2019: Looking back: North Korea10. North Korea: The U.S. Top Security Threat

Published 31 December 2019

Developments on the Korean peninsula show that the Trump administration’s policy toward North Korea has been a failure, and that the risk North Korea poses to the United States, and to U.S. allies in the region, has only increased. The administration has portrayed its North Korea policy as its signature initiative, but now bills North Korea as the U.S. top security threat.

Earlier in December, at a NATO summit in London, President Donald Trump declared that “we have peace” with North Korea and that he had a better “personal relationship” with Kim Jong Un than the dictator had with possibly anyone else “in the world.”

Developments on the Korean peninsula, however, show that the Trump administration’s policy toward North Korea has been a failure, and that the risk North Korea poses to the United States, and to U.S. allies in the region, has only increased.

Since May, North Korea has tested more missiles than it has in any other year in its history, except possibly 2016, according to the analyst Ankit Panda. North Korea has never stopped producing fissile material for nuclear bombs.Satellites are spotting renewed activity at North Korean nuclear sites, while the North Korean military has resumed testing at a rocket-launch site he had promised to dismantle in 2018. U.S. officials are yet again warning of military options. North Korean officials are proclaiming the days of denuclearization negotiations over.

President Trump’s reaction has been repeatedly to downplay the recent surge in missile tests, even as they’ve become more sophisticated and accurate, and harder to dismiss.

Analysts note that it is a remarkable comedown for the Trump administration’s signature initiative to address what it has billed as the U.S. top security threat.