North Korea’s flurry of military activity this year has put it back in the international spotlight. Stuck in a diplomatic stalemate with the United States and a self-imposed COVID-19 lockdown since early 2020, the reclusive nation has conducted more than 60 ballistic missile tests, its highest annual total ever, including its biggest and longest launches to date. In September, North Korea enshrined in a new law the right to use preemptive nuclear strikes to protect itself. And there is growing fear that the country will carry out a seventh nuclear test in the near future—its first since 2017.
This inflammatory behavior has the United States and its allies scrambling for appropriate countermeasures. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has emphasized the need to pursue additional sanctions and shore up defense and deterrence capacities “so we’re not standing still in the face of provocations.” In October, Cho Hyun-dong, a high-ranking official in South Korea’s foreign ministry, went further, vowing an “unparalleled scale of response” if North Korea followed through on a detonation. In the meantime, the United States and South Korea have responded by augmenting their joint military exercises and deterrence demonstrations, such as deploying the USS Ronald Reagan near the Korean Peninsula.
