He forgot to wish a happy new year. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for a “exponential increase in the nuclear arsenal” of North Korea to face its southern neighbor and the United States, signaling the continuation in 2023 of the dangerous tensions on the Korean peninsula that had already characterized 2022.
At the end of a major meeting in Pyongyang, the ruling Workers’ Party also announced that the country would “to develop a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system whose main mission will be a rapid nuclear counter-attack”the official KCNA news agency reported on Sunday.
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“Need for mass production of nuclear weapons”
“The current situation calls for redoubled efforts to massively build up military strength to fully guarantee the sovereignty, security and core interests (of North Korea) in response to disturbing military maneuvers by the United States and other hostile forces”Kim Jong Un said, according to a report of the Party meeting released by the agency.
“This underscores the importance and necessity of mass production of tactical nuclear weapons and calls for an exponential increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal”he continued.
In another dispatch, KCNA reported comments by Kim Jong Un that South Korea was now “completely within striking distance” North Korean nuclear weapons.
Tension has risen dramatically in recent months between North Korea and its southern neighbor as well as the United States and Japan. The year 2022 has seen a record number of missile launches by Pyongyang. Three short-range ballistic missiles were fired by North Korea again on Saturday, and another on Sunday at dawn. KCNA mentioned “a very large multiple rocket launcher firing exercise”.
And on December 26, five North Korean drones entered southern airspace, even flying over the northern capital Seoul. Despite the deployment of fighter jets and helicopters for five hours, the southern army was unable to shoot down the drones during this incursion, the first of its kind in five years.
“Let’s play with nuclear weapons”
For Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungman University, Kim Jong Un’s new statements indicate that North Korea “prepares for the possibility of real war after the current collapse of inter-Korean relations”.
If, as is likely, South Korea and its American ally respond with an increase in their joint military maneuvers, tensions between the two Koreas will reach “an unprecedented level” in 2023, he warns. “It is reasonable to predict that the Korean Peninsula could become a second Ukraine if the situation is mishandled”adds this analyst.
The South Korean Defense Ministry called Kim’s latest statements a “provocative rhetoric that seriously harms the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula”. “We strongly warn North Korea that any attempt to use nuclear weapons will result in the end of Kim Jong Un’s regime”he said.
This is not the first time that North Korea has announced the mass production of atomic bombs, said Go Myong-hyun, a researcher at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.
“Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s message is something like: let’s play with nuclear weapons”, he continued. According to him, the North Korean leader is trying to show that “North Korea will not beg for dialogue and that it will put pressure on South Korea and the United States, especially the United States, by strengthening its nuclear power”.
Pyongyang nuclear deterrent
Kim Jong Un had already affirmed at the end of November that he wanted to endow his country with “the most powerful strategic force in the world”. Two months earlier, North Korea had adopted a new doctrine making “irreversible” its status as a nuclear power, and authorizing it to carry out a preventive atomic strike in the event of an existential threat against its regime.
Seoul and Washington lend Pyongyang the intention to carry out another nuclear test soon, which would be the seventh in its history and the first since 2017. North Korean leaders say that a credible nuclear deterrent is essential to the survival of their country , who says he is constantly threatened with aggression by the United States.
For Leif-Eric Easley, professor at Ewha University in Seoul, the recent gestures of hostility from Pyongyang, “could be intended to scare South Korea into adopting a more moderate policy”. But according to him, they risk producing the opposite effect and pushing Seoul to reinforce its military means.
“If China doesn’t want regional instability caused by an inter-Korean arms race on its doorstep, it will have to do more to contain Pyongyang in 2023”says Leif-Eric Easley.
