had to confront. Kim’s belief that he can, in the future, repeat his tactic of renewing provocative actions to get his way and then turn on the charm to deflate or mitigate international punishment has undoubtedly been reinforced by his success in securing summits without making concessions on his nuclear weapons program. His perceptions about his freedom of action depend on his likely assumptions that Washington would be deterred from taking military actions; Beijing and Moscow would not abandon his regime; the United States and China would seek to rein in aggressive South Korean or Japanese military actions against North Korea; and Washington would restrain Seoul and Tokyo from developing their own nuclear inventories.
So far, since Kim has come to power, these assumptions have been confirmed, even during the period of Kim’s most blustery rhetoric and provocations. Over the years, Beijing’s leaders have stuck to their line about “all sides”—meaning not just North Korea but also the United States and South Korea—needing to “remain calm and exercise restraint” and resolve issues through dialogue to “maintain regional peace and stability.” Xi Jinping’s first visit to Pyongyang in June 2019—despite the lack of progress on North Korean denuclearization—and his pledge that Beijing will strengthen its ties with the North, surely assuaged any concerns in the Kim regime about its neighbor’s commitment to it. Russia, too, has been a relatively reliable partner of the regime; for example, at the U.N. Security Council in September 2018 and again in December 2019, Russia joined with China to call for the easing of sanctions and to encourage concessions for North Korea, despite reports of its ongoing nuclear weapons activities. Moscow’s 2014 cancellation of 90 percent of North Korea’s $11 billion debt and Kim’s first meeting with Putin in April 2019 probably showed Kim that his attempts to build support from his two powerful neighbors are bearing fruit as both signal that they would not abandon his country.
Kim has also witnessed how Washington has no desire for a military conflict and that South Korea and the United States would restrain each other from taking actions that could potentially spark a war. President Moon has been vocal in his opposition to a U.S. military strike against the North. All previous U.S. administrations had considered nuclear or conventional military strikes against the North, but backed down because the cost in lives would have been devastating, and Kim certainly knows this. Washington has also been resistant to potentially escalatory actions by South Korea. During Kim Jong Un’s grooming process in 2010, North Korea fired artillery against a South Korean island, Yeonpyeong-do, while Seoul was conducting military drills. After North Korea’s sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan earlier that year, South Korea was in no mood to back down from Pyongyang’s threats that it would respond if Seoul went ahead with these prescheduled drills. As recounted in Van Jackson’s On the Brink, the Obama administration was worried about what the conservative Lee Myung-bak government might do and successfully pleaded with the South Koreans not to take retaliatory action against the North.
Once these assumptions are cemented in his mind as fact, Kim will probably continue to conduct limited acts of aggression, using cyber and other coercive tools to keep North Korea’s rivals off balance. We should be worried about how he could be emboldened to take provocative actions to test the hypothesis that he won’t suffer any consequences. Even if Washington once again seriously contemplates the military strike option, the United States faces an increased risk of a miscalculation that spirals into an unintended clash if Kim misreads a potential next confrontation as a paper tiger, like the “fire and fury” of 2017 turned out to be. Moreover, if U.S.–North Korean relations deteriorate to that degree, and the United States stands alone, unsupported by its allies, Kim’s self-assurance and perception of his relative strength will only be bolstered.
But Kim is not invulnerable. “North Korea’s fundamental liabilities are systemic and enduring,” longtime North Korea expert Jonathan Pollack has argued, and “the vision of a self-reliant country bears little relation to North Korea’s actual needs,” particularly given Kim’s lofty promises of economic development and nuclear weapons. The consequences of the regime’s actions and the country’s isolation are taking a toll: The pool of trading partners has shrunk to essentially one—China, which accounts for more than 90 percent of North Korea’s trade.
And the maximum pressure sanctions are adding to North Korea’s troubles. In 2017, North Korea’s number two trading partner, India, accounted