It is difficult to penetrate the mind of any dictator, but Mr. Kim is one of the most reclusive. As a result, North Korea experts have had to draw surprising conclusions from his recent actions. Just last week, Mr. Kim told his own parliament that North Korea was abandoning the unification project with South Korea that his father supported. And to drive his point home, he literally tore down the reunification monument that had stood in Pyongyang for decades.
In addition, Kim regularly fires cruise missiles at neighboring countries, successfully deployed a military satellite for the first time, and, according to newly released satellite images, started operating a new nuclear reactor. ing. Some prominent North Korea experts have read these tea leaves and concluded that Kim is gearing up for battle.
“We believe that Kim Jong-un, like his grandfather in 1950, made a strategic decision to go to war,” said respected North Korea scholars Robert L. Carlin and Siegfried S. Hecker wrote earlier this month.
These experts argue that Kim's turning away from diplomacy with the United States and abandoning reunification with South Korea signals a change in his fundamental worldview. That seems correct. But the two experts may have jumped to the conclusion that Kim is actually preparing the people and military to fight.
Rather, Kim's fiery rhetoric and growing threats are designed to distract both the West and his own people from his real priorities: advancing his blossoming partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There is a high possibility that this is intentional. By escalating tensions with Washington and Seoul, Kim can justify using North Korea's money and industry for his arms business rather than feeding his people, says Jenny Town, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center. he told me.
“It creates a nationalist objective to restart the military industry and funnel resources into munitions production,” she said. “You can't start a war if you're sending tons of ammunition and missiles to other countries to support a war.”
Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, Moscow and North Korea have continued to grow closer. Last September, Kim and Putin met in Russia's Far East, toured a space launch facility and ate crab dumplings. North Korea's foreign minister visited Moscow last week. After the meeting, North Korean state media reported that Putin had been invited to Pyongyang and called him “the closest friend of the Korean people” in a passive-aggressive stance toward Beijing.
“We are no longer dealing with North Korea in isolation,” Town said. “We are currently working with Russia to deal with North Korea.”
Both countries deny that North Korea is transferring weapons to Russia, but evidence is mounting. In 2022, North Korea began sending more than 1 million rounds of ammunition to help Russia kill Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials. Recently, Kim has been increasing his transfers to incorporate the latest weapons.
The Biden administration announced on January 4 that Russian forces had fired multiple North Korean ballistic missiles at targets in Ukraine, calling it a “serious and alarming escalation of North Korea's support for Russia.” . At a United Nations Security Council meeting on January 10, the South Korean government said North Korea was using Ukraine as a “testing ground” for its illegal missile program.
In return, Russia has shielded North Korea from any liability and, in fact, now appears to be helping North Korea further its illegal weapons program. Russian support may explain why North Korea has made such recent advances in military satellites and advanced missile systems. More broadly, the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea is slowly but surely undermining U.S. claims that both countries are isolated by Western sanctions.
Worse, every time a Ukrainian is killed by North Korean weapons, it becomes a sales pitch for North Korea's arms industry to an invader with cash on hand. Given the long relationship between North Korea and Iran, it is not surprising that North Korean weapons are also reportedly being used by Hamas today. North Korea's weapons manufacturing business could pad Kim's coffers as demand soars around the world.
In this situation, unfortunately, the US government does not seem to have any creative policy toward North Korea other than finger-wagging. Although the Biden administration has strengthened ties with Japan and South Korea (and between them), alliance management has not gone far enough. At the very least, the State Department should appoint a special representative for North Korea to replace Ambassador Sung Kim, who resigned last month.
What is clear is that Russia, North Korea, Iran, and China are working together to strengthen their combat capabilities in Ukraine and the Middle East for years to come. Leaders in Washington and Brussels cannot even commit to support for Ukraine until next month. Until Western countries recognize how all these conflicts are related, it will be impossible to devise a comprehensive response.