Is North Korea preparing for war?

The North Korean leader declared the South his “main enemy”, dissolved the peninsula’s cooperation and reunification agencies and threatened war if they violated “even just 0.001 millimeters” of his territory. But will Kim Jong-un be able to turn this aggressive rhetoric into action?

After years of deteriorating relations, Pyongyang this week declared Seoul its main enemy, shutting down agencies working on cooperation and the eventual reunification of Korea and threatened to invade the South during a war.

This is an important change because “in the past, when there was the risk of an armed conflict, there was a secret (communication) channel to keep it under control. Now there is none of this anymore”, he explains Hong Min, analyst at the agency. Korea Institute for Reunification, national in Seoul.

Pyongyang has gotten rid of “all inter-Korean mechanisms aimed at preventing conflict from escalating out of control,” he added.

“Labeling the South as the North’s ‘principal enemy’ is not just rhetoric: words can lead to action,” he warned.

military maneuvers

Kim has said he has no intention of starting a war, but neither does he intend to avoid it.

It declared that it no longer recognizes the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas and their army carried out several days of maneuvers with artillery fire in the area.

This creates “an increasing possibility that both sides could engage in a military skirmish, which could lead to a larger conflict,” Hong said.

Additionally, Pyongyang has moved closer to Moscow and, according to Washington and Seoul, supplied it with missiles for the war in Ukraine in exchange for help with its satellite program.

South Korea, for its part, threatened a response “many times stronger” to any provocation, a tough stance that also involves risks.

“It is never wise for South or North Korea to adopt a radical strategy in inter-Korean affairs,” the Hankyoreh newspaper wrote in an editorial.

“When North Korea is more reckless, we hope the government will focus its efforts (…) on managing the situation,” this South Korean newspaper added.

The two countries are now “in the greatest possibility of being involved in an armed conflict,” said Choi Gi-il, a professor of military studies at Sangji University.

“Suppose that in a future provocation by the North there are civilian and military casualties. We attack the point of origin with missiles. But will we also attack them with our air force?”, he asked.

In 2010, when Pyongyang bombed a remote border island in Yeonpyeong, killing four people, Seoul’s F-16 fighter jets were “in the air ready to strike, but then-President Lee Myung-bak interrupted it” to avoid a climbing.

“If such an incident were to occur, there is no guarantee that air power will not be used in the face of these warmongering calls” from the South Korean administration, he added.

AND The North’s response could lead the peninsula to “total war” At worst”.

Will there be reconciliation?

The prospects for Korean reconciliation have always been bleak, but are now even bleaker after Kim declared Seoul his number one enemy, said Soo Kim, a former CIA analyst now at the firm LMI Consulting.

“He not only closed the door to rapprochement, he put a padlock on it to make the South Koreans understand what their relationship is,” he told AFP.

But this new rhetoric doesn’t necessarily “change North Korea’s calculations,” he added.

Pyongyang takes time develop missiles and nuclear weapons and Kim is stalling for time to conduct a seventh nuclear test.

“These weapons do not develop overnight, and the Kim regime’s plan to use them as a tool of coercion, threat and negotiation has been its modus operandi for decades,” he said.

Aggressive rhetoric

The new rhetoric toward Seoul “appears to be an ideological adjustment for regime survival, justifying Kim’s focus on nuclear missiles,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.

North Koreans “are increasingly aware of their country’s economic failures than South Korea’s successes,” he said. “So Kim doubles down on his military capabilities in the face of external threats to his internal legitimacy,” she added.

Additionally, South Korea is holding a general election in April in which President Yoon Suk Yeol’s party seeks to regain control of the legislature.

“Kim may seek to punish the Yoon administration for its policies toward Pyongyang ahead of April’s legislative elections,” Easley said.

Source: AFP