Pyongyang arms race puts Asia on edge

By Julian Ryall

North Korea has begun 2023 with a series of missile launches and leader Kim Jong Un vowing to increase production of nuclear weapons and develop improved intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), according to statements carried by state-run news agency KCNA.

Kim has also declared that South Korea is the North’s “undoubted enemy” and “hell-bent on an impudent and dangerous arms build-up.” South Korea has lived in the shadow of aggression from its northern neighbour since the 1950s. However, analysts have said the current threats and provocations emerging from Pyongyang should be a cause for deep concern.

Kim Sang-woo, a former politician with South Korea’s left-leaning Congress for New Politics and now a member of the board of the Kim Dae-jung Peace Foundation, said the security situation on the Korean Peninsula is again deteriorating.

“I think there is good reason for alarm because the North Korean regime looks at the current government in South Korea and sees that it is not nearly as agreeable to the North as the previous government,” he told DW. “I expect we will continue to see the North being more combative, as they have made it clear that they see the South as an ‘enemy state,’” he added. 

The administration of South Korea’s conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol, which took office in May 2022, has promised to take a tougher stance on North Korea compared with predecessor Moon Jae-in, who had embraced a more dovish policy on relations with Pyongyang.

Yoon responded quickly to the recent provocations, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff announcing on Monday the formation of a new directorate to develop responses to the North’s missile and nuclear threats. 

The South Korean president also announced that Seoul is discussing the possibility of organizing joint nuclear exercises with the US. 

At a meeting of the Workers’ Party of Korea during the last week of December, statements from which were first reported on January 1, Kim underlined the need to develop and deploy “overwhelming military power,” claiming the need to protect the North’s sovereignty.

Kim said the US and South Korea were attempting to “isolate and stifle” Pyongyang, according to KCNA.

The solution, Kim told his Cabinet, is a new ICBM “whose main mission is a quick nuclear counterstrike,” along with the development of tactical nuclear weapons aimed at South Korea.

In December, the North announced plans to send its first spy satellite into orbit by April. There is also concern that work on the North’s first submarine capable of firing long-range missiles is close to completion.

Analysis of satellite images of the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground in North Korea indicate that work continues on the development of larger and more capable launch vehicles for both satellites and longer-range missiles, including solid-fuel booster systems.

“Compared to liquid-propellant weapons, solid-fuel missiles are more mobile, quicker to launch, and easier to conceal and use during a conflict,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

“Pyongyang’s claim of testing a solid-fuel motor for longer range ballistic missiles supports its more aggressive, recently declared doctrine of using nuclear weapons if the Kim leadership or strategic assets come under threat,” he told DW. “Once deployed, the technology would make North Korea’s nuclear forces more versatile, survivable and dangerous.”

This article was provided by Deutsche Welle