7th Nuclear Test on the Horizon

Last year, North Korea tests more missiles than ever before. And yet, this news barely registered in the public discourses in Korea and the United States. With the expectation that North Korea will probably conduct its 7th nuclear test soon, the question is no longer about how to denuclearize North Korea but about why we don’t really care anymore. Surely, the war in Ukraine has taken up much of the world’s attention in foreign policy, because the outcome of that war can be quite consequential. But North Korea was able to regularly frighten the world with its missile and nuclear tests to provoke the South Koreans and Americans to consider negotiations. But at some point in recent years, that dynamic visibly changed.

In the past, and I'm talking about the 1990s until the 2010s, there was an argument to be made that North Korea was testing weapons as a way to gain the world’s attention to somehow reduce the punishing sanctions and diplomatic isolations that it had to deal with for a very long time. There is a theory called Crisis Generation, which attempts to explain how smaller and weaker states can force concessions from stronger states by occasionally manufacturing an international crisis, such as nuclear weapons tests, and then offering a solution to resolving that crisis for a price. Crisis Generation works when the stronger states, during normal times, are indifferent to smaller states, to the point of condescension. This creates the opportunity for the smaller state to spend the time and effort to manufacture a crisis because the stronger state does not want to spend the resources on changing the structural issues that exist between them. 

North Korea was a prime example of a smaller state that would regularly manufacture a crisis, with its weapons programs but also with humanitarian crises that would arise in North Korea due to poor governance. In return, it could receive foreign aid, relaxation of certain economic sanctions, or even temper shows of force by South Korean and American militaries. But the attention that the world gives to North Korea is always brief, and the number of concessions that North Korea could receive are always limited because no matter how serious the manufactured crisis appears to be, no one is interested in fundamentally changing the existing relationship because that takes too much effort, and the status quo does not pose too much of problem.

But the Crisis Generation theory does not seem to hold up in light of North Korea's actions in the past year. The missile tests barely made headline news in South Korea and the United States, and the sheer volume and frequency of the tests suggest that they are no longer designed to provoke South Korea nor the US. North Korea is actually testing the missiles to actually improve and finalize the designs. The responses from governments in South Korea and the United States regarding missile tests were also very muted. Even if the US government is preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, the lack of any diplomatic messaging in response to North Korean weapons tests is indicative of US resignation over North Korea’s weapons programs. And no, extending joint military exercises with South Korean forces by several days is hardly significant. The South Korean government tried to appear more upset at North Korea over the weapons tests, but that kind of response may have to do more with the fact that the South Korean president is new and from the conservative party, so he feels the need to appear strong against North Korea. The South Korean government hasn’t done anything more than it has in the past, which is to complain and utilize show of force through military exercises before quickly moving on to more politically salient domestic issues.

North Korea seems more focused on maximizing the deterrent capabilities of its developing weapons than on forcing concessions from South Korea and the US. Last year, North Korea published its updated policies on nuclear weapons, which showed that North Korea's nuclear strategy is focused on deterrence. The update notably includes a "dead hand" policy. The dead hand policy allows North Korean military commanders to retaliate against enemy forces with nuclear weapons without explicit approval from Kim Jung Un in the event of a “decapitation strike”. A decapitation strike is a ridiculous name given to a military operation that aims to destroy the high command of a military-political organization to disrupt the chain of command. By adopting the dead hand policy, North Korea is trying to counter South Korea’s plan to target Kim Jung Un first in case of an all out war. South Korea definitely has such a plan, since it publicly created an entire military unit with the sole purpose of taking out Kim Jung un. While all these talks of decapitations and dead hands sound scary, it is much better now that North Korea has the capability to carry out a dead hand doctrine with nuclear weapons than when it didn’t. 

It has been decades since South Korea held the advantage in conventional military capabilities against North Korea, and with the introduction of even more advanced weapons such as the F35 aircraft, against which North Korea has very little answer for in terms of conventional air defense, North Korea would have felt very insecure. The development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles were some of the only remaining options for North Korea to secure itself from any hypothetical South Korean military aggression. North Korea would use ballistic missiles to strike South Korean aircraft hangars and runways to degrade South Korean airpower. And should those missiles fail to prevent South Korea from considering a decapitation strike, the dead hand policy would act as the final line of defense. 

It makes more sense to think of North Korea's weapons programs as defensive rather than offensive in nature. North Korea had functioning nuclear weapons and credible means of delivering them anywhere in South Korea for several years at this point. And yet, North Korea never really made any significant effort to even demand or influence policy changes in the South Korean government. All the while South Korea didn’t have credible anti-ballistic missile defense nor indigenous nuclear weapons. The only demand North Koreans made was to stop the joint US-South Korea military exercises, which is a demand North Korea has always made and was always ignored by South Korea and the US without consequence. 

Without ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons, North Korea would be too vulnerable to South Korean and American military capabilities. While this may seem like a good thing for the South Koreans, it would have made the Americans anxious. The last thing Americans want is an adventurous South Korean military from leveraging its military advantage to attempt revisionist or coercive campaigns against North Korea, which would significantly increase the likelihood of war that the US does not want to get dragged in. We can see this American fear play out in its ambiguous support for Taiwan. The US is probably more fearful of Taiwan provoking China than China itself, should the US give Taiwan unambiguous military support.

A nuclear armed North Korea is certainly not ideal. But there aren’t any options left for all sides involved other than establishing mutual deterrence and maintaining the peace. There has been some talk in South Korea about developing its own nuclear weapons, but it seems unnecessary. South Korea is covered by the US nuclear umbrella, and even if Koreans may not fully believe that the US would lose LA to Seoul in a nuclear shootout, there is even less reason to believe that North Korea would use nuclear weapons for anything other than deterrence. Because once again, I would point out that North Korea had the nuclear advantage for several years now, with which North Korea did nothing coercive with. So why should South Korea bother itself with building indigenous nuclear weapons which will take a lot of economic and political capital, not to mention introduce a source of friction in the US-South Korea alliance. 

Most experts expect North Korea to conduct its 7th nuclear test soon. That might be enough to divert public attention away from what stupid thing Elon Musk does next for about 10 seconds. But then there will not be much for the media to report on. The US government will denounce the test publicly but quietly admit that there’s nothing much left to do other than reemphasize its commitment to the US-South Korea alliance. The only potential wildcard might be South Korea's new president, who might try to respond more forcefully than required, either due to ignorance or due to the need to placate the domestic hardliners in his political party. So, in the 5 minutes that you are going to spend worrying about North Korean nuclear weapons when the test finally happens, look out for the South Korean government's response before deciding to truly panic.