President Joe Biden said Thursday he has been in consultation with allies and partners following two missile tests by North Korea, the most recent testing intermediate ballistic missiles in violation of a United Nations resolution.
Until just days ago, North Korea had refrained from missile tests in the first two months of the Biden administration but also ignored overtures to hold diplomatic meetings. Former President Donald Trump began his tenure by matching the fiery rhetoric of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un but then turned to direct diplomacy with the leader, meeting him for two summits and even crossing the demilitarized zone together for a photo-op.
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The latest provocations by the North come before Biden’s team has completed a policy review but after both Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken made visits to Japan and South Korea last week, and Biden approved the resumption of military exercises between the United States and South Korea.
“We’re consulting with our allies and partners,” Biden said in his first news conference as president. “There will be responses if they choose to escalate. We will respond accordingly.”
Heritage Foundation Korea watcher Bruce Klingner told the Washington Examiner that consulting with America’s Pacific allies is the right approach.
“The administration should respond to it and coordinate its response with our allies, Japan, and South Korea,” he said. “The Trump administration dismissed similar violations in 2019 and 2020.”
The former CIA North Korea analyst said the North violated U.N. resolutions 26 times, a record number, in 2019 and had nine violations in a single month during March 2020.
“That said, we need to calibrate the response because we don’t want to go overboard and create a crisis,” he said.
Klingner described a range of provocations by the North from short and intermediate ballistic missile tests all the way to nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests. The U.S. response must be proportional to the violation, he said.
The former analyst also dismissed reports that the test was in response to the Cabinet members’ visit to the Korean Peninsula or a resumption of war games with the South.
“North Korea has a game plan of what they’re going to do, and they’re going to do it anyway,” he said.
Klingner said it is still not known whether the missile tests were part of regular winter military training exercises or were to showcase new technology.
‘Some form of diplomacy’
Biden said that he was preparing for “some form of diplomacy” with North Korea but that such diplomacy be conditioned “the end result of denuclearization.”
“That’s what we’re doing right now, consulting with our allies,” Biden repeated before answering that he agreed with the position of former President Barack Obama that North Korea was the single most dangerous security challenge he faced.
Klingner said the actions by the North may alter the Biden administration’s game plan.
“It undermines the potential for diplomacy,” he said. “It could lead to a stronger Biden policy that otherwise he might [not] have implemented.”
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Klingner said Korea watchers are pessimistic about the possibility of progress with the North on denuclearization, but the U.S. is projecting a desire to resolve conflicts through negotiation.
“We’re open to diplomacy. We’re seeking engagement. And once again, North Korea is the one that’s rejecting dialogue and rejecting negotiation,” he said. “So, we leave the door open for diplomacy. We urge North Korea to come through the door, and in the meantime, we need to maintain our military deterrence and our enforcement of U.N. resolutions and U.S. laws.”
