“We see this as part of the North Korean launch test and provocation pattern.” White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on North Korea’s test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) again (March 16 and 24) approximately four years after North Korea declared a nuclear and missile moratorium in April 2018. is the reaction of If North Korea succeeds in testing an ICBM capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, it will be able to strike not only the western part of the United States but also the eastern part of the United States. It is such a serious attack. But there is no sense of urgency in Sullivan’s remarks on this. It even gives off the nuance that it is nothing more or less than a ‘habitual provocation’. Had he recognized the North’s provocations as a serious problem, he would not have been able to even come up with a ‘friendly commentary on current affairs’, saying, “I think North Korea will carry out more tests.” Washington diplomats are full of the view that such a lukewarm reaction itself is a reflection of the Biden administration’s passive attitude and indifference toward North Korea, which has been regarded as ‘the greatest security threat to the United States’.
In response to North Korea’s ICBM provocations, the Biden administration, as expected, applied new sanctions to North Korea, while keeping pace with its allies such as South Korea and Japan, and strongly condemned it. The United States tried to adopt a condemnation statement at the UN Security Council, but it was defeated by opposition from China and Russia. The South Korean and US intelligence officials judge that this ICBM is a modified version of the Hwasong-15 (range of 13,000 km), not the Hwasong-17 (range of 15,000 km) claimed by North Korea. But there is something far more important than the type of missile. As if to ridicule the Biden administration’s indifference to North Korea, North Korea broke the moratorium it had maintained for the past four years.
If the Biden administration passively responds to the North Korean nuclear issue as it has so far on the grounds of other diplomatic issues, such as the Ukraine war, North Korea is highly likely to resume nuclear tests as well as additional ICBM tests. Harry Kazianis, senior director of Korea affairs at the Center for National Interest in the United States (CNI), a non-profit think tank, said in an interview with EPN, “If North Korea fails to attract the attention of the United States, North Korea will soon conduct additional nuclear tests or tactical nuclear weapons tests in Punggye-ri, where it is said to be recovering. may force him” (see article ‘Biden must send a ‘signal’ to Kim Jong-un).
Looking at Sullivan’s blunt reaction, it seems that North Korea’s ICBM launch did not attract the attention of the Biden administration. Since the beginning of this year, North Korea has launched short-range, intermediate-range (IRBM) and intercontinental ballistic missiles 10 times. Rather than suggesting alternatives to return North Korea to the negotiating table, the Biden administration has repeatedly responded with criticism and sanctions. Again, the United States independently sanctioned the Second Academy of Natural Sciences and two Russian institutions, which are leading North Korea’s missile development, but showed no intention to engage in dialogue with North Korea.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the Biden administration hasn’t made any effort to talk. At the end of April last year, three months after the Biden administration took office, the Biden administration proposed a new North Korean nuclear solution called a ‘calibrated, practical approach’. If North Korea took steps to denuclearize, it would provide corresponding step-by-step compensation and move toward the ultimate ‘complete denuclearization’. Most diplomacy experts say that this solution is a compromise between the Trump administration’s ‘grand bargain’, which favored a comprehensive settlement with North Korea, and the Obama administration’s ‘strategic patience’, which first demanded a change in North Korea’s behavior. evaluated and questioned its effectiveness. In June last year, when State Department special envoy for North Korea Sung Kim announced that he would like to have an unconditional dialogue, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Son-kwon refused, saying, “We are not considering any contact or possibility with the United States.”
In fact, North Korea had high expectations until the second North Korea-US summit was held in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February 2019. At that time, when Chairman Kim Jong-un announced his intention to dismantle the Yongbyon nuclear facility to President Trump and demanded the lifting of sanctions, the negotiations went to vain as Trump raised the ‘Yongbyon + Alpha (α)’. In October of that year, at the North Korea-US working-level negotiations held in Sweden, the North Korean side demanded the US to ‘withdraw its hostile policy toward North Korea’ and declared a breakdown in the negotiations. During the plenary meeting of the Workers’ Party of Korea at the end of 2019, Kim Jong-un said, “In the past two years, the United States has taken major and preemptive measures to stop nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic rocket test-fires and to dismantle the nuclear test site in order to build trust between the DPRK and the United States. Far from responding with reasonable measures… ” he complained.
If we keep our indifference towards North Korea…
Such dissatisfaction with North Korea began to be expressed through missile provocations from the beginning of this year. Already in January, Kim Jong-un at the Politburo meeting of the Workers’ Party of Korea strongly hinted at the resumption of the ICBM launch test, saying, “I will fully reconsider the confidence-building measures taken preemptively and proactively.” Immediately after the launch of the ICBM, he declared, “We will thoroughly prepare for a long-term confrontation with the US imperialists.”
The problem is if the US keeps its indifference towards North Korea as it is now, paying all attention to the unpredictable end of the Russia-Ukraine war. If this happens, it is certain that North Korea will also carry out Kim Jong-un’s promise (“to develop more invincible means of nuclear attack”) through additional nuclear tests and ICBM tests. Moreover, thanks to China and Russia, which are close with the United States, North Korea has no reason to worry if the United States imposes sanctions through the UN Security Council. In fact, when the United States moved to further sanctions against North Korea’s ICBM provocations at the UN Security Council, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said, “The sanctions will not be successful.” Without the cooperation of China and Russia, US sanctions are unlikely to have a significant impact on North Korea. What the United States can do is obvious if it cannot find sanctions that can do more damage to North Korea. It is to bring strategic assets to South Korea and pressure North Korea by strengthening joint ROK-US military exercises. This will further escalate military tensions.
In the end, the common view of most foreign diplomats is that there is no other way to solve the problem than to persuade North Korea to return to the negotiating table rather than to unilaterally impose sanctions on North Korea. Stefan Haggard, a professor at the University of California, who specializes in sanctions against North Korea, told EPN, “The US sanctions against North Korea have limitations. Asia Society vice-president Daniel Russell, who served as assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific affairs during the Obama administration, told The Washington Post, “There is no good way to deal with Chairman Kim’s nuclear threat. “The Biden administration must remain open to diplomacy,” he said.
Some argue that President Biden should consider sending a special envoy to Pyongyang. “President Biden has nothing to lose by sending a special envoy,” Kazianis told EPN. Currently, Philippine ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim is also serving as special envoy to North Korea. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who has abundant negotiating experience and can stand up to North Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui, is sometimes mentioned as a suitable special envoy.
© EPN