What's behind North Korea's increasing belligerence?

North Korea has ushered in the new year with threats of violence and three days of live-fire artillery exercises near two South Korean islands.

The South Korean military reported that more than 200 artillery rounds were fired into the sea and that civilians from Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong islands were ordered to evacuate and seek shelter. It was among the fiercest North Korean barrages in the region since November 2010.

The South Korean military responded with artillery rounds into the sea over the weekend. While there have been no reports of additional firing on Monday, analysts have said that 2024 is likely to be a tense year on the Korean Peninsula.

They are predicting Pyongyang could use military threats and aggression as a tool to push for a relaxation of sanctions and influence the outcome of the upcoming South Korean legislative electionsslated for April 10, 2024, by weakening the government of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol. The elections are expected to be closely contested.

"North Korea is extremely dissatisfied with the sanctions-driven policies of the Yoon administration," said Lim Eul-chul, a professor of the economy and politics of North Korea at The Institute of Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul.

"The goal is to express that dissatisfaction through actions, to justify their nuclear buildup and to create negative public opinion in South Korea against Yoon's policies," Lim told DW. 

Increasing tension

North Korea has already been using military threats and actions in an attempt to push its agenda. Yoon, a conservative, took over as president in May 2022 from his left-leaning predecessor Moon Jae-in, and has adopted a far firmer stance against North Korea. This included the forging of a three-way security alliance with the United States and Japan. Pyongyang respondedby scrapping in November an agreementreached with Seoul in 2018 that was designed to reduce military tensions along the border. 

Since then, it has sent more troops to the border region, and the North in November launched its first reconnaissance satellite. Kim used a meeting of his politburo at the end of December 2023 to announce plans to launch at least three more satellites in the coming year. He additionally ordered his munitions sector and nuclear weapons production lines to accelerate war preparations.

Kim underlined the schism that has developed between the two Koreas by declaring that North and South are no longer made up of the same peoples, but have become two hostile countries.

Rah Jong-yil, a former diplomat and head of the South Korean intelligence department charged with monitoring North Korea, agrees that Pyongyang is likely to continue to ramp up the pressure before the April 10 elections in the South. 

"They are hoping that candidates favorable to better ties to the North and politicians who might be willing to drop some of the sanctions will be elected," he said. "This is effectively interference in the South's elections, which is not desirable but something that we have had to put up with in the past." 

North Korea's military capabilities

How well North Korea's military threats hold up depends on the strength of its military capabilities as well as its readiness to deploy them. Some analysts think there is room for concern. They suggest that while the North is hampered by an outdated military, it does have a disproportionately large armed forces. Heavy investment has additionally given the regime nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles capable of hitting targets anywhere in South Korea and even reaching the mainland of the United States. 

The North is understood to have a conscript army of nearly 1.3 million men and women, along with an estimated 560,000 reservists. Its tanks and fighter aircraft are old though, purchased from the Soviet Union in the 1960s. However, it is believed that Pyongyangis obtaining more modern aircraft from Russia in return for missiles and artillery rounds that it is providing for the war in Ukraine. 

The North has long subscribed to the belief that its national defense relies on the potent threat posed by its growing nuclear arsenal. It has an estimated 30 nuclear warheads assembled. Those warheads can be fitted to a growing array of ballistic missiles, including a nascent submarine-launched missile program. 

It has also invested heavily in chemical and biological weapons and it is understood that the North has an army of skilled computer hackers.

Rah believes that North Korea has been emboldened by its closer ties with Russia, which has emerged as a major supporter willing to trade military hardware and technology for the North's vast stockpiles of missiles and artillery rounds."Kim is taking advantage of the situation quite well and senses that he is no longer as isolated on the world stage as he was even a few years ago," Rah said.

2024 is 'different'

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, points out that while military exercises are commonly conducted by North Korea around this time of year, this feels different.

"What is different this year is that the two Koreas have recently backed away from the military confidence-building agreement and Kim has publicly disavowed reconciliation and unification with the South," he said.

The danger, he said, is that any clash along the border could very quickly escalate and, as the two sides are not in direct contact, become a generalized conflict.

"Even though the Yoon government has pledged to respond sternly to any attack, Pyongyang could miscalculate that its claimed nuclear weapons give it control over an escalation in the case of a deadly incident," he said. 

Edited by: Kate Martyr