► The question then becomes how the global political situation has remolded the North's foreign policy, what potential consequences this could have, and how South Korea and the US might better respond to an increasingly emboldened and assertive North Korea.

► It is of paramount importance that South Korea and the US continue to strengthen their combined defense posture with a focus on bolstering US extended deterrence to respond effectively to a growing North Korean threat.

► Just as crucial is to prevent an inadvertent nuclear conflict on the Korean peninsula by keeping backchannel communication channels open and reducing the risk of North Korea's misreading of the situation.

► While bolstering their combined defense posture, the US and South Korea should continue to signal to North Korea that dialogue remains on the table for when it is ready to return to talks.

Any single international political event is bound to invite countless interpretations, but if there is one lesson that we can all agree on, it is that the intensifying US-China competition and Russia's invasion of Ukraine have reshaped the global political order, giving rise to what many pundits refer to as "Cold War 2.0."

On a regional level, the realignment of the global order has affected both Koreas and the dynamic on and around the Peninsula.

South Korea's Yoon administration has unequivocally edged closer to the US, consistent with its foreign policy centered on strengthening the alliance with Washington. This is exemplified by the recent unveiling of an Indo-Pacific strategy that some claim heralds an end to the country's "strategic ambiguity" vis-a-vis the US and China. The growing nuclear and missile threat from Pyongyang has led to a renewed US commitment to strengthen its extended deterrence to South Korea. It has even nudged South Korea and Japan, whose relations hit their new lows in recent years over historical issues, to bolster their security cooperation.

The impact of the shifting global order appears to have been broader and more profound for North Korea, prodding the leadership in Pyongyang to change its worldview and consequently its foreign policy. The question then becomes how the global political situation has remolded the North's foreign policy, what potential consequences this could have, and how South Korea and the US might better respond to an increasingly emboldened and assertive North Korea.

Rolling Back the Post-Cold War Policy

In the early 1990s, as the Soviet bloc crumbled and the US-led West emerged victorious in the Cold War, Kim Il Sung made a strategic decision to keep China and Russia at an arm's distance and normalize relations with the US to attain regime security. An outcome of that policy was the 1994 US-DPRK Agreed Framework, according to which North Korea would denuclearize and the two countries would work toward full normalization of relations. Kim Jong Il followed the same line set by his father, and the North's attempt at the Six-Party Talks was a testament to that policy.

Thirty years later, the world confronting Kim Jong Un is vastly different from the one his grandfather faced. What Kim sees is a US in decline, beleaguered on all fronts by a resurgent China and more recently Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and unable to effectively exercise the leadership or power it once commanded to check China and contain Russia. This thinking is well reflected in Kim's speech to the parliament in September, where he said the world was no longer a US-led "unipolar world" but a "multipolar world." 

The Pyongyang leadership thus reversed the country's 30-year foreign policy of nonalignment with China and Russia. More significantly, it seems to be shifting away from its US policy, also introduced by Kim Il Sung more than three decades ago. Signals of this shift in policy have built up since Russia's invasion of Ukraine and culminated in Kim's September speech at the legislature, where he all but ruled out denuclearization.

This change in North Korea's worldview and posturing toward China, Russia, and the US dovetailed with and further reinforced the thinking in Pyongyang after the collapse of the Hanoi summit in early 2019 that improving relations with the US would have to occur over a long period of time, if such a thing were achievable at all. Kim Jong Un's reference to a "long-term confrontation with the US" at a party plenary meeting in December of that same year captured that policy well.

From where it sits, returning to the negotiating table with the US guarantees nothing for North Korea. By contrast, a divided UN Security Council and North Korea's continued and unwavering public endorsement of China and Russia almost certainly will result in a political cover and possibly even economic benefits for Pyongyang. That being the case, North Korea has little to no motivation to return to diplomacy with Washington at least in the near or even the medium term.

Challenging the Conventional Wisdom

The most significant, and perhaps concerning, aspect of what appears to be a broader shift in Pyongyang's US policy is its potential implications for denuclearization, which has been the central component of normalizing US-North Korea bilateral relations. The conventional wisdom has been that Pyongyang views Washington as being integral to its regime security and will sooner or later attempt to normalize relations, and denuclearization will thus follow suit. What if, however, that conventional wisdom no longer holds? What if North Korea believes its nuclear weapons, coupled with solid relations with China and Russia, are a sufficient guarantee of regime security and it no longer requires a deal or improved relations with the US?

If the war in Ukraine and the US response to Russia's ongoing aggression have taught Kim Jong Un a lesson, it is that the US will be reluctant to engage a nuclear state directly. The global situation may also evolve in ways that further erode US power and stretch its resources thin, which in turn could tip the US military posture on and around the Korean peninsula in North Korea's favor. As the North continues to make advancements in its defense programs, the North will become more emboldened and probably more assertive in its projection of military power.

If there was one compelling reason to believe that the North could never abandon its policy of eventually improving relations with the US, it was that the country would need the US to create an environment conducive to improving the economy and making headway with reforms. One other chilling aspect of Kim's recent parliament speech was that Pyongyang may no longer view the US as necessary for an improved economy. If true, that would mark a major departure from the past three decades, during which there has been a strong correlation between the North's desire for economic economic reforms and diplomatic outreach, particularly vis-a-vis the US.

Possible Options

At this juncture, this million-dollar question inevitably comes up: What do we do about North Korea?

It is of paramount importance that South Korea and the US continue to strengthen their combined defense posture with a focus on bolstering US extended deterrence to respond effectively to a growing North Korean threat. In that light, the two allies' recent agreement to institutionalize US extended deterrence is a step in the right direction.

Just as crucial is to prevent an inadvertent nuclear conflict on the Korean peninsula by keeping backchannel communication channels open and reducing the risk of North Korea's misreading of the situation. North Korea's recently revised nuclear law expands the terms of the country's nuclear use, increasing the risk of a nuclear conflict on the Korean peninsula and in the region. Recent inter-Korean exchanges of missiles have demonstrated how quickly a situation can deteriorate, and how the likelihood of misjudgments and miscalculations may easily increase in the heat of an escalation cycle.

Lastly, while bolstering their combined defense posture, the US and South Korea should continue to signal to North Korea that dialogue remains on the table for when it is ready to return to talks. Pyongyang almost certainly will not return to the negotiating table in the near term, but making sustained efforts to signal diplomacy could help create more space for those in the North Korean leadership who support improved ties with the US. It is critical to convince Pyongyang that improving relations with the US is the best way to ensure regime security in the long run.

It is within this broader foreign policy context that Pyongyang's current and future calculus should be evaluated, and policy options considered.