conflicts
Threatening nuclear test: ruler Kim is taking a high risk
Kim Jong Un during a military drill for Korean People’s Army airstrikes. photo
© kcna/kns/dpa
North Korea is in the process of expanding its nuclear force. The most recent missile tests also served the purpose. A new nuclear test is also expected. A dangerous situation is brewing on the Korean peninsula.
As Russia wages a war of aggression against Ukraine, tensions on the Korean peninsula have dangerously escalated again. Despite harsh international sanctions and criticism, North Korea is constantly testing nuclear-capable missiles.
Since the beginning of the year there have already been more than 40 ballistic missiles, including medium and ICBMs – more than in any previous year. Since September, the tests have been carried out at an unusually high frequency.
Meanwhile, South Korea and the US have resumed full-scale joint military exercises to deter North Korea, which Pyongyang sees as a provocation. In addition, the negotiation path in the conflict over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is currently blocked. Experts have long been calling for new solutions to be found.
Similar to Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s ruler Kim Jong Un is now wielding the nuclear threat. Most recently, the government of the one-party state said the latest missile tests were intended to simulate the use of tactical nuclear weapons against airfields in South Korea.
concern in South Korea
“This talk of tactical nuclear weapons, whether it’s coming from Putin or Kim Jong Un, is irresponsible and dangerous, and escalating this type of threat or speculation is not helping in this situation,” warned US Ambassador to Seoul Philip Goldberg. There is no doubt in Washington and Seoul that North Korea is about to undertake a new nuclear test. It would be the seventh nuclear test and the country’s first since 2017. There is concern in South Korea that the situation could worsen to the extent it was five years ago, when people in the region feared a new armed conflict on the Korean peninsula.
North Korea’s goal is to have the full spectrum of nuclear weapons and to combine nuclear weapons and missile technology. Experts therefore assume that North Korea could test tactical nuclear weapons this time, which it has not done so far. “North Korea will end up testing and deploying tactical nuclear weapons (as Kim said),” pundit Ankit Panda tweeted in June.
Such weapons are also referred to as “small nukes” – tactical weapons whose range and explosive power is significantly lower than strategic nuclear weapons that can be used across a continent. They could theoretically be used in combat as an alternative to conventional weapons, such as short-range missiles and artillery shells.
Kim is willing to take more risks
North Korea believes that its nuclear armament makes it unassailable, and for the leadership it is a guarantee of its continued existence. If there are new negotiations, North Korea wants to be on an equal footing with the United States. New nuclear tests also show Kim is willing to take more risks. The US could respond with new military exercises and temporarily send strategic weapons to South Korea again. That would, in turn, tempt North Korea into new harsh reactions – a so far endless loop in which the affected countries have been trapped for years.
For US President Joe Biden, North Korea’s behavior is a major problem, especially because he and his government already have their hands full with Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s quest for power in foreign policy. The conflicts with Russia and China are also a hindrance when it comes to North Korea – the Americans can hardly hope for support from Moscow and Beijing at the moment.
Paths to peaceful conflict resolution are intricate
The US government has repeatedly offered North Korea negotiations without preconditions. So far, however, all offers of this kind have come to nothing. And at Biden, apart from appeals, no new strategy is currently discernible, at least to the outside world. One hope of the United States is that China will do more to find a solution. Washington accuses Beijing of doing too little. China has failed to “counteract North Korea’s missile tests and efforts to circumvent sanctions,” says Goldberg.
Even if China isn’t happy about its neighbor’s missile tests and the prospect of another nuclear test, it doesn’t show it. Perhaps Beijing is also glad that the US, Japan and South Korea are distracted by the North Korean threat, as some observers note. Similar to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, China is demonstrating ostensibly neutrality in the years-long conflict with North Korea, but this is more directed against the United States.
The paths to peaceful conflict resolution are tortuous. Decades of US efforts to persuade Kim to give up his weapons have failed, nuclear arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis wrote in a guest article for the New York Times a few days ago. And Kim is determined to use the weapons to protect his country. “Washington must face the unthinkable: accepting that North Korea is a nuclear state.”