Does North Korean leader Kim Jong Un want President Trump reelected, or Joe Biden to replace him?
We’re likely to find out on Oct. 10. That day will mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the North Korean Communist Party. It’s a day on which North Korea seeks to rally its people in common adoration for the Kim dynasty’s not-so-beneficent rule. But this year’s festivities should be especially interesting. As Harry Kazianis noted on Wednesday, U.S. officials believe it is increasingly likely that North Korea will use this year’s ceremony to parade a new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile. That missile has been in covert development over the past two years, and I believe Kazianis’s reporting to be accurate.
The first point to note is that the North Koreans are now confident they could employ this weapon operationally. Over the past 18 months, North Korea has evinced a capability to launch and effect solid-fuel ballistic missiles onto targets. North Korea’s submarine-launched KN-12 and ground-based KN-23 and KN-24 short-range ballistic missiles stand out here. It is highly likely that North Korea now believes it could successfully test its new long-range, solid-fuel ballistic missile.
While Pyongyang has not conducted an ICBM test since late 2017, a reflection of Kim’s diplomacy with Trump, the regime has covertly advanced its engine, targeting, and reentry vehicle technology in that time. The deployment of an ICBM with solid-state fuel would boost North Korea’s nuclear strike program in a specific way. Solid-state missiles allow for a missile to be fueled well in advance of a launch. If placed on mobile launchers, solid-fuel systems thus make it harder for an adversary to detect and destroy a missile before launch. While the United States has a significant, persistent, and wide-ranging intelligence operation monitoring Kim and his nuclear forces, solid-fuel missiles would allow Kim to advance a more compelling threat of nuclear strike. Incidentally, however, the shortened warning capacity that those weapons would produce would also mitigate the U.S. military’s ability to use conventional strike platforms to take out the launchers. In that sense, Kim’s solid-fuel systems make it more likely that the U.S. might launch a preemptive nuclear strike in the anticipation of war.
This takes us back to the U.S. election question.
Whether Kim decides to deploy his solid-fuel ICBM in the Oct. 10 parade, or keep it hidden, will indicate who he favors in the presidential election. If Kim deploys the missile, it will undermine Trump’s diplomatic strategy and thus suggest that he seeks a Biden victory. Conversely, if Kim holds the missile in reserve, it will suggest that he wants Trump reelected.
I strongly suspect that he’ll deploy the missile.
Kim’s language toward diplomacy with Trump has taken on a distinctly negative tone of late. Speaking in late July, Kim appeared to rule out the suspension of his nuclear weapons program. Frustrated by Trump’s unwillingness to play the old Pyongyang game of appeasement in return for suspended extortion (something Trump deserves significant credit for), Kim has found himself in a difficult position. While China and Russia are helping him evade international sanctions, Kim needs sanctions relief on a far greater scale. His economy remains hamstrung by energy, food, and export deficiencies. At the same time, the North Korean elite expects a higher standard of living. While Kim has blamed the failure of his extortion diplomacy on hardliners such as Kim Yong Chol, it is ultimately up to the young leader to correct the situation. Paranoid about his own position of authority, Kim will likely now assess that he needs a fresh start.
Considering that the Obama administration was viewed by North Korea as timid and unwilling to use force to prevent Kim’s nuclear accession, Kim may decide that Biden offers an easier negotiating partner than Trump. Kim also has reason to think that he might benefit from a Biden presidency in much the same way as that other major nuclear threat-proliferator, Iran. After all, Biden has pledged to return the U.S. to the 2015 Iran JCPOA agreement immediately if he is elected. Considering that the Iran nuclear accord has no intrusive inspections protocols and limitations on Iran’s ballistic missile program, Kim will see that template as one he can most certainly live with.
China, too, is highly likely to play a role here. As recently assessed by the U.S. intelligence community, and judged by an objective comparison of Biden and Trump’s respective China policies, Xi Jinping favors a Biden victory. He believes that the Democratic nominee would be less aggressive in constraining China’s imperial strategy in the South China Sea and Beijing’s global trade agenda. Xi also likely believes he can play Biden as he played Barack Obama and extract American concessions with the reciprocal dangle of carbon reduction commitments (whether Xi lives up to those commitments is a very different matter). And with North Korea highly reliant on China-related trade and diplomatic support, Kim will find it hard to resist any request from Xi, which would be offered in person by a surrogate so as to mitigate U.S. intelligence detection, to display his new weapon or engage in some other riposte of Trump.
Buckle up.
