Why No North Korean ICBM Test for Christmas?

Adam Mount

Security, Asia

The holidays have passed without major weapons tests from North Korea, but we’re hardly out of the woods yet. If anything, the risks have increased relative to a month ago.

The holidays have passed without major weapons tests from North Korea, but we’re hardly out of the woods yet. If anything, the risks have increased relative to a month ago.

In April, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un told his national Assembly, “we will be patient and wait till the end of this year to see whether the United States makes a courageous decision or not.” Over the course of the year, several regime officials reinforced this deadline. The Pyongyang carried out a series of tests of short-range missile systems that demonstrated advanced new short-range ballistic missile and large-caliber artillery designs, culminating in a new medium-range solid-fuel missile in October. In early December, the DPRK Ambassador to the UN stated that “denuclearization is already gone out of the negotiation table.” In the weeks leading up to the end of the year deadline, the regime continued to raise expectations that its passage would lead to a major provocation designed to shock the American president. Multiple officials promised that Washington would receive a “Christmas gift.” (The regime previously referred to intercontinental ballistic missile tests as “gifts” to the United States.)

This tactic can best be explained with reference to internal politics, a compromise between officials content to persist with stalled negotiations and internal hardliners pressing for the end of negotiations and a resumption of the complete test program. Frustrated by the U.S. reticence to offer sanctions relief for disarmament gestures at the Hanoi summit, Kim set a deadline on talks after which he would authorize a return to tests of the full arsenal.

Most experts took these statements at face value. Their consistency and prominence suggest that they are not easily set aside. Yet, the holidays passed without a North Korean test. Exactly why cannot be known with certainty, but there is no public indication of last-minute diplomatic initiatives that have averted the deadline.