Post by Admin on Jan 8, 2023 5:42:22 GMT
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at the highest in years after an unprecedented year of missile launches on the part of North Korea — and a more bellicose posturing from the South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk-yeol.
In 2022, North Korea launched at least 95 missiles — more than in any previous year — and shot off another short-range missile New Year’s Day of this year, according to the New York Times. The tests are the product of several factors, including domestic North Korean politics, as well as the rapid and extreme deterioration of diplomatic relations between Kim Jong Un’s regime and the US-South Korea alliance since 2019’s failed summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, between Kim and former President Donald Trump.
Since Yoon’s inauguration in May 2022, the South and the US have pursued a tit-for-tat strategy in dealing with the North, pursuing joint military exercises which the North sees as provocative, and even sending unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Pyongyang after one of the North’s own drones buzzed Seoul, South Korea’s capital.
Despite a 2018 resolution between the North and the South prohibiting military hostilities between the two nations, both sides have engaged in increasingly dramatic shows of force over the past several months which, given the lack of diplomatic efforts, could increase the possibility of grave miscalculation and outright conflict on the part of either party.
The explicit threats on Kim’s part, as well as the increase in missile tests, point to a North Korea that’s interested in projecting a credible deterrent capacity and to try and manage instability internally. And the South is taking a hard line and projecting its own force — sometimes at odds with the interests of the US, its primary military ally.
Given both nations’ vows to increase their military capacity, the possibility of peace on the peninsula seems to be deteriorating by the day. Furthermore, the US — which maintains a force presence in the South — isn’t doing enough to prevent conflict and encourage diplomacy to prevent miscommunication, according to Ankit , the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
In 2022, North Korea launched at least 95 missiles — more than in any previous year — and shot off another short-range missile New Year’s Day of this year, according to the New York Times. The tests are the product of several factors, including domestic North Korean politics, as well as the rapid and extreme deterioration of diplomatic relations between Kim Jong Un’s regime and the US-South Korea alliance since 2019’s failed summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, between Kim and former President Donald Trump.
Since Yoon’s inauguration in May 2022, the South and the US have pursued a tit-for-tat strategy in dealing with the North, pursuing joint military exercises which the North sees as provocative, and even sending unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Pyongyang after one of the North’s own drones buzzed Seoul, South Korea’s capital.
Despite a 2018 resolution between the North and the South prohibiting military hostilities between the two nations, both sides have engaged in increasingly dramatic shows of force over the past several months which, given the lack of diplomatic efforts, could increase the possibility of grave miscalculation and outright conflict on the part of either party.
The explicit threats on Kim’s part, as well as the increase in missile tests, point to a North Korea that’s interested in projecting a credible deterrent capacity and to try and manage instability internally. And the South is taking a hard line and projecting its own force — sometimes at odds with the interests of the US, its primary military ally.
Given both nations’ vows to increase their military capacity, the possibility of peace on the peninsula seems to be deteriorating by the day. Furthermore, the US — which maintains a force presence in the South — isn’t doing enough to prevent conflict and encourage diplomacy to prevent miscommunication, according to Ankit , the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.