Is Kim Jong Un Preparing for War? | Hacker News Reader

Is Kim Jong Un Preparing for War?

38north.org

There's also a rebuttal article on the same blog: https://www.38north.org/2024/01/a-fundamental-shift-or-more-...

How might we validate the two competing hypotheses? That is, fundamental policy shift vs business-as-usual reacting to changing global events (primarily US election).

Both seek to explain the same phenomenon (increase in aggressive rhetoric and internal messaging), and as a lay person it is difficult to see whether the evidence leans one way or another.

The chain of implications in OP (that rejection of US normalisation as a goal would lead to increased aggression towards the South) does seem a bit unclear to me, but that isn’t reason to dismiss the argument entirely.

In either case (or another one entirely…), it is clear that there is a huge degree of uncertainty here. Decisions should be made with that in mind, rather than wagering on one best-guess hypothesis.

We can't; at least not before shit goes down. Even people in the National Security Council with access to all the latest intelligence can't answer that question with any certainty. Hell they might just be as clueless as we are, depending on how much effort they've put into obtaining intelligence on North Korea. There's no guarantee that the people working on it are there because of merit or of nepotism.

As lay people, we don't stand a chance and any armchair bloviating is purely for our own entertainment to help cope with our powerlessness. If the past few years have taught me anything, it's that anything can happen. Just believe whatever narrative helps you sleep at night and you'll be alright.

Well, we more or less agree up to the last sentence, I suppose

you are largely talking about pundits on tv stating russia will not attack.

While basically everyone else remotely connected to the topic were convinced russia is prepig for a war.

You dont build fobs supply dumps and move massive amounts of equipment to 'scare' neighbour.

That being said, russia's 3day operation has probably a lot of dictators and would be conquerors thinking. A modern war is not that easy and can quickly lead to a massive resource drain. Russia attack a weaker neighbour from 3 directions. It had technological, logistical, economical, manpower and first strike advantage. And yet here we are.

That is definitely something even delusional dictator will consider.

Thank you. In summary:

“There is nothing new in Pyongyang, but—and here, I agree with the authors—recently, there has been an increase in this kind of violent language.

This recent propaganda increase has nothing to do with a policy shift after Hanoi, but the timing is related to the coming US presidential elections. In the run-up to Hanoi, the North Koreans had hoped that President Trump—whom they considered the weakest link—would give in to their requests. Although they did their best to minimize the State Department’s influence on Trump (see Stephen Biegun’s interview with Arms Control in 2021, at that time, Trump did not agree to their demands. I do not think Pyongyang believes it can influence the outcome of the US presidential elections. But it surely believes that a Republican victory (preferably with Trump, but even with some of the other Republican contenders) would give North Korea a second chance to further its objectives. I thus believe that Pyongyang (following a well-established negotiating pattern employed, e.g. in the run-up to the Olympic Winter Games of 2018) will continue to increase tensions until after the US elections, but that at the height of tensions, it will finally be willing to re-engage with a Republican Administration in the hope to get sanctions relief, some sort of acceptance of their nuclear program, and—as main objective—a reduction or even complete withdrawal of US troops from the Korean Peninsula.”

I feel like this assumes the old world order is still in place when it clearly isn't. Even in the last two years it's undergone a radical shift, let alone from the time since the Trump / Kim meeting. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, wars and conflicts are cascading across the globe at an ever increasing clip. Hamas' attack on Israel, the attacks in the Red Sea, Iran hitting Iraq, Pakistan and Syria with ballistic missiles, Venezuela threatening to annex territory all happened over the last few months. Destabilization of the order is evident everywhere.

Yea, but nobody wants to piss off the US if they can avoid it. Sanctions remain effective against north korea, and it doesnt look like they will find any relief under such a chaotic regime. You might see the cracks in the foundation and say its finished, but there is a lot of bureaucratic momentum that can keep the empire going. This would be a smart strategy, playing into the general sense of global conflict and chaos, rolling the dice for a more favorable geopolitical standing.

> nobody wants to piss off the US if they can avoid it

I don’t think this is a valid high-confidence assumption anymore. From Venezuela to Iran, it’s clear American military resolve is being tested.

And efficacy outright called into doubt in the Red Sea.

> efficacy outright called into doubt in the Red Sea

Not really. It's a resolve issue. America is technically capable of deteroriorating the Houthis' ability to fire into the Red Sea. (Last week's strikes took out something like a quarter of their current capability.)

The problem is that would invite a broader conflagration with Iran, which the American electorate is not ready to stomach.

So basically UnPreparing for war.

>Although Pyongyang’s decision-making often appears ad hoc and short sighted, in fact, the North Koreans view the world strategically and from a long-term perspective.

I feel like this statement, which I agree with, is incompatible with NK preparing for war, because short/medium term, leadership knows they'll get stomped in full confrontation. Unless they're riding on PRC treaty or some recent development with RU in security realm, which I doubt RU can honor since they're... busy... except for maybe some nuclear umbrella coverage until NK builds up their arsenal.

IMO Un has been pretty diligent retooling their defense industry, their missiles just got used in UKR, it's mediocre, but it's proven. They're doing as well as can be expected under Juche, and now with increased RU dependency, they have some leverage in terms of importing energy and calories, which they didn't have from PRC whose only import from NK is good behavior. RU NOW benefits from NK agigating SKR and JP.

Another skirmish or large incident like Cheonan perhaps. Or imagine degrading Samsung electronics whose market cap is multiple times NK GDP. Or a few battery chem plants. Most of SKR is strategically threatened after NK moves from mass artillery with limited range to rockets that can reach every point. Pain NK can inflict with good enough missiles is disproportional. Which is not good for SK being import AND export dependant to exist and be comfortable.

I think the Forest for the Trees take is this:

They don't plan to instigate war in a vacuum, or trigger anything themselves. They think that there is high probably of global conflict in the next 4 years, and think that they may capitalize from it / would mobilize given certain opportunities (and blind eyes / distracted nations).

> The first obvious signs that a decision had been made and a decisive break with the past was underway came in the summer and autumn of 2021

Does anyone know what the signs were? I may be misreading the article, but it isn’t clear to me from the text how this conclusion was reached.

From the article it seems to be analysis due to change in Pyongyang's behavior, coupled with intimate knowledge of the history of relations and personal experience with North Korea along with the current spate of aggressive attacks that seemed unthinkable by national actors. They're pointing to military preparations along with the fact that instead of waging an aggressive media campaign that usually accompanies their blackmail, they're being much more low key. Their language is much more vicious but less bombastic and attention seeking.

Some analysis of the troubling behavior from the NYTimes:

It has been evident for some time that something is afoot in North Korea. Kim invested his hopes in a 2019 summit with President Donald Trump in Hanoi — and that fell apart, leaving Kim humiliated. For decades under three leaders, North Korea sought a deal with the United States involving trade, prestige and economic benefits, but now it seems to have given up on that. Instead, it has bolstered ties with Russia, improved its nuclear weapon capabilities and escalated its rhetoric.

This week North Korea announced that it would take a much harsher approach to South Korea, changing its constitution and its longstanding policy on reunification, and would not respect traditional boundary lines. Kim said his army was making preparations for “a great revolutionary event,” which Carlin said is a phrasing that previously has been used to describe war with South Korea. Kim said North Korea did not want war but suggested it may be coming: “The war will terribly destroy the entity called the Republic of Korea” — the official name for South Korea — “and put an end to its existence. And it will inflict an unimaginably crushing defeat upon the U.S.”

I reached out to other experts to gauge their views. Joel Wit, a longtime North Korea expert at the State Department, now at the Stimson Center, said he takes Carlin and Hecker “extremely seriously.” Wit said that a recent incident in which North Korea fired artillery shells near waters disputed with South Korea “sent chills down my spine” because it seemed a possible rehearsal for a major provocation.

The Biden administration has not focused on North Korea for understandable reasons: It is wrestling with many other urgent crises. It may be too late to engage the North diplomatically if it has decisively given up on the United States, Wit said, but he added that China is now so deeply alarmed about North Korea that Beijing might be of help.

Deborah Fikes, a member of the National Committee on North Korea, a coalition of people with deep experience with the country, said that many nonprofits that normally have working relations with North Korea have been unable even to get responses to their inquiries. She, too, is worried about the risk of conflict.

Thank you, this is very helpful. It appears that it was covered in the article (not as explicitly as you have put it, perhaps) and I was failing to join up the dots.

I would dearly like to see the text of the mentioned 2019 letter, but it seems somewhat closely guarded.

The very premise of the question is flawed: North Korea has been at war since 1950, there was never any peace deal signed.

So to peruse Betteridge's Law of Headlines: No.

That's glib, these are some of the most experienced hands on North Korea in the world. One of them was even invited by the North Koreans to personally inspect their nuclear facilities. They're warning of a profoundly dangerous event. The consequences are so intense, we shouldn't just dismiss it like all the ignored warnings regarding Russia's invasion

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Robert L. Carlin is a nonresident scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and a former chief of the Northeast Asia Division in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the US State Department, where he took part in US-North Korean negotiations.

Siegfried S. Hecker is a professor of practice at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, a professor of practice at Texas A&M University, and a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and professor emeritus of Stanford University.

>we shouldn't just dismiss it

On the contrary, I'm saying we are in fact dismissing it by either ignoring or forgetting the fact that North Korea is, and has been, at war. If we are asking if North Korea is "preparing for war", we are in fact dismissing the dangerous state of affairs already concerning that country.

North Korea is at war and is improving their arsenal and capability for that reality, but do we understand that as well? Perhaps we don't.

Yes, they have been “at war” but not at war

Indeed, so as Taiwan.

This seems to miss the point of the article: an active war, not just the legal state of things.

Sigh. We all know what they mean. And the Betteridge quip is a meme that has been empirically falsified, I don't know why people keep bringing it up ad nauseum on HN.

> There is a belief, entirely understandable, that more and more frequent symbols of our intent to retaliate will keep the North at bay

How's deterrence working on those other fronts, Uncle Sam? Have you tried diplomacy? Have you tried fixing your own country first?

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