For a regime so used to using the detonation of bombs as messages to the international community, America’s use of its biggest bunker-buster in combat last week will have been understood by North Korea as a warning. Because the use of the “Moab” in Afghanistan was also a reminder to Pyongyang that the United States does not need a nuclear strike to destroy the regime: it could simply decapitate the leadership in their bunkers.
A hard message, for sure, but one that it is increasingly necessary to convey. North Korea is a deeply destabilising regime – and its destabilisation does not end on the Korean Peninsula. Because of its need for hard currency, the regime has looked to export military technology to rogue regimes around the world. And there are few more rogue or more willing to acquire destructive weaponry than Iran.
That is why what happens on the Korean Peninsula has an effect in the Middle East. Iran is already believed to have acquired missile technology from North Korea. Pyongyang is also believed to have biological and chemical weapons capability, in addition to its nuclear programme. All of these could be offered to regimes such as Iran, with potentially devastating consequences.
Already Iran has destabilised the Middle East: sending troops to aid Bashar Al Assad, money to Hizbollah and weapons to the Houthis. The longer the North Korean regime persists, the more likely it is that the regime, squeezed for cash, will look to countries such as Iran for hard currency – in exchange for deadly weaponry.
There are certainly no good options over North Korea. The regime has acquired the deserved reputation of being unpredictable. Even its closest, indeed only, ally China scolds the regime for its nuclear ambitions, while still maintaining the two are as close as “lips to teeth”. And as the US has raised tensions by sending a strike force and conducting military drills in the area, the Chinese have warned the two are on a collision course.
Yet doing nothing – as China has been willing to do for too long, giving the regime space to make choices with serious consequences – is not an option. If Donald Trump is trying something new, that is to be welcomed, with the very serious caveat that North Korea’s propensity to lash out must be factored in. What happens to Pyongyang matters to the people of South Korea, China and Japan – but also to the peoples of the Middle East.
