The strange disappearance of the US-North Korea conflict

If you’d lived in America, fallen into a coma in early 2018 and awakened in 2025, you might wonder what became of the US-North Korea conflict. You would remember that at the time you lost consciousness, war seemed almost inevitable. 

US opinion leaders had convinced you that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) government is irrational or reckless. Nightmarishly, the reputedly crazy North Koreans were trying to develop nuclear-armed missiles. Their steady progress was visible to the outside world through test nuclear explosions and practice missile launches.

You would also remember that Pyongyang had repeatedly taunted the Americans, as well as the Japanese and the South Koreans, about its eagerness to nuke them once it had the capability. Outgoing President Barrack Obama had warned incoming President Donald Trump that dealing with North Korea’s ambition to get nuclear weapons should be the new administration’s top priority.

The first-term Trump Administration indicated it was prepared to take preventive military action against North Korea. Trump’s national security advisor said it would be “intolerable” for the North Koreans to “have nuclear weapons that can threaten the United States.”  Trump himself said “It won’t happen!”  Trump also famously said North Korean “threats”– he didn’t say an actual attack – “will be met with fire and fury.” 

In January 2017, Washington seriously considered launching a limited “bloody nose” attack on the DPRK with the hope of frightening Kim into halting his nuclear weapons program. Experts were quick to point out that such an attack could inadvertently lead to a larger war.

Despite the warnings, you would recall, North Korea proceeded with its project. A sixth test in September 2017 of what the DPRK said was a thermonuclear device produced an especially large explosion. North Korean technicians continued to improve on their long-range missiles, with test flights in 2017 indicating the missiles could reach most or even all of the continental US.

Discovering that there had been no second Korean War while you slept, you would ask: did Washington and Pyongyang reach some kind of rapprochement? No, your friends would answer; far from it.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are still high, they would explain. Washington still maintains economic sanctions against the DPRK and demands de-nuclearization, while Pyongyang continues to increase its nuclear arsenal and add more varied and sophisticated delivery systems, including submarine-launched ballistic missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles.

The new solid-fueled Hwasong-19 appears designed to carry multiple warheads to all parts of the US. In 2022 the DPRK government passed a law allowing the launch of a pre-emptive nuclear attack in some circumstances.

The DPRK government has renounced reunification and says it now considers South Koreans enemies. On top of this, North Korea is supporting Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine with troops and supplies of munitions, while presumably gaining in return Russian assistance to enhance the performance of DPRK missiles and submarines.

Why, during the years of our hypothetical coma, did American attention dramatically shift away from the post-nuclear DPRK? There are two parts to the explanation.

First, governments have considerable power to set the agenda of national discourse by highlighting some issues and ignoring others. That power is maximized in the area of foreign affairs, which are generally not as visible to the public as domestic issues. The public is heavily reliant on information provided by the government to know what potentially threatening capabilities a distant hostile country possesses, and whether or not the home country has effective countermeasures. 

There are, of course, limits to the ability of officials to control a narrative.  The Biden Administration wanted to hide or at least downplay the discovery of a Chinese spy balloon over the US in 2023, but public opinion forced the government to confront the issue after private citizens publicized sightings of the balloon. Similarly, Pyongyang can thrust itself into the limelight through an eye-catching statement or act. But to a large degree the US government, and especially the executive branch, can choose to either elevate or neglect the issue of DPRK nuclear missiles, and the level of interest among the mass public will mostly conform.

The first Trump Administration benefitted from highlighting Pyongyang’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. In 2017 Trump took the opportunity supplied by the DPRK to portray himself as a protector of the American people with the will to destroy an enemy country if necessary.

In 2018 and 2019 North Korea became useful as a Nobel Prize vehicle, with Trump attempting to demonstrate his self-touted diplomatic skills through summitry with Kim Jong-un. In his eagerness to get credit for a success, Trump prematurely announced after the Singapore summit in June 2018 that “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.”

With the collapse of the second summit in Hanoi the following year, there was no prospect of a diplomatic breakthrough for the remainder of Trump’s term. The DPRK became a low-key issue, with Trump taking the position that the North Korea problem was under control because Pyongyang wasn’t testing long-range missiles and because Trump still had a good relationship with Kim.

North Korea remained on the US policy back burner, and hence was little discussed, during the Biden Administration. It became clear Pyongyang intended to keep rather than bargain away its nuclear and missile programs. The Biden team said call us if you want to talk about denuclearization – which Pyongyang did not – and focused on strengthening security cooperation among the US, South Korea and Japan.

The second part of the explanation is the US government has found that it actually can tolerate a nuclear-armed DPRK. Pyongyang has not behaved significantly more aggressively since acquiring nuclear weapons. There have been no fatal “provocations” by the DPRK military since the sinking of the South Korean Navy ship Cheonan and the shelling of South Korea-occupied Greater Yeonpyeong Island in 2010, after which Seoul publicly pledged to retaliate militarily against any future incidents. 

Pyongyang has not tried to use nuclear weapons to coerce Seoul into halting military exercises, ceding territory to the DPRK, paying protection money or surrendering South Korean sovereignty. Kim has said he wants his country to gain recognition as a “responsible” nuclear weapons power. The US government has settled into occasionally restating that America’s own nuclear arsenal and the US commitment to protect its East Asian allies are sufficient to deter a North Korean nuclear attack.

Trump seems interested in reviving high-level diplomacy with Pyongyang. However, according to some reports, North Korea will remain a low priority issue as the second Trump Administration focuses instead on China.

If considering a pre-emptive military strike on the DPRK in 2017 was an over-reaction, the US government now draws criticism for growing too comfortable with the new status quo. NK Pro analyst Chad O’Carroll protests that “Washington is asleep at the wheel even as the DPRK advances its nuclear program and deepens military ties with Russia.”

Rather than inattentiveness, the lack of US engagement reflects the realization that Washington is frustratingly powerless to influence decision-making in Pyongyang, and that a tense stability is the best available outcome.

Denny Roy is a senior fellow of the East-West Center, Honolulu.