Though North Korea’s nuclearization efforts have faded from the headlines, the country has continued to improve its capabilities. North Korea can now plausibly reach any location in the continental United States with a nuclear weapon, even as Pyongyang has diversified its delivery systems for launching long-range missiles, making its arsenals more likely to survive attack. In the absence of a deal to curb its nuclear and missile programs, North Korea’s arsenal will only grow more lethal.
Striking that deal was at the forefront of former President Donald Trump’s early foreign policy agenda. But despite a period of improved relations between North and South Korea and two unprecedented face-to-face meetings between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung Un, no clear progress was made toward denuclearization. Instead of scoring his own foreign policy win, Trump handed Kim a monumental victory. In engaging with Trump, the North Korean leader not only avoided a military confrontation, but also won concessions—including the suspension of some joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises—and international legitimacy.
Trump’s approach also dug a hole for his successor, President Joe Biden. His insistence on meeting with Kim in made-for-TV summits undermined the work of U.S. diplomats, while signaling to Kim the benefits of brinksmanship. North Korea subsequently issued several early warning shots at Biden, including bellicose statements ahead of U.S. joint military exercises with South Korea and a flurry of short-range ballistic missile tests. Biden avoided the rhetorical tit-for-tat, while indicating he is open to renewed nuclear diplomacy and would even meet with Kim if it might help, though he has historically been a hawk on North Korea.
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But so far Biden has taken no steps toward a more flexible posture, including potentially easing U.S. sanctions. Nor has he indicated any willingness to significantly alter America’s stance on eliminating North Korea’s nuclear arsenal as the ultimate goal of any negotiations. Now conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has taken a harder line on relations with the North, even as Pyongyang has engaged in an unprecedented number of missile launches over the past two years, signaling that the window of opportunity for engagement has closed even further.
Meanwhile, North Korean citizens have continued to suffer from the costs of the country’s isolation—and the Kim dynasty’s mismanagement. With global sanctions still in place, the population remains dependent on informal but officially tolerated markets and faces constant bribery demands from North Korean officials, according to a 2019 report from United Nations human rights officials. The World Food Program has estimated that more than 10 million North Koreans were suffering from food shortages, and that was before the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which Pyongyang denied had reached the country until May 2022.
WPR has covered North Korea in detail and continues to examine key questions about what will happen next. Will Biden’s policy toward North Korea be any more effective than those of his predecessors? Will Pyongyang’s latest flurry of missile tests pressure him into reengaging? How will inter-Korean relations evolve under Yoon? Below are some of the highlights of WPR’s coverage.
Our Most Recent Coverage
Kim Jong Un Just Put Washington and Seoul on Notice
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has abandoned the country’s long-standing policy of seeking peaceful unification with the South. This substantial change in Pyongyang’s inter-Korean policy should not be regarded as mere bluster or rhetoric. It marks a significant and dangerous shift in North Korea’s posture toward the South.
Nuclear and Missile Programs
Pyongyang has carried out an unprecedented number of test launches over the past several years, including ballistic and shorter-range missiles. Whether that has been an effort to pressure the Biden administration to come to the negotiating table is uncertain. But one message is loud and clear: North Korea is pushing ahead with its weapons development.
- Why Washington should rethink its approach to North Korea’s nuclear weapons status as part of a broader effort to salvage an arms control agenda, in The U.S. Shouldn’t Write Off Nuclear Nonproliferation and Arms Control
- How North Korea’s nuclear program is helping to usher in a dangerous era of nuclear risk, in Doomsday or Not, the Level of Nuclear Risk Just Got Higher
- How China’s refusal to rein in North Korea’s nuclear program could result in Beijing’s worst nightmare coming true, in The North Korean Nuclear Threat Is Creating a Regional Arms Race
- How North Korea’s weapons programs are causing Japan and South Korea to reconsider their own nuclear options, in North Korea’s Muscle-Flexing Is Driving Seismic Shifts in East Asia
Domestic Politics and North-South Relations
Since taking power in 2011, Kim Jong Un has made developing the country’s economy a priority, equal to the goal of achieving a nuclear weapons capability. As part of that initiative, he has tolerated the emergence of informal local markets, but any meaningful improvement in the population’s condition will require the lifting of international sanctions. Meanwhile, the relationship between North and South Korea continues to cycle between tensions and thaws, at times putting Seoul at cross-purposes with Washington.
- What North Korea’s pandemic response revealed about the need for accurate data on COVID-19, in Reliable COVID Data Is Still in Short Supply
- What South Korea’s new president means for relations between Seoul and Pyongyang, in ‘Global Korea’ Will Be Making a Comeback Under Yoon
- Why it’s a mistake to not take Pyongyang’s reunification rhetoric seriously, in North Korea’s Push for Reunification Isn’t Just Empty Rhetoric
- How different intended audiences are driving the North’s and South’s respective arms buildups, in The Two Koreas’ Recent Arms Displays Are Sending Very Different Messages
Nuclear Diplomacy and U.S. Policy
After a bellicose beginning to the relationship between Trump and Kim, the two appeared to warm to each other. But ultimately, Trump’s team failed to put enough resources into its diplomatic engagement or to broaden the talks beyond just denuclearization, which may have backed Kim into a corner. Biden has distanced himself from the bombast of his predecessor, publicly indicating a willingness to restart talks. But Pyongyang’s response so far suggests he will have great difficulty in achieving any better results.
- Why Biden’s conservative approach to North Korea is courting disaster, in Biden’s Dangerous, Risk-Averse Inaction on North Korea
- Why Pyongyang is in the driver’s seat when it comes to setting the terms for relations with the new Biden administration, in Will Biden Go Big or Go Backward on North Korea Diplomacy?
- How Trump’s nuclear diplomacy with Kim went from stalled to unraveled, in In North Korea, Trump Faces Another Potential Disaster
- Why the U.S. has no easy ways forward on North Korea, in Is the U.S. Out of Options on North Korea?
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in June 2019 and is regularly updated.