North Korea intends to celebrate Christmas with more than fireworks, if a statement made early in December is any indication. The statement, issued by Pyongyang’s foreign minister to North Korea’s state-run press, berated Washington’s hardline diplomatic stance. “The dialogue touted by the U.S. is, in essence, nothing but a foolish trick hatched to keep the DPRK bound to dialogue and use it in favor of the political situation and election in the U.S.,” the minister said. “What is left to be done now is the U.S. option and it is entirely up to the U.S. what Christmas gift it will select to get.”
The Christmas gift line sounds ominous. It probably signals plans for missile tests like those that took place over the Thanksgiving holiday. However, a review of North Korea’s past statements suggests it should be interpreted as an invitation as much as threat. Kim is pushing for new diplomacy ahead of his year-end deadline for a deal with the Trump administration, and if the White House would back off from its quixotic insistence on full and immediate denuclearization, real progress could be made.
This is not the first time Kim’s government has talked about giving the United States a “gift.” Pyongyang used the same language ahead of its first intercontinental ballistic missile test in the summer of 2017, a launch timed to coincide with Fourth of July celebrations in the United States. That test marked a major escalation in Pyongyang’s war of words with U.S. President Donald Trump, who shortly thereafter dropped his “fire and fury” line and introduced the “Rocket Man” nickname for Kim.
This is also not the first time North Korea has made a dramatic pronouncement around the end of the year. Kim habitually gives a New Year’s address in which he telegraphs what he wants from Washington. This year, he said if the United States “insists on sanctions and pressures on our republic, we may be left with no choice but to consider a new way to safeguard our sovereignty and interests” -- in other words, a way forward without denuclearization. In January 2018’s “nuclear button” speech, he expressed a desire for talks with South Korea and emphasized that his nuclear arsenal is a deterrent against unprovoked American attack. In 2017, he touted development of the ICBM he would eventually test six months later and promised to “keep increasing the military capabilities for self-defense and pre-emptive striking capacity with a main emphasis on nuclear force” to deter a perceived threat of U.S. invasion.
Strip away the theatrics and these announcements are fairly straightforward and consistent: Kim wants nuclear weapons because he considers them the only guarantee against forcible, U.S.-orchestrated regime change like that in Libya and Iraq. He may eventually be willing to denuclearize, but realistically that won’t come anytime soon, because Kim currently believes nukes are necessary for regime survival. He is, however, willing to engage in meaningful negotiation with Seoul and Washington for lesser concessions if he gets commensurate concessions in return, namely sanctions relief and an end to the joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises Pyongyang views as practice for preventive war.
In this context, the “Christmas gift” is clearly a warning that Kim will return to old patterns of provocation if he thinks there is no chance Washington will accept diplomacy in pursuit of more modest, gradual aims -- and a plea for exactly that.
It is a plea Washington should grant. Our overwhelming conventional military deterrence means that whatever tests Kim may conduct, he will not launch an unprovoked first strike on the United States. That security affords us time and leeway to negotiate -- to pursue a gradual diplomacy that does not hold out unrealistic hope for immediate, total denuclearization. It gives us the option to build a stable foundation of mutual compromise which can slowly move North Korea toward normalcy and, hopefully, the domestic freedom and prosperity its people so desperately need. Trump would be wise to choose the “gift” of talks.
Bonnie Kristian is a fellow at Defense Priorities and contributing editor at The Week. Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, Politico, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, The Hill, and The American Conservative, among other outlets. The views expressed are the author's own.
