SEOUL: A belligerent North Korea again sent tensions rising on the Korean peninsula with its latest missile launch that flew over Japan early on Tuesday.

This came just days after a marked dialling down of rhetoric between US and North Korea, which earlier this month had engaged in a war of words following Pyongyang’s test-firing of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) in July.

So what does he really want to achieve with the seemingly endless string of missile tests? Analysts share their views.

Have direct talks with US

Some experts said Kim Jong-Un was trying to pressure Washington to the negotiating table with the latest tests.

“[North Korea] thinks that by exhibiting their capability, the path to dialogue will open,” Masao Okonogi, professor emeritus at Japan’s Keio University, said by phone from Seoul. “That logic, however, is not understood by the rest of the world, so it’s not easy,” he told Reuters.

In recent weeks, several US lawmakers have publicly supported the idea of engaging in diplomacy with North Korea — with some indicating a willingness to support direct talks with Pyongyang, reported CNN.

“The North Koreans have been wanting direct talks with the US for over a year but don’t want to commit in advance to denuclearisation or to take steps unilaterally before talks begin,” said Leon Sigal, Director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council.

According to Sigal, North Korea’s desire to change its relationship with the US dates back more than 30 years, and their hopes of altering US policy they see as adversarial could provide leverage in attempts to bring Pyongyang to the table.

The Trump administration has repeatedly said that talks can take place on the pre-condition of denuclearisation.

But Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for American Progress, said: “If Trump and Tillerson believed North Korea backed down, they were sorely mistaken. They’re not going to volunteer to do this [give up their weapons]. Ever,” he said. “It’s a matter of bargaining. And North Korea has signalled over and over again that the price is really high.”

Ensure regime survival

Analysts say North Korea believes developing a nuclear weapon that can fit atop a missile powerful enough to reach the United States is the only way Pyongyang can deter any US-led efforts at regime change.

The Kims have seen the recent history of Iraq and Libya and must surely glean the lesson: give up your nuclear weapons programme and your regime does not survive, wrote Gabrielle Rifkind, director of the Middle East programme, in a piece for The Guardian.

The North says it will never give up its weapons programmes, saying they are necessary to counter hostility from the US and its allies.

It also seeks a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War which ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. “They cross line after line in an effort to say this is the new reality and you should accept it and go easy on us,” Mount told CNN.

Advance its missile programme

With each test, North Korea missile scientists gain valuable insights and data to advance its missile programme. Some experts and US officials have warned that an operational ICBM capable of reaching the US can be ready by 2018.

This will alter the geopolitical calculus in the region. In fact, Seoul and Tokyo are already looking at more powerful weapons to counter the North following its two tests of ICBM Hwasong-14 in July.

North Korea watcher Ankit Panda wrote on The Diplomat website that North Korea has compelling technical reasons to carry out a full-range flight test of its longer-range missiles.

“It will seek to test them at operational useful trajectories for long-range strikes and, in the process, likely seek to prove its re-entry vehicles and gather data on the long-range accuracy of these systems.”

Drive a wedge between US and its allies

North Korea’s missile tests are aimed at putting a strain on the US-Japan and US-South Korea relationships. They make Japan and South Korea feel extremely vulnerable and tests US resolve.

In maintaining their security, South Korea and Japan have depended on the credible commitment of the United States to use all available means to defend them from attack by North Korea, including retaliation with nuclear weapons if necessary, wrote Richard C Bush from the Brookings Institution on the East Asia Forum website.

Among other things, Japan and South Korea have chosen not to acquire nuclear weapons themselves because they believe in the US nuclear umbrella.

“As North Korea’s nuclear programme inches closer to success, scepticism is increasing in Seoul and Tokyo about the credibility of the US commitment ...would Washington be willing to risk San Francisco in order to save Seoul or Tokyo?” he wrote.

—The Straits Times / Singapore

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2017