After spending part of the summer of 2017 on the edge of a nuclear conflict with North Korea—yes, there was even a book about that tense moment called *On the Brink*—I compiled a solid list of DPRK experts and analysts to follow on Twitter for real-time, balanced analysis of the crisis. For two years after that, things were relatively quiet, and at times even cautiously hopeful. But now, this group is sounding an urgent alarm: brace yourselves, because a major nuclear crisis with North Korea is likely to erupt when the calendar turns to 2020.
Our editor had a rare inside look at North Korea. Here's what he saw.
Background: In April of this year, the second Trump-Kim summit collapsed, and both sides left early. Kim publicly gave the U.S. an end-of-year deadline to ease its “maximum pressure†campaign against North Korea—or else. The message was clear: if the U.S. didn’t make a move, Pyongyang would take one.
In May, North Korea’s state media reiterated this stance, warning that continued pressure would force them to pursue a path the U.S. wouldn’t want to see. Last month, some working-level talks took place but quickly fell apart. Since then, North Korea has refused to engage with the U.S. at all.
On the American side, Trump has made several dramatic moves to try to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table, including threatening to cancel joint military exercises with South Korea and pushing Seoul to pay an additional $5 billion for the U.S. military presence in their country. None of it has worked.
This week, North Korea’s Kim Kye Gwan stated, “We are no longer interested in talks that give us nothing. We will no longer provide the U.S. president with something he can boast about, but instead demand compensation for the achievements he claims as his own.â€
The Washington Post summarized the situation:
SEOUL — North Korea has a message for President Trump and the United States: The clock is ticking, and a bomb is about to explode.
There are seven weeks until North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is scheduled to deliver a keynote New Year’s Day speech. That will come a day after his self-imposed year-end deadline expires for the United States to come up with new proposals to restart nuclear talks.
What’s Next: North Korea has paused its ICBM and nuclear tests this year while waiting for either sanctions relief or the expiration of its deadline. It seems likely that once 2020 begins, they’ll resume these activities.
Recently, there have been a series of short-range missile tests, signaling a rising level of pressure on the U.S. MIT’s Vipin Narang even suggests that 2020 could see a nuclear-tipped ICBM tested over the Pacific—a “Juche Bird,†as it’s jokingly referred to by observers.
https://twitter.com/NarangVipin/status/1184288936186781698
An early 2020 above-ground nuclear test capable of reaching the U.S. would be a public confirmation of what most experts already believe: that North Korea has the capability to threaten the entire continental U.S. This could bring us dangerously close to war.
National Interest’s Harry Kazianis outlines the broader political landscape for early 2020, stating: “A North Korea Nuclear Showdown Plus Trump’s Impeachment Could Fuse into the Crisis of Our Time.â€
Even if the U.S. doesn’t intend to go to war, we could accidentally stumble into one through mixed signals and miscalculations. This exact scenario is explored in depth in Jeffrey Lewis’s speculative novel, *The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States*.
Lewis’s book, which I’ve read and highly recommend, presents a plausible scenario where escalating threats, tweets, and misinterpreted military actions lead to a full-blown nuclear exchange. Millions could die on both sides.
Experts like Lewis, Kazianis, and others have been warning on Twitter that 2020 may bring a return to crisis—or worse.
https://twitter.com/NarangVipin/status/1180534452444942337
North Korea is clearly seeing everything the U.S. is doing—suspending military exercises, seeking talks—as a way to delay their deadline for us to deliver unilateral sanctions relief. Next stop: a nuclear crisis.
— Van Jackson (@RealVanJackson) November 17, 2019
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