There is little, if any, reason to expect a breakthrough in Pyongyang’s relations with either South Korea or the United States in 2024.

The politics of neither the Republic of Korea (ROK) nor the United States are amenable to reaching an agreement favorable to Pyongyang. Yoon Suk-yeol, a conservative who is relatively tough on North Korea and friendly toward the United States and Japan, will be the ROK president for the entire year. Unlike the previous U.S. president, Joe Biden is not inclined to meet Kim without extensive preparatory staff work and major pre-agreed concessions by the North Korean side. It would make more sense for Pyongyang to wait out 2024 in the hope that Trump will regain the presidency in 2025. 

As 2023 ends, the world is still trending toward geostrategic bipolarity. The interests of China and Russia in punishing outlaw behavior by Pyongyang are now at a low point. On the other hand, the countries that oppose a U.S.-crafted world order, including North Korea, Russia, China, and Iran, find increasing opportunities to work together. At a plenary meeting of the Korean Workers’ Party on Dec. 27, Kim Jong-un called for more “strategic cooperation with the anti-imperialist independent countries.” The Putin government and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) have a substantial partnership that reportedly includes North Korea supplying munitions to sustain Russia’s war in Ukraine and Russian assistance to the DPRK space program. Following failed attempts in April and August, Pyongyang said in November it had successfully placed a military surveillance satellite in orbit. Pyongyang amplifies China’s propaganda on Taiwan and on an alleged U.S. desire to create an “Asian NATO.” There is evidence the DPRK provided some of the weapons Hamas has used against Israel in Gaza.

In 2024, The DPRK will continue to make itself appear more threatening to the United States, South Korea, and Japan. Along with the development of new delivery vehicles, North Korea is poised to ramp up production of nuclear bombs. Missile practice launches will continue in 2024, perhaps accompanied by a nuclear test explosion, because Pyongyang needs test data to improve the reliability and performance of its weapons. 

In keeping with a time-honored strategy, the North Korean government might time some of its weapons tests to coincide with parliamentary elections in South Korea in April 2024 and the U.S. presidential election in November 2024, hoping to frighten its adversaries into negotiations. Pyongyang has already tested solid-fuel rockets that could theoretically carry a nuclear payload to all parts of the United States. If they wanted to raise the shock level, the North Koreans could fire a long-range missile along a mostly horizontal rather than a mostly vertical trajectory, dropping it into a distant sector of the Pacific Ocean. This would be risky, however, as it could result in the U.S. and its allies committing to shoot down future missile test flights. 

Both sides seem locked into counterproductive deterrence strategies. The DPRK is fundamentally weak. It is an economic pygmy compared to the ROK, and its economy has been heavily sanctioned for decades. Out of a sense of internal insecurity, the DPRK government thoroughly suppresses civil liberties, sponsors a personality cult that apotheosizes the ruling Kim family, and obsessively undercuts private wealth accumulation outside of privileged elites. Its conventional military forces are outclassed by South Korea’s, not to mention those of the ROK’s American ally.

Pyongyang has tried to compensate for this weakness by intimidating its potential adversaries through belligerent diplomacy, with the intent of deterring attack and extracting concessions. The acquisition of nuclear weapons and a working delivery system also addressed this weakness. Nukes forced the outside world to take North Korea more seriously, as seen in Kim’s meetings with foreign leaders starting in 2018. But with the failure of attempts to reach an agreement on denuclearization, North Korea’s self-strengthening has motivated Washington and Seoul to make what they see as compensatory moves, which Pyongyang inevitably sees as threatening.

Thus, the Korean Peninsula will remain stuck in a negative spiral of geostrategic tensions in the coming year. Seeing South Korea’s aspiration to negate the DPRK nuclear capability through a “kill chain” strategy and a contingency plan to assassinate Kim, and aware of continued U.S. efforts to improve its anti-missile defenses, the North Korean government will press forward with the expansion and diversification of its nuclear arsenal. Pyongyang will also continue to express its readiness to use its nuclear weapons against the United States, South Korea, and Japan while suggesting the only way out of this state of constant high tension is to drop the economic sanctions and negotiate an arms control agreement recognizing the DPRK as a permanent nuclear weapons state.

The main feature of the Kim governance model is the unchecked prioritization of regime security at the expense of political pluralism and national prosperity. The state has demonstrated a robust capacity to muddle through decade after decade. The regime will change or collapse at some point, which could completely transform North Korea’s external relations. But unfortunately, the probability of this occurring in any particular year, including 2024, is low.

Denny Roy is a Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu.

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