North Korea's recent hostile words and actions

Starting in late December 2023, North Korea kicked off its belligerent and hostile moves against South Korea.

Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of North Korea, said that South Korea must not be considered as a partner for reconciliation or unification, during a key ruling party meeting in late December 2023.

Following his words, North Korea fired artillery shells in the western sea boundary with South Korea earlier this month and test-launched a new solid-fuel intermediate-range missile tipped with a hypersonic weapon on January 14.

About three weeks later, he said South Korea is no longer a partner for unification. Kim said the constitution should be amended to call South Korea the “primary foe,” according to the North’s state-controlled media.

Apparently, Pyongyang seems to have concluded that taking a hawkish approach against Seoul is strategically beneficial to its national interests, as well as strengthening ties with Moscow as it has been accused of supplying ammunition to Russia for the prolonged war in Ukraine. In light of Kim’s words and actions, Seoul and Washington must find some momentum to tip the balance.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol responded to the North’s recent hostile words and actions, saying that his military would punish North Korea multiple times just as hard if it launches a provocation. Washington also condemned Pyongyang’s latest words and actions, while urging it to return to diplomacy.

Clearly, the vicious cycle of the tit-for-tat between the South Korea-U.S. alliance and North Korea has resumed on the Korean Peninsula.

Considering the North’s interpretation of the South Korea-U.S. joint military drills as an invasion rehearsal, North Korea will test some advanced missiles once the drills are conducted. As a corresponding measure against the North’s missile test, U.S. strategic assets will be deployed in the South’s territory or sea while Washington sanctions more individuals or entities related to the North’s missile development.

Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of Kim Jong-un, recently mocked Seoul’s moves, calling them action providing reasons for Pyongyang to beef up its missile capabilities.

The U.S. condemns the North’s military cooperation with Russia, but has not recalibrated its policy on North Korea to bring Kim Jong-un back to the negotiating table. U.S. President Joe Biden’s approach to North Korea was an updated version of Barack Obama’s “strategic patience” -- which is a failed approach to the denuclearization of North Korea.

North Korea shut down propaganda sites such as Uriminzokkiri, Arirang Meari and DPRK Today that were tasked with spreading propaganda information in South Korea. The North’s government agencies, such as the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country and the Mount Kumgang International Tourism Administration, which were tasked with handling relations with South Korea, have also been abolished, according to the North’s state media reports on Jan. 16.

Given the circumstances, experts have delivered their concerns and pessimistic views on the prospects of inter-Korean relations and the nuclear talks between the U.S. and North Korea for 2024.

In an article published in 38 North, the Washington-based Stimson Center’s program focused on North Korea, Robert Gallucci, a former chief of the Northeast Asia Division at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the U.S. State Department, and Siegfried Hecker, a professor of practice at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, who visited North Korea several times, argued that Kim Jong-un’s recent words and actions point toward “the prospects of a military solution” using his large nuclear arsenal.

In a bid to avoid the devastating chicken game with North Korea on the Korean Peninsula, South Korea should devise a new policy to utilize the hostile words and actions made by Pyongyang.

According to a poll published by the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council, a presidential consultative body in South Korea, 73.7 percent of the respondents said unification with the North is necessary. However, more than half of the respondents supported the idea of the South and the North being two countries in which Koreans can visit freely, while only 28.5 percent supported a single sovereign state on the Korean Peninsula.

What this means is that South Koreans can be supportive when Seoul and Pyongyang agree to not seek unification, but to redefine inter-Korean relations as two different countries on the Korean Peninsula.

The emergence of such a new idea from Seoul could help tip the balance, especially when Washington faces constraints in engaging in dialogue with Pyongyang due to the 2024 U.S. presidential election and other diplomatic agendas.

It is the responsibility of a stronger and economically better country to resolve the security conflicts in the region. Rather than waiting for the Kim regime to collapse and the North to voluntarily withdraw its nuclear weapons, South Korea should take a step to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War and consistently urge North Korea to dismantle its nuclear arsenal with a blue print in which the North can coexist with South Korea peacefully on the Korean Peninsula.

Mitch Shin is a chief correspondent for The Diplomat and a research fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy. Shin was a non-resident research fellow at the Institute for Security & Development Policy, Stockholm Korea Center, and a nonresident Korea Foundation fellow at Pacific Forum.