In recent days, analysts and experts keen to predict what North Korea will do in response to UN Security Council Resolution 2094 have been placing relatively more weight on things like short-range missile testing, cyber terrorism or deliberately violating the maritime Northern Limit Line in the West Sea. However, the possibility of a fourth nuclear test has never been ruled out.
Most experts think this way because North Korea has always tended to respond to UN sanctions resolutions with nuclear and/or long-range missile tests. There is also a strain of thought suggesting that North Korea must perform multiple consecutive nuclear tests for technical reasons, and that the current state of tension could provide a perfect pretext for this undertaking.
“As per North Korea’s wish, the tension is increasing on the Korean Peninsula, and therefore they have multiple options going forward,” Shin Beom Cheol, who directs North Korea research for Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, acknowledged. “They are more likely to control the level and provoke in a different way, but at the same time we cannot completely rule out the possibility of a nuclear test.”
An anonymous South Korean intelligence official added to this, “It is believed that North Korea faces no physical problem carrying out a nuclear test. The only thing remaining is the timing and political decision.” Another official agreed, saying, “There is one tunnel remaining at the test site and their ultimate goal is to develop their WMD, so anything is possible in the current situation.”
The domestic political atmosphere is also set fair for a significant response, including a fourth nuclear test if the regime decides to move in that direction. Equally, in North Korea, which prioritizes the supremacy of the “Suryeong-ist” system above all things, the fact that even Kim Jong Eun has helped to raise the domestic tension level means that something will have to be done. The only question is what.
Park Jong Chul, a senior researcher with the Korea Institute for National Unification commented, “They will only act after seeing the response of other neighboring countries. We will have to wait and see whether they choose to conduct a further nuclear test despite the fact that they are in a bad position with China, since that would then make it worse.”
He went on, “China will use closed-door meetings with North Korea to continuously tell them not to do anything which could raise the tension.”
