Little rocket man is back with bigger, badder weapons
While the world looks elsewhere, Kim Jong-un is undeterred in his quest to challenge the US.
Cast your mind back to a time before the pandemic, before President Putin menaced Ukraine and President Xi stepped up his threats on Taiwan. The great international scare was the Punch and Judy confrontation of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. It was late 2017, and arguably the world’s two most personally offensive world leaders were mobilising their verbal and military arsenals, unnerving everyone.
Now “Little Rocket Man” is back, and his toys are becoming ever more alarming. In the first 25 days of this year North Korea carried out five separate test launches of short-range missiles, including fast and manoeuvrable hypersonic weapons.
The latest test involved two cruise missiles fired into the sea off its east coast on Tuesday. Last Thursday state media dropped strong hints that Kim Jong-un was planning a return to testing nuclear warheads and long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
Trump sneeringly referred to Kim as Little Rocket Man. Kim denounced the “mentally deranged US dotard”. The North Koreans tested a nuclear warhead, then the ICBM that could drop it on the US mainland. Trump dispatched an “armada” of warships and threatened “fire and fury”.
However, the tension dissipated quickly and within a few months they were smiling and shaking hands at a summit in Singapore. The nuclear tests were suspended shortly before Kim’s first meeting with Trump and have never resumed.
Now, more than four years and one US president later, the North appears to be on course for a return to the bad old days. If Kim moves from testing weapons that could nuke Seoul and Tokyo to those that could reach Washington, will President Biden respond in the same fashion as Trump? Will Kim be forced into escalation by the pressure of international sanctions, which, coupled with the pandemic, have wreaked havoc on his country’s economy?
Such a move would return the peninsula to the situation of 2017. Is fire and fury on the horizon?
The alternating cycles of confrontation and detente that characterise the democratic world’s relations with North Korea are undoubtedly entering a renewed period of tension. But the North has threatened to abandon its moratorium on testing before and failed to follow through. A full-blown crisis is not inevitable, or at least not for some time.
When Kim carried out his last nuclear and ICBM tests in 2017, they were a matter of scientific and military practicality, necessary to put the finishing touches to his long-range nuclear capability. It is unclear whether his scientists have successfully reduced the nuclear warheads to a size that could be fitted on an intercontinental weapon.
But the latest tests have succeeded in raising the question again of whether the North is capable of creating a mushroom cloud over an American city. For US generals and political leaders, the doubt is a powerful deterrent to any attack or “decapitation” strike on Kim.
Having secured his nuclear insurance policy, Kim no longer has an urgent need to make moves that would upset his enemies, nor his only important friend: the government of China, which deplores Kim’s nuclear aspirations because they imperil peace in its own backyard.
In 2017 Xi’s anger was a price that the North was prepared to pay. Now Kim needs to keep Xi happy, or at the very least avoid needlessly infuriating him. The North has suffered a bad harvest that has left it shorter on food than ever. Kim is counting on Xi for a bailout.
“Beijing’s patience has limits,” writes Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert, on the NK News website. “If the North Koreans resume nuclear tests and ICBM launches, it will provide a good justification for the US to increase its military presence in the region. China doesn’t want more aircraft carriers cruising Pacific waters near its coast, so it would like North Korea to stick to the moratorium.”
South Korea has a presidential election in March to choose a successor to the liberal incumbent, Moon Jae-in, 69, who has made strenuous efforts to engage with Kim. Military tension scares voters in the South and has the effect of helping more hardline conservative parties. Kim will be hoping that Moon’s Democratic Party wins again, another reason he has not rocked the boat for at least two months.
Then there is the US itself. It takes two to brawl, and Biden is not the brawler his predecessor was. The Biden administration recognises, as Trump did not, the complexity of the Korean problem. Any pugnacity that he has to spare is being directed towards two burly antagonists: Xi and Putin.
A president already struggling with low approval ratings has no need of new enemies. If the North does test more nuclear bombs or ICBMs Biden will have to react, but he may well opt for increased sanctions rather than new military deployments. If it doesn’t, he will continue to wait patiently for Kim to come to the negotiating table.
Unfortunately there is no sign of this happening. Reliably propped up by China on one side, shielded by his nuclear deterrent on the other, Kim shows no sign of succumbing to the pressure upon him. This is one of the most remarkable things about him: that an isolated, almost friendless leader can so successfully dictate his own terms.
If the US continues to ignore him, he will no doubt start testing his terrible weapons again one day - but for his own reasons and at a time of his choosing.
The Times
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