North Korea: On the Brink

The North Korea of 2024 is more belligerent, provocative and focused on its military than ever before. Pyongyang has put itself on a war footing, upping its defense production and forging ahead with ballistic missile tests that are deeply alarming to South Korea, Japan and the U.S.

"It is a fait accompli that a war can break out at any time on the Korean peninsula," was the message from North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong Un, as the world rang in the new year, with some researchers believing he has made a strategic decision to take his nation into battle.

"North Korea is ramping up tensions because at this point in time it doesn't see any downside to it," argued Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King's College London in the U.K.

Pyongyang has stepped closer to Russia since the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine, and Pacheco Pardo told Newsweek Kim feels emboldened by this transformed relationship with Moscow as well as the protection his regime receives from Beijing.

Anna Rosenberg, head of geopolitics for Amundi Investment Institute, agreed, adding: "There's going to be a lot more noise from North Korea this year, and when you look at the geopolitical context, it's the perfect year for that."

The U.S. has its thoughts elsewhere, with the war in Ukraine, violence in the Middle East and the upcoming presidential elections, she told Newsweek.

But despite his strong rhetoric, there are still doubts the "Hermit Kingdom" will stand the test of time. Kim's strongman tactics come with "risks," Pacheco Pardo said.

North Korea faces big unknowns that could upset the strong trajectory it has set out on and pave the way for a future in which the nation does not exist as we now know it. It is not clear what a collapse would look like. It could be reunification with its southern neighbor or the end of the Kim family regime and the grip it has maintained on the country since 1948.

Experts broadly agree there are a handful of events that could trigger its demise, including war. It could be the unexpected death of Kim, or a popular uprising may gain momentum if backed by the country's security institutions. There may be a coup in the upper echelons of power, or a challenge to the regime and economy from a family member's business connections in China.

"Both Beijing and Moscow could decide at any point that they no longer need to support North Korea" and drop the shield they provide against United Nations Security Council sanctions, Pacheco Pardo suggested. Some experts are skeptical of these scenarios.

"North Korea has tended to be a lot more durable than it looks from the outside," Scott Snyder, director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Newsweek. But its collapse is "more likely than other governments," said Frank Aum, senior expert on Northeast Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace and a former Defense Department adviser.

All scenarios are possible, and Kim is aware of it, said Snyder.

Scenario 1: War

"Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war," researchers writing for U.S. website 38 North, dedicated to analyzing the Korean peninsula, posted last month. It's not hard to see the argument. North Korea is one of the world's most militarized nations, and the size of its forces dwarfs its southern neighbor. Pyongyang last month said it had test-fired a new type of strategic cruise missile, although state media insisted it had "nothing to do with the regional situation."

Figures released by data company Statista show North Korean military spending may have reached one-third of the country's GDP in 2022, a marked increase from previous years, when the country dedicated just under one-quarter of its GDP to the military.

Pyongyang also tore up an agreement with Seoul that tried to hamper rising border tensions after North Korea launched what is believed to be its first successful satellite. It fired artillery shells close to South Korean islands at the start of the year and invested in delivery systems for its cache of weapons. This all came in the context of Pyongyang declaring it had abandoned unification goals and ripped down a monument to verify that objective.

Analysts say North Korea has also tipped resources into cultivating its cyber capabilities alongside its conventional military power, making Pyongyang a more dangerous presence in the region.

When tensions are high, there's a greater possibility for a provocation, escalation and therefore change, said Andrew Yeo, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Center for East Asia Policy Studies and a professor at the Washington, D.C.-based Catholic University of America.

But speech, not action, prevails. North Korea's military, for all its volume, lacks the breadth of training experience South Korea has gained through military exercises with the likes of the U.S., Yeo said.

Last month, the U.S. finished joint drills with South Korea and Japan, a reiteration of Washington's commitment to supporting Seoul. South Korea has also paved its way to becoming a major defense exporter and upped its military spending.

"A general war could kill a lot of people in the South, but it would be the end of Kim Jong Un and his regime," Peter Ward, a senior researcher at Seoul's Kookmin University, told the BBC last month.

For this reason, some experts are confident Pyongyang will pull back. "North Korea will not attack South Korea," Michael Lee, a director at South Korean satellite analysis firm SI Analytics, told Newsweek. "It will just continue the threat and will be mostly rhetoric."

Lurking over this are nuclear weapons. Kim is betting that Pyongyang's nuclear capability will stave off regime transition, Snyder said. "What we see is a desire by Kim Jong Un to use the nuclear weapons capability as a source of perpetuation of his regime."

Pyongyang is maintaining its nuclear arsenal at the forefront of South Korea's, and the U.S.', minds. It has carried out a test of an "underwater nuclear weapons system" supposedly capable of unleashing a nuclear tsunami on North Korea's adversaries. In September, North Korea said it had debuted its first "tactical nuclear attack submarine," able to carry and launch nuclear weapons.

There is some doubt among Western analysts about the submarine's true capabilities, but North Korea has also launched a spy satellite and committed to putting several more into orbit this year.

The power is in the existence of North Korea's nuclear weapons, not their use. "If North Korea attempts to use nuclear weapons against us, we will retaliate overwhelmingly by utilizing the dramatically strengthened extended deterrence of the ROK [South Korea]-U.S. alliance and the three-axis system, and the Kim Jong Un regime will face its end," Seoul's defense ministry said at the end of last year.

Scenario 2: Interior Threats

A palace coup could bring down Kim's regime but experts told Newsweek any hopes of a successful public revolt are remote. Yeo is the most optimistic of an uprising; South Korean efforts to prop up human rights, support defectors and spread information among its northern neighbor's 26 million citizens could go some way to turn North Koreans' minds away from the propaganda of the regime.

But with the state apparatus, "even if there is discontent among the North Korean population, they're not going to be able to resist," Yeo said. It is "highly unlikely" North Korean citizens could organize in this way, added Aum.

North Korea has been remarkably effective in fighting technological developments that have the potential to threaten the Kim regime. It has battled back against the rise of the internet and information leaking through its borders, combating the threat in a "cat-and-mouse fashion," Snyder said.

"The only form of internal threat that poses a direct concern for the North Korean elite is a palace coup scenario," Snyder added. "It's going to be a threat that's a lot closer to Kim himself than anything that goes on in the streets."

Some form of military coup "is possible, but would require an anomalous situation," said Aum. Kim has shown himself to be aware of, and prepared to act against, any hint of movement against him. More than a decade ago, he executed his uncle—former senior official Jang Song-thaek—who is the "closest we've seen to a direct threat" to the regime's stability, Snyder said.

Kim's uncle was denigrated in state media as "worse than a dog," and a "traitor for all ages." Jang's death "does give a picture of the resilience and the extraordinary control that the central leadership is able to assert even at the elite level," Snyder argued.

The threats to the regime are, arguably, most potent close to home. "At the end of the day, I still think it's fundamentally just the internal dynamics that make or break North Korea," Yeo said..

Scenario 3: Abandoned by Allies

North Korea is ultimately dependent on its major allies for its survival. Russian and Chinese backing is what allows North Korea to "survive and muddle through," said Yeo. "It cannot feed its own people or meet other basic economic goals—such as infrastructure-building—without external support," wrote Robert Kelly, professor of international relations at South Korea's Pusan National University.

But Pyongyang is not the same ally to Beijing as it is to Moscow. The Ukraine war changed the terrain, pushing Russia away from the rest of the world and becoming a "big win" for North Korea, Snyder said.

It forced Moscow to join the sanctioned space in which North Korea had long languished alone, making Pyongyang "valuable to Russia, and has really provided life to that relationship," Snyder said. Yeo added: "That's probably the biggest game changer within the last six months or so, the North Korea-Russia relationship."

Kim now feels like he has a "real ally" for the first time in his life, said Simon Smith, former British ambassador to Ukraine who also served as London's link to Kyiv. "This enables him to widen his options in terms of action he can take to sustain his regime's grip" on the country, including upping the bellicose posturing against Western countries, he told Newsweek.

The war in Ukraine also pulled North Korea out of a total dependence on China, a reliance that had long sat uneasily with Pyongyang. "They're in a much stronger position at this point," Snyder said.

However, unexpected changes in China would still have unintended and damaging consequences on North Korea—a real point of vulnerability for Pyongyang, Snyder said.

Despite this, though, analysts agree that China and Russia would work to keep North Korea propped up if needed.

If, for whatever reason, Beijing and Moscow decide to turn away from Pyongyang, Kim's North Korean regime would be staring down the barrel of the end of its existence as it knows it. "That would lead to implosion," Yeo said.

Scenario 4: Free Markets

Threats from within the country's borders could become more real if Kim opted to attempt a Beijing-like approach to North Korea's centralized economy, relinquishing his iron grip and embracing the markets.

There are serious risks of "pursuing Chinese-style reform for stability and perpetuation of the Kim family regime," Snyder said, even though North Korea has been haunted by a moribund economy and famine with its own power to sow dissent.

China's economic path, forged by Deng Xiaoping after the death of Chairman Mao, opened up China to investment and laid the foundations for Beijing's current status as the world's second-largest economy.

But should Pyongyang attempt to emulate this, there are big risks. Courting outside investment would entail "some sort of reforms to guarantee that the foreign investors would make a return," rather than the state pocketing the profits, Yeo said. There would be more exchanges with the outside world, and exposure to nonstate-controlled information. It could undermine one of Pyongyang's ideological bedrocks of self-sufficiency.

There are scant indicators the supreme leader is willing to try this approach. Much like his father, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un has shown indications of tiptoeing towards limited reforms, before yanking back.

But his executed uncle Jang had a wealth of business connections in China, which sat uncomfortably with Kim, Yeo argued. These connections, and the money that came with them, "could begin challenging the regime because they could provide things for the people that the state clearly cannot," Yeo said.

In the years since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kim has doubled down on recentralizing the economy and reconsolidating his power, rather than flirt with a new economic model, analysts say.

"I was much more optimistic maybe seven or eight years ago about the economic reforms and change through the markets," Yeo said. "But just seeing the way Kim Jong Un has been heightening laws about outside information about South Korean cultural content and then reasserting control authority over the economy, I've become more skeptical about that path, at least for the time being."

Scenario 5: Death of Kim Jong Un

The demise of Kim, currently believed to be 40, would be a point of vulnerability for North Korea. He is thought to have been plagued by health problems—anything from gout and diabetes to COVID bouts have been floated, fueled by periods of absence from state media and dramatic weight fluctuations—although this is all speculation.

Decades younger than world leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin or U.S. President Joe Biden, the impact of Kim's death would be all about timing. At this moment, there is no fixed successor in place to stave off the uncertainty a sudden, unforeseen demise of the current leader would bring. "Certainly, it would be a new, critical juncture for the country," said Yeo.

North Korea has an established family dynasty, showing it can hand over power to the next generation with few hitches. "The hereditary system is strong in North Korea," said Lee. But Pyongyang "operates as a patrilineal family dynasty and there is no ready male heir apparent," Aum added.

Some have tipped the supreme leader's younger sister, the U.S.-condemning Kim Yo Jong, for the role. Often dubbed the de-facto second in command, she has assumed a more visible position in the public spotlight in recent years.

She "is a part of the Kim family line and experienced in governmental and foreign affairs, but it's unclear whether she could overcome the strong male dominance in the North Korean system," Aum said.

South Korea's spy agency has also suggested Kim Jong Un's young daughter, Kim Ju-ae, is being prepared for the position. "At present, she appears to be the most likely successor," Seoul's National Intelligence Service said earlier this year. "But we are keeping our eyes open for all possibilities because Kim Jong Un is still young, has no major health problems, and there are many variables."

Kim is believed to have three children, yet Kim Ju-ae—aged somewhere between 10 and 12—is the only child in the public eye. Experts suggest that both Kim Ju-ae and Kim Yo Jong would both carry on the regime with little deviation, but the timing of a new leader remains a big unknown.

"The bottom line is that the timing of his death may not be as important, since Kim Yo Jong is ready to lead today, but rather whether a woman could ever lead the heavily male-dominated government," Aum suggested.

The Future 'Renegade State'

North Korea has, in many ways, defied the odds, and some say is likely to continue doing so. In a decade or so's time, it will probably be militarily stronger, Yeo said, but it will still be a poor, "renegade state."

There is also the hope among many analysts that North Korea could open up in a way that appeases both the U.S. and its allies, as well as Russia and China. Washington would back economic reform in North Korea, but it would demand Pyongyang surrendering its nuclear weapons, Aum said.

"China and Russia would also be concerned about potential instability and collapse, like when Kim Jong Il died in 2011, and support economic reform as long as North Korea remained an ally and partner that was favorable to the current Chinese and Russian governments," he suggested.

The world is shifting, and so are perceptions. It's unclear how kind the future will be to North Korea, but many Western countries are going to quickly move on from seeing Pyongyang as a limited threat to one that is a dangerous part of a bigger problem, Smith warned.