Confirmation came from Pyongyang on Friday. The missile that North Korea’s regime shot down for test purposes on Thursday is actually the new ballistic ICBM Hwasong-17. A potential nuclear weapon that could hit targets anywhere in the United States. South Korea’s Security Council previously announced that the launch was North Korea’s first test of a long-range missile since 2017. But when North Korea’s state media celebrate the event itself, when they publish the handwritten approval of the test by ruler Kim Jong-un and a picture of the clapping Labor Party leader with cheering members of the military leadership – then the threatening demonstration takes on an additional quality.
The regime has now officially ended the moratorium that it imposed on itself in April 2018. At that time, the mood between North Korea, South Korea and the USA had changed. South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-in seemed to be having success with his policy of rapprochement. Kim said he sees no reason for nuclear weapons and long-range missile testing right now. The enemies negotiated. hope sprouted. Past. And now?
Kim Jong-un is a ruler who is primarily interested in his own survival and only a long way behind in the well-being of the people in his country. In the relaxation phase, he blew up parts of a weapons test area that he no longer needed as a sign of good will – and from his point of view he received too little in return.
The big neighbor helps with the essentials
He wanted a significant relaxation of UN sanctions. But he didn’t want to give up his nuclear weapons for that. He thinks he needs them to stay in power. He now looks with interest at Ukraine, which agreed in 1994 to destroy its Soviet-era nuclear weapons and now faces Russian attack. For lasting relaxation, the Americans should have aired the claim of denuclearization a bit. That didn’t happen. Kim quickly grew impatient. Basically, the thaw was over by the end of 2019, when Kim first questioned the moratorium.
And now? North Korea is bad. The strict lockdown due to the corona virus makes it difficult to supply people with food and paralyzes trade. Then there are the UN sanctions. One would think that the need would make the regime more forgiving. But it is not like that. The large neighbor China is helping with the essentials because it needs North Korea as a buffer zone to the Western Alliance. And the population is not Kim’s first concern. But its power. So he gears up.
Things can’t go on like this, Kim is too unpredictable for that. You can’t achieve anything with him by persuading him, as the ultimately futile attempts at overtures by the now departing Moon have shown. His conservative successor Yoon Suk-yeol wants to force Kim to give in with harshness. That is likely to have just as little success and increase the risk of war.
What to do? Kim Jong-un is a ruthless dictator. You can’t educate him. At best, one can buy peace from him. If you want to stop North Korea’s military build-up and help the people there, you’ll have to offer the regime something that will help the economy there, willy-nilly. What a dilemma: If the US doesn’t want that for understandable reasons, everything will stay the way it is.