Kim's new strategic direction
John Merill
In a major policy shift, Kim Jong-un's New Year's address lashed out at South Korea, calling it a "hostile enemy state," abandoning for now any hope of unification.
It can be argued that the move was no more than a simple acknowledgment of fact, but it still provoked a flood of alarmist predictions from some surprising quarters. Even usually sympathetic authors, such as Bob Carlin and Sig Hecker have raised dire warnings about North Korea's new, more hostile stance.
Kim accused South Korea of being thoroughly corrupted by malign American influence. He said Seoul had now become impossible to deal with and ordered the dissolution of all front organizations in charge of maintaining contacts with the South.
Both Koreas have now begun making moves to bring about their breakup. The North dissolved the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland. It also has apparently torn down the gigantic unification arch depicting two Korean women coming together that dominates the highway leading to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
The DMZ is becoming increasingly tense. Both sides are now fortifying guard posts along their sides of the border. The North has also conducted an artillery drill, lobbing hundreds of shells into the sea near the Ongjin Peninsula.
In another sign of increasingly hostile relations, the Ministry of Unification in Seoul announced the formal dissolution of companies formerly operating in the Kaesong Industrial Complex.
There could be a domestic angle to the new North Korean line on unification. The emergence of Kim's photogenic young daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who Seoul's intelligence service assesses may be being groomed as his successor, roughly coincides with the breakup between the two Koreas.
If Kim really intends to make Ju-ae his successor, he knows this will be a nearly impossible "sell" to the South Korean public. If this is so, a domestic campaign to burnish her revolutionary credentials — along with a campaign incorporating themes of dynastic succession would seem to be necessary.
Similar calculations have been behind other previous North Korean provocations. In 2010, for example, the North's sinking of the Cheonan naval ship and the bombing of Yeonpyeong Island are believed to have been linked to efforts to build public support for the planned succession of Kim Jong-un once his father, Kim Jong-il, died. It was at this time that he was anointed as "General" Kim Jong-un despite his lack of military experience.
With unification being downgraded as a regime priority, the North's foreign ministry under Choe Son-hui seems to be increasingly in the ascendancy. She has extensive experience in dealing with Americans in many unofficial settings. Her recent visit to Moscow to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov represents a new high-water mark in Russian-North Korean relations. Both sides are now portraying her visit as a prelude to a Putin trip to North Korea later this year.
With Washington focused on conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, it is arguably not paying as much attention as it should to the increasingly fraught situation in Korea. Pyongyang seems to be trying to keep attention focused on the peninsula with high-profile announcements of new weapons tests, including hypersonic missiles and an undersea nuclear drone.
Both the Russian and North Korean sides have said that they want to improve their relations across the board. A Putin visit would be a chance to flesh out the new relationship. Strangely enough, Russia may actually turn out to be an unexpected factor for stability on the peninsula. Moscow knows that any conflict there will inevitably involve the United States and so the logic of deterrence will come into play.
North Korea has shipped more than a million artillery shells, tactical ballistic missiles and anti-tank missiles to Moscow for use in the war in Ukraine. Though not often noted, this mirrors Seoul's own three-way trade of howitzers, artillery and other munitions to Poland, which then ships its own older Soviet-era weapons to Ukraine.
The North Korean military supplies to Russia are aiding its own economy since they are likely bringing in much-needed cash for Pyongyang. Some analysts forecast that the Russian arms sales and the resumption of trade with China after the COVID lockdown means that North Korea could have its fastest growth rate in nearly a decade.
That makes it unlikely that Kim would seek a war at this time. Another sign is that by selling munitions to Russia, Kim is depleting his own stocks of ammunition that would otherwise be needed for an attack on South Korea.
John Merrill (jmerrill05@gmail.com) is a visiting scholar at the Institute of Korean Studies at George Washington University.