Korean conflict more threatening than it has been for a long time

By Marc Oliver Rühle

As Kremlin despot Vladimir Putin, 70, continues his assault on Ukraine and all eyes are on this war in Europe, tensions on the Korean peninsula have dangerously increased.

Most recent incident: South and North Korea have each fired warning shots at their disputed sea border off the west coast. South Korean forces first fired warning shots at a North Korean merchant ship from south of the maritime border on Monday morning. North Korea then fired artillery shells into the buffer zone in the Yellow Sea.

In addition, North Korea is constantly testing nuclear-capable missiles, despite harsh international sanctions and criticism. Since the beginning of the year there have been more than 40 ballistic missiles, including medium and ICBMs.

︎ Sad record: Dictator Kim Jong-un (38) had more rockets tested than in any previous year. Since September, the number of shots has also been unusually high.

Means: The conflict is hotter than it has been for a long time!

Kim openly threatens nuclear bombs – like Putin

Meanwhile, South Korea and the US have resumed full-scale joint military exercises to deter North Korea, which Pyongyang sees as a provocation.

Diplomacy has come to a complete standstill: the negotiation path in the conflict over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is currently completely blocked – experts have been calling for new solutions to be found for a long time.

Similar to Putin, Kim Jong-un is now wielding the nuclear threat. Most recently, the government of the one-party state said the latest missile tests were intended to simulate the use of tactical nuclear weapons against airfields in South Korea.

US has no doubts about new nuclear weapons test

“This talk of tactical nuclear weapons, whether it’s coming from Putin or Kim Jong-un, is irresponsible and dangerous, and escalating this kind of threat or speculation is not helping in this situation,” warned US Ambassador to Seoul Philip Goldberg .

There is no doubt in Washington and Seoul that North Korea is about to undertake a new nuclear test. It would be the seventh nuclear test and the country’s first since 2017.

In South Korea there is concern that the situation could escalate to the level it was five years ago when people in the region feared a new armed conflict on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea’s goal is to have the full spectrum of nuclear weapons and to combine nuclear weapons and missile technology. Experts therefore assume that North Korea could test tactical nuclear weapons this time, which it has not done so far.

“North Korea will end up testing and deploying tactical nuclear weapons (as Kim said),” expert Ankit Panda wrote on Twitter in June.

▶︎ Such weapons are also referred to as “small nukes” – tactical weapons whose radius of action and explosive power is significantly lower than strategic nuclear weapons that can be used across a continent. They could theoretically be used in combat as an alternative to conventional weapons, such as short-range missiles and artillery shells.

Conflict in the infinite loop

North Korea believes that its nuclear armament makes it unassailable, and for the leadership it is a guarantee of its continued existence. If there are new negotiations, North Korea wants to be on an equal footing with the United States.

The fact is: New nuclear tests also show that Kim is willing to continue to take risks.

The US could respond with new military exercises and temporarily send strategic weapons to South Korea again. That would in turn tempt North Korea into new harsh reactions – a hitherto endless loop in which the affected countries have been trapped for years.

Kim is becoming more and more of a problem for Biden

For US President Joe Biden (79), North Korea’s behavior is a big problem, especially because he and his government already have their hands full with Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s quest for power in foreign policy.

The conflicts with Russia and China are also a hindrance when it comes to North Korea – the Americans can hardly hope for support from Moscow and Beijing at the moment.

The US government has repeatedly offered North Korea negotiations without preconditions. So far, however, all offers of this kind have come to nothing. And at Biden, apart from appeals, no new strategy is currently discernible, at least to the outside world.

One hope of the United States is that China will do more to find a solution. Washington accuses Beijing of doing too little. China has failed to “counteract North Korea’s missile tests and efforts to circumvent sanctions,” says Goldberg.

China is conflict maybe right

Even if China isn’t happy about its neighbor’s missile tests and the prospect of another nuclear test, it doesn’t show it. Perhaps Beijing is also glad that the US, Japan and South Korea are distracted by the North Korean threat, as some observers note.

The fact is: Similar to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, China is demonstrating its alleged neutrality in the long-standing conflict with North Korea, which is directed more towards the United States.

The paths to peaceful conflict resolution are tortuous. Decades of US efforts to persuade Kim to give up his weapons have failed, nuclear arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis wrote in a guest article for the New York Times a few days ago.

And Kim is determined to use the weapons to protect his country. “Washington must face the unthinkable: accepting that North Korea is a nuclear state.”

Because: “From my point of view, the North Korean regime is very stable – especially due to its status as a nuclear power. In my view, the question of whether this regime will continue to exist will only arise in two new cases. Firstly, if Kim Jong-un dies without leaving a trained successor, and secondly, if China – after an unsuccessful war with Taiwan, for example – withdraws as support. However, both are unlikely in the short to medium term,” explains North Korea expert Prof. Dr. Ralph Wrobel to BILD.