What to make of debate among U.S. North Korea watchers regarding Kim Jong Un’s alleged decision to go to war?

Peter Ward

Research Fellow at Sejong Institute

pward89@sejong.org​​​​

As we enter a presidential election year in the United States, there has been an ongoing debate about North Korea’s alleged desire to provoke a war on the Korean peninsula. This article offers a brief analysis of the major arguments made by the principal participants in the debate, and then considers the threat that North Korea actually poses in an election year and how to respond to that threat. Potential high-risk high-reward limited operations, including attacks on the Five West Sea Islands, cannot be ruled out. Hence, there is a need to prepare for a wide range of scenarios involving the West Sea, and boost cooperation with neighboring countries. 

As tensions continue to rise on the Korean peninsula, the North Korean authorities has increased the frequency and intensity of its military drills, including mock nuclear attack operations. In the event of a crisis, they threaten to use nuclear weapons against South Korea. Further, they continue to develop and test Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), and assert that they have the capacity to strike the U.S. mainland. 

In addition, since late 2019, they have refused to negotiate with the United States. And at the December 2023 expanded plenum of the Korean Workers Party, Kim Jong Un asserted that South Korea will no longer be seen as being part of the same nation and South Koreans no longer the same people. Instead, South Korea was now the North’s ‘main adversary’ and a country it was ‘in a state of war’ with. What is more, he told onlookers that "if the ROK violates even 0.001 mm of our territorial land, air and waters" it will be considered an act of war. He also said that he does not recognize the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the maritime border between the two Koreas, raising the risks of accidental military altercations and lowering the threshold for intentional military actions.