This is bad news for the numerous U.S. and UN Security Council sanctions aimed at restricting North Korea's imports and exports, restricting financial transactions, and eradicating illicit cyber and cryptocurrency activities. Mr. Putin has little interest in Western sanctions and is desperate to obtain ammunition and missiles from Mr. Kim's stockpile. The White House announced earlier this month that North Korea is already sending intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine. Kim also reportedly shipped more than 1 million artillery shells to Russia.
It's unclear exactly what Mr. Putin will offer North Korea in return, but it could send much-needed supplies such as oil or advanced Russian weapons technology. Last week, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui visited Moscow, and Russia reiterated its determination to develop relations with North Korea in all areas, including “sensitive” areas. North Korea said Putin may visit Pyongyang at an unspecified “early date”.
President Biden has not shown much interest in Kim. At this point, he has little influence. The best option is long gone. China may eventually put the brakes on Kim's actions, but the United States must first stabilize relations with China.
In fact, Kim appears to have given up on negotiations with the United States after his 2019 summit with President Donald Trump in Hanoi failed. The United States has repeatedly said it is open to negotiations to denuclearize the Korean peninsula that could ultimately lead to the lifting of sanctions. However, Kim insists he will not abandon his country's nuclear program, which is estimated to contain between 20 and 60 nuclear warheads.
Diplomatic deadlock has left the United States and South Korea eager to shore up deterrence through regular military exercises. Last year, the United States deployed nuclear submarines to South Korea for the first time since the 1980s. Mr. Kim responded with further threatening actions, including tests of solid-fuel ballistic missiles and nuclear-capable submarine unmanned vessels.
Adding to these concerns, North Korea experts Robert Carlin and Siegfried Hecker warned on January 11 that Kim had “made a strategic decision to go to war.” They wrote on the Stimson Center's website 38 North: “We don't know when or how Kim intends to pull the trigger, but the danger is already clear from Washington, Seoul, and Washington regarding North Korea's 'provocations.' “This is far beyond the regular warnings in Tokyo.” Their argument is based on South Korea's official announcements, which they claim add significant “war preparation themes.” They added: “Evidence over the past year shows that the situation may very well be reaching a point where worst-case scenarios must be seriously considered.” In a rebuttal, Thomas Schaefer, a former German ambassador to North Korea, said that Mr. Kim was repeating the old threat-negotiation cycle and deliberately creating tensions in order to push for a tough deal if Mr. Trump returned to office. I wrote that it is increasing the
As tensions rise, the United States needs to prepare for either possibility. A modest military confidence-building agreement reached between North and South Korea in 2018 collapsed in November last year. Kim last week called for changes to North Korea's constitution that would declare South Korea an enemy, and formally abandoned the idea of peacefully reunifying the two halves of the peninsula. “We don't want war, but we won't avoid it,” Kim said, according to North Korea's state news agency.
Moon Chun-in, a professor emeritus of international relations at Seoul's Yonsei University and a former presidential aide, said in an interview published by the Hankyoreh, a South Korean news outlet, that he does not see war as imminent, but that the country could fall into conflict. He said he was concerned about this. A coincidence or a miscalculation. “An unintended conflict could escalate into regional, all-out war, or even nuclear war,” he said.
North Korea is now an established nuclear power and continues to expand its stockpile of missiles and other technologies such as hypersonic gliders. Kim could use this growing muscle for influence and threat, as he has in the past. Or maybe the rattling of his saber portends something worse. The United States can hope that Kim's latest provocations will lead to further outrage. But the Biden administration should be more serious about its plans.