There's also a rebuttal article on the same blog: https://www.38north.org/2024/01/a-fundamental-shift-or-more-...
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.
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.
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.
“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 don’t think this is a valid high-confidence assumption anymore. From Venezuela to Iran, it’s clear American military resolve is being tested.
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.