Why Kim Jong-un may be banking on a US military strike to ensure his survival

Bob Savic says with China enforcing UN sanctions and getting closer to South Korea, the North Korean leader may well force America’s hand to show Beijing and Moscow his indispensability as the leader of a buffer state

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It may well be that Kim Jong-un has calculated two likely outcomes surrounding his fate: a long-term decline in the importance of Pyongyang to Beijing that leads to his demise, or a high-risk venture provoking the US into military intervention against North Korea. Illustration: Craig Stephens

Published: 9:57am, 6 Oct 2017Updated: 7:29pm, 6 Oct 2017

Even if there was some back room deal-making between the US and North Korea, perhaps through Russia’s promised mediation, it is unlikely to make any real difference in deterring Kim from his efforts to provoke an American military attack.

After the George W. Bush administration declared North Korea as one of the three countries on its “Axis of Evil”, and a month after the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq, North Korea announced that it possessed nuclear weapons. In 2006, it undertook the first of a series of nuclear and missile tests.

Following these, North Korea’s then leader Kim Jong-il refrained from further testing for three years, until 2009, when another round of nuclear and missile tests were carried out.

Similarly, after its first nuclear and missile tests under current leader Kim Jong-un, in 2013, North Korea refrained from further testing for a period: from 2013 to early 2016 with regard to nuclear tests, and from 2015 to mid-2017 for missile tests.

However, a major divergence in the pattern arose in the wake of the two leaders’ second rounds of testing. After 2009, Kim Jong-il halted further tests, whereas, following the resumption of testing in 2016-17, Kim Jong-un has not only intensified his missile launching activities, but has threatened to escalate nuclear testing as well.

Then Chinese premier Wen Jiabao (centre) shares a light moment with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il at the state guest house in Pyongyang on October 5, 2009. Photo: AFP/KCNA via KNS