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      North Korea Unveils New Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNorth Korea Unveils New Submarine-Launched Ballistic MissileDays before President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration, the North made its latest demonstration of its nuclear might at a Pyongyang military parade. North Korean state media released this photo of missiles at a military parade in Pyongyang, the capital, on Thursday night.Credit…Korean Central News Agency, via Associated PressJan. 15, 2021, 7:01 a.m. ETSEOUL, South Korea — A month before the U.S. presidential election, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, held a military parade that featured what appeared to be the country’s largest-ever intercontinental ballistic missile. This week, just days before President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration, the North Korean dictator held another parade, showing off a new submarine-launched ballistic missile.To the Kim regime, the nighttime military parades in Pyongyang, the capital, were demonstrations of power meant to boost domestic morale amid crippling economic sanctions. To the Biden administration, they foreshadow what could become the incoming president’s greatest foreign policy challenge.The timing of the two flashy exhibitions has drawn attention to the diplomatic freeze between the two countries. In North Korea, Mr. Biden is inheriting a rival whose nuclear ambition is bolder and more dangerous than it was four years ago, when President Barack Obama left office.The parades underscored that North Korea has been silently ramping up its nuclear capability for years, even as President Trump claimed that his top-down, personality-driven diplomacy with Mr. Kim meant the North was “no longer a nuclear threat.”“If anything, the North’s nuclear threat has only grown,” said Yun Duk-min, a former chancellor of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy in Seoul. “The military parade is evidence.”This week’s parade came at the end of the eight-day congress held by North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, which was closely monitored by outside analysts for clues to how Mr. Kim might recalibrate his policy toward Washington.Kim Jong-un, center, the North’s leader, recently promised to “further strengthen our nuclear deterrence.”Credit…Korean Central News Agency, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Kim used the congress to celebrate the North’s nuclear arsenal as one of ​his proudest achievements, and to apologize to his people for the deepening economic woes caused by the pandemic and the devastating international sanctions imposed since the country’s fourth nuclear test in 2016.Mr. Kim’s historic summits with Mr. Trump in Singapore and Vietnam failed to end those sanctions. With his back against the wall and diplomacy with the United States at a standstill, some experts warn that Mr. Kim may return to testing missiles to bring Washington back to the negotiating table with more attractive proposals.North Korea has a history of retreating deeper into isolation and raising tensions to strengthen its leverage when negotiations do not lead to concessions, or when a new American president takes office.“North Korea leaves little doubt about its intentions: It wanted to be treated as an equal in nuclear arms reduction talks with the United States,” said Cheon Seong-whun, a former director of the Korea Institute for National Unification, a think tank in Seoul. “The new weapons disclosed during two parades have never been tested before and we don’t know whether they are actually working,” Mr. Cheon said. “But we know in what direction North Korea is headed.” The earlier parade, held on Oct. 10 to mark a party anniversary, unveiled what appeared to be the largest intercontinental ballistic missile the North had ever built. It also featured a Pukguksong-4, a new version of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, or SLBM. Neither weapon has been tested.The SLBM displayed during the parade on Thursday look​ed like yet another upgraded, untested version of the one North Korea has been developing under Mr. Kim, along with its Hwasong land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles.Another state media image from the parade on Thursday.Credit…Korean Central News Agency, via Associated PressNorth Korea tested three Hwasong ICBMs in 2017. After the last such test, it claimed that it could now target the continental United States with a nuclear warhead.Images of this week’s parade released through state media showed Mr. Kim proudly observing the neat columns of missiles, rockets, tanks and goose-stepping soldiers marching across the main plaza in Pyongyang, named after his grandfather, the North’s founder, Kim Il-sung.The parade also featured fireworks and military planes firing flares in the night sky as crowds of people danced at the plaza, state media reported on Friday.Kim Jong-un has vowed to strengthen the North’s nuclear deterrent ​since his talks with Mr. Trump stalled​ in 2019​. And as the economy continues to deteriorate, his bargaining opportunities are limited.“The armed forces of the Republic will strictly contain any military threats in the region of the Korean Peninsula and preemptively use the strongest offensive power to thoroughly smash the hostile forces if they jeopardize the security of our state even a bit,” Defense Minister Kim Jong-gwan of North Korea was quoted as saying during the parade. (He was referring to the North, whose formal name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.)At the party congress, Mr. Kim made it clear that the steep economic challenges facing the North would not affect his weapons program. He called his nuclear arsenal the greatest achievement “in the history of the Korean nation” and vowed to “further strengthen our nuclear deterrence.”Dancing in Pyongyang on Thursday.Credit…Korean Central News Agency, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe also offered an unusually detailed wish list of weapons, from “hypersonic gliding-flight warheads” and military reconnaissance satellites to “ultramodern tactical nuclear weapons,” which have become a growing concern for the United States and allies in the region, including South Korea and Japan.North Korea has seen its nuclear force as the best tool for ensuring the continuity of the Kim family’s dynastic rule, and as a bargaining chip to extract economic and other concessions from the United States. During the party congress, Mr. Kim claimed that his nuclear weapons had made North Korea safer from American threats, putting it in a better position to rebuild its economy.His hardening stance reflects “deep rage and disappointment” after his failed negotiations with Mr. Trump, said Lee Byong-chul, a North Korea expert at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in South Korea.The government of South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, helped to arrange the Trump-Kim summits, which were centered on cultivating personal trust between the two leaders with the hope of reaching a breakthrough. Mr. Trump wanted a nuclear-free peninsula, and Mr. Kim wanted an end to the sanctions. Their meetings went nowhere, though North Korea has since refrained from major provocations as it waited out the confusion of the American presidential election.The election is now over, but chaos has only deepened in the United States, and Mr. Kim’s patience may be running thin. “We can expect him to raise tensions depending on whether and how Biden responds,” said Mr. Lee.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Dear Joe, It’s Not About Iran’s Nukes Anymore

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      With the assassination by Israel of Iran’s top nuclear warhead designer, the Middle East is promising to complicate Joe Biden’s job from day one. President-elect Biden knows the region well, but if I had one piece of advice for him, it would be this: This is not the Middle East you left four years ago.The best way for Biden to appreciate the new Middle East is to study what happened in the early hours of Sept. 14, 2019 — when the Iranian Air Force launched 20 drones and precision-guided cruise missiles at Abqaiq, one of Saudi Arabia’s most important oil fields and processing centers, causing huge damage. It was a seminal event.The Iranian drones and cruise missiles flew so low and with such stealth that neither their takeoff nor their impending attack was detected in time by Saudi or U.S. radar. Israeli military analysts, who were stunned by the capabilities the Iranians displayed, argued that this surprise attack was the Middle East’s “Pearl Harbor.”They were right. The Middle East was reshaped by this Iranian precision missile strike, by President Trump’s response and by the response of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to Trump’s response.A lot of people missed it, so let’s go to the videotape.First, how did President Trump react? He did nothing. He did not launch a retaliatory strike on behalf of Saudi Arabia — even though Iran, unprovoked, had attacked the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure.A few weeks later Trump did send 3,000 U.S. troops and some antimissile batteries to Saudi Arabia to bolster its defense — but with this message on Oct. 11, 2019: “We are sending troops and other things to the Middle East to help Saudi Arabia. But — are you ready? Saudi Arabia, at my request, has agreed to pay us for everything we’re doing. That’s a first.”It sure was a first. I’m not here to criticize Trump, though. He was reflecting a deep change in the American public. His message: Dear Saudis, America is now the world’s biggest oil producer; we’re getting out of the Middle East; happy to sell you as many weapons as you can pay cash for, but don’t count on us to fight your battles. You want U.S. troops? Show me the money.That clear shift in American posture gave birth to the first new element that Biden will confront in this new Middle East — the peace agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and between Israel and Bahrain — and a whole new level of secret security cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which will likely flower into more formal relations soon. (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel reportedly visited Saudi Arabia last week.)In effect, Trump forced Israel and the key Sunni Arab states to become less reliant on the United States and to think about how they must cooperate among themselves over new threats — like Iran — rather than fighting over old causes — like Palestine. This may enable America to secure its interests in the region with much less blood and treasure of its own. It could be Trump’s most significant foreign policy achievement.But a key result is that as Biden considers reopening negotiations to revive the Iran nuclear deal — which Trump abandoned in 2018 — he can expect to find Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates operating as a loose anti-Iran coalition. This will almost certainly complicate things for Biden, owing to the second huge fallout from the Iranian attack on Abqaiq: The impact it had on Israel.After Trump scrapped the nuclear deal, Iran abandoned its commitments to restrict its enrichment of uranium that could be used for a nuclear bomb. But since Biden’s election, Iran has said it would “automatically” return to its nuclear commitments if Biden lifts the crippling sanctions imposed by Trump. Only after those sanctions are lifted, said Tehran, might it discuss regional issues, like curbs on Iran’s precision missile exports and capabilities.This is where the problems will start for Biden. Yes, Israel and the Sunni Arab states want to make sure that Iran can never develop a nuclear weapon. But some Israeli military experts will tell you today that the prospect of Iran having a nuke is not what keeps them up at night — because they don’t see Tehran using it. That would be suicide and Iran’s clerical leaders are not suicidal.They are, though, homicidal.And Iran’s new preferred weapons for homicide are the precision-guided missiles, that it used on Saudi Arabia and that it keeps trying to export to its proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, which pose an immediate homicidal threat to Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iraq and U.S. forces in the region. (Iran has a network of factories manufacturing its own precision-guided missiles.)If Biden tries to just resume the Iran nuclear deal as it was — and gives up the leverage of extreme economic sanctions on Iran, before reaching some understanding on its export of precision-guided missiles — I suspect that he’ll meet a lot of resistance from Israel, the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia.Why? It’s all in the word “precision.” In the 2006 war in Lebanon, Iran’s proxy militia, Hezbollah, had to fire some 20 dumb, unguided, surface-to-surface rockets of limited range in the hope of damaging a single Israeli target. With precision-guided missiles manufactured in Iran, Hezbollah — in theory — just needs to fire one rocket each at 20 different targets in Israel with a high probability of damaging each one. We’re talking about Israel’s nuclear plant, airport, ports, power plants, high-tech factories and military bases.That is why Israel has been fighting a shadow war with Iran for the past five years to prevent Tehran from reaching its goal of virtually encircling Israel with proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Gaza, all armed with precision-guided missiles. The Saudis have been trying to do the same versus Iran’s proxies in Yemen, who have fired on its airports. These missiles are so much more lethal.“Think of the difference in versatility between dumb phones and smartphones,’’ observed Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. “For the past two decades we have been consumed by preventing Iran’s big weapon, but it is the thousands of small smart weapons Iran has been proliferating that have become the real and immediate threat to its neighbors.’’That is why Israel and its Gulf Arab allies are not going to want to see the United States give up its leverage on Iran to curb its nuclear program before it also uses that leverage — all those oil sanctions — to secure some commitment to end Iran’s export of these missiles.And that is going to be very, very difficult to negotiate.So, if you were planning a party to celebrate the restoration of the Iran-U. S. nuclear deal soon after Biden’s inauguration, keep the champagne in the fridge. It’s complicated.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More