The Policy Change Comes As North Korea Deepens Ties With Moscow

On July 25, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia was preparing to receive an additional 30,000 North Korean troops for its war effort. International pressure on Pyongyang has also frayed. President Trump has repeatedly called North Korea a "nuclear power, and last year's National Security Strategy omitted any mention of North Korea or denuclearization.

China's President Xi Jinping made no mention of denuclearization during his June visit to Pyongyang. North Korea has grown bolder, with Kim Yo Jong, sister of leader Kim Jong Un, calling a stronger nuclear arsenal an "irreversible final conclusion" and rejecting an ASEAN Regional Forum call for denuclearization as having "already lost its meaning conceptually and practically. Experts doubt Pyongyang will return to negotiations.

"The political and military cost for reversing its nuclear program would be too huge for North Korea, said Lee Ho-ryung, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. Kim Jong Un has codified nuclear status into the constitution, and "It's the most significant achievement that distinguishes him from his predecessors, Lee added. The cost of keeping nuclear weapons has dropped as sanctions weaken.

"The denuclearization-first policy of the past was tenable only because China and Russia joined in sanctioning North Korea, said Yang Moo-jin, a professor emeritus at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. China and Russia are accused of evading sanctions to provide refined petroleum and import coal, which both deny. Pyongyang's capabilities are expanding: Kim declared in June that production capacity for weapons-grade fissile material had more than doubled in five years.

The country is estimated to possess 60 nuclear warheads and enough fissile material for at least 30 more, per the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. North Korea has also diversified delivery systems across naval and tactical forces, KIDA's Lee said. Despite Seoul's pragmatic shift, experts doubt Pyongyang will return to the table to discuss an enduring path to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula."