Kim Jong-Un’s Invincible Military Effort

 

North Korea is beyond impoverished. Closed to most of the rest of the world, relegated to trading through its connection to the People’s Republic of China, arresting and detaining disloyal citizens and their entire families in notorious concentration camps, North Korea spends its limited financial resources (some generated by narcotics sales to the rest of the world) on a huge military build-up… but hardly enough to feed its people beyond limited scraps of food. Strongman Kim Jong-Un’s intentions are very clear: 

“[He] has vowed to build an invincible military due to hostile policies originating from the United States, according to recent state media reports. Kim Jong Un clarified that the weapons development was for self-defense purposes. The remarks were made at a defense exhibition in which Kim Jong Un stood surrounded by a variety of large missiles. Recently, South Korea tested a submarine-launched weapon while North Korea has launched what it claims to be hypersonic and anti-aircraft missiles. Kim Jong Un stated that North Korea had no interest in fighting South Korea, a statement that may ease tensions between the two countries amid military tests.

“Mr. Kim later accused the US of stoking tensions between North and South Korea, stating that the US was hostile. US President Joe Biden has repeatedly offered to talk to North Korea, but with one significant demand: that Pyongyang gives up nuclear weapons before sanctions can be eased. The country has denied the request, and therefore no meeting has occurred.” Oodaloop.com, October 12th. 

Trump’s little BFF did not deliver on the ex-President’s pledges of a trade agreement between Washington and Pyongyang in exchange for a phased de-nuclearization of the North, perhaps including the entire Korean peninsula. Instead, Kim upped the stakes by sequentially testing increasingly sophisticated missile platforms, some quite capable of delivering one of more nuclear warheads. And make no mistake, North Korea is unequivocally a nuclear power. But his most recent test, which includes the possibility of a very mobile nuclear launching platform at sea, is deeply concerning. It’s not the first such test, but the potential range of the recent launch puts most of the United States at risk.

“North Korea has fired a suspected submarine-launched ballistic missile into waters off the coast of Japan, South Korea's military has said… Pyongyang unveiled the missile in January, describing it as ‘the world's most powerful weapon.’… It comes weeks after South Korea unveiled a similar weapon of its own.

“North Korea has carried out a flurry of missile tests in recent weeks, including of what it said were hypersonic and long-range weapons… Some of these tests violate strict international sanctions… The country is specifically prohibited by the United Nations from testing ballistic missiles as well as nuclear weapons… The UN considers ballistic missiles to be more threatening than cruise missiles because they can carry more powerful payloads, have a longer range and can fly faster...

“In October 2019, North Korea tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile, firing a Pukguksong-3 from an underwater platform… At the time, state news agency KCNA said it had been fired at a high angle to minimise the ‘external threat.’… However, if the missile had been launched on a standard trajectory, instead of a vertical one, it could have travelled around 1,900km. That would have put all of South Korea and Japan within range… Being launched from a submarine can also make missiles harder to detect and allow them to get closer to other targets.” BBC.com, October 19th.

Despite sanctions and broken treaties, no US president has figured out how to diffuse North Korea. The Korean War (active from 1950 to 1953) has never officially ended. The status is nothing more than stasis from an armistice agreement. A state of war technically continues to exist. Kim Jong-Un and his predecessors have long since figured out that North Korea remains vulnerable to defeat or political deconstruction without a strong military braced with a full compliment of nuclear weapons and long-range delivery capacities. It appears that this military ambition is the last aspect of his reign that Kim would ever give up. His people are expendable. They are cut off in every way from the rest of the world. Their only “truth” is what state radio and television tell them.

In an October 13th interview on NPR, North Korean expert (at the Washington, D.C. based Wilson Center) Jean Lee explains the twofold purpose of these tests: “You know, they're designed to strike fear in us as foreigners because they do serve as a reminder that North Korea has just continued to build these ballistic missiles in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, even though to us they may seem like they've been quiet for the last couple years.

“But when you're on the ground in North Korea, you also see that there's another goal to displays like this, and that is to inspire a sense of pride in North Koreans because it has been a couple years of uncertainty - political uncertainty when the talks between Kim Jong Un and then-President Trump fell apart a few years ago and then the pandemic, where they sealed the borders and really stopped the flow of not only people, but goods across the border. And that would have created extreme economic hardship…

“I think we need to remember, too, that Kim Jong Un is coming up on his 10-year anniversary of rule. And so he is also setting himself up for this big moment to show his people that he's led them well and that he can defend them. So a lot of this, to me, you know - I see - of course, we take it one way, sitting in Washington, D.C., or in the United States. But there is a different type of messaging that is just equally as important inside North Korea, and that is to strengthen the sense of unity among the North Korean people.” 

In answer to how Kim is able to afford this military development, Lee added: “This is always the question is, as they keep rolling out these intercontinental ballistic missiles, these massive weapons, where is the money coming from? And it's clear that years and years of sanctions that are designed to stop the flow of money that goes into this nuclear program has not stopped the North Koreans from building them.” Lee does believe that Kim’s efforts are also intended to give him more leverage in possible diplomatic negotiations, as our efforts to sanction the North has, as with most such sanctions against autocratic regimes, failed to motivate Kim.

I’m Peter Dekom, and there are absolutely no easy and obvious solutions to a nuclear North Korea, although they do seem to understand the reality of their total annihilation should they pull that nuclear trigger.