Kim Jong Un blasts his way onto President Biden's foreign policy agenda

As Joe Biden spars with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine and Xi Jinping over human rights, the U.S. president now has another pressing worry: Kim Jong Un’s missiles. 
 

Last month the North Korean leader conducted more weapons tests than he did all last year, including Sunday’s launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile for the first time since 2017. That effectively ended a halt to long-range missile tests put in place before his first summit in 2018 with Donald Trump, signaling Kim is preparing to soon fire a intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach across the U.S., from Los Angeles to the White House.

So far the Biden administration hasn’t budged, with an official on Sunday reiterating a long-held position that the door is open for Kim to return to talks without preconditions. Publicly it has offered nothing new to entice him back to negotiations, which have been stalled since a Kim-Trump summit in Vietnam collapsed three years ago. 

For Kim, it’s an opportune time to bolster his nuclear program and increase his leverage for whenever talks eventually resume. China and Russia are unlikely to support any U.S. proposals for new sanctions against his regime, limiting the downside for any fresh ICBM tests. And South Korea has a presidential election in March, meaning a new leader won’t be in place to coordinate policies with the U.S. until around the middle of the year. 

“The timing couldn’t be better for North Korea to conduct these various weapons tests,” said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a non-resident fellow with the 38 North Program at the Stimson Center who worked as an analyst for the CIA’s Open Source Enterprise for nearly two decades. Pyongyang wants to “increase its weapons capabilities to the maximum now, when it knows that not much can or will be done on North Korea issues.” 

Over the past year Kim has displayed advancements that show a much more sophisticated nuclear deterrent than when Trump first took office. Back then, the young leader was still testing Soviet-era Scud missile variants left over from when his father ruled the country until his death in late 2011. 

By the time Trump left, Kim had modernized his arsenal with quick-strike missiles equipped with better guidance systems. Recently he’s tested a hypersonic missile system designed to deploy a warhead that uses high-speed maneuverability to evade U.S.-operated interceptors in the region.

The technological improvements help raise the costs dramatically if the U.S. weighs a military strike against North Korea, such as when Trump threatened to unleash “fire and fury” against Pyongyang. It also gives Kim more chips to play with in any negotiations over sanctions, which he has found ways to evade -- including through the theft of some $400 million in cryptocurrency last year.

“Kim Jong Un has less to lose by re-escalating tensions,” said Kang Mi-jin, a North Korean defector who now runs an investment company in South Korea that watches the economy of her former home. While North Korea’s economy is not in great shape, she said, Kim “has arguably stabilized an inflation problem so North Korea can still muddle through as it continues provocation against the U.S.”

So far there is no indication the Biden administration -- or the American public -- is particularly alarmed by Kim’s missile tests. Unlike Trump, Biden has avoided threats or other rhetorical escalations and in fact says little at all publicly about the North Korean leader. And the only question about North Korea in Monday’s White House press briefing was in relation to U.S. tensions with China and Russia.

‘Very Careful’
 

“North Korea has been doing missile tests, dozens of them, in prior administrations,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in response. “And obviously we’ve spoken to it each time that that has happened; the door to diplomacy remains open and we have conveyed that clearly. We are very careful not to combine all of these pieces into one because they are all different circumstances.”

The last talks broke down because Trump refused a North Korean offer to shutter plutonium and uranium facilities at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center in return for lifting some of the most stringent sanctions against Kim’s regime. White House officials at the time said the move would’ve deprived the U.S. of leverage to push him to completely give up his nuclear weapons. 

That goal looks even more far-fetched three years later. The two sides still don’t have a common definition of denuclearization: North Korea wants all American nuclear weapons removed from the region as a condition of its own disarmament, while the U.S. has called on Kim to give up his weapons before receiving sanctions relief. 

So far, it’s unclear if Biden officials would offer Kim more flexible terms. Speaking on Sunday after North Korea’s long-range missile test, an administration official declined to spell out how the U.S. might take action if diplomacy fails. The official also ruled out a meeting right now between Kim and Biden, saying it would need to have a clear purpose -- a condition that’s nowhere close to being met. 

Kim’s next move is likely to be an ICBM test, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers in January, according to opposition member Ha Tae-keung. Detonating another nuclear bomb would be even more provocative, although it’s unclear where such tests could be conducted after Kim dismantled the underground facility used for the country’s previous six tests. 

Still, Kim may face trouble with China -- North Korea’s biggest benefactor -- if he pushes things too far as he deals with one of the most difficult periods during his decade in power. His decision to close borders about two years ago due to the coronavirus slammed the brakes on the little trade he had with China. The two recently reopened a rail link that had been shut for nearly a year and a half, in a sign it needs outside help. 

North Korea’s improved nuclear and missile arsenal aren’t in China’s interests because they could encourage the U.S. and its allies to beef up their defense systems in the region, according to Naoko Aoki, a research associate at the University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies.

“Given North Korea’s dire economic straits -- due to the country’s mismanagement, pandemic-induced isolation and sanctions imposed for its wrongdoing –- it would not be a good idea for North Korea to upset China,” she said.