OPINION – North Korea is building more nuclear weapons and more sophisticated ballistic missiles to target the region and the U.S., while ensuring that they are closely aligned with China and Russia. Basically, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has given up on the U.S., even if the U.S. relents and accepts North Korea as a nuclear weapons state.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Chief, Rafael Grossi, while on a recent visit to South Korea, said North Korea is boosting its nuclear weapons capability, saying they made “very serious” advances in their nuclear program. He cited their new uranium enrichment facility at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, noting that satellite images were like the images for their uranium enrichment facility in Kangson.
North Korea’s Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) program goes back to 2000, when the Intelligence Community (IC) assessed – despite press skepticism -- that North Korea had a clandestine HEU program. To this day, North Korea denies having an HEU program for nuclear weapons. And in the failed 2019 Hanoi Summit with President Donald Trump, Mr. Kim refused to include his HEU sites in any agreement with the U.S.
North Korea reportedly has between 50 and 60 nuclear weapons, with enough fissile material – from HEU and Plutonium -- to increase that number to 100 nuclear weapons within the next few years. I – and others who follow North Korea -- believe North Korea can miniaturize and mate these nuclear weapons to the tip of ballistic missiles.
Impressive progress has been made with North Korea’s ballistic missile programs. Recently, they displayed the Hwasong -20, a large, solid fuel, mobile, multiwarhead (MIRV) Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) with a range of 15,000 kilometers. This is the latest in an arsenal of over 400 ballistic missiles, from short-range (SRBM) to long-range ICBMs designed for nuclear and conventional warheads. The focus has been on the solid-fuel systems like the KN-23, KN-24, and the KN-25 and the sophisticated ICBMs, like the Hwasong-17 and Hwasong-19.
North Korea’s nuclear doctrine has evolved from no-first use to “automatic” preemptive use of nuclear weapons if its leadership and command systems are under imminent – or perceived to be imminent attack. Their work on hypersonic systems, to defeat missile defense systems – is impressive, as is their progress with cruise and anti-ship missiles.
Pyongyang made sure the world saw Mr. Kim visiting the 5000-ton Choe Hyun-class destroyer, their second destroyer with a third and fourth destroyer under construction. Plans are for North Korea to exponentially increase the number of nuclear-capable destroyers to twelve by 2030, all armed with cruise and tactical ballistic missiles.
It’s not only North Korea’s rush to acquire more nuclear weapons and missiles to potentially target countries in the region and the U.S., or their new preemptive-use doctrine, it is North Korea’s allied relationship with China and Russia that should be of concern. Historically, North Korea has relied on China for its economic survival and Russia, prior to 1991, for assistance with its nuclear and missile programs. But things have changed. North Korea is closer to China than at any time since Mr. Kim took over in 2011. Indeed, the September 2025 visit to Beijing to stand with China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin was the beginning of a new and closer North Korean relationship with China and its leader, Xi Jinping. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit last week to North Korea to meet with Mr. Kim -- and the attention it got from North Korea’s press -- was indicative of that improved relationship.
North Korea’s relationship with Russia over the past few years has progressed rapidly, with a mutual defense treaty and North Korean assistance – troops and munitions -- to Russia for its war with Ukraine and the likely nuclear, missile and satellite assistance North Korea is receiving from Russia.
North Korea now has two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) who will ensure that no further sanctions are imposed on North Korea for their continued violations of UNSC resolutions.
So, in the final analysis, Pyongyang has probably concluded that they don’t need a normal relationship with the U.S. They have China and Russia who provide economic and military support and apparently accept their nuclear status. And Mr. Kim’s global credibility – important to him -- will be derived from a close allied relationship with China and Russia, and their leadership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), and their appeal to the Global South.
It appears that Mr. Kim is taking advantage of the U.S. war with Iran – and tension with NATO -- to grow his nuclear arsenal, while strengthening his relationship with China and Russia.
Indeed, if the U.S. relents – which North Korea believes is inevitable – and eventually accepts North Korea as a nuclear weapons state, Pyongyang will pocket the win, and use it to get more from his allies, China and Russia.
This column by Cipher Brief Expert Ambassador Joseph DeTrani, was first published in The Washington Times, and is republished with permission from the author.
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