"Kim Jong-un Seems Determined for War, Not Bluffing... As Dangerous as Just Before the Korean War, Says US Expert"

US Expert: "Military Solutions May Be Pursued for Korean Peninsula Issues"

American experts have raised analyses that the current situation on the Korean Peninsula is as dangerous as it was just before the Korean War. They pointed out that North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un's frequent mentions of ‘war’ may not be mere bluster.

Robert Carlin, a researcher at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, and Professor Siegfried Hecker wrote in an article for the North Korea specialist media 38 North on the 11th (local time) that "the situation on the Korean Peninsula is more dangerous than at any time since early June 1950," and stated, "We believe Kim Jong-un has made a strategic decision to go to war, just as his grandfather (Kim Il-sung) did in 1950."

North Korean State Affairs Commission Chairman Kim Jong-un conducted on-site guidance at important munitions factories on the 8th and 9th, according to a report by Korean Central Television on the 10th.
[Photo by Yonhap News]

They said that although it is unclear when and how Kim Jong-un might pull the trigger, the current danger has surpassed the level of ‘provocations’ that South Korea, the U.S., and Japan have always warned about, and argued that the ‘war preparations’ messages appearing in North Korean state media since early last year are not the usual ‘bluster’.

They analyzed that Kim Jong-un, deeply disappointed by the failure of the Hanoi North Korea-U.S. summit negotiations in February 2019, completely gave up on normalizing relations with the U.S., which had been a goal of the North Korean regime, and that this was a factor leading to his decision to go to war.

They also claimed that North Korea may judge that the opportunity and timing have come to pursue a military solution to the Korean Peninsula issue by strengthening cooperation with China and Russia.

Kim Jong-un Inspects Key Military Factory "The Republic of Korea is Our Main Enemy"
[Photo by Yonhap News/Pyongyang Korean Central News Agency]

Despite this situation, the two scholars expressed concern that South Korea and the U.S. still maintain the belief that Kim Jong-un will limit himself to small-scale provocations and maintain the status quo due to the ‘ironclad’ deterrence of the South Korea-U.S. alliance. They forecast that "North Korea may plan to act in ways completely outside our calculations," and that we may have reached a situation where the worst-case scenario must be seriously considered.

They also argued that Kim Jong-un’s recent remarks and actions show that if he truly believes there is no other way to improve relations with the U.S., he is leaning toward a military solution using nuclear weapons.

They said that talking about the possibility of war “may sound like crazy talk, but history suggests that those who are convinced there are no other options left will consider playing the most dangerous game worthwhile.”

Dr. Siegfried Hecker is one of the top nuclear scientists in the U.S. and has visited North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility four times. He also served as director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, the largest nuclear research facility in the U.S. Robert Carlin previously worked as a senior policy advisor at the Korea Energy Development Organization (KEDO), playing an important role in North Korea-U.S. negotiations.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.