Drums are playing war again on the peninsula Korea. We are in the biggest moment to get nervous Since the 1953 ceasefire and this time Pyongyang Some warn that he is serious; Others assure that it is countless cycles of tension-strain. The world is looking at that fossil The Cold War I wonder if Kim Jong-un He wants to add another conflict to the world full of them.
North Korea After its military maneuvers, it welcomed the year with a medium-range hypersonic missile United States of America, South Korea And Japan. In recent weeks, it has chained together the launch of an intercontinental projectile, the launch of the first spy satellite into orbit, the testing of a nuclear-loaded underwater drone and multiple artillery salvoes on the controversial issue. border To make the short list is maritime. Seoul suspended a 2018 agreement to reduce military tensions and resumed aerial surveillance. In response, Pyongyang sent its soldiers back to border posts.
North Korea’s enthusiastic missile activity is neither new nor threats no impending war, no promises to plunge their enemies into the sea of fire. Two elements are new. On the one hand, giving up reunification This had been the Kims’ ultimate goal ever since their grandfather started the saga. His grandson recently asked Parliament for an amendment identifying South Korea as his “main enemy” and declaring that unification was no longer possible. The national press added that this goal was a “serious anachronism” given that their southern neighbors were merely looking for “an opportunity to overthrow our Government and achieve unification through unification.” He also demolished the “Reunification Arch,” a tasteless but richly symbolized monument that his father had built in Pyongyang during those rare years of harmony at the turn of the millennium. And it closed three government agencies that encouraged contacts on both sides of the fence.
“Go to war”
The second element is discord within the tight ranks of North Koreans dedicated to investigating an elusive country. Robert Carlin, former analyst includingand nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker, who has visited the country on various occasions, revealed in an article published in the special media ’38 North’ that Kim Jong-un “determines the decision strategy” like his grandfather seventy years ago. “I’m going to war.” “We don’t know when and how he will pull the trigger, but the danger already goes well beyond routine warnings of Pyongyang’s provocations,” they added. They argued that the country would have reached this decision after trying to “normalise” relations for two decades. United States of America. Kim Jong-un stated in 2019 that a “new path” was needed after those historic and barren summits. donald trump in Singapore and Hanoi.
The article stirred the waters because academia provides a healthy buffer against media hysteria announcing wars in Korea or China’s invasion of Korea. Taiwan. The rest of the Union reacted with skepticism and emphasized that memory about North Korea was fading. War already seemed ready just a decade ago when Pyongyang bombed Yeongpeong Island; The regime announced it would begin in “a few weeks” and recommended the immediate evacuation of embassies in Pyongyang.
“Rhetorical phase”
“It is not the most tense moment since the end of the war,” confirms Ramón Pacheco. Professor of International Relations at King’s College and expert on North Korea. “We’ve had the bombing of Yeongpeong, the sinking of the corvette Cheonan, the clashes between ships with dead people… we’re in the rhetorical phase right now, and that’s not new. “North Korea has been very careful with its missile tests to avoid harming other countries,” he notes.
And regarding the unprecedented abandonment of reunification, note this: The North Korean Constitution is a malleable political document. “Tomorrow Kim Jong-un may change his mind and change the constitution. He wanted to show that he was different from his ancestors. “This policy was very important to his grandfather and his father had a hard time backing down,” he adds.
Relations with the USA
North Korea’s bluster is part of US election investigation. The goal is to remind him that he’s still there when he’s feeling more unsettled on other fronts. Washington buried that “strategic patience” Obama This gave Pyongyang time to calmly develop its own strategy. military program. His successor, Trump, has fielded ICBMs, or long-range missiles, theoretically capable of hitting US territory. The growing North Korean threat and his ego led him to a negotiating table with no substance, leaving some photos for the newspaper library. Pyongyang rejected invitations Joe Biden speaking while waiting for a more appropriate context from the galloping economic crisis. This scenario will open after the elections.
No matter how their caricatures are fed, the Kims are not crazy or unpredictable leaders. Her diplomacyIn fact, he boils down and designs long-term strategies. Only through extreme rationality could the leadership of an insignificant country survive seventy years of watching people’s corpses. Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and other inconveniences for Washington. The urge to commit suicide alone can lead them into a war they cannot win. All the reassuring messages from academics are based on this certainty when the drums of war sound.