EXPERT OPINION — Kim Jong-un is a desperate man. He has long believed that Donald Trump’s unpredictability and their quirky friendship offers him the best, and possibly only, chance of a deal with the United States whereby he could keep some of his nuclear capability and gain a substantial measure of sanctions relief.
At least that was what he thought before the fateful summit in Hanoi in February. When that meeting collapsed he blamed everyone but himself; then-U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton for his notion of a ‘Libya-style’ complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement (CVID); South Korean President Moon Jae-in for allegedly suggesting that an agreement with Trump was assured; and his own North Korean delegation for failing him. In fact, it was Kim’s own refusal to offer sufficient nuclear concessions to the Americans (to the dismay of the South Koreans) which scuppered the summit.
After Hanoi, there have been just two moments of encouragement for the embattled North Korean leader. The first was when Trump dropped in for a stroll onto North Korean soil at Panmunjom in June. The other was when Bolton was sacked in September. Since then, there has been nothing but frustration and so Kim reached for the old Pyongyang playbook. He set a deadline of end 2019 for talks to resume and set in train a succession of gradually escalating provocations from small to medium-sized missile launches and indications of ever bigger and more alarming plans from ballistic missile submarines to satellite launches. Far from eliciting the desired response, Trump tweeted on 8th December; “Kim Jong-un is too smart and has far too much to lose, everything actually, if he acts in a hostile way. North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong-un, has tremendous economic potential, but it must denuclearize as promised.”
Kim responded the following day (9th December) by authorising the veteran, recently pardoned but expendable general Kim Yong-chol to insult the American President calling him “a heedless and erratic old man”. This falls well-short of Kim himself insulting the president; a step which he will avoid so long as his ambition for a direct deal with Trump remains alive. Two other steps available to Kim would also kill off hopes of a deal; an ICBM test and a seventh nuclear explosion.
However, as 2019 comes to an end, and Kim’s deadline for renewed discussions expires, he will feel obliged to demonstrate his serious intent to both an international and domestic audience. While Washington waits to hear the contents of Kim’s traditional New Year speech, the North Korean leader may look for alternative options; including “implausibly deniable” operations such as those employed by Russia over recent years. He might also be encouraged by the 14th September attacks against Saudi Arabian oil tank-farm at Abqaig which evoked no tangible response from Washington. His conclusion may be that President Trump wishes to avoid any form of military involvement overseas and will not even rally to the support of an ally.
The Seoul authorities are no strangers to North Korea’s potent “special operations” capabilities. Some years ago, a senior South Korean official told me of his concern that troops of the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB) had the capability (using tunnels, gliders and submarines) to infiltrate the South and, for example, take over a nuclear power station or disrupt the two airports of Incheon and Gimpo, posing as terrorists or as disaffected South Korean troops. The range of potential targets made it virtually impossible to plan for their defence. Since then, North Korea has added cyber expertise to its formidable array of hybrid warfare options and doubtless has drone proficiencies.
But so long as U.S. troops and civilians were unaffected and unharmed, President Trump might ignore a hybrid attack on South Korea. In Washington there is little love remaining for the leftist Moon Jae-in administration following a series of rows, the latest of which has been over the funding of the U.S. garrison on the peninsula. Seoul’s recent meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will only deepen distrust. However, a hybrid operation against Japan would be harder for the North Koreans to deliver but also less easy for the U.S. to ignore. Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is a fellow conservative and a key plank in U.S. policy to contain China.
Ultimately, Kim might be better advised to hope for a Trump second term. By then, the U.S. President will have no more electoral ambitions (except perhaps of a dynastic nature) and will be free of the “grown-ups” such as Mattis, Tillerson, McMaster and Bolton who (he thinks) shackled him during his first term in office. 2020 is no time for Trump to re-engage on North Korea where anything less than CVID would be harshly criticised by the Democrats. Kim has never had the slightest intention of delivering CVID, irrespective of his desire to have sanctions eased. But a whole year is a long time for Kim to wait.
Tim Willasey-Wilsey is a former senior British diplomat who is now at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies.
