Let us immediately neutralize the great scare that arrived on November 2 after the announcement of the launch of 23 North Korean missiles with the consequent response of South Korea: we are not at the beginning of a new Korean war, or to be more precise the continuation of a conflict which, technically, only experienced an armistice in 1953 without ever reaching a peace treaty.
In short, war is not upon us. Yet the communication between north and south with missiles increases the risk of an accident and the triggering of an uncontrollable mechanism. This prospect is all the crazier if we consider that one of the two countries involved, North Korea, is in possession of the atomic weapon while the other benefits from the US nuclear umbrella.
In reality we are facing an already known scenario. Kim Jong-un, the third Kim at the head of a dynastic communist regime that looks like no other, would like international recognition of the status of a nuclear power for his country, or a power tout court. Kim believed he was close to target in 2018 and 2019 at his spectacular meetings with Donald Trump, in Singapore and Hanoi. But in the end, the story took a different turn.
One resource
Why the launch of missiles? The reason is that Kim has no other means of being taken seriously. North Korea is not an economic power (unlike its neighbor to the south which has a brazen success) so it has only one resource, developed and perfected by the three generations of Kim in power: armaments.
Before kicking off a period of détente in 2018, by sending his sister Kim Yo-jong on a visit to South Korea and subsequently meeting the US president in person, Kim Jong-un carried out his sixth nuclear experiment and a series of ballistic missile tests. The North Korean leader thought he had created a favorable balance of forces, but Trump’s entourage had refused to allow the president to sign any agreement that did not provide for a verifiable denuclearization of North Korea.
And so we went back to the confrontation, because the previous show of strength didn’t work. This year Pyongyang carried out a record number of missile tests and multiplied aggressive statements. Until the missile exchange of 2 November, an escalation controlled in spite of everything and destined to thwart some joint maneuvers between the United States and South Korea.
Presumably the next step will be a seventh nuclear experiment, a development Seoul and Washington have been waiting for for weeks. It could be the final step in a very combative year for North Korea. In the context of the war in Ukraine, this test would not lead to new sanctions for Pyongyang, because China and Russia would oppose it.
And then? Is there still room for diplomacy? The big difference compared to 2018 is that Seoul’s top has changed, and the new president Yoon Suk-yeol is far more to the right than his predecessor Moon Jae-in, who dreamed of peace with the north at any cost.
The United States is not ready to recognize North Korea’s nuclear power status, especially in the current international context. But now they no longer have any means to persuade Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons, and they are aware of it. This impasse pushes Kim Jong-un to up the ante. The future certainly holds other missiles and other nuclear tests.
(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)