The Dangers of Overreacting to North Korea’s Provocations

Editor’s Note: On July 16, 2024, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment alleging that Sue Mi Terry had acted as an unregistered agent of the South Korean government. Foreign Affairs requires all contributors to disclose any affiliation or activity that could present a genuine or perceived conflict of interest or call into question the integrity of their work. We take these allegations very seriously.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is once again raising tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Every week seems to bring fresh news of missile tests, as Pyongyang’s range of weapons of mass destruction expands in quality and quantity. At the same time, Kim is issuing new threats of war with South Korea. Denying the kinship between the two countries, he now denounces his neighbor as an enemy state.

There is no doubt that Pyongyang is ramping up its rhetoric and its military provocations. The question, however, is whether Kim is doing this to safeguard his regime and coerce Seoul or if he is planning an impending offensive against South Korea and the United States. In January, Robert Carlin, a former chief of the Northeast Asia Division at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, warned that Kim “has made a strategic decision to go to war.” “The danger is already far beyond the routine warnings in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo about Pyongyang’s ‘provocations,’” they wrote in an article for 38North, a website devoted to North Korean issues. “We do not see the war preparation themes in North Korean media appearing since the beginning of last year as typical bluster.”

Although Carlin and Hecker raise legitimate and serious concerns, they do not present any hard evidence that Kim wants a war. The likelihood is that he does not. Kim knows that a major war with South Korea would surely draw in the United States and would spell the end of his regime. The risk, then, is not that North Korea will intentionally begin a war but that Pyongyang’s saber rattling and regular acts of low-level aggression—including launching missiles into South Korean waters, sending drones toward its islands, and violating borders in the Yellow Sea—could nevertheless start a war by provoking retaliation. To ensure that this does not happen, and that peace holds on the peninsula, Washington and Seoul must send an unmistakable signal of military strength and purpose even as they seek to reestablish communication with Pyongyang.

BEHIND THE BLUSTER

There is nothing new about North Korean leaders issuing threats to Seoul and its Western allies. Kim, who took power in 2011 following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, has regularly done so. But he went further than usual in a speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly on January 15. South Korea, he announced, was “the most hostile” country in the world, and war with it was inevitable. Kim vowed to rewrite the North Korean constitution to label the government in Seoul as his country’s primary foe, and he called for the destruction of various symbols of Korean cooperation, including an unused cross-border rail line and the massive, nine-story monument to the goal of Korean unification that his father constructed in Pyongyang.

Kim’s speech followed his announcement at the end of 2023 that reunification with the South was “impossible” and that the two Koreas no longer have any “kinship” or “homogeneity.” They are instead, he said, two separate “belligerent states in the midst of war.” This declaration should be interpreted not as the latest instance of North Korean bluster but as a significant, even momentous event. With this statement, Kim implicitly criticized and reversed his father’s and revered grandfather’s policies on reunification.

Until Kim’s recent declaration on reunification, three generations of North Korean leaders had consistently extolled, with a quasi-religious fervor, the ideal of a unified, socialist Korea. To that end, for decades, the Kims have maintained that people in the South were compatriots in need of liberation from a puppet-capitalist regime beholden to Washington. Pyongyang, accordingly, used emotive language to shape its citizens’ perceptions of their southern brethren. There was, they were told repeatedly, a “great ethnic unity” that would be restored through “peaceful reunification” and “reconciliation” with their “fellow countrymen.” Now these phrases have been jettisoned—dismissed, in Kim’s words, as nothing but “remnants of the past.”

The risk is that Pyongyang’s saber rattling and regular acts of low-level aggression could start a war.

Pyongyang has for decades advocated for aggression against the South to accomplish reunification. But Kim’s abandonment of this objective will not lead to peace on the peninsula. Rather, this policy shift was accompanied by Kim’s instruction to the military to prepare for a “showdown with the enemy” and “for a great event to suppress the whole territory of South Korea.” This should, he said, be done through nuclear war, if necessary. The goal, it seems, is no longer reunification but conquest—or at least coercion.

Other dangerous moves have resulted. Since 2018, Pyongyang has de facto accepted the maritime border between North and South Korea, which was drawn up by the United Nations at the end of the Korean War. Kim has now declared this border illegal and asserted North Korean territorial claims in the area, raising the risk of clashes with the South. He has warned that if Seoul’s forces invade the North’s “ground territory, territorial air space, or territorial waters by even 0.001 mm, it will be considered a provocation of war.” The practical effect of this warning is still unclear. Seoul rejected it as low-level psychological warfare, but ignoring it could be a justification for further North Korean provocation.

There are three likely explanations for the changes in Kim’s tone and policy. The first and most concerning is that these policy changes are motivated by his desire to justify the use of nuclear weapons in a future conflict. By designating South Korea as an enemy, rather than a wayward member of the Korean family, Kim has established a logical, moral, and ideological basis for aggression. The second, more sanguine, explanation holds that this change of attitude is a way of normalizing relations by treating South Korea as just another foreign country. Kim’s decision to sever all links with the South, however, renders this explanation unlikely. The most credible explanation is that this change has been made to justify greater aggression against the South, which will probably stop short of a major war. Nevertheless, Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo must take Kim’s words seriously, as his motivations remain unclear and it is imperative to be prepared for whatever he may do.

FRIENDS AND FIREPOWER

Kim has begun what he calls an “exponential” expansion of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and increased the production of mobile missile launchers. He has also pledged to put three new spy satellites into orbit, in order to monitor alleged threats from South Korea and the United States. Meanwhile, Pyongyang has put plans in place to improve the reliability, accuracy, and sophistication of its short-, medium-, and long-range ballistic missiles. This missile program has benefited from Russian battlefield testing in Ukraine, which has also advertised North Korean weaponry to potential buyers.

In expanding its WMD arsenal, North Korea is taking advantage of a propitious geopolitical situation. U.S.-Chinese competition and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have led to greater cooperation among Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang. As a result, Russia and China now refuse to work with the United States to impose or enforce sanctions on North Korea. This means that Pyongyang’s provocative actions now have fewer consequences, leaving the regime free to increase the quantity and quality of its missiles. In 2023, Pyongyang launched a record number, including what it claimed in December was a solid-propellent, road-mobile, nuclear-capable ICBM that can reach any location in the United States. North Korea is also developing hypersonic missiles that can penetrate U.S. air defenses and, in January, it successfully test-fired an intermediate-range solid-fuel ballistic missile capable of reaching U.S. military bases in the western Pacific.

The relationship between Moscow and Pyongyang, which ended after the Cold War, has been revived. North Korea now supplies Russia with ballistic missiles, drones, and artillery shells. In return, Moscow is helping Pyongyang with advanced military technologies. After two failed attempts to launch a military satellite into orbit in May and August 2023, North Korea finally succeeded in November. There is widespread speculation that Russian experts helped Pyongyang pull off that feat. Putin seemed to confirm as much when he was asked during a meeting with Kim at a spaceport in Russia in September 2023 whether Moscow would help North Korea build and launch satellites.“That’s why we came here,” he replied.

Pyongyang is likely to join in China and Russia’s efforts to interfere in elections in rival states, particularly in the United States and South Korea. A study published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that North Korea stages more than four times as many provocations in U.S. election years than in other years. This year, Kim may have a particular incentive to make trouble for U.S. President Joe Biden in the hope of securing former President Donald Trump’s return—an outcome that Kim would see as positive, given Trump’s open admiration for Kim and Trump’s repeated threats to pull U.S. troops out of South Korea.

TO THE BRINK

War could result from North Korean provocations ranging from more missile or nuclear tests to limited conventional clashes with South Korea. It is still doubtful that Kim would launch a nuclear attack on the South—which would likely result in North Korea’s destruction by the United States—or even a raid similar to the one undertaken by Hamas against Israel on October 7, which is a possibility that concerns South Koreans. But Kim may very well commit a provocation or set a trap to bait South Korea into a clash that could lead to a limited conventional conflict between the two countries. He might be tempted to ramp up tensions to keep the pressure on South Korea in this election year, to set the stage for negotiations if Trump wins the presidency or to rally the populace behind his regime. Kim has learned that there are few consequences for misconduct and many potential rewards.

Such clashes have periodically occurred in the past, prompted by North Korean provocations. In 2010, Northern forces attacked a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, and killed 46 sailors. The Obama administration, fearful of a larger war breaking out, restrained South Korean President Lee Myung-bak from launching a retaliatory airstrike. Then, later that same year, Yeonpyeong Island was shelled by North Korean artillery, killing four. Kim probably ordered the artillery strikes in part because of the perceived weakness of the Lee government, which had failed to take decisive action after the Cheonan sinking. In response, Lee ordered an artillery barrage on North Korean territory.

The situation remains tense. On January 6, the North fired more than 200 artillery shells into South Korean waters close to Yeonpyeong Island, causing Seoul to evacuate nearby civilians. If one of the North’s artillery shells had killed civilians or military personnel on Yeonpyeong Island, then South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol might have ordered an escalatory, retaliatory artillery strike or airstrike. Yoon, a conservative hard-liner, has already condemned Kim’s description of South Korea as an enemy state and vowed to punish North Korea in the event of any military provocation. The possibility of a limited confrontation spiraling out of control is all the more concerning in light of North Korea’s lowered threshold for first use of nuclear weapons.

ACCIDENTS CAN HAPPEN

Although there are many reasons to be concerned, Kim remains a rational actor who realizes that no country can win a nuclear war, particularly against the United States. Even if Trump returns to the White House, Pyongyang would be running an existential risk if it launched a major attack on South Korea. Trump declared himself willing in 2017 to unleash “fire and fury” if North Korean tests continued, although he later pivoted to praise Kim. That is why there is no indication that Kim is preparing for war. If he is, he would need to build up military assets near the border with South Korea and create huge weapons and munitions stockpiles. Neither has been done. There have been no increases of the forces stationed on the border and military supplies continue to flow to Russian troops in Ukraine. Kim probably does not want a war, but it is possible that he could miscalculate and accidentally start one. Given the parlous state of Pyongyang’s relations with Washington and Seoul since the failure of the Hanoi summit in 2019, there are few guardrails in place to prevent complex situations from spiraling out of control.

The Biden administration has repeatedly tried and failed to entice North Korea to engage in renewed dialogue. The administration has made more than 20 attempts to restart talks, without success. Washington must keep trying; it is vital to establish channels of communication with Pyongyang to reduce the risk of accidental conflict. But Kim has little incentive to begin talks with Biden, preferring to wait for Trump’s potential return. In the meantime, the United States should continue to strengthen its military capabilities and alliances to deter North Korea.

Biden’s success in fostering greater cooperation among the United States, South Korea, and Japan will be vital to this effort. Washington must deepen and expand this growing tripartite alliance, extending it to include intelligence sharing and missile defense. The Biden administration should press for a greater number of trilateral and bilateral military exercises to deter North Korea and prepare for any contingency. Washington should also continue sending nuclear-capable submarines, bombers, and other U.S. military assets to the region in order to show Pyongyang that the United States stands ready and able to defend South Korea.

War is not inevitable. Washington and its allies can still prevent conflict by deterring Pyongyang. Of course, doing so will become harder because of the North’s expanding WMD capabilities and its increasing closeness with Moscow. But now is not the time to panic. It is time, instead, to send North Korea a signal of resoluteness and strength. U.S. power has kept the peace for more than 70 years on the Korean Peninsula. There is no reason that it cannot continue to do so.