North Korea and Kim Jong Un’s nuclear escalation, explained

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest in years following a missile launch the previous year by North Korea – and a more aggressive posture by South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol.

In 2022, North Korea launched at least 95 missiles – more than the previous year – and fired another short-range missile on New Year’s this year, according to the New York Times. The test is a product of several factors, including North Korea’s domestic politics, as well as the rapid and extreme deterioration of diplomatic relations between Kim Jong Un’s regime and the US-South Korea alliance since the failed 2019 summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, between Kim and former President Donald Trump.

Since Yoon’s inauguration in May 2022, the South and the US have pursued a tit-for-tat strategy to deal with the North, pursuing joint military exercises that the North considers provocative, and even sending unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Pyongyang afterward. one of the North’s own drones buzzed Seoul, the capital of South Korea.

Although the 2018 resolution between the North and the South prohibits military hostilities between the two countries, both sides have been involved in a dramatic increase of forces over the past few months which, due to the lack of diplomatic efforts, can increase the possibility of grave miscalculation and direct conflict from one of the parties .

Explicit threats from Kim, as well as increased missile tests, show that North Korea is interested in demonstrating a reliable deterrence capacity and trying to manage internal instability. And the South took a hard line and projected its own power — sometimes at odds with the interests of the U.S., its military allies in particular.

Due to the vows of both countries to increase their military capacity, the chances of peace on the peninsula appear to be fading. Furthermore, the US – which maintains a troop presence in the South – is not doing enough to prevent conflict and encourage diplomacy to prevent miscommunication, according to Ankit Panda, Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“The United States should do more to raise concerns about allies’ defense plans and postures that could increase the risk of escalation,” which would certainly hurt the U.S.

What exactly is North Korea’s plan?

Kim announced last week his intention to build up “massive military power,” including a focus on producing short-range tactical nuclear weapons to target the South, as well as long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, that can reach the US mainland, among other innovations. Kim’s announcement, and Yoon’s suggestion that the South and the US will hold joint nuclear weapons drills, have brought the nuclear threat into focus.

As Panda told Vox via email, Kim’s policy announcement is not exactly new, “but more of a fleshing-out of a fairly well-articulated and constant nuclear strategy.” Kim and his predecessors have always seen the South and the US as existential enemies; new policy announcements and missile tests only make the North’s nuclear threat more real and feasible. “The objective has not changed: They still have the right to use nuclear weapons first to prevent an attack on their territory,” Panda said.

Instead of the ambiguous threat of nuclear power, the North is now adding energy to tactical nuclear weapons that can be used in battlefield scenarios, or to repel perceived attacks from the South.

The increased focus on solid-fuel missiles also indicates an intention to rapidly deploy missiles, as they are pre-provisioned and highly mobile. Developing solid-fuel missiles has been Kim’s priority since at least the Party’s plenary session in January 2021. Kim conducted a successful launch of a solid-fuel rocket motor – which can be used on ICBMs or submarine-launched missiles – in December.

“They have identified solid propellant ICBMs as a special focus for this year,” Panda said, stating, “we should expect to see large-diameter solid propellant missile tests as well as solid propellant ICBMs this year.”

Missiles are just one delivery vehicle – and only one facet of the nuclear threat. The North’s nuclear arsenal also depends on its ability to develop warheads – missile payloads.

The North’s nuclear weapons development is difficult to track due to the secretive (and illegal) nature of the work, but missile tests, Kim’s announcements, and satellite imagery help analysts understand how far the Kim regime is building mass weapons. destruction.

The North has not conducted a nuclear test since September 2017, but experts told Vox that all signs point to a seventh at any time — and even an eighth soon after, Panda said.

The North’s two main nuclear sites are the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center, which houses a uranium enrichment facility, and Punggye-ri, the country’s only nuclear test site.

Yongbyon continues to operate, Joseph Bermudez, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies told Vox. “We see train cars coming in and out, we see a lot of damaged buildings and work to update other buildings, we see activity in and around the reactor and also in and around the centrifuge plant,” he said, but without thermal imaging, it’s impossible to say what the activity is sing.

As for Punggye-ri, the test site, “it’s been really quiet for the last few months,” Bermudez said. However, the US and South Korean governments said they believed a nuclear test could be carried out “any time if Kim Jong Un decided,” they said, adding that footage from earlier in the week “showed tracks in the snow indicating the movement of vehicles.”

“We believe someone is checking,” although given the facility’s position — one of the entrances is shielded by a steep hillside and the angle of the sun — it’s hard to tell who and what is going in and out. North also tends to move equipment and vehicles under cover of clouds and in the dark, further concealing these movements from outside observers.

Bermudez established that the North “is not only validating the missile design, but may be refining it,” and that repeated missile tests show “new systems are online and deployed to units.”

However, for Kim to use nuclear missiles or launch an invasion of the South would be a death sentence, both for his military and his regime. And increased missile tests and activity around nuclear facilities can provide only limited information about the North’s real capabilities.

But the fear that a nuclear-capable North Korea could affect its enemies also serves a purpose; for all the tests and parades, Kim’s nuclear weapons are more advanced than ever, but they are not finished. What Kim is exhibiting may not yet work militarily, “but it certainly has the potential to work forcefully,” Bennett said.

Nuclear escalation on the peninsula has as much to do with internal politics as with foreign affairs

Kim may feel wary of engaging in diplomacy with the US or South Korea because of the breakdown of peace talks with former President Donald Trump, Toby Dalton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie endowment for International Peace told Vox in a previous interview. The process culminated in a humiliating fiasco in Hanoi, Vietnam, when Trump tried to push for full denuclearization in return for an end to the decades-old US sanctions regime.

“[Kim] took some risks in terms of domestic constituencies in terms of pursuing that diplomacy – and then it fell apart and I was embarrassed by that,” said Dalton. From the North’s perspective, “he refused to rely on South Korea or the US to engage in diplomacy,” he told Vox, and the parties involved disagree on what the diplomacy will entail.

“It’s no surprise that the inter-Korean dynamic is the way it is today,” Panda said. “We have seen this pattern in previous conservative governments in Seoul. That said, the [North’s] The weapons development plan is expected to go ahead regardless of the outcome of South Korea’s 2022 election.

Internal politics, especially in the North, favored a muscular response – at least in the eyes of Kim and Yoon.

In the North, for example, “even the elites are having trouble,” according to Bruce Bennett, a researcher at the RAND Corporation. Some members of Kim’s leadership and inner circle have reportedly been purged; “[Kim’s] has been quite brutal, and not only with ordinary people – also with the elites. Internal struggles, such as consistent fuel and food shortages, pose a serious threat to Kim’s leadership, and in an authoritarian government, the only way to deal with internal struggles is to blame external enemies.

“What does Kim need to manage internal instability? What he needs is to appear strong,” so the rhetoric rose from him and his sister and adviser, Kim Yo Jong. Tests, threats, and military parades help the elite say, “Wow, we’re strong, [Kim] as a good leader, he made us strong,” Bennett said, easing the pressure on Kim himself.

South Korea does not face the same internal problems; has the support of the US and a strong military and economy. Public opinion polls suggest that South Koreans may see China – not the North – as their main enemy in the future. Still, Yoon has pursued “strength for strength” tactics, as opposed to former President Moon Jae-in’s pursuit of concessions and conciliation to achieve a negotiated outcome. While Yoon’s response may have reassured South Koreans that they are being defended by the North, it will not do much to sway Kim, Bennett said.

“[Kim] appears to be trying to split the US-ROK alliance “to isolate the South and demonstrate some form of dominance on the peninsula by clearly focusing on short-range weapons that can only reach the South and ICBMs that are only useful to the US,” Bennett said.

Yoon claims that the US and the South are discussing a joint nuclear exercise as “a good example of where allies can take ahead of where the United States is ready to go,” said Panda. The Biden administration is focused on repairing relations with allies after “the brutal treatment that US allies have received at the hands of the Trump administration,” Panda said — but that approach could backfire.

Instead, Biden needs to be clearer with regional allies — including Japan, which is seeking to remilitarize after decades of minimal defense spending — about US limits and goals regarding the North. Just as importantly, the US and its allies should use diplomatic channels to try to reduce the risk of miscommunication and miscalculation while they still can.

“I would like to say that there is room for diplomacy,” Bermudez said, but given the situation, “it seems that room is very narrow.”