If North Korea wanted to get America’s attention, it looks like it worked.
This week, the Kim Jong Un regime fired two ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan, describing them on Friday as a new type of guided tactical weapon.
Having rejected two smaller missile tests less than a week ago, this time President Joe Biden condemned the ballistic missile launches, which violated a United Nations resolution.
“We are consulting with our allies and partners and there will be answers,” said Biden during his first press conference as president on Thursday. “If they decide to climb, we will respond accordingly.”
Some experts believe that getting attention may have been North Korea’s goal all along: to remind Biden of North Korea’s destructive power and to alert him to make a strong offer if negotiations resume.
Although Biden described North Korea as his biggest threat, it is probably not his priority in a presidency dominated so far by the recovery of the domestic coronavirus and clashes with China on the global stage.
“North Korea’s nuclear issues would never be at the top of the Biden government’s political agenda,” said Tom Plant, director of nuclear proliferation and policy at the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank. “North Korea is doing what it can to fix this. It wants to be noticed.”
This came straight out of the Pyongyang manual, which has a history of conducting high-level weapons tests to send messages to new United States governments.
Its state news agency KCNA said the 2.5-ton missiles accurately hit a target about 370 miles off its coast. South Korean officials previously said the distance was 270 miles.
Whatever the distance, it was a climb and the timing doesn’t seem like coincidence.
Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visited South Korea and Japan, while a review of Biden’s policy on North Korea is imminent.
This review will tell you a lot about how your government wants to deal with North Korea, an apparently intractable problem whose solution has eluded many presidents over the decades.
The United States says it has been trying in vain to make contact with the North since the denuclearization negotiations were paralyzed by President Donald Trump. It is highly unlikely that Biden will follow the same warlike boldness adopted by his predecessor, but he has taken a much tougher rhetorical line when it comes to Kim personally, who was celebrated by Trump but labeled a “thug” by Biden last year.
Unlike Trump, Biden denounced human rights abuses in North Korea, which a UN panel compared to the atrocities committed by the Nazis. He also called on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons – something most experts say it will never do peacefully.
“I am also prepared for some form of diplomacy, but it has to be conditioned on the end result of denuclearization,” said Biden on Thursday.
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Watchdogs believe Pyongyang has up to 60 nuclear weapons. Some experts believe that it has the ability to mount them on intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach the American continent
Last week, North Korea labeled Biden’s approach a “cheap trick”, saying it will not speak until the United States abandons its “hostile” policy.
But North Korea needs to talk, many experts agree. The Covid-19 cocktail, widespread floods and international sanctions have hit the country – already isolated and largely impoverished – shrinking its economy and causing widespread food shortages.
Kim “needs to have some kind of dialogue with Americans that will lead to some form of sanction relief,” said John Nilsson-Wright, senior researcher at Chatham House, a London think tank.
The display of ballistic missiles this week could be an attempt to present another type of conventional weapon with which it is prepared to bargain, according to Nilsson-Wright, who also teaches international relations and Japanese politics at Cambridge University.
While in Seoul, Blinken asked China to use its “tremendous influence” to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.
Cheong Seong-Chang, senior researcher at the Sejong Institute in Seoul, said the Biden administration should “use the paper from China, as North Korea desperately needs China’s supply of crude oil and Chinese tourists to sustain its faltering economy. “.
Others say the launch was not just about the US
The 2.5-ton warhead may have been an attempt to overcome it after South Korea tested its own missile last year with a 2-ton payload, according to Ankit Panda, senior researcher at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank.
“2.5-ton warhead! Someone is following the Jones in the south,” Panda tweeted.
Markus Garlauskas, who until last year was the US national intelligence officer for North Korea, also disagrees that the launches were just “a cry for attention” from Washington.
He sees them as a sign of “North Korea’s clear determination to continue advancing its ballistic missile programs.” “If this is not verified by the international community, it will likely lead to the launch of larger and more capable systems, including those capable of transporting several nuclear warheads,” said Garlauskas, now a senior member of the Atlantic Council.
The UN Security Council Sanctions Committee for North Korea will meet on Friday in response to missile launches, said a spokesman for the United States Mission to the UN, as the international community evaluates its response.
Alexander Smith reported from London, Stella Kim reported from Seoul and Dan De Luce and Abigail Williams reported from Washington.
Stella Kim, Dan De Luce and Abigail Williams contributed.