SEOUL — North Korea’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile over the weekend — its first such test of 2023 — set tensions soaring once again on the divided peninsula and spurred the U.S. to send strategic bombers over the region in a show of force.
Despite a new round of threats from Pyongyang, U.S. and South Korean forces said they were continuing with plans for long-scheduled joint war games and joint drills in the coming weeks. North Korea has long condemned the war games as a “rehearsal” for an invasion.
The North’s suspected Hwasong-15 ICBM splashed down about 120 million off Japan’s Hokkaido region. Calculations of its hefted flight angle, altitude and length of flight suggested it had the range to reach the continental U.S. if fired on a conventional trajectory.
Already dealing with a war in Ukraine and soaring tensions with China, the Biden administration is now forced once again to deal with the threat posed by Kim Jong-un’s regime, saying over the weekend its determination to protest its ally in Seoul was unshakeable. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on countries in the region to pressure North Korea to pull back.
“We call on others to condemn this action, to take appropriate steps, including the effective enforcement of sanctions, and countries that have influence with North Korea should use it to try to move it from the course that it’s been on now for the last couple of years,” Mr. Blinken said at a security conference in Munich, Germany.
Seoul and Tokyo also protested the test. And on Sunday, South Korean and U.S. air units flew drills over the Yellow Sea, South Korea and the Sea of Japan, in a show of force that included a B1-B strategic bomber and F-35 stealth jet fighters.
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Both South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida convened emergency meetings of their national security teams to assess the latest North Korean test.
Sunday’s ICBM launch was conducted with minimal warning. The official North Korean KCNA news service said North Korea’s Mr. Kim ordered the test to verify the weapon’s reliability and the combat readiness of the country’s nuclear force.
In a statement Sunday, Kim Yo-jong, Mr. Kim’s visible and highly influential sister, accused South Korea and the U.S. of “openly showing their dangerous greed and attempt to gain the military upper hand and predominant position in the Korean Peninsula.”
It was the first ICBM test by North Korea since November 2022, and only the second missile test of 2023. Some in South Korea believe that the North is conserving assets in order to react on an appropriate scale to upcoming war games, and many U.S. analysts fear Pyongyang is preparing for the first test of a new nuclear weapon since 2017.
South Korea and the U.S. will hold a joint “tabletop” exercise in the United States this week, gaming allied responses to the potential North Korean use of a nuclear weapon. Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean general, said that including the nuclear element in the exercise appeared to be a first for the allies.
The table-top exercise precedes joint “Freedom Shield” war drills in, around and over South Korea next month by joint forces. North Korea furiously opposes these exercises, which bring outside troops and assets to reinforce the 37,000 GIs stationed in South Korea.
While Seoul and Washington insist the spring drills are defensive, they customarily include, after a defense segment, a counter-attack.
Pyongyang’s generals, heavily influenced by Soviet/Russian doctrine, have ample reason to fear drills south of the DMZ. In February 2022, Russia unleashed a shock invasion of Ukraine with troops it had first massed near Ukrainian borders under the cover of winter war drills.
There are fears in South Korea, too.
Some in Seoul fret that Moscow’s Ukraine strategy provides a template for Pyongyang’s war planners.
North-South dialogue is in indefinite suspension, and North Korea spent 2022 testing more missiles — of all classes and ranges, from tactical to strategic — than ever before.
Pyongyang also changed its doctrine in 2022, warning that subordinates will now have the authority to respond with a nuclear weapon if the country’s leadership is taken out.
“I think with what the South Koreans have said and what the U.S. have said about the improvement of the North Korean capabilities is kind of mirroring their exercises, training and deployment,” said Daniel Pinkston, an international relations professor at Troy University. Saturday’s ICBM test “is good for the exercise planners.”
But many in South Korea are “uncomfortable” with recent events, said Gen. Chun. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made his third trip to Seoul at the end of January to address rising doubts that the U.S. would risk all-out nuclear war if the North attacked the South.
Polls here last year found that more than 70% of South Koreans now think the country’s military should develop its own nuclear capability as a way to ensure its defense.
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
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