【by Yeonhee Sophie Kim, Dec. 2024】
Introduction
Since the collapse of bilateral talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un at the Hanoi Summit in 2019, Kim’s growing alignment with Russia’s Vladimir Putin suggests he is seeking new avenues for regime survival amid shifting geopolitical tensions. Combined with the global pandemic in 2020, escalating U.S.-China technological competition in semiconductors and artificial intelligence, increasing geopolitical tensions in Europe (Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022) and the Middle East (Israeli-Hamas conflict in 2023), have profoundly reshaped North Korea’s perception of international security and its strategic alignment. These global shifts appear to have encouraged North Korea to pursue a policy of “armed peace,” reconsidering its position within an emerging “multipolar” world.[1]
The period between 2017 and 2019 marked a critical juncture for Northeast Asia, offering a rare opportunity for U.S.- North Korea engagement, inter-Korean cooperation, and a potential transformation of Cold War-era dynamics. This era saw the first U.S.-North Korea re-engagement since the War on Terror (2001) and the most significant multilateral engagement since the Six-Party Talks on denuclearization (2003-2008). It also renewed optimism for peaceful reunification and denuclearization in inter-Korean relations, a focus not seen since South Korea’s “Sunshine Policy” ended in 2008. However, the failure of the Hanoi Summit represented a substantial missed opportunity on several fronts. A U.S.-North Korea breakthrough on denuclearization could have reduced geopolitical tensions, facilitated the easing of economic sanctions on North Korea, and opened avenues for Inter-Korean diplomacy and trade. Such progress might also have challenged the Cold War geopolitical dynamics that fuel the arms race on the Korean Peninsula.
In his 2024 autobiography, former South Korean President Moon Jae-In insists that Kim Jong-Un was serious about denuclearization.[2] Moon’s perception of his commitment to denuclearize played a key role in his effort to organize inter-Korean dialogue. Unlike his predecessors, who often bypassed South Korea in favor of a direct engagement with the United States on the issue of denuclearization, Kim Jong Un recognized that North Korea’s economic growth and inter-Korean relations logistically hinged on lifting economic sanctions—a key barrier to cross-border trade and mobility.[3] This, Moon suggests, required successful bilateral talks with the United States.
Shifts in Inter-Korean Relations
In early 2024, during the 10th Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA), the highest legislative body in North Korea, Kim Jong Un announced that they will no longer pursue “national restoration,” “reconciliation,” and “reunification” with South Korea, describing that the two Koreas are “fixed into relations” that are “hostile” and “belligerent.”[4] South Korea was officially declared a “foreign country,” and these revisions were codified in constitutional changes, leading to the demolition of infrastructure symbolic of reunification.[5] North Korea has substituted its Juche calendar, which no longer appears on Rodong Shinmun publications, with the international Gregorian calendar.[6] Whereas Western media have perceived these moves as signs of North Korea’s growing belligerence toward the United States, South Korea, and their allies, they also reflect a major conceptual shift within North Korea.[7]
In his SPA speech, Kim Jong Un’s message to South Korea is unambiguous: North Korea unequivocally seeks formal recognition as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), a politically and territorially sovereign nation.[8] This reveals a fundamental shift in traditional inter-Korean dynamics, which, despite the two-state system since the Korean War (1950-53), historically aspired towards national unification. The constitutional changes reflect a Party-led effort to instill a new territorial identity in future generation of North Koreans that will move away from being perceived as the “Northern half” (Rodong Shinmun) of the Korean peninsula.
His predecessors—Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il—emphasized peaceful reunification based on the ethno-centric idea of “one nation,” with the focus on developing inter-Korean dynamics that were autonomous from “foreign intervention” as stated in the 1972 South–North Joint Statement.[9] It is evident that Kim Jong Un is no longer interested in succeeding the “nostalgic politics” that once informed inter-Korean engagement during the Sunshine Era and his dialogue with President Moon Jae-in. Instead, his departure suggests that he aims to redefine “North Korea” according to the geopolitical imperatives of his times.
The internal changes support Richard J. Harknett’s observation on the limits of viewing contemporary state behavior, including that of North Korea, purely through the lens of defensive and offensive realism, where states engage in military build-up to prevent invasion and war.[10] However, to further build on Harknett’s claim that state actions are increasingly influenced by structural uncertainties within the liberal world order, compounded by digital disruption, I want to suggest that Kim Jong Un’s perception of the irrelevance of reunification are also driven by structural or geopolitical imperatives, such as climate change, global capitalism, and proliferation of global conflict. As a result, North Korea’s amplified focus on territorial and political independence from traditional inter-Korean dynamics appears to be not only a response to the U.S.-South Korea alliance but also a strategic necessity within North Korea’s perception of international security. Accordingly, despite its hostile anti-American rhetoric, the changes cannot only be understood through traditional frameworks of enmity that emerge from colonial and imperial war (what Michel Foucault describes as classical power relations understood through domination and subjugation in Society Must Be Defended), but rather they need to be centered on how North Korea aspires to adapt and contest Western political modernity.[11]
Chains of War
On June 28, 2024, Russia and North Korea declared a “strategic partnership,” citing shared concerns over U.S.-led liberal world order and its influence in shaping regional security dynamics.[12] Following this announcement, the Worker’s Party of Korea’s media outlet, Rodong Shinmun, has consistently portrayed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as part of a broader initiative to counter U.S. -led global security framework, both in Europe (NATO) and in Indo-Pacific region.[13]
On November 1, 2024, after the successful launch of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Hwaseongpo-19, Kim Jong Un reiterated that North Korea would “under no circumstances” abandon its nuclear development program.[14] He argued that “the only way to manage and deter the enemy is through power, and the only trust-worthy peace is maintained through deterrence.”[15] This statement framed North Korea’s nuclear capabilities not just as tools of deterrence, but as mechanisms for peacekeeping in the region. By positioning its nuclear and ballistic missile programs as defensive rather than offensive, North Korea’s leadership suggested that these capabilities serve as assurances of regional stability, claiming that “this missile test has not threatened the safety of neighboring countries.”[16]
North Korea’s support for Russia in Ukraine and its involvement in global conflict echo its historical support for the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.[17] At that time, South Korea feared that North Korea will draw lessons from Vietnam on how to reunify the two Koreas by force.[18] Today, amid North Korea’s active alignment with Russia, South Korean President Yoon Seon-Yeol has considered sending lethal weapons to aid Ukraine.[19] Both North and South Korea continue to be caught up in what novelist Hwang Sok-yong described as the “chains of war,” each side aiming to prevent the other from gaining military experience, technological expertise, and opportunities to test new weapons within conflicts involving regional allies.[20]
Conclusion: Global Police Order and Armed Peace
Kim Jong Un’s reframing of North Korea’s role in terms of “independence” and “peacekeeping” within the regional security context warrants closer scrutiny. In his critique about the indiscernibility between policing and peacekeeping in the liberal world order, Mark Neocleous observes that, unlike the soldier who confronts the “enemy” or an object of epistemic certainty, the police strives to manage the opposite: the epistemological unknown.[21] Accordingly, he frames “the police power as dealing with a condition of disorder, the war power can more easily be read in terms of the fabrication of order.” [22] In this sense, “peace,” or the regulation of various life aspects to maintain “good order,” he argues, evokes:
[…] a much older and broader conception of police, the central concern of which was ‘good order’ in the broadest possible sense, including crime and law enforcement but extending through the regulation of trade and commerce, the discipline of labour, the process of education and training, welfare and health, the minutia of social life and of course, anything understood as breaching the ‘peace.’(Neocleous, 10)
By highlighting the distinction between two modalities of modern liberal biopolitics, Neocleous argues that the police state’s pursuit of “peace” ultimately aims to regulate and discipline society, referring to Michel Foucault’s use of the Latin phrase “omnes et singulatim (everyone together and each individually)” as it relates to modern state power.[23] North Korea’s reframing of deterrence to “armed peace” in the context of managing regional tensions reflects not only a transformed approach to inter-Korean relations but also a strategic alignment within a multipolar world order. By distancing itself from traditional unification narratives and forging a closer alliance with Russia, North Korea is crafting a discourse of peace that resonates with liberal peacebuilding, albeit with its own ideological inflections.
AUTHOR
Yeonhee Sophie Kim (She/Her) is a lecturer in the Department of International Studies at Loyola International College, Sogang University, Korea, where she teaches International Relations theory. In 2024, she was a Visiting Research Fellow and recipient of the Ministry of Unification Fellowship for North Korea and Unification Studies at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Kyungnam University. She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where she also taught courses on global politics and Western political philosophy. Specializing in Inter-Korean relations, the Korean War, and political theory (aesthetics), her research explores the intersection of arts and technology in the diplomatic and aesthetic mediation of division and conflict. She is particularly interested in how creative mediums and emerging technologies shape narratives of reconciliation and geopolitical dynamics.
NOTES
[1] Richard J. Harnett calls a “multipolar system” a “diffused power structure.” He argues that contemporary states seek to shift their position in relative power dynamics to redistribute existing power relations. (See Harnett, Richard J. “The Distribution of Power, Security, and Interconnectedness: The Structure of Digital International Relations” in Digital International Relations: Technology, Agency and Order. Edited by Corneliu Bjola and Markus Kornprobst. New York: Routledge, 2024: 38). The term “armed peace” is inspired from: Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Penguin Books, 1978.
[2] Moon, Jae-In. From the periphery to the center. Moon Jae In Memoirs of Foreign Affairs and Security. Seoul: Kim Young Sa, 2024: 189-91.
[3] Ibid 183.
[4] Rodong Shinmun, “Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Makes Policy Speech at 10th Session of 14th SPA” (16 January 2024). (English translation of text as released by Workers’ Party of Korea (WKP) website http://www.rodong.rep.kp/en/).
[5] The news confirms that there has been constitutional amendment designating South Korea as a “principal enemy state.” Kim, Hyung-Jin (2023, September 28). “North Korea amends constitution to bolster nuclear power status, cites U.S. as enemy.” Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/north-korea-constitution-change-enemy-12a1ec860d84b106265d35676cb1a0b3
[6] Park, Joon Ha. (2024, October 17) “North Korea drops Juche calendar in apparent bid to elevate Kim Jong Un’s legacy.” NK News. https://www.nknews.org/2024/10/north-korea-drops-juche-calendar-in-apparent-bid-to-elevate-kim-jong-uns-legacy/
[7] McCarthy, Simone. (2024, February 16) “Kim Jong Un Has Broken with Decades of North Korean Policy – Does It Mean He’s Planning for War?” CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/16/asia/kim-jong-un-has-broken-with-decades-of-north-korean-policy-does-it-mean-hes-planning-for-war-intl-hnk/index.html
[8] Ibid. The word “nation” is used in the English version.
[9] “Text of Korean Statement.” (1972, July 4). New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/04/archives/text-of-korean-statement.html.
[10] Harknett 35.
[11] Guareschi, Massimiliano, “Reversing Clausewitz? War and Politics in Foucault, Deleuze-Guattari and Aron.” Conflict, Security and the Reshaping of Society (Open Access). Routledge, 2010: 72. See also: Foucault, Michel. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976. Edited by Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Fontana. Translated by David Macey. New York: Picador, 2003.
[12] Rodong Shinmin. (3 November 2024). “Press Statement on Strategic Dialogue between DPRK and Russian FMs Released.” http://www.rodong.rep.kp/en/.See also: Ha, Yong-Chool and Beom-Shik Shin (2022) “The Impact of the Ukraine War on Russian-North Korean relations.” Asian Survey, 62 (5-6): 893-919.
[13] For example, it mentions US and Nato as imperial power encroaching on Russia’s maritime border, and the issue of counter-privacy and counterterrorism (Rodong Shinmun (29 November 2024). “The Need to Strengthen Naval Forces.” Pp. 6. (my translation)).
[14] Rodong Shinmun, “Crucial Test Demonstrating DPRK’s Definite Reaction Will and Absolute Superiority of its Strategic Strike Capability. Test-fire of DPRK’s Latest-type ICBM Hwasongpho-19 Successfully Conducted under Guidance of Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un.” (1 November 2024), pp: 3. (English translation of title as released by Workers’ Party of Korea (WKP) website http://www.rodong.rep.kp/en/. Both the English and Korean text was consulted. Text is my translation).
[15] Ibid 3.
[16] Ibid 3.
[17] Balázs Szalontai. “In the Shadow of Vietnam: A New Look at North Korea’s Militant Strategy, 1962–1970.” Journal of Cold War Studies 2012; 14 (4): 122–166. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/JCWS_a_00278
[18] Interview with former unification minister at the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), Kang In-Duk. October 18, 2024.
[19] Lee, Eunwoo. (2024, November 9). “South Korea’s Deepening Dilemma Over Ukraine” The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2024/11/south-koreas-deepening-dilemma-over-ukraine/
[20] Hwang, Sok-Yong. The Prisoner: A Memoir. Translated by Sora Kim-Russell and Anton Hur, Verso Books, 2020, pp. 159.
[21] Neocleous 13-4.
[22] Ibid 13.
[23] Ibid 11.
REFERENCES
Balázs Szalontai. “In the Shadow of Vietnam: A New Look at North Korea’s Militant Strategy, 1962–1970.” Journal of Cold War Studies 2012; 14 (4): 122–166. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/JCWS_a_00278
Foucault, Michel. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976. Edited by Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Fontana. Translated by David Macey. New York: Picador, 2003.
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Guareschi, Massimiliano, “Reversing Clausewitz? War and Politics in Foucault, Deleuze-Guattari and Aron.” Conflict, Security and the Reshaping of Society (Open Access). Routledge, 2010, pp.72.
Harnett, Richard J. “The Distribution of Power, Security, and Interconnectedness: The Structure of Digital International Relations” in Digital International Relations: Technology, Agency and Order. Edited by Corneliu Bjola and Markus Kornprobst. New York: Routledge, 2024.
Kim, Hyung-Jin (2023, September 28). “North Korea amends constitution to bolster nuclear power status, cites U.S. as enemy.” Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/north-korea-constitution-change-enemy-12a1ec860d84b106265d35676cb1a0b3
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Lee, Eunwoo. (2024, November 9). “South Korea’s Deepening Dilemma Over Ukraine” The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2024/11/south-koreas-deepening-dilemma-over-ukraine/
McCarthy, Simone. “Kim Jong Un Has Broken with Decades of North Korean Policy – Does It Mean He’s Planning for War?” CNN, February 16, 2024. https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/16/asia/kim-jong-un-has-broken-with-decades-of-north-korean-policy-does-it-mean-hes-planning-for-war-intl-hnk/index.html
Moon, Jae-In. From the periphery to the center. Moon Jae In Memoirs of Foreign Affairs and Security. Seoul: Kim Young Sa, 2024: 189-91.
Neocleous, Mark. War Power, Police Power. Edinburgh: Edinburgn University Press, 2014.
Park, Joon Ha. (2024, October 17) “North Korea drops Juche calendar in apparent bid to elevate Kim Jong Un’s legacy.” NK News. https://www.nknews.org/2024/10/north-korea-drops-juche-calendar-in-apparent-bid-to-elevate-kim-jong-uns-legacy/
Rodong Shinmun, “Crucial Test Demonstrating DPRK’s Definite Reaction Will and Absolute Superiority of its Strategic Strike Capability. Test-fire of DPRK’s Latest-type ICBM Hwasongpho-19 Successfully Conducted under Guidance of Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un.” (1 November 2024).
Rodong Shinmun (29 November 2024). “The Need to Strengthen Naval Forces.”
Rodong Shinmun, “Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Makes Policy Speech at 10th Session of 14th SPA” (16 January 2024). (English translation of text as released by Workers’ Party of Korea (WKP) website http://www.rodong.rep.kp/en/).