North Korea’s Military Moves Risk ‘Crisis and Conflict,’ US Official Warns

A top U.S. defense official has warned against the dangers of complacency on increasingly aggressive moves by North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.
"We see them engaging in gray zone activity and there is always the potential for miscalculation and certain types of lower-level actions to spiral into crisis and conflict," Ely Ratner, assistant defense secretary for Indo-Pacific security, said in a recent interview.
North Korea appears to be stepping up the pace of its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs, violating U.N. Security Council sanctions and rattling officials in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo. Suspected weapons transfers between North Korea and Russia have further raised tensions.
Ratner said that while he does not believe Kim's regime is "on an intentional march to major war," Washington can ill afford to drop its guard.
A woman watches a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, on January 28, 2024. A top U.S. defense... A woman watches a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, on January 28, 2024. A top U.S. defense official has warned against the dangers of complacency on increasingly aggressive moves by North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. More Jung Yeon-je/AFP via Getty Images
The North Korean embassy in Beijing didn't immediately respond to Newsweek's written request for comment.
Instead of simply reacting to provocations from Pyongyang, U.S. policy should be centered on "strengthening readiness and strengthening deterrence." It is also important to enhance alliances with South Korea and Japan, both one-on-one and trilaterally, Ratner said in the talk, released Tuesday by defense analysis website War on the Rocks.
Ratner said Washington is on this track, citing recent security dialogues with Seoul and Tokyo, as well as stepped-up military exercises involving both U.S. treaty allies.
In an analysis last month, researchers with Korea-focused group 38 North warned against U.S. policymakers' confidence in the policy of strategic deterrence toward North Korea. This policy needs to be reevaluated and overhauled, they argued, as it is likely to lose effectiveness in the future and could even embolden Kim to take greater risks.
Ratner also said the Biden administration remains "open to dialogue" with the North Korean authorities.
"It's a notoriously difficult regime to understand. They don't seem particularly interested in talking, though. That seems clear," he said.
A Financial Times report on Tuesday, however, revealed Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, is mulling a rare dialogue with Kim.
The idea was reportedly prompted by Pyongyang's message of condolences after the destructive earthquake that shook western Japan last month. If it goes forward, the dialogue is expected to center on Japanese nationals kidnapped by Pyongyang in past decades, the report said.
North Korea has made a public show of discarding symbols of rapprochement with the South, from programs created to showcase limited North-South cooperation to the "eyesore" of a monument erected decades ago to symbolize hope for eventual unification on the peninsula.
The country has also been stepping up the pace of its missile tests, including the Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile, allegedly capable of striking the continental U.S.
Seoul said Wednesday that Pyongyang had tested "several" cruise missiles off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula—marking the fifth cruise missile test in recent weeks.

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform.