Why North Korea’s Recent Threats Carry More Weight Than Ever Before

“South Korea is our nearest neighbor and has been judged as the most hostile state,” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared to the country’s Supreme People’s Assembly in January 2024. “Tension in the region is rising due to the United States-led escalation of military tensions,” he continued. “The possibility of a physical war has dramatically increased.” 

Such confrontational declarations may initially seem banal–threats from the reclusive country have been a common occurrence since the Korean War’s cessation in 1953. Nonetheless, Kim’s statements demonstrate concerning trends of heightened military aggression and further degradation of diplomatic avenues. The country’s increasing frequency of missile tests, outright abandonment of peaceful Korean reunification, and renewal of ties with Russia signal an era reminiscent of the Soviet-North Korean alliance–a diplomatic union that many experts argue was responsible for actualizing the Cold War.

The re-emergence of a Russo-North Korean alliance is a beneficial counterbalance to the West’s sanctions on Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has diplomatically and financially isolated the country from many of its former allies. For the past two years, Putin has employed anti-Western rhetoric to justify the war, and the US has sent Ukraine over 74 billion dollars in aid. It would not be unreasonable to compare these events with the emergence of the Western and Eastern Blocs of the Cold War. Similarly to Stalin expanding the USSR and forming strategic alliances with ideologically comparable states, Putin is reaching out to old and new partners alike to safeguard his war machine—including North Korea. 

Ideological disputes between the Soviet Union and the United States along with the powers’ occupation of Korea resulted in the Cold War’s first military engagement and the division of the peninsula. Additionally, Kim continued receiving USSR economic support until its decline in the late 1980s. The USSR’s dissolution in 1991 deprived North Korea of its largest trade partner and caused the country’s already sluggish economy to collapse. Considering the eventual failure of the countries’ Cold War entente, some experts have concluded that the countries’ renewed alliance will be short-lived and can be beaten using previous US strategies. However, North Korea’s modern weapon capabilities have created the potential for a more balanced and symbiotic alliance with its former ally.

Kim Jong-un has greatly expanded North Korea’s military capabilities, conducting 214 missile tests since he took power—almost seven times more tests than his predecessors combined. Putin has noticed Kim’s diligence and has likely offered a helping hand. During Kim’s visit to a Russian space center in September 2023, Putin pledged to assist North Korea with space satellites. In November, Kim successfully launched a spy satellite after two previous failed attempts. Recently manufactured North Korean ballistic missiles have been found on Ukrainian battlefields, and US intelligence has determined that North Korea has sent over 10,000 containers of “munitions or munitions-related materials” to Russia. Such collusion not only violates United Nations sanctions on North Korea but also enables Kim to help Putin overwhelm Ukrainian forces while testing his arsenal’s strength against Western weapons for the first time since the Korean War. A long confrontational game is most beneficial to Kim and Putin—as the Russo-Ukrainian War continues, each power can empirically test its strengths while strategically avoiding direct warfare with the West. Therefore, anticipating an imminent North Korean attack on South Korea or the US is an unsound assumption. This new method of intelligence gathering should alarm Western authorities, as it will give North Korea an advantageous ability to monitor our weapons development and witness our military responses in real-time. The US and South Korea should continue deepening their alliance and strengthening their military presence in the peninsula. Nevertheless, both countries should exercise restraint and avoid initiating a direct conflict that would give North Korea an excuse to use its newfound expertise and improved weaponry.

Kim could also be preparing the North Korean people for conflict with their southern neighbors. His desertion of reunification is an unprecedentedly troublesome derogation. Despite underlying motivations, Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un’s father, made efforts toward “peaceful” reunification with the South. To demonstrate his resolve, Kim Jong-un destroyed a prominent reunification monument that his father ordered to be constructed after a 2000 inter-Korean reunification summit. The government’s reunification agencies have closed as well. Similarly to how Stalin enabled Kim Il-Sung to begin the Korean War, Kim Jong-un has gained enough confidence from Putin’s assistance and no longer views South Korea as an opportune ally. His actions have irreparably damaged relations between the nations and have thwarted peace attempts for the foreseeable future.

The United States, South Korea, and their allies should not dismiss North Korea’s recent threats as routine provocations. Instead, the countries should continue identifying political abnormalities, improve upon Cold War-era strategies, and strengthen military presence without engaging in direct conflict to pre-emptively mitigate the security risks they pose. 

Works Cited

Header Image Credit: Nicor, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons