DPRK - World War III.2 - Second Front Provocations
Troops from North Korea crossed the military demarcation line yet again on 20 June 2024. According to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff several soldiers from the North briefly crossed the border while working within the central part of the Demilitarized Zone. They returned to their side of the border after the South Korean military fired warning shots and aired warning messages. Now this is the third such intrusion following a similar incident back on 18 June 2024 and another some two weeks earlier. Authorities here assert the border intrusions appeared to have been accidental as were the previous two cases. U.S. security officials were raising alarms on the possibility of North Korea's "lethal" military action in the near future. They warn, Kim Jong-un's escalating hostile rhetoric against South Korea should be taken seriously. US officials said in late January 2024 North Korea could take some form of lethal military action against South Korea in the coming months.
Quoting White House Deputy National Security Adviser, Jonathan Finer, who spoke at an Asia Society forum on 25 January 2024, the New York Times reported that the regime had quote, "chosen to continue going down a very negative path." Daniel Russel, a former senior official at the U.S. State Department,. also said, that preparations should be made for the possibility of shocking kinetic action, with the leader seemingly intent on a strike that goes beyond North Korea's shelling of the South's Yeonpyeong Island in 2010.
According to a report released by the conservative U.S. think tank the Heritage Foundation, the regime could make use of nuclear weapons "more easily" during a crisis. It said the regime's increasing rate and diversity of missile launches shows that Pyongyang is making significant progress toward implementing a more capable and flexible nuclear strategy.
The warning came after Pyongyang recently shifted to a policy of open hostility. The North has been more aggressive with provocations this month, with the recent firing of cruise missiles in the West Sea, and the test launch of what it claimed to be a new solid-fuel, hypersonic intermediate-range missile. It also fired hundreds of artillery shells off its western coast earlier in the month,.. prompting South Korean islanders to evacuate. The North Korean leader also called for constitutional amendments, to officially label South Korea as its most hostile state.
However, despite Pyongyang's hard-line approach, experts say there appear to be no concrete signs that North Korea is gearing up for a major war. A U.S. official said North Korea's alleged weapons delivery to Russia, which prevents the regime from stockpiling arms,. could be a sign that Kim is not planning for a major military operation.
“If the enemy opts for military confrontation and provocation against the DPRK, our army should deal a deadly blow to thoroughly annihilate them by mobilising all the toughest means and potentialities without [a] moment’s hesitation,” Kim said, using the abbreviation of North Korea’s official name.
North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un, who travelled to a Russian space launch center in September 2023 for a summit with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, has been taking aggressive steps to strengthen ties with Moscow as he tries to break out of isolation and join a united front against Washington. The meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who rarely travels outside his country, and President Vladimir Putin in Russia lasted about five hours and wrapped up on 13 September 2023. The pair, arguably the world’s most isolated leaders, had not met since 2019. Washington and its allies believe defence cooperation was the priority of the meeting; speculation about military cooperation grew after Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu visited North Korea in July 2023.
Kim promised support for Russia’s “just fight”, backing Moscow’s efforts to defend its interests. North Korea has agreed to further strategic and tactical cooperation with Russia, as the two countries work to build a united front in the face of their separate, intensifying tensions with the United States.
The North’s Foreign Ministry said on 20 January 2024 that Russian President Vladimir Putin also reaffirmed his willingness to visit Pyongyang during meetings with Foreign Minister Choe Son in Moscow, and said that could come at an “early date.” State media said Choe and the Russian officials in their meetings expressed a “strong will to further strengthen strategic and tactical cooperation in defending the core interests of the two countries and establishing a new multi-polarised international order.”
Russia expressed “deep thanks” to North Korea for its “full support” over its war on Ukraine, the North Korean ministry said. Officials on both sides also expressed “serious concern” over the United States’ expanding military cooperation with its Asian allies that they blamed for worsening tensions in the region and threatening North Korea’s sovereignty and security interests.
Kim Jong Un’s bellicose statements and policy moves in January 2024 prompted a flurry of commentary about his intentions – including warnings that he could be preparing for war. In an analysis for the US-based 38 North project, former State Department official Robert Carlin and nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker said it was their belief Kim was genuinely preparing for war. “We do not know when or how Kim plans to pull the trigger, but the danger is already far beyond the routine warnings in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo about Pyongyang’s ‘provocations’,” they wrote. “In other words, we do not see the war preparation themes in North Korean media appearing since the beginning of last year as typical bluster from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
Gabriela Bernal, a PhD candidate at the University of North Korean Studies, argued in a South China Morning Post op-ed last week that the chances of conflict were “suddenly much higher” as Kim no longer viewed South Koreans as compatriots. Others have warned that even if Kim is not preparing for outright war, he could resort to lower-level provocations, such as weapons tests or a limited strike similar to Pyongyang’s shelling of the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong in 2010, which killed four South Koreans.
Victor Cha, George W Bush’s top adviser on Korean affairs, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that North Korea was likely to become more belligerent in the year ahead and could do “many things short of war to rattle the cages”. “If anything, the remarks reinforce the notion that Kim will continue to seek nuclear weapons development and testing as a source of security, survival, and intimidation tool against the region, most proximately South Korea,” Soo Kim, a former CIA analyst of North Korea, told Al Jazeera.
Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at South Korea’s Kookmin University, said the international media and general public have “short memories” when it comes to North Korean threats. “Ten years ago, North Korea said that officially war will start in the next few weeks. The North Korean government approached foreign embassies in Pyongyang, suggesting they evacuate immediately all non-essential personnel. The North Korean media addressed foreigners residing in South Korea, suggesting to them to run away immediately,” Lankov told Al Jazeera.
“A few dozen foreign journalists came to Seoul to report on the coming war in Korea. They were surprised to see that South Koreans did not care at all. They were supping their cappuccinos because they understood that such tidal waves of bellicose rhetoric come from North Korea every three or five years. Back then, it was far more very graphic than now.”
Ruediger Frank, a professor of East Asian economy and society at the University of Vienna, said it was extremely unlikely Kim would go to war against South Korea due to the likelihood Washington would retaliate in defence of its ally. “It is impossible to look inside the mind of any person, especially a dictator in a remote country. But if we assume that Kim Jong Un is a rational thinker with a sense of reality, then I do not see a single reason why the longstanding arguments against the likeliness of North Korea attacking South Korea should not be valid any more,” Frank said.
The relationship between the two Koreas has been at its lowest point in decades of strained relations. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may be hoping his expanded nuclear arsenal will give him leverage against the US in its global confrontation with Russia. On 01 January 2024 Kim ordered his military to “thoroughly annihilate” South Korea and the United States if they initiate a military confrontation in another round of bellicose rhetoric targeting Seoul and Washington. The two allies ramped up military and political cooperation in 2023 as North Korea conducted a record number of weapons tests, including of a new solid-fuelled intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), and put its first spy satellite into orbit.
At a meeting of the Korean Workers’ Party, Kim said peaceful reunification was impossible as the neighbours had become “two hostile countries” and war could “break out at any time”. During the five-day event in late December 2023 to set the policy agenda for 2024, the North Korean leader accused the US of posing “various forms of military threat”. Kim told the meeting he would no longer seek reconciliation and reunification with South Korea, noting the “uncontrollable crisis” that he said was triggered by Seoul and Washington.
North Korea threatened an immediate military strike against South Korea in response to any “provocation”. Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister and key ally of leader Kim Jong Un, made the threat as Pyongyang reportedly fired artillery shells near its border with South Korea for the third day in a row.
The remarks follow South Korean military reports that said the North had fired more than 60 artillery rounds near their disputed maritime border 06 January 2024. A similar volley of more than 200 rounds was reported 05 January 2024. North Korea fired more than 90 rounds the day before, according to the South. “The North Korean military has been conducting the drills north of the South Korean front-line island of Yeonpyeong since about 4pm [07:00 GMT],” the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported, citing a military source.
North Korea fired artillery shells into the sea near a tense maritime border and towards two South Korean islands, which Seoul called “an act of provocation” as it responded with live fire drills. The exchange led residents of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong – two remote South Korean islands – to evacuate to bomb shelters at the instruction of Seoul’s military before it fired live rounds towards the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL).
Pyongyang’s fire caused no damage, said Lee Sung-joon, a spokesperson for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, adding that all the shells landed on the northern side of the sea border. “This is an act of provocation that escalates tension and threatens peace on the Korean Peninsula,” South Korean Defence Minister Shin Won-sik said as he supervised the firing drills.
South Korea held its own fire drills in the sea 05 January 2024 in response to the artillery shells. Marine brigades based on the two islands fired into the sea to the south of the NLL, demonstrating “overwhelming operational response”, the ministry said. Its drills involved mechanised artillery and tanks.
“Under the current situation, we hope that all relevant parties maintain calm and restraint, refrain from taking actions that aggravate tensions, avoid further escalation of the situation and create conditions for the resumption of meaningful dialogue,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters 05 January 2024.
Since the 1990s, Pyongyang has disputed the NLL – drawn up at the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War – arguing it should lie far to the south. In 2010, North Korean artillery targeted Yeonpyeong, resulting in casualties, including civilians.
Kim Yo Jong, one of the most powerful members of Kim Jong Un’s government, said in a statement carried by state news agency KCNA that the safety catch on the trigger of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) had already been slipped. “As already declared, the KPA will launch an immediate military strike if the enemy makes even a slight provocation,” Kim said.
Kim took a number of provocative steps that attracted attention. Most notably, he announced that peaceful reunification with South Korea was no longer possible – a move some observers see as an unprecedented break with decades of policy advocating the reunion of North and South. In a speech to North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament last week, Kim said the constitution should be amended to define South Korea as the “primary foe and invariable principal enemy” and that three agencies tasked with promoting inter-Korean reconciliation reconciliation and reunification with South Korea would be closed.
Kim Jong Un warned 16 January 2024 that his secretive country does not seek to avoid war. In a speech to North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kim said unification with South Korea is no longer possible and called for a constitutional amendment to change the status of South Korea to a separate, “hostile country”, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. “We don’t want war but we have no intention of avoiding it,” Kim was quoted as saying by KCNA. Kim labelled South Korea a “principal enemy” and described efforts to reunify with its rival as a “mistake that we should no longer make”.
The Supreme People’s Assembly said in a statement that three organisations handling inter-Korean reconciliation – the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, the National Economic Cooperation Bureau and the (Mount Kumgang) International Tourism Administration – will shut. “The two most hostile states, which are at war, are now in acute confrontation on the Korean peninsula,” the assembly said, according to KCNA. The decision marks a further deterioration in relations between the Koreas following a series of recent missile tests by Pyongyang.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol criticised North Korea’s move to define his country as hostile, saying it showed Pyongyang’s “anti-national and ahistorical” nature.
Japan, South Korea and the United States have ramped up joint military exercises that Pyongyang sees as rehearsals for a future invasion in response to the weapons tests. The US Senior Official for the DPRK [The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name] Jung H Pak held a joint call with her South Korean and Japanese counterparts to condemn Pyongyang’s latest missile tests,
Yang Uk, an analyst at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said North Korea is trying to highlight its diversifying arsenal of nuclear-capable weapons to increase pressure on rivals. But the recent displays of new weapons systems came amid a slowdown in tests of short-range ballistic missiles, which could indicate inventory shortages as North Korea continues its alleged arms transfers to Russia, Yang said.
Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution 28 March 2024 to extend a panel of experts that has reported on North Korea’s development of its nuclear arsenal for 15 years, underscoring the increasingly close ties between Moscow and Pyongyang. Reports by the panel of experts inform decisions on international sanctions established by the Security Council in a series of resolutions aimed at barring North Korea from developing into a nuclear-armed state.
Russia started supplying oil directly to North Korea in defiance of U.N. sanctions, further cementing ties between the two authoritarian regimes and dealing a new blow to international efforts to contain Pyongyang. At least five North Korean tankers traveled this month to collect oil products from Vostochny Port in Russia’s Far East, according to satellite images shared with FT by RUSI 27 March 2024.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
