While many world leaders and governments have, as is customary, congratulated President-elect Joe Biden, much uncertainty remains as to how North Korea will react to the defeat of President Donald Trump in the November election.
While Kim Jong-un's regime may respond by testing the new president — even potentially resuming testing of nuclear weapons — Ted Carpenter, senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, argued that it is more likely the Asian dictator will attempt to assess Biden's intended policy toward the country before taking any definitive action, according to a post on the Cato Institute's website, a Libertarian think tank.
"Specifically, Kim will try to determine whether Biden is receptive to a new summit meeting, or if there is any hint that U.S. policy toward the DPRK [North Korea] might be softening," Carpenter wrote in his analysis. "If no signs of accommodation are forthcoming, a splashy provocation to gain U.S. and international attention then becomes highly probable."
However, Carpenter shared his concern that Biden's only indications so far are that he would pursue a status quo policy with North Korea that has been mirrored by Republican and Democrat presidents for three decades. In fact, in the final debates of the lead-up to the election, Biden seemed to further harden his stance on North Korea.
"He accused Trump of having 'legitimized' the North Korean regime by even meeting with Kim, and of cozying up to a 'thug' who was similar to Hitler," Carpenter wrote of Biden's debate performances. "Such blistering rhetoric is unlikely to facilitate productive negotiations with Pyongyang."
Calling it a "zombie" policy, Carpenter wrote that the policies of isolation, economic sanctions and a hardline stance on nuclear weapons will continue to be ineffectual, and is the path most likely to end with a nuclear-armed North Korea that is only further beyond the influence of nations that might temper Kim Jong-un's actions.
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