[Big read] Not just nukes: Why the US won’t strike North Korea

US President Donald Trump has recently carried out a series of hardline military actions against Venezuela and Iran. In particular, the joint US-Israel air strikes on Iran, which resulted in the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have drawn widespread international attention. Analysts point out that this series of “targeted eliminations” has already delivered a tangible psychological shock to North Korea, and that Pyongyang is highly likely to further strengthen its nuclear deterrence capabilities due to heightened security anxieties.

On 28 February, the US and Israel launched large-scale strikes against Iran. Within 24 hours, Khamenei was confirmed dead, reviving memories of the “axis of evil” proposed by the US following the Cold War.

In his State of the Union address in 2002, then US President George W. Bush identified Iraq (whose president Saddam Hussein was executed by the US in 2006), Iran and North Korea as the “axis of evil”. He later expanded this to include Libya, Syria and Cuba as “rogue states” beyond the Axis of Evil, on the grounds that they were developing weapons of mass destruction and threatening international order.

Of the countries originally listed in the “axis of evil”, only North Korea has retained its existing power structure and continued family rule. As such, many observers view Khamenei’s targeted killing as symbolic, and as a political shock directed at Pyongyang.

North Korea responded quickly to the attack on Iran. On 1 March, a spokesperson for its foreign ministry issued a statement strongly condemning the US and Israel for launching air strikes on Iran, accusing them of “violation of international law and abuse of military power in pursuit of hegemonic ambitions”. Notably, unlike in some previous incidents with strong personal rhetoric, this firmly worded statement did not name Trump directly.

The statement was released less than a day after the military operation. However, North Korean state media was relatively restrained overall. After publishing the statement, Rodong Sinmun did not continue to heavily amplify developments in the Middle East, in contrast to North Korea’s past pattern of sustained propaganda on regional conflicts.

At the same time, on 10 March, North Korea issued its first formal response to the appointment of Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, stating that it respected the Iranian people’s choice while once again condemning the US-Israel military action. However, this response was not issued as a formal foreign ministry statement, but rather conveyed through a spokesperson’s reply to reporters, with relatively cautious wording and, again, without directly naming Trump.

Analysts believe that this information strategy of a swift response followed by de-escalation reflects Pyongyang’s principled opposition to US military action while also demonstrating a deliberate effort to preserve some leeway in policy in its relations with Washington, without prematurely being locked into any stance.

Experts note that the Trump administration’s recent hardline approach of targeting the top leadership of adversarial regimes in both Venezuela and Iran embodies a message of deterrence, that “provocation will have consequences”, which is likely to prompt Pyongyang to reassess its security environment.

Eul-chul Lim, a professor at Kyungnam University in South Korea, told Lianhe Zaobao that the US had gathered highly precise intelligence over a long period to target Khamenei and demonstrated exceptional operational capability. “For Kim Jong Un, this is not only a warning, but a direct threat to survival.”

He added that, from a technical standpoint, the intelligence-gathering and targeted strike model demonstrated in Iran is not entirely inapplicable to North Korea, although North Korea’s strategic environment and potential consequences are far more complex.

Lim further analysed that if North Korea comes to believe that US intentions to strike its top leadership or nuclear facilities are intensifying, Pyongyang may further strengthen its policy of deterring nuclear threats with nuclear force. This would involve more explicitly raising the threat of nuclear use in order to weaken Washington’s political will and military confidence in launching a pre-emptive strike. This assessment aligns with North Korea’s long-standing view of nuclear weapons as a “protective talisman” for regime survival.

A 4 March report by The Wall Street Journal noted that North Korea has long viewed its nuclear weapons as an insurance for regime survival. By this logic, the fate of Iran’s leadership may reinforce Pyongyang’s conclusion that states lacking nuclear deterrence are more vulnerable when facing the US.

Cho Han-bum, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), said that Kim Jong Un is likely to interpret Khamenei’s fate as a consequence of Iran not possessing nuclear weapons. As a result, the likelihood of North Korea accepting denuclearisation in the future may further diminish, and its attachment to nuclear weapons could intensify.

While full-on targeted strikes by the US against North Korea are technically not inconceivable, most experts believe that the practical difficulty is far greater than in Iran. The fundamental difference lies in the level of nuclear capability and retaliatory capacity.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had previously assessed that, prior to the US-Israel air strikes, Iran had not yet acquired the full capability and technology necessary to produce nuclear weapons. By contrast, North Korea has continued expanding its facilities since the collapse of US-North Korea nuclear talks in 2019, and its nuclear capabilities are at an entirely different stage.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates that North Korea currently has the capacity to produce around 50 nuclear warheads, and possesses sufficient fissile material to produce approximately 40 more. In addition, North Korea has in recent years continued to advance the development and testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), meaning that its nuclear deterrence is no longer limited to South Korea and Japan, but increasingly directed at the US mainland.

Lee Ki-dong, former deputy director of the Institute for National Security Strategy in South Korea, noted that North Korea is widely believed to possess the capability to strike the US mainland with nuclear weapons, whereas Iran was still in the developmental stage prior to the strikes. The two therefore differ fundamentally in terms of strategic deterrence.

At the same time, developments in North Korea’s expanding nuclear facilities have reinforced external assessments of its capabilities.

On 6 March, South Korean Minister of Unification Chung Dong-young told parliament that North Korea is currently operating uranium enrichment facilities at Yongbyon, Kusong and Kangson. The facility in Kusong, in North Pyongan province, is regarded as the third confirmed uranium enrichment site after Yongbyon and Kangson.

Citing a report by IAEA director General Rafael Grossi, Chung stated that the three facilities are all believed to be operational. Unlike the Iranian facilities targeted by US forces, which primarily produced uranium enriched to around 60%, North Korea is believed to have the capability to produce weapons-grade uranium enriched to 90%.

Grossi also noted that North Korea is constructing an additional facility in Yongbyon. Although South Korea’s unification ministry later emphasised that the exact location remains sensitive intelligence, the fact that senior government officials publicly mentioned sites such as Kusong is considered highly unusual.

Beyond nuclear capability, North Korea’s geopolitical environment differs fundamentally from Iran’s.

Ellen Kim, director of academic affairs at the Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI), stated at a seminar in Washington on 3 March that North Korea borders China and Russia, and should the situation spiral out of control, the involvement of major powers cannot be ruled out. From a strategic perspective, US military action against North Korea would be a “highly dangerous option”. If the North Korean regime were to collapse or large-scale conflict were to erupt on the peninsula, intervention by China and Russia based on their strategic interests would not be inconceivable.

She added that the unique geopolitical structure of the Korean peninsula greatly increases the complexity of any military strike. North Korea lies in close proximity to key US allies South Korea and Japan. If the US were to take military action, Seoul and its metropolitan area, US military bases in South Korea, the Japanese archipelago, and East Asia’s sea and air routes could all be immediately affected. Compared with the Middle East, there is virtually no realistic scenario on the Korean Peninsula in which a “limited strike” would not carry significant spillover risks.

Kim also cited historical experience: in 1994, the US Clinton administration seriously considered air strikes against North Korea’s nuclear facilities but ultimately abandoned the plan. Then South Korean President Kim Young-sam strongly opposed it, and US military assessments concluded that escalation could result in millions of civilian casualties in South Korea, with an extremely high risk of full-scale war. Although more than 30 years have passed, she argued, this fundamental judgement has not changed, and has become even more pronounced as North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities have advanced.

Domestically, compared with Iran’s more pluralistic power structure, North Korea operates a highly centralised leadership system in which the state apparatus is more tightly bound to the supreme leader. On the surface, this may make a “decapitation strike” appear more attractive. However, analysts believe that even if external forces were to successfully disrupt the leadership, it would not necessarily lead quickly to a political outcome favourable to external actors. In such a highly closed and tightly controlled system, a sudden power vacuum is more likely to trigger a hardline takeover, heightened military alert, and the activation of pre-planned retaliation scenarios, rather than the political transition envisaged by outsiders.

As a result, most experts believe that while the Iran conflict has heightened Pyongyang’s sense of insecurity, it is unlikely to significantly lower the threshold for US military action against North Korea. The more probable outcome is that North Korea will further strengthen its nuclear deterrence and internal security, while adopting a more cautious and watchful diplomatic posture.

The day after the US launched air strikes on Iran, Kim Jong Un conducted an on-site inspection of a cement enterprise in North Hwanghae province. In footage broadcast on North Korean television, he appeared smoking while calmly inspecting production, drawing external attention. This marked his first inspection of an industrial production site since the conclusion of the 9th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea, as well as his first public appearance following the strike on Iran’s top leadership.

In North Korea’s political context, the public activities of the supreme leader often carry strong symbolic meaning. Observers note that Kim’s swift appearance at such a sensitive moment, combined with his deliberately relaxed demeanour, was likely a calculated political signal.

This approach contrasts with that of his father, former leader Kim Jong Il, during past external crises. During the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Kim Jong Il did not appear in public for about 25 days; during the Iraq War in 2003, he remained absent from the media for around 50 days.

Analysts believe that such “routine inspections” themselves constitute a form of political messaging. Through continued public appearances, the North Korean leadership seeks to convey stability both domestically and internationally: that the country remains unaffected by developments in Iran, and continues with business as usual.

Park Jie-won, a senior lawmaker from South Korea’s ruling party, told local media that Kim Jong Un may not be entirely free of pressure internally, but North Korea likely believes that it is different from Iran. To Pyongyang, its possession of nuclear weapons means that external powers will not easily launch military action against it.

Whether this perception fully reflects internal realities remains open to debate, but it broadly aligns with North Korea’s longstanding nuclear-centric security narrative. In 2017, after conducting its sixth nuclear test and successfully launching the Hwasong-15 ICBM, North Korea declared that its nuclear arsenal was complete. Since then, Pyongyang has consistently emphasised that nuclear weapons are the core guarantee against external interference and for ensuring national security and regime stability.

As security uncertainties continue to rise, whether the US and North Korea can resume diplomatic engagement has drawn considerable attention. During South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok’s meeting with Trump in Washington on 13 March, the possibility of resuming dialogue between the US and North Korea was discussed. Kim told Yonhap News Agency that Trump was positive about restarting talks but did not specify when another meeting might take place.

Kim Min-seok said that Trump wanted to know whether Kim Jong Un was also willing to engage in dialogue. “I told Mr Trump he was the only Western leader to have had dialogue with North Korea’s Mr Kim and was currently the only person who could resolve issues on the Korean peninsula.”

At the Workers’ Party meeting in February, Kim Jong Un said North Korea would have “no reason not to get along” with the US if Washington withdrew its hostile policy. At almost the same time, the White House also expressed willingness to talk to North Korea “without any preconditions”. At one point, diplomatic circles believed that Trump’s potential visit to China might create an opportunity for indirect or direct US-North Korea communication.

However, as the Iran conflict has prolonged tensions in the Middle East, the focus of US foreign and security policy has clearly been constrained, while China has also remained highly cautious due to issues such as Iranian oil imports. Against this backdrop, the likelihood of leveraging Trump’s China visit to facilitate a US-North Korea summit appears to have diminished significantly.

Former South Korean ambassador to the United Nations Kim Sook said the key to advancing talks still lies with North Korea, but from Pyongyang’s perspective, there is currently no clear incentive strong enough to prompt a return to substantive negotiations with the US on the nuclear issue. In particular, following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, deepening economic and military cooperation between North Korea and Russia has reduced Pyongyang’s urgency to engage with Washington.

In addition, structural differences over preconditions for negotiations remain unchanged. It is widely believed that Kim Jong Un’s call for the US to “withdraw its hostile policy” effectively includes a demand for Washington to recognise North Korea as a nuclear-armed state. Meanwhile, although the US has expressed willingness to meet without preconditions, it continues to maintain its established position on denuclearisation.

Andrew Yeo, senior fellow for Korea Studies at the Brookings Institution, said in written remarks for the inaugural Peace Forum 2026 hosted by South Korea’s Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS) that, without meaningful concessions or incentives from the US, the likelihood of US-North Korea dialogue resuming in the short term remains low.

However, he noted that North Korea regards US recognition of its status as a “nuclear armed state” as a key condition, while the fact that the latest US National Security Strategy and National Defence Strategy no longer emphasise “North Korean denuclearisation” as prominently as before may be seen as a sign of some flexibility in Washington’s policy.

Professor An Chung-sik of Dongguk University said when interviewed that while concrete progress is unlikely in the short term, there could still be a quick session similar to the 2019 Panmunjom meeting, signalling diplomatic easing and leaving room for future negotiations.

KINU’s Cho Han-bum added that if the Iran situation generates political pressure within the US, the Trump administration may seek new diplomatic issues to shift focus, and the North Korean issue could be incorporated into such strategic planning.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “下一个被“定点清除”？ 邪恶轴心仅存者金正恩抱核护身”.

Related: Should South Korea build the nuclear bomb? | Does socialist North Korea have any friends left? | Eyes on the great powers: How North Korea navigates China, Russia and the US