The News
North Korea released rare images of its secretive nuclear facilities Friday.
The pictures — which show a visit by the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, during which he called for staff to “exponentially” ramp up Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program — provide clues to researchers and security officials as to the secretive dictatorship’s capabilities.
North Korea did not disclose when the visit took place, or its location.
The images were likely released to increase leverage in any future negotiations with the US, one analyst told the Associated Press: Pyongyang conducted short-range ballistic missile tests yesterday, and has been ramping up weapons testing since 2022. “We should not assume that North Korea will be as constrained as it once was,” another expert said.
SIGNALS
North Korea may be trying to increase its leverage in future negotiations
The images were likely released to increase leverage in any future negotiations with the US, one analyst told the Associated Press: Pyongyang conducted short-range ballistic missile tests yesterday, and has been ramping up weapons testing since 2022. “We should not assume that North Korea will be as restrained as it once was,” another expert said. The move could also be about optics, as Kim’s regime tries to flaunt its support from Russia and China — a top Russian security official met with Kim in Pyongyang today, Moscow said — despite the nuclear build-up, a South Korea-based international security expert told the BBC.
Various US administrations have been unsuccessful in halting North Korea’s nuclear acceleration
North Korea has never revealed the number of nuclear warheads it possesses, but a South Korea-based expert said Pyongyang is expected to have 166 by 2030, Reuters reported. Various US administrations have sought to thwart North Korea’s nuclear acceleration, but none has ever forced it to choose between nuclear weapons and regime survival, a former US official argued in Time. But it would ultimately still be better for regime change to come from within, if an insider “finally get[s] angry enough to take him out,” another US ex-official wrote.
South Koreans are divided over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons threat
South Koreans are sharply divided over North Korea’s nuclear weapons threat, the Associated Press reported. The split isn’t necessarily generational — some young people feel uneasy, while their elders “have spent their lives hearing angry warnings” that didn’t come to fruition, the outlet noted. Many have simply stopped paying attention, seeing tensions as a given. However, the majority of South Koreans support their country developing its own nuclear weapons, a February study found, a move which could further “destabilize” the Korean peninsula, granting Pyongyang an excuse to further accelerate its own program, and potentially isolating Seoul internationally, a columnist argued in The Diplomat.