Kim announced last week at the Eighth Labor Party Congress – a meeting for North Korea’s ruling elite – that his country plans to sharpen Pyongyang’s already dangerous nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs with new, sophisticated weapons, such as tactical nuclear weapons designed is. for battlefield use and heads designed to evade American-made missile defense systems.
Kim’s message was crystal clear: At the moment, North Korea needs its nuclear weapons to deter the United States “regardless of who is in power,” he said – and regardless of the cost.
The young leader’s ambitious plans to modernize his core arsenal will be costly at a time when money is already scarce. In 2020, North Korea voluntarily severed the last of its meager ties with the outside world to prevent the influx of Covid-19. This included cutting off almost all trade with Beijing, an economic lifeline needed by the poor country not to starve its people.
North Korea’s economy is now in the gutter, and food supplies are apparently dangerous.
To stave off the pandemic, Kim effectively did his country what many in Washington hoped would do economic sanctions: to bring the North Korean economy near the brink of collapse. That he did it of his own free will has left many doubting whether sanctions will ever be strong enough to change Kim’s thinking.
Some analysts disagree with this line of thinking. They see opportunity.
With North Korea’s economy already on track, they believe it’s time to take the plunge – a ploy of crippling coercion that convinces Kim once and for all that its continued pursuit of nuclear weapons is not the security of its regime does not guarantee. , it threatens it.
Either way, Kim’s plans will be a major challenge for President-elect Joe Biden.
Trump, like Obama and President George W. Bush, will leave his successor a more dangerous and better-armed opponent than the one he inherited.
Maximum pressure
Before Trump agreed to sit face-to-face with Kim in 2018, his government put in place an appropriate strategy called “maximum pressure.”
The aim was to use sanctions, diplomacy and other coercive measures, short as armed conflict, to persuade Kim to agree to the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of his nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
While North Korea tested missiles and nuclear bombs on an unprecedented clip in 2017, the Trump administration increased the heat. The US mission to the United Nations has successfully pushed for UN Security Council resolutions that go beyond North Korea’s ability to make money by selling ordinary goods, such as coal and seafood. The treasury has used its tremendous power and influence over the global financial system to impose its own, unilateral sanctions. And diplomats have successfully pushed U.S. partners to close down embassies in Pyongyang abroad, accusing the government of using it as a front for money-making opportunities.
By the end of 2017, North Korea had banned almost all international trade. Even longtime North Korean ally China has agreed to impose incredibly harsh UN sanctions that year, and Beijing seems to be enforcing it first.
Many experts believe that Washington gave up the maximum pressure too soon.
Some, including former acting assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Evans Revere in the Pacific, argue that Biden’s team should seriously consider a new maximum pressure model and step up sanctions “in a way that North Korea will inflict even more pain and isolation. “
“The tightening of sanctions, plus other diplomatic, economic and banking and military pressures that you can apply to North Korea, can certainly shake government foundations, especially now that we see the regime experiencing a serious economic crisis, as we do.” not seen for a while, ‘Revere said.
Revere and other proponents of sanctions argue that there are still instruments left in the U.S. arsenal to put North Korea under pressure, and that this should be pursued. The Biden administration, for example, could try harder to close North Korean trading companies in cooperation with US allies and target Chinese banks that help North Korea acquire foreign currency.
“There is much, much more that needs to be done that can push North Korea apart, isolate and undermine in ways that will shake their confidence in their long-held assumption that nuclear weapons are their salvation and also drive the point that not only is nuclear power not. ‘weapons are not your salvation, they’re the thing that can undermine the stability of your regime,’ Revere said.
Risky business
Revere said he acknowledges that such an approach is risky.
This could force North Koreans to choose between feeding its people and financing nuclear weapons, and history shows that Kim would probably choose the latter.
Things are not so bad in North Korea at the moment, but analysts believe the economic situation is worse than it has been since the famine. Devastating storms, severe sanctions and the pandemic plunged North Korea’s economy into 2020. There appears to be enough food to go around, but according to Chad O’Carroll, CEO of Korea Risk Group, which produces North Korean publications NK Pro and NK News.
“We can say with certainty that there is a shortage of several important foods nationwide,” he said.
Although expensive, Kim decides to close North Korea’s borders apparently worked from a public health perspective. North Korea’s claim not to cause a single case of Covid-19 is likely to be untrue, but the country has apparently not yet experienced a severe wave of infections.
A large number of cases are likely to overwhelm North Korea’s dilapidated health infrastructure, so Kim is unlikely to lift border restrictions until the pandemic disappears. This means that Pyongyang, in order to achieve its objectives, will continue to inflict a level of economic pain on itself.
John Delury, a professor at Yonsei University’s Graduate School of International Relations, said it should be a sobering reminder to the Biden government that (economic) pressure is not working on North Korea. ‘
“North Korea has subjected itself to an even more extreme form of economic pain (as sanctions) to keep Covid away. And yet they are not indulging in the nuclear issue,” Delury said.
To get everyone on the same page
Biden now faces the same foreign policy issue that plagued its previous five predecessors: How to make North Korea abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
He may be forced to do so sooner than he wishes. Although the new weapons that Kim mentioned are in various stages of development, most test tests will be required to be considered operational. If North Korea were to do such a test, it would probably be the basis for a diplomatic confrontation between Washington and Pyongyang in the first days of Biden’s presidency.
Whatever Biden chooses, there remain major roadblocks.
The strategy also requires the purchase of three awkward players: China, Russia and South Korea.
“China and Russia will not even fully implement existing sanctions,” said Duyeon Kim, an additional senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “Geopolitics would be difficult to impose new sanctions without a very convincing reason for Beijing, Moscow and even the South Korean lunar government.”
China and Russia seem satisfied with the status quo. South Korean President Moon Jae-in may not be on board a pressure strategy because he prefers engagement and economic cooperation to lower the temperature. Moon said dialogue and mutually beneficial cooperation were key to the Korean peace process in a speech earlier this month.
If dialogue is the path chosen, the Biden administration must recognize its limits, Delury said.
“We need to moderate our expectations about what engagement can do,” he said. “We’ve seen what three councils can do, and that leaves a lot to be desired.”
“How are you dealing with this North Korea challenge … and are you dealing with all these other things at the same time?” Say Revere. “It’s hard, but it’s extremely capable people.”