Could More Diplomacy Cool North Korea Off?: Once again Kim Jong Un is steaming mad, and the North Korean dictator is throwing his considerable weight around.
Over the last few months, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been trading figurative punches with South Korea. The South has sent drones to drop propaganda leaflets over the DMZ into the North, while the DPRK has sent balloons filled with garbage and human excrement back at the Republic of Korea. These actions were bound to spawn an angry response from Kim Jong Un, and he changed the DPRK’s constitution to define South Korea as a “hostile state.”

South Korea Artillery K9 Thunder. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
North Korea Is Isolating Itself Even More
Earlier on October 15, Kim ordered that parts of roads and railways connecting the two countries be destroyed so the Hermit Kingdom could further distance itself from South Korea. This is a more provocative move than the symbolic constitutional amendment, which isn’t worth the paper it is written on in the first place.
Going Back to War Footing
But the North has put its massive force of field artillery aimed at Seoul on alert, and state-run propaganda organs have trumpeted extensive numbers of new enlistees in the DPRK army. North Korean news outlets have also written that the current situation is a “relationship between two hostile countries and two belligerents at war.”
Kim has also made the usual nuclear threats against the United States, which is always a villain in his mind.
More Ballistic Missile Tests to Coincide During Presidential Voting in America
How will Kim escalate the situation even more?
A full-fledged war on the peninsula is not likely, even though tensions are at the highest level in months. Kim could take additional steps to show the world that he is serious about his country’s military-led self-sufficiency. This means he could order a ballistic missile test close to South Korea and time it to commence during the election day in the United States.
On September 18, North Korea launched multiple ballistic missiles toward the sea on the east. Several short-range missiles took off from near Pyongyang, traveling around 244 miles before they fell into waters between the DPRK and Japan.
Kim Wants Respect from World Leaders
Kim’s strategy is to force South Korea, Japan, and the United States to accept that the DPRK will never give up its nuclear weapons and that North Korea should be treated as a legitimate world power so it could enter any negotiations from a position of strength.
This gambit will probably work under a Trump administration because the former president had prior meetings and summits with Kim Jong Un. This gave Trump hope that Kim would completely denuclearize. That, of course, was never going to happen. Vice President Kamala Harris has not articulated a strategy for dealing with North Korea, but personal diplomacy is not likely to occur between Kim and Harris. Democrats have often accused Trump of cozying up to dictators, and they will probably reject any further attempts to make a deal with Kim.
Give Peace a Chance
My advice for both presidential candidates is to try diplomacy again. The first effort is to keep the South Koreans from flying drones and dropping leaflets over North Korea. This is a silly practice that will convince no one in the DPRK to renounce the regime. There is no organized dissident group or internal effort to promote regime change in the North, so the drone flights only serve to make Kim needlessly angry.
Next would be to convince Kim that the United States supports a full-fledged peace treaty instead of an armistice in the North. There is a bipartisan bill in the U.S. House of Representative that calls for a peace process and this is a step in the right direction.
It Is Time to Make a Deal
To promote peace, the United States should cancel the combined military exercises between the Americans and South Koreans. Trump did this before meeting with Kim, which will go a long way to convincing Kim that the United States is sincere. The next action is for the commander in chief to order some U.S. troops to leave South Korea. These would not be infantry or armor front-line soldiers but rear-echelon combat support or combat service support troops who would not be part of the main effort in a conflict.
In exchange for this, Kim should stop all ballistic missile tests, refrain from testing nuclear devices, and allow inspectors to look at his nuclear infrastructure to understand the DPRK’s capabilities better. The next steps could be talks about sanctions relief.
Détente 2.0
This new form of détente in Korea is possible if the next president spent more time and effort on diplomacy with the North Koreans. To be sure, Kim is a murderous scoundrel who lies and backtracks on agreements. The DPRK has the worst human rights record in the world, and even the youngest children always hate Americans, but it is time to take a less hawkish view. Hardline strategies against the North have not worked, and the United States and South Korea should realize that it is time to deal with Kim Jong Un as a nuclear power with another round of personal diplomacy that could create a lasting peace on the peninsula.
About the Author: Dr. Brent M. Eastwood
Brent M. Eastwood, PhD, is the author of Don’t Turn Your Back On the World: a Conservative Foreign Policy and Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare, plus two other books. Brent was the founder and CEO of a tech firm that predicted world events using artificial intelligence. He served as a legislative fellow for U.S. Senator Tim Scott and advised the senator on defense and foreign policy issues. He has taught at American University, George Washington University, and George Mason University. Brent is a former U.S. Army Infantry officer. He can be followed on X @BMEastwood.

Zhduny
October 18, 2024 at 5:36 pm
It is yoon suk yeol the current president of south korea that’s wanting to start a new crisis.
Yoon is known to be a hot-headed person, always very concerned about his popularity (currently hovering at around 20%), very highly impulsive and has great loathing of his opponents.
Much like a korean hitler. Yep. Korea hip hop hitler.
Not only has he been behaving very provocative toward the north, yoon has been trying to brazenly write or author the death warrant for the entire korean people by making a nuclear agreement (use of nuclear bombs in a conflict) with washington.
War on the korean peninsula will wipe out all the korean population, in both north and south, but yoon suk yeol hasn’t the slightest care.
He thinks he must always win in the ongoing great game of brinkmanship with the north.
To yoon, the current situation calls for someone who’s willing to dare further and greater in the deadly game of russian (korean) roulette.
Washington must be smiling from war to ear, can’t ask for anything or anybody better than what’s happening right now today in october 2024.
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