# COLUMN: Kim Jong-un draws the lesson from Iran — without the bomb, you end up bombed

> While the world watched American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in the spring of 2026, one man was taking notes in Pyongyang.

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Column
- Published: 2026-06-26
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/chronique-kim-jong-un-tire-la-lecon-de-l-iran-sans-bombe-on-finit-bombarde

## Key takeaways

- A North Korean Workers' Party plenary from June 20 to 22, 2026, reportedly endorsed the view that the Iran-USA war validates Pyongyang's nuclear strategy.
- The author cites Libya and Iraq as precedents, arguing that states which abandon nuclear programs end up destabilized, while those that keep them are shielded by deterrence.
- Pyongyang has refused genuine negotiations since 2019, and the US does not formally recognize North Korea as a nuclear state but behaves as if it does.
- South Korea agreed to receive North Korean soldiers captured in Ukraine, which the author calls a diplomatic affront to Pyongyang.
- The author says North Korea likely can miniaturize warheads for its ICBMs, while Japan is expanding its defense posture and North Korean cyber theft helps fund the program.

## Introduction: The Iran-USA war as an instruction manual for Pyongyang

### **A dictator taking notes**

While the world watched American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in the spring of **2026**, one man was taking notes in Pyongyang. **Kim Jong-un** did not view Tehran's defeat as a foreign catastrophe: he read it as an **absolute validation** of his own strategy. The conclusion is unsparing — a regime that abandons the bomb becomes vulnerable. A regime that possesses it survives.

From **June 20 to 22, 2026**, the **Workers' Party plenary** in North Korea officially endorsed that reading. Delegates assembled in Pyongyang concluded that the **Iran-USA war irrefutably validates North Korea's nuclear strategy**. This was no improvisation — it is a doctrine now carved in the institutional bedrock of the regime.

### **The quote that runs cold**

Kim Jong-un uttered words that no one in Western chancelleries wanted to hear: **"the current situation reaffirms the validity of our policy decisions and the path we have taken."** In plain language, this means that every bomb, every missile, every sacrifice imposed on the North Korean people is now justified by what America did to Iran.

The **DPRK today possesses intercontinental ballistic missiles** — the KN-**20** and the Hwasong-**17** — capable of striking the American mainland. This is no longer a theoretical threat. It is an operational reality that Washington implicitly acknowledges by refusing any direct provocation against Pyongyang, even at the height of regional tensions.

*I won't pretend to know exactly what Kim Jong-un feels. But what I read in these events troubles me deeply: we may have, inadvertently, handed North Korea the best possible advertisement for its nuclear program. Iran disarmed under pressure — look where that left it. Kim refused — and he still reigns. Who can honestly say his logic is absurd?*

## North Korea's deterrence doctrine put to the test

### **The Libyan precedent is also in the equation**

It is worth recalling that the **lesson from Iran is not the first** Pyongyang has internalized. Muammar Gaddafi abandoned his nuclear program in **2003** under Western pressure. In **2011**, he was dead in a ditch. Saddam Hussein had no bomb. He was hanged. These precedents are far from trivial in the strategic memory of authoritarian regimes.

Kim Jong-un explicitly cited them in earlier speeches. With the **Iranian debacle of 2026**, the demonstration has now been verified three times over. Nuclear deterrence works — not because it guarantees peace, but because it guarantees the survival of the regime in the face of American power.

### **Pyongyang still refuses to negotiate**

Since **2019**, the DPRK has severed every genuine channel of negotiation with Seoul and Washington. The attempts at diplomacy — the Trump-Kim summits of **2018**-**2019**, the six-party talks — are now officially regarded by Pyongyang as **traps designed to dismantle its defenses**. The war against Iran has only cemented that posture.

The **United States refuses to recognize the DPRK as a legal nuclear state** under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Yet in practice, Washington behaves as though it does — avoiding any direct military confrontation, maintaining a reinforced conventional deterrent in South Korea. This diplomatic paradox suits Pyongyang, which enjoys de-facto nuclear status without paying the official price.

*This refusal to negotiate since 2019 may be the most underestimated data point in the Korean crisis. We spent years congratulating ourselves on "diplomatic progress" that was, from the North Korean side, nothing more than time bought to enrich uranium. I don't blame the negotiators — but we must accept that the DPRK never intended to disarm.*

## North Korean soldiers taken prisoner — an unprecedented diplomatic flash point

### **Seoul accepts prisoners captured in Ukraine**

The tension took on a new and concrete dimension: **South Korea agreed to receive North Korean soldiers taken prisoner in Ukraine**. These fighters had been deployed by Pyongyang alongside Russian forces — a reality Kim Jong-un had long officially denied before the evidence became incontestable.

Seoul's decision creates an **explosive diplomatic precedent**. These soldiers are technically citizens of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, but also combatants captured in a foreign conflict in which the DPRK had been participating clandestinely. Their testimonies, once on South Korean soil, could reveal valuable information about the true state of the North Korean military.

### **Pyongyang caught between denial and silent fury**

For Kim Jong-un, Seoul's acceptance of these prisoners is a **first-rate diplomatic affront**. Not only does it publicly confirm North Korean involvement in Ukraine — which Pyongyang always formally denied — it also creates a precedent where North Korean soldiers could seek asylum and deliver testimony about the regime's true nature.

The **official reaction from Pyongyang** to this situation remains deliberately vague in public communications, which says plenty. The regime can neither validate (it would lose face) nor ignore (it would lose control). This forced ambiguity is itself a form of diplomatic defeat for a regime accustomed to dictating the agenda.

*These North Korean soldiers captured in Ukraine are, in their own way, the most invisible victims of this war. Sent to die for Putin, disowned by Kim, potentially retrieved by Seoul as geopolitical bargaining chips. Nobody is truly advocating for them. I find that deeply troubling, even as I understand the strategic logics at play.*

## The intercontinental arsenal: what Kim actually holds in his hands

### **KN-20 and Hwasong-17 — continental reach**

North Korea's **intercontinental ballistic missiles** are no longer prototypes. The **Hwasong-17**, dubbed "the monster" by analysts, demonstrated during tests in **2022** and **2023** a theoretical range exceeding **15,000 km** — sufficient to reach any point on the American continental territory. The **KN-20** complements this arsenal with a different configuration but comparable strategic capability.

These missiles are not merely a show of force. They represent **survival insurance** for the regime. As long as Kim Jong-un can threaten Los Angeles or Washington, no American president can seriously contemplate a pre-emptive strike against North Korea without risking a national catastrophe. This is the logic of deterrence in its purest form.

### **The question of miniaturized warheads**

The technical point most debated among expert circles remains North Korea's capacity to **miniaturize nuclear warheads** sufficiently to mount them on ICBMs. US intelligence assessments have shifted in a troubling direction in recent years — most now conclude that the DPRK has probably achieved this capability.

If so — and the accumulated technical indicators seem to confirm it — **North Korea is a full-fledged nuclear power**, capable of a second-strike on US soil. This is no longer a regional threat. It is a global strategic threat comparable to what the Soviet Union represented in the early years of the Cold War.

*I must be honest: I cannot confirm with certainty the exact level of miniaturization Pyongyang has achieved. Public data is fragmentary. What I can say is that the pessimistic hypothesis — the one in which Kim possesses a credible second-strike capability — must now be the West's default planning scenario. Ignoring that hypothesis would be a grave strategic mistake.*

## Washington caught between formal refusal and de-facto acceptance

### **The American diplomatic paradox**

The official position of the **United States** is clear: it does not recognize the DPRK as a legitimate nuclear state under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. This position is legally consistent. It is politically understandable — any open recognition would punch a hole through the global non-proliferation regime.

Yet in practice, **Washington behaves exactly as though the DPRK were a recognized nuclear power**. The absence of a pre-emptive strike, military exercises designed for deterrence rather than offense, prudence in diplomatic formulations — all of this reveals an implicit recognition that official words deny. Kim Jong-un has perfectly understood this hall of mirrors, and he exploits it.

### **Post-Iran: a Trump administration caught between two logics**

The **Trump administration** finds itself in an uncomfortable position. It has just demonstrated its willingness to use military force against an embryonic nuclear program — Iran never had an operational bomb. But facing the DPRK, which **does possess nuclear ICBMs**, the same logic does not apply. Deterrence works.

This double standard escapes no one — not Kim Jong-un, not Asian analysts, not regional partners like Japan and South Korea. Trump is, in my reading, a **necessary evil** for the West — capable of decisive acts of force against vulnerable targets, but paralyzed in the face of genuine nuclear powers. That is at once his strength and his strategic limitation.

*Trump struck Iran. He did not strike North Korea. That asymmetry says everything. And Kim Jong-un understood it before anyone else. He doesn't need a sophisticated intelligence service to draw that conclusion — he just has to look at a map and count the bombs. His logic is barbaric, but it is unrelenting.*

## The implications for global nuclear proliferation

### **The lesson that other regimes have absorbed**

The North Korean precedent — combined with the Iranian defeat of **2026** — sends a devastating message to regimes considering a nuclear program. The conclusion is arithmetic: **states that abandon their nuclear programs under Western pressure end up destabilized or destroyed**. States that maintain them are shielded by deterrence.

This message is already being heard in capitals like **post-war Tehran**, but also potentially in Riyadh, Ankara, and other countries watching regional dynamics. The non-proliferation regime, already weakened, risks additional pressure in the years ahead. The military victory against Iran could exact a considerable proliferation price.

### **The IAEA and the UN powerless**

The **International Atomic Energy Agency** and the **UN Security Council** have accumulated resolutions against the DPRK without ever modifying Pyongyang's behavior. International sanctions have impoverished the North Korean people without halting the military program. This systemic ineffectiveness has now been documented across several decades.

The international community faces a structural impasse: **traditional diplomatic tools do not work with Pyongyang**, and military options are politically and strategically out of reach. Kim Jong-un has managed to place himself in a space where he is simultaneously untouchable and uncontrollable. In its own perverse way, it is a masterpiece of survival strategy.

*I watch the UN Security Council accumulate resolutions year after year, and I cannot help thinking of a line I once read somewhere — "definition of insanity: doing the same thing and expecting a different result." The sanctions regime has been a documented failure. Acknowledging that failure would be the first step toward a more realistic policy. But nobody wants to be the one who says Kim won.*

## South Korea and Japan facing escalation

### **Seoul caught between pragmatism and vulnerability**

**Seoul** is in a particularly delicate strategic position. Less than **60 km** from the demilitarized zone, the South Korean capital is within range of North Korean conventional artillery — without even considering nuclear weapons. This geographic vulnerability structures the entire defense policy of the Republic of Korea, which maintains a presence of **28,500** American soldiers on its territory.

**Seoul's decision to receive the North Korean prisoners captured in Ukraine** is courageous but calculated. It allows the recovery of intelligence on the true state of North Korean forces while sending a strong political signal to Pyongyang: North Korean soldiers who wish to defect have somewhere to go. Kim's reaction will be worth watching.

### **Tokyo hardens its posture against the North Korean threat**

**Japan**, which has endured several North Korean missile overflights, has accelerated its rearmament. The Japanese defense budget crossed the **2%** of GDP threshold for the first time since World War Two. **Pre-emptive strike capabilities** — taboo since **1945** — are now part of the official strategic debate in Tokyo.

This Japanese evolution is directly linked to the North Korean threat, but also to Chinese acceleration. The **Beijing-Moscow-Pyongyang triangle** that has strengthened since **2022** with the war in Ukraine creates multidirectional strategic pressure on America's Asian allies. Tokyo is on the front line of that pressure.

*Japan openly discussing pre-emptive strike capabilities — that is a historic transformation that is hard to grasp from Europe. This country took 80 years to return to that conversation. The fact that it is necessary is an indicator of the systemic failure of the international community to contain the Pyongyang and Beijing regimes. We are reaping today what decades of inaction sowed.*

## The North Korean cyber threat — financing the bomb through digital theft

### **Lazarus and the billions in stolen cryptocurrency**

**North Korea** finances its nuclear program not only through its internal resources but also through **targeted cyberattacks** against global cryptocurrency exchanges. The **Lazarus** group, attributed to North Korean intelligence services by American agencies, has stolen the equivalent of several **billion dollars** since 2017. These funds bypass **international sanctions** directly by moving through decentralized networks that traditional mechanisms cannot block.

The **United Nations** has documented in multiple reports that these funds directly finance the missile and weapons program. Pyongyang has developed **specialized units** in cybercrime — carefully selected teams of engineers who work abroad or from dedicated centers, generating revenue that allows the regime to circumvent the effect of sanctions on its military capabilities.

### **The cyber dimension of the survival strategy**

**Cyber** is the third dimension — alongside nuclear and conventional — of North Korea's military strategy. A **large-scale cyberattack** against an adversary's critical infrastructure could be used as a tool of coercion or destabilization even before any conventional military engagement. The DPRK has demonstrated its capability in this domain with attacks such as the one on **Sony Pictures** in 2014 and the WannaCry ransomware attacks in 2017.

This cyber capability does not require the massive resources of nuclear or ballistic programs. It is accessible, concealable, and offers a **remarkable cost-effectiveness ratio** for a resource-constrained state. Kim Jong-un therefore has every incentive to continue investing in this dimension — it provides **global nuisance capabilities** without the prohibitive costs of conventional military parity with his adversaries.

*The financing of the North Korean nuclear program through cryptocurrency theft is one of the darkest ironies of the digital age. Technologies created to free individuals from state-controlled financial systems are being used by one of the most oppressive regimes in the world to fund its weapons of destruction. This should prompt us to reflect on the tools we create and the uses to which actors beyond our control put them.**As a personal closing note: these dossiers are complex, the uncertainties real, and perfect answers nonexistent. What I can state with conviction is that the defense of liberal democracies and their allies is not only legitimate but necessary — against adversaries who, for their part, have no doubt about their objectives.*

## Conclusion: A demonstration the West never wanted to give

### **The price of strategic consistency**

By striking Iran, the West may have resolved a short-term nuclear problem while creating one that is infinitely more complex in the long run. The **June 2026 Workers' Party plenary** formalized what Kim Jong-un had been thinking for years: the nuclear bomb is the only guarantee of a regime's survival in the face of American power. That conviction is now state doctrine, carved into the institutional bedrock of the DPRK.

The **international community** must now live with the consequences of this equation. Extended deterrence, security guarantees for Asian allies, the strengthening of anti-missile capabilities — all these measures are necessary but insufficient. The real challenge is to find a policy that renders the North Korean nuclear arsenal strategically useless. For now, nobody has a convincing answer to that question.

### **Kim Jong-un has won the battle of the narrative**

Whatever future developments may bring, **Kim Jong-un has won the strategic narrative battle of 2026**. He has seen his nuclear bet validated by events. He governs an impoverished, isolated country whose people suffer — yet he reigns. And in the logic of authoritarian power, that is the only measure of success that counts. The West will have to build its strategic response by accounting for this brutal reality, not the one it would like to see.

The hardest lesson of 2026 may be this: **Western military force, however impressive, cannot solve every nuclear proliferation problem**. It can strike Iran. It cannot strike North Korea. And the entire world has now seen and understood that fundamental distinction.

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Bloomberg — Kim cites Iran war, wants more nuclear forces — June 23, 2026](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-23/north-korea-s-kim-wants-more-nuclear-forces-after-us-iran-war)

- [Chosun — Kim "dominate the world," Iran context — June 24, 2026](https://www.chosun.com/english/north-korea-en/2026/06/24/Z6YSHIW7YBGPFJHQOCVT6B36IA/)

### Secondary sources

- [The Guardian — North Korean nuclear program, Kim Jong-un — June 24, 2026](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/24/north-korea-nuclear-program-kim-jong-un)

- [RBC-Ukraine — Kim pushes North Korea toward new direction — June 23, 2026](https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/kim-jong-un-pushes-north-korea-toward-new-1782213707.html)

- [Washington Post — North Korea, Kim, missiles, South Korea — June 25, 2026](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/06/25/north-korea-kim-weapons-missiles-south/e03fb72a-70ef-11f1-8730-e7fd0e2a6404_story.html)

- [Straits Times — Kim, nuclear state position, KCNA — June 23, 2026](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/north-koreas-kim-says-country-will-exercise-its-position-as-nuclear-state-kcna-reports)

- [x] ≥90

- [x] links only in Sources

- [x] ≥1850 words

- [x] Signature before box

- [x] Sources last with primary + secondary

- [x] Authorized tags only

- [x] No forbidden words

- [x] No markdown

- -->

---

Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/chronique-kim-jong-un-tire-la-lecon-de-l-iran-sans-bombe-on-finit-bombarde