- North Korea’s recent behavior suggests that it is seriously planning to go to war with U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region, according to foreign policy and defense experts.
- North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un once hoped for normalized relations with the U.S. and the West, but now believes that has failed and sees no other choice but a massive military operation, Robert Carlin and Siegfried Hecker wrote.
- “The evidence of the past year opens the real possibility that the situation may have reached the point that we must seriously consider a worst case,” Carlin and Hecker wrote for 38 North.
North Korea’s recent behavior has raised concerns that the country is preparing to go to war, foreign policy and defense experts wrote in a 38 North analysis.
North Korea reportedly conducted an underwater nuclear weapons test on Friday, which was days after formally abandoning its decades-old goal to reunify with South Korea and launching a ballistic missile off its southern neighbor’s coasts, according to Reuters. While North Korea’s habitual aggressive language toward the U.S. and the West is often seen as unserious, its recent actions suggest that it may be abandoning diplomatic goals in favor of a massive military operation, according to foreign policy experts Robert Carlin and Siegfried Hecker. (RELATED: North Korea Says Kim Jong Un Saw US Military Bases After Spy Satellite’s Successful Launch)
North Korea conducted a test of their underwater nuclear drone system, which is known as the “Haeil-5-23.”
The test was done in response to the joint maritime exercise between South Korea, the United States, and Japan.
(April 2023 photo of the Haeil-5-23) pic.twitter.com/Tt3xaEqyIO
— Global: Military-Info (@Global_Mil_Info) January 19, 2024
Carlin has spent five decades analyzing North Korea for the CIA and State Department, and Hecker is a nuclear expert who was given access to the country’s nuclear program on several occasions, according to The New York Times.
“The situation on the Korean Peninsula is more dangerous than it has been at any time since early June 1950. That may sound overly dramatic, but we believe that, like his grandfather in 1950, [North Korean Leader] Kim Jong-Un has made a strategic decision to go to war,” Carlin and Hecker wrote for 38 North last week. “We do not know when or how Kim plans to pull the trigger, but the danger is already far beyond the routine warnings.”
North Korea had spent decades trying to normalize diplomatic relations with the U.S. and the West to little avail, and that failed effort was most clearly seen in the aftermath of the U.S.-North Korea 2019 summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, according to Carlin and Hecker. Kim and former President Donald Trump had met to discuss denuclearization plans for North Korea, but the meeting ended abruptly with neither side reaching an agreement.
“When that failed, it was a traumatic loss of face for Kim. His final letter to President Trump in August 2019 reflects how much Kim felt he had risked and lost,” Carlin and Hecker wrote. “This was not a tactical adjustment, not simply pouting on Kim’s part, but a fundamentally new approach – the first in over thirty years.”
North Korea started turning to China and Russia for allyship and began massive expansions of its military and nuclear capabilities, as well as numerous military demonstrations in retaliation to U.S. and ally joint exercises in the Indo-Pacific region.
❗🇰🇵⚔️🇰🇷 – North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un spoke on January 15 at the Supreme People’s Assembly in the Mansudae Assembly Hall in Pyongyang.
In his speech to the State Council – North Korea’s official parliament – Kim said the constitution should be changed to educate North… pic.twitter.com/390oQWLIVA
— 🔥🗞The Informant (@theinformantofc) January 18, 2024
The U.S. and the West believe that collective military deterrence will keep North Korea from starting a war or launching a military operation. But deterrence may fail if North Korea thinks it has exhausted all other options and feels backed into a corner, and the country’s heightened military actions and unrestrained use of war language in 2023 make the possibility of conflict even greater now, according to Carlin and Hecker. (RELATED: Hamas May Have Used North Korean Weapons During Israel Terror Attack: REPORTS)
“The evidence of the past year opens the real possibility that the situation may have reached the point that we must seriously consider a worst case,” Carlin and Hecker wrote for 38 North. “This might seem like madness, but history suggests those who have convinced themselves that they have no good options left will take the view that even the most dangerous game is worth the candle.”
“If, as we suspect, Kim has convinced himself that after decades of trying, there is no way to engage the United States, his recent words and actions point toward the prospects of a military solution using [North Korea’s nuclear] arsenal,” Carlin and Hecker wrote.
It is estimated that North Korea possesses between 40 and 50 nuclear weapons – though the number is in dispute – and seeks to add between 100 and 300 more to its arsenal, according to Bloomberg. North Korea’s latest nuclear test on Friday, an underwater nuclear drone detonation in the East Sea, was reportedly in retaliation to U.S.-Japan-South Korea joint military exercises this week, according to state-run media KCNA.
“We do not want war, but we also have no intention of avoiding it,” Kim said on Monday, according to KCNA.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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