The United Nations (UN) Security Council is meeting on Monday, November 21, to discuss the “provocation” of North Korea’s missile attacks. On Friday, the Pyongyang regime launched an intercontinental ballistic missile which landed off the coast of Japan, provoking diplomatic reactions. This firing, the day after the launch of another short-range missile also in the Sea of Japan, is part of an unprecedented series, with up to twenty-three firings in the single day of November 2. Never has North Korea fired so many missiles in a year.
Kim Jong-un’s regime says it is a response to the attitude “aggressive and provocative” from Seoul and Washington, which in November carried out the largest air maneuvers ever carried out in the region, with stealth planes and strategic bombers.
For Antoine Bondaz, director of the Korea program at the Foundation for Strategic Research, the multiplication of North Korean ballistic tests should not be analyzed as a simple provocation. but like “continuous development of their capabilities, including deterrence”. This evolution of the North Korean arsenal offers the country a margin of maneuver in the event of conflict since it now has the possibility of retaliating in a graduated manner, from the missile launched from a submarine to the intercontinental missile through those of medium scope.
Although several UN resolutions prohibit the country from launching ballistic missiles, the researcher believes that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) today benefits from divisions in the Security Council, especially since the war in Ukraine. China, Pyongyang’s main ally, and Russia in May vetoed an attempt by the United States to tighten sanctions against the North Korean regime.
While the DPRK has pledged “more intense military responses” the efforts made by the United States and its allies to strengthen their military presence in the region, Washington fears that Kim Jong-un will resume its nuclear tests for the first time since 2017.
From the first missile launch in 1984 to early November 2022, we have chronologically traced the development of North Korea’s ballistic and nuclear programs.