korea saw the U.S. departure from Afghanistan as a sign of America’s global retreat and emboldened Kim to escalate his “anti-imperialist” and “anti-U.S.” stance, according to Carlin. Meanwhile, North Korea saw Russia’s attack on Ukraine as a sign of Kremlin strength, which further explains its cozier relationship with Vladimir Putin. Korea watchers don’t necessarily envision an all-out war that could lead to mass destruction in the Korean peninsula — even Carlin hesitated to predict a situation beyond “significant military action” for now — because the U.S. and South Korea are better equipped with advanced weapons and technology. That difference in firepower has always served as the ultimate deterrence of a major attack from North Korea, and that status quo hasn’t changed. Still, there is a sense of unease about what North Korea’s next move could be, especially given its nuclear weapon stockpile. And even U.S. officials, who have historically been cautious of sounding the alarm, are warning of “lethal” military action against South Korea. |