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Strategic Vision vol. 11, no. 53 (September, 2022)
Familiar Patterns
DPRK missile test, legislation mark return to strategy of nuclear brinksmanship Dean Karalekas
photo: Kremlin.ru Kim Jong-un meets Vladimir Putin April 25, 2019, at an official reception in honor of the visiting North Korean leader on Russky Island, Vladivostok.
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ithout warning, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired two ballistic missiles on the morning of October 9, 2022, just five days after launching a ballistic missile directly over Japan for the first time in five years. The move prompted Tokyo to issue an alert, urging residents to take shelter. These are only the latest of nearly two dozen missile launches this year, making it the most in any single year since Kim Jong-un assumed leadership of North Korea in 2012. Last year saw just eight such launches, for example, with only four conducted in 2020. The rash of missile launches comes of the heels
of the September 9 promulgation of a new piece of legislation by the Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK officially declaring North Korea a nuclear weapons power. Although there are no indications that the scope and capabilities of the rogue nation have changed appreciably from previous estimates with regard to the state of its nuclear arsenal, the passing of this new law merely codifies the existing status quo. Indeed, it may represent a new, more hardline stance through which the regime of Kim Jong-un can continue to engage in the sort of nuclear brinksmanship that has characterized his tenure as Supreme Leader, as well as that of his father before him.
Dean Karalekas is an Editor-at-Large for Strategic Vision and the author of Civil-Military Relations in Taiwan: Identity and Transformation. He can be reached for comment at dkaralekas@hotmail.com