Experts: Look for a new North Korean nuclear crisis in early 2020

After spending part of the summer of 2017 on the edge of a nuclear conflict with North Korea—yes, it was real, and there's even a book about it called *On the Brink*—I compiled a reliable list of DPRK analysts and observers on Twitter to follow for accurate, non-sensational updates on the situation. For a while, things were relatively calm, even cautiously hopeful. But now, this group is sounding the alarm: **brace yourself, because we’re heading into a major nuclear crisis with North Korea in 2020**. Our editor spent time inside North Korea—here’s what he saw firsthand. **Background**: In April of this year, the second Trump-Kim summit collapsed, and negotiations ended abruptly. Kim publicly gave the U.S. an end-of-year deadline to ease its “maximum pressure” campaign or face consequences. DPRK’s state media followed up in May, stating, “Although the U.S. is making desperate and foolish efforts to bring us down by clinging to… the ‘maximum pressure’ aimed at destroying our system, it should bear in mind that such an attempt will… push us dynamically to a direction where the U.S. does not want to see.” Last month, some low-level talks broke down, and North Korea has since refused to engage further with the U.S. On the American side, Trump has taken several dramatic steps to try to get Pyongyang back to the negotiating table, including suggesting the cancellation of joint military exercises with South Korea and demanding that South Korea pay an additional $5 billion to cover the cost of the U.S. military presence in their country. None of these moves have worked. This week, North Korea’s Kim Kye Gwan stated, “We are no longer interested in such talks that bring nothing to us. As we have got nothing in return, we will no longer gift the U.S. president with something he can boast of, but get compensation for the successes that President Trump is proud of as his administrative achievements.” The *Washington Post* puts it clearly: > “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 Kim Jong Un delivers his New Year’s Day speech, which comes just one day after his self-imposed year-end deadline for the U.S. to restart nuclear talks expires. **What’s next?** North Korea has paused ICBM and nuclear testing this year while waiting for either sanctions relief or the deadline to pass. It’s likely they’ll resume both in 2020. Recently, there have been a series of short-range missile tests, signaling increased pressure on the U.S. MIT’s Vipin Narang even suggests that 2020 could see a nuclear-tipped ICBM detonated over the Pacific—a scenario jokingly referred to as the “Juche Bird.” An early 2020 above-ground nuclear test capable of reaching the U.S. would confirm what many experts already believe: North Korea has the capability to threaten the entire continental U.S. with its nuclear arsenal. This could bring us dangerously close to war. Harry Kazianis of *The National Interest* warns: “A North Korea Nuclear Showdown Plus Trump’s Impeachment Could Fuse into the Crisis of Our Time.” Even if the U.S. doesn’t intend to go to war, a series of mixed signals could lead us there unintentionally. 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*. The book outlines a plausible path to a full-scale nuclear exchange, driven by escalating threats, tweets, and misinterpreted military actions. Lewis, along with Kazianis and others, has been warning on Twitter about the growing risk of a new crisis in 2020. Van Jackson, a respected analyst, recently tweeted: > “North Korea telling us directly and explicitly that it sees everything the U.S. is doing—suspending military exercises, seeking working level talks—as an attempt to delay THEIR deadline for us to deliver unilateral sanctions relief. Next stop, nuke crisis.”

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