ESSAY: Kim Jong Un's Exponential Escalation — Pyongyang Caught Democracies Off Guard

Introduction: the most costly strategic blind spot of our generation

Twenty years to grasp what was unfolding before our eyes

For twenty years, the international community treated North Korea as a manageable problem — a dangerous but peripheral curiosity, a miserable regime that would eventually collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, a bluffer whose military posturing would never be acted upon. These assumptions were wrong. And in June 2026, reality asserts itself in all its brutality: North Korea possesses more than 50 nuclear warheads, an intercontinental ballistic missile programme capable of reaching the United States, a deep-water navy under active construction, and now a 155mm self-propelled howitzer — the NATO-standard calibre — tested on June 25 before the eyes of Kim Jong Un.

This essay asks an uncomfortable question: how did we get here? How could the world's most powerful democracies watch for two decades while Kim Jong Un methodically built an arsenal without taking the necessary steps to prevent him? The answer is complex, but it begins with an honest diagnosis of our own analytical and political failures.

The moment of June 24, 2026: The Guardian article as a revelation

On June 24, 2026, The Guardian published an in-depth article on Kim Jong Un's "exponential" nuclear programme, under the provocative headline "Why Kim Jong Un is racing to expand his arsenal." The article cited researchers describing an arsenal "vast and dispersed, whose location is unknown, whose potential actions are unpredictable, and whose threats are intentionally ambiguous." It documented Kim's commitment to increasing nuclear stockpiles "at an exponential rate."

This is not the first time this information has been published. North Korea's trajectory has been documented for years by specialized institutes. What is new is the tone — more urgent, more alarmed, more conscious that something irreversible is occurring. This essay explores why we arrived here and what it means for the decades ahead.

Kim Jong Un's long-term strategy: a coherence we misread

2012–2026: fourteen years of a coherent programme

Kim Jong Un came to power at the end of 2011, at approximately 27 years of age. Since then, he has maintained a strategic orientation of remarkable consistency: accelerated development of nuclear and ballistic capabilities, modernization of conventional weaponry, resistance to all international pressure, and use of arms as a political and diplomatic instrument. This consistency was not obvious from the beginning — analysts debated whether he was seeking to reform his economy, gradually open up, or negotiate an agreement with the West.

In retrospect, Kim's programme had clear logic from the outset: build a credible nuclear deterrent that would make any regime change militarily too costly, then in parallel develop the conventional capabilities that would enable a multi-level military strategy. The nuclear as the ultimate shield. Ballistic missiles as a second-level threat. Modernized conventional artillery as an instrument of daily action. And now, a deep-water navy to project power beyond the peninsula.

The milestones we systematically underestimated

Each North Korean advance was minimized or reinterpreted to avoid challenging our basic assumptions. The first nuclear test in 2006: "a firecracker, probably a failure." The 2009 and 2013 tests: "limited progress, the programme is still rudimentary." The first successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile in 2017: "a technical demonstration, not yet an operational threat." The inscription of the nuclear in the Constitution in 2022 and reinforced in 2026: "a political posture, not necessarily a final decision." At every step, the minimization was convenient — it avoided forcing difficult decisions.

This pattern of systematic minimization is one of the most important intellectual failures of Western foreign policy over the past twenty years. It reflects a deep cognitive bias: the tendency to believe that irrational actors — and the North Korean regime was often described as irrational — cannot actually execute sophisticated programmes over the long term. But Kim Jong Un is not irrational. He is ruthless, authoritarian, and dangerous — but his strategy has a coherence that we refused to recognize.

The constitutional nuclear: why it is a point of no return

Inscription in the Constitution: more than a symbol

In 2022, North Korea inscribed its status as a nuclear state in its Constitution. An amendment adopted in 2026 reinforced this framework by granting Kim Jong Un constitutional authority over nuclear forces, with the possibility of delegating launch authority to a command in emergencies. According to researchers cited by The Guardian, this latest measure is a protection against a "decapitation strike" — an attempt to eliminate the leadership before it can order a launch.

This constitutionalization is a point of no return for several reasons. First, it signals to all audiences — domestic, regional, international — that North Korea no longer considers denuclearization a negotiable option. It is a declaration of permanent state identity, not a conjunctural posture. Second, it creates real institutional constraints for any future leader who might wish to engage in denuclearization: they would first have to revise the Constitution, implying a complex internal political process in a regime where any change is perceived as weakness.

Ho Ry and Korean researchers: the voices that warned us

Ho Ry, researcher at the Korea Institute for Defence Analyses (KIDA), stated that Pyongyang wants to "establish the idea that denuclearization no longer applies to North Korea." This formulation has brutal clarity. It says that North Korea's objective is not to negotiate denuclearization on favorable terms — it is to permanently exit the category of "denuclearizable" states. North Korea wants to be treated as a recognized nuclear power, on the same terms as Pakistan or India, not as a proliferator waiting to be convinced to relinquish its weapons.

This researcher and others warned of this trajectory for years. They published analyses, testified before parliaments, participated in conferences. Their warnings were heard in specialized academic circles. They did not produce the policy responses they called for. This is a transmission-decision circuit failure that characterizes the policy of democracies on long-term threats.

The deep-water navy: the least understood dimension

The 5,000-tonne destroyer: a major strategic rupture

Among all the North Korean military advances of 2026, perhaps the least covered is the launch of a 5,000-tonne destroyer capable of firing missiles. Kim Jong Un announced his desire to build two additional warships per year for five years — an ambitious naval programme that, if realized, would give North Korea unprecedented maritime power projection capability. Combined with its increasingly advanced submarine fleet and its objective of arming warships with nuclear missiles, this emerging naval force sketches the contours of a maritime power strategy that goes far beyond coastal defence.

Why is this rupture so little discussed? Because our analytical framework for North Korea is still largely that of a land power with a limited nuclear deterrent confined to the peninsula. A country developing destroyers and deep-water submarines no longer fits that framework. It exits the category of "regional threat" to enter that of "naval power with global ambitions." And this category transition has not yet been integrated into our strategic response.

Nuclear submarines: the most concerning dimension

The Guardian notes that North Korea is developing "an increasingly advanced submarine fleet." This cautious formulation may conceal something more precise: submarines capable of launching nuclear-range ballistic missiles. If Pyongyang succeeds in developing a credible submarine nuclear strike capability, it will have completed its nuclear triad — mobile land-based missiles, missiles launched from fixed bases, and submarine-launched missiles — making it practically impossible for a preemptive strike to neutralize all its nuclear forces simultaneously.

This credible second-strike capability is the keystone of a robust nuclear deterrent. It is precisely what the most stable nuclear powers possess — the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France. Their possession makes mutual deterrence almost unshakeable. For North Korea, acquiring this capability would represent a qualitative leap in its strategic security — and a qualitatively new threat for its adversaries.

How Kim exploited Western divisions

China and Russia as diplomatic shields

Kim Jong Un's long-term strategy has systematically exploited divisions between the major powers, and in particular the inability of the international community to exert coordinated pressure due to a lack of unity among the permanent members of the Security Council. China and Russia have regularly vetoed or watered down sanctions against North Korea, maintaining an economic and diplomatic safety net that allowed Pyongyang to survive pressures without making substantial concessions.

This protection has a logic for each protector. China does not want a collapse of the North Korean regime that would send millions of refugees toward its border and place American military forces at its doorstep. Russia, since 2022, has transformed North Korea into an active strategic partner, benefiting from its munitions against Ukraine and offering in return military technology transfers. This Russian-North Korean alignment may be the most unexpected and most dangerous consequence of the war in Ukraine.

Negotiation cycles as diversion

Another mechanism that Kim Jong Un has exploited skillfully is the cycle of negotiations. At regular intervals, Pyongyang engaged in talks — with the United States, with South Korea, within the Six-Party framework — creating the illusion of a possible diplomatic solution and diverting attention from the actual progress of the nuclear programme. These negotiations never produced a substantial agreement, but they functioned as time gained for the ballistic and nuclear programme.

The Singapore and Hanoi talks between Trump and Kim in 2018-2019 are the most widely covered example of this pattern. During the months of negotiations and diplomatic contacts, the North Korean nuclear and ballistic programme continued. Pyongyang's actual concessions were minimal. And when talks failed in Hanoi, North Korea had used that time to advance its developments. Spectacle diplomacy had served its interests.

Denuclearization: the objective nobody officially wants to abandon

Trump, Xi, and the "shared denuclearization" that does not exist

In May 2026, Trump and Xi Jinping reaffirmed during a meeting at the White House what American sources called a "shared objective" of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. A few weeks earlier, during Xi's visit to Pyongyang, Chinese state media had not mentioned this objective. This gap between the shared American-Chinese rhetoric and the reality of Chinese conversations with North Korea is revealing.

Hong Min, senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, noted that this goes "beyond simple minimal deterrence" and implies the "American nuclear umbrella, US-South Korean forces, and trilateral cooperation with Japan." This academic formulation means in plain terms that North Korea is dimensioning its arsenal not to deter an isolated attack, but to surpass the combined capability of American military alliances in the region. This is an ambition that far exceeds minimal deterrence.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and denuclearization as a political pillar

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has maintained denuclearization as a "pillar of his policy toward the North." This position is politically understandable: explicitly abandoning the denuclearization objective would be an admission of failure that would legitimize North Korea's nuclear status and could fuel demands from Seoul to develop its own national nuclear capability — an option that neither Washington nor Beijing wishes to see materialize.

But maintaining the denuclearization objective as a policy pillar when all serious analyses indicate it is no longer accessible in the short or medium term creates cognitive dissonance in regional policy. It is a diplomatic posture — saying what one is supposed to say — that substitutes for a real strategy. And this dissonance makes it harder to develop an alternative policy that would be grounded in the reality of North Korea's acquired nuclear capability.

Autonomous guidance: when precision is added to range

The 240mm multiple rocket launcher guidance system

The June 25, 2026 tests confirmed a development deserving particular attention: the 240mm 24-tube multiple rocket launcher now features an autonomous precision guidance system, with range extended to 90 kilometers. This is not an incremental improvement — it is a capability rupture. Previously, North Korean artillery was known for its range but not its precision. The addition of autonomous precision guidance transforms a saturation system into a surgical strike system.

This transformation is directly linked to lessons learned on the Ukrainian battlefield. North Korean soldiers deployed with Russian forces observed the effectiveness of precision guidance systems in modern artillery warfare. They returned with data and lessons that Pyongyang's military engineers have integrated into their own developments. The war in Ukraine has thus become an involuntary technological accelerator for the North Korean military programme.

The "special mission" warhead: striking critical infrastructure

The "special mission" warhead tested for the tactical ballistic missile, explicitly described by KCNA as designed to "inflict fatal damage on major targets including airports, ports, and power generation facilities of the enemy," represents another rupture. It is the adoption of a doctrine of strikes against critical infrastructure — exactly what Russia does in Ukraine — adapted to the capabilities and geography of the Korean peninsula.

These targets — airports, ports, power plants — are not exclusively military. They are infrastructure on which civilian and economic life depends. Striking these targets in a conflict would create massive economic and humanitarian disruptions far beyond the combat zones. North Korea is explicitly developing the capacity to wage total war against South Korea's infrastructure — a war whose effects on the 50 million inhabitants of the South would be catastrophic.

What democracies did wrong: a necessary self-critique

Strategic engagement policy and its failure

The main Western policy toward North Korea since the 1990s has been "strategic engagement" — the idea that diplomatic contacts, limited economic concessions, and human exchanges could gradually reform the regime from within. This policy produced the 1994 Agreed Framework, the 2003-2009 Six-Party negotiations, and numerous attempts at bilateral dialogue. None produced substantial nuclear concessions from Pyongyang.

Retrospectively, the engagement policy was exploited by North Korea as a source of economic resources and as diplomatic cover during the periods when it was advancing most rapidly in its nuclear programme. This is a brutal lesson: engagement without real verification conditions and consequences can give the adversary the time and resources needed to achieve its objectives.

Sanctions without an accompanying strategy

The alternative to engagement — sanctions — also failed to produce the anticipated results. Sanctions created real economic constraints for North Korea, contributing to periods of scarcity that imposed considerable suffering on the population. But they did not stop the nuclear programme. They may even have contributed to pushing Pyongyang toward Russia as an alternative partner, accelerating the strategic partnership that transformed the situation in 2023-2026.

This observation does not invalidate sanctions — they remain a legitimate and necessary instrument. But they are insufficient in the absence of a broader strategy that offers North Korea a credible exit path in exchange for verifiable nuclear concessions. Twenty years of alternating between engagement and sanctions without substantial results indicates the need for a fundamental rethinking of the approach.

Toward a realistic strategy for the North Korean nuclear era

Accepting the nuclear fait accompli to manage its consequences

The first step of a realistic strategy is the most politically difficult: accept that North Korea is a de facto nuclear power, and that maintaining the objective of complete denuclearization as a short-term goal prevents the elaboration of a more effective threat management policy. This does not mean legitimizing the North Korean nuclear programme or abandoning the very long-term denuclearization objective. It means adapting policy to the real world rather than the desired one.

Realistic management policies would include: dialogue on accidents and miscalculations to reduce the risk of involuntary escalation; limits on additional tests and deployments in exchange for security assurances; direct communication channels to prevent military misunderstandings; and a robust deterrence strategy that makes any North Korean aggression unviable without requiring a nuclear "final solution."

Investing massively in regional missile defence

A realistic policy also includes massive investment in missile defence systems deployed in South Korea, Japan, and at sea. The THAAD system deployed in South Korea remains insufficient to counter a rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal. Multi-layer defence systems — capable of intercepting missiles at different phases of their trajectory — are necessary to maintain a credible defensive posture. This requires significant investments, but they are justified by the documented nature of the threat.

These investments must be accompanied by deeper trilateral cooperation between the United States, South Korea, and Japan. Currently, historical tensions between Seoul and Tokyo — linked to the legacy of Japanese occupation of Korea — complicate this cooperation. Overcoming these historical obstacles is a prerequisite for an effective regional response to the North Korean threat. And it requires active, persistent American mediation that previous administrations have not always provided.

Pyongyang's reinforced partnerships: a more dangerous world

Kim, Putin, and Xi: the triangle that complicates everything

North Korea's reinforced partnerships with Russia and its relationship with China have fundamentally changed the landscape of external pressures to which Pyongyang is exposed. According to The Guardian, these partnerships "have further isolated North Korea from the external pressures that once made negotiations possible." This formulation is diplomatic for a brutal assessment: the sanctions and diplomatic pressure that might have worked in a context of real isolation no longer work in a context where Pyongyang has powerful allies.

This structural change is perhaps the most important development of the decade. North Korea is no longer the desperately isolated regime of the post-Cold War era. It is a strategic partner of Russia, a carefully maintained buffer state by China, and an actor whose arsenal is contributing to conflicts on different continents. This transformation redefines the problem — and the solution.

Arms exports: a global problem

North Korea's capacity to export weapons — and its willingness to do so without regard for end users — makes it a global problem. North Korean artillery shells are killing Ukrainians. North Korean missiles have been reported in Yemen. If Pyongyang begins exporting 155mm calibre munitions or its new autonomous guidance systems, the problem will spread to even more theatres of operations. Containing this proliferation is a strategic challenge that goes far beyond the Korean peninsula.

The response to this reality includes enhanced surveillance of North Korean arms transfers, increased pressure on countries that facilitate these transfers, and intelligence cooperation between allies to identify and disrupt distribution networks. These efforts exist but remain insufficient given the scale of the problem and the diplomatic protection offered by Russia and China to Pyongyang.

The North Korean nuclear as a constitutional element: a paradigm shift

When nuclear deterrence becomes a fundamental right inscribed in law

In 2022, North Korea inscribed its status as a nuclear power in its Constitution — an unprecedented gesture in the history of nuclear-armed states. Neither the United States, nor Russia, nor China have constitutionalized their nuclear arsenals in this way. This deliberate choice by Kim Jong Un signals something important: the nuclear programme is no longer a negotiating lever that Pyongyang could someday exchange for security guarantees and sanctions relief. It is now a founding element of North Korean state identity.

This constitutionalization has concrete diplomatic consequences that the international community has been slow to integrate. Any agreement requiring North Korea's denuclearization would now require a constitutional revision — a politically and institutionally cumbersome procedure, even in an authoritarian regime. Kim Jong Un has closed a door that his American, South Korean, and Japanese interlocutors kept pointing to as the labyrinth's exit. The door no longer exists. Another exit must be found.

Implications for diplomacy over the coming decades

If North Korean nuclear capability is constitutionally permanent, then the entire strategy based on complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization (CVID) as a prerequisite for any engagement is doomed to fail. This uncomfortable conclusion has begun to be integrated by certain American foreign policy circles, which now speak of "managing" the North Korean nuclear threat rather than eliminating it. This semantic shift is revealing: it means that democracies are beginning to implicitly accept the idea of a permanently nuclear North Korea.

This implicit acceptance carries its own risks. It could encourage other states to follow the example — constitutionalizing their nuclear arsenals as ultimate protection against regime change. It makes South Korea and Japan more likely to reconsider their own nuclear posture. And it transforms the non-proliferation challenge in Northeast Asia into a management of coexistence with a de facto recognized nuclear power, with all the strategic uncertainties that entails.

North Korea's deep-water navy: the most ignored dimension of Kim's arsenal

Submarines capable of striking beyond the peninsula

The North Korean naval programme is probably the component of Pyongyang's arsenal that receives the least analytical attention despite its potentially heaviest implications. North Korea is developing a ballistic submarine (SSBN) capability that would allow it to deploy nuclear missiles from sea positions, considerably reducing the capability of adversaries for a preemptive strike. A nuclear submarine on patrol is, by nature, difficult to locate and eliminate before it fires — which confers a credible second strike even if land-based installations are destroyed.

North Korea's Sinpo-class ballistic submarine has conducted several submarine-launched missile tests since 2021. Current capabilities are still limited — the propulsion, acoustic signature, and navigation of North Korean submarines are below American and Russian standards. But the programme is progressing. And even a mediocre ballistic submarine that can launch a nuclear missile from an unknown position represents a qualitative escalation in Pyongyang's deterrence capability.

What the deep-water navy changes in the regional strategic equation

The progression toward a naval second-strike capability transforms the strategic geometry of Northeast Asia. Until now, American and South Korean military planners could theoretically envision a decapitation strike against known North Korean nuclear installations. A dispersed naval arsenal makes this scenario nearly impossible without risking triggering a nuclear response from a submarine that nobody can locate. This is precisely the deterrence that Kim Jong Un is seeking to build: a survival guarantee based not on conventional power but on nuclear uncertainty.

For South Korea and Japan, this evolution reinforces the arguments for an enhanced American naval presence in the region, increased investment in submarine detection systems, and closer cooperation between allied navies. It also strengthens the voices in both countries advocating for a national debate on the nuclear question — whether in the form of a return of American tactical nuclear weapons to the peninsula, or in the form of a national capability, a hypothesis still taboo but increasingly less marginal in strategic circles.

Russia as amplifier and partner of the North Korean military programme

What Moscow has actually transferred to Pyongyang since 2022

The Russian-North Korean partnership since 2022 has a dual nature that deserves to be clearly distinguished. On one hand, documented transfers: millions of artillery shells, short-range ballistic missiles, and potentially multiple rocket launcher systems. On the other, less documented but probable transfers: propulsion, guidance, and stealth technologies to improve future North Korean systems. The distinction between these two categories is analytically important: the former are commercial transactions. The latter would structurally change North Korean military capabilities for decades to come.

American and South Korean intelligence sources have reported the presence of North Korean officers on Russian front lines in Ukraine, as well as visits by North Korean technical delegations to Russian defence installations. These exchanges represent a transfer of operational know-how and performance data that no amount of simulated exercises can replace. North Korea is learning from the war in Ukraine — by proxy, via Russia — what works and what does not in a high-intensity conflict against Western military systems.

Limits and paradoxes of the Moscow-Pyongyang partnership

The Russian-North Korean partnership has its own internal tensions that outside observers tend to underestimate. Moscow needs Pyongyang in the short term for its munitions and additional personnel. But a too-powerful North Korea — equipped with a deep-water navy, precision artillery, and a constitutionally guaranteed nuclear arsenal — is a much harder partner to control than a dependent state. Putin is potentially creating a strategic problem he will have to manage himself in ten years.

China, which observes this partnership with growing ambivalence, sees the same paradox. Beijing has always wanted a North Korea stable enough to serve as a geopolitical buffer, but not powerful enough to become uncontrollable. The emergence of a North Korea equipped with deep-water military capabilities, precision artillery, and a war economy sustained by Russia is beginning to resemble the second scenario. This is one of the most interesting strategic contradictions of the current geopolitical moment.

The response of democracies: between ineffective sanctions and strategic urgency

Twenty years of sanctions that did not stop Kim

The international response to North Korea's military programme has essentially amounted for two decades to a repetitive cycle: nuclear or ballistic test → international condemnation → Security Council resolution → new sanctions → North Korea's violation of sanctions → return to start. This cycle, which had a certain logic in the pre-2022 world where Russia and China at least formally cooperated with the sanctions regime, is now completely broken. Moscow openly violates sanctions to purchase North Korean munitions. Beijing looks away.

The ineffectiveness of sanctions does not mean they had no effect — they probably slowed the North Korean programme compared to what it might have been without any restriction. But they did not stop Kim Jong Un. He absorbed the relative poverty of his economy, the suffering of his population, and diplomatic isolation, and continued methodically building the arsenal that sanctions were supposed to prevent. This is an international policy failure that democracies find difficult to acknowledge publicly because they have no clear alternative to offer.

What democracies can still do effectively

Faced with the sanctions impasse, several alternative approaches deserve serious examination. First, the strengthening of missile defences in South Korea and Japan — notably the expansion of the THAAD system and the integration of low-layer defence systems. This approach does not neutralize the threat but reduces its reach. Second, increased diplomatic pressure on China, making explicit what Beijing would strategically lose if Tokyo and Seoul decided to develop their own nuclear capabilities.

Third, the development of improved intelligence capabilities on the actual state of the North Korean nuclear programme — its size, survival capabilities, and potential vulnerabilities. This knowledge is the prerequisite for any realistic diplomatic engagement. Fourth, maintaining communication channels with Pyongyang, even informal ones, even when no agreement is in sight — the objective being to reduce the risk of accidental escalation in a future crisis. These approaches are not spectacular. But they are realistic in a context where spectacular options are either impossible or catastrophic.

Conclusion: learning from blind spots so as not to repeat the error

The lesson of twenty years of minimization

The main lesson of twenty years of strategic blind spots toward North Korea is that long-term, gradual, and coherent threats are the most dangerous precisely because they do not create the immediate urgencies that trigger policy responses. Kim Jong Un built his arsenal methodically, taking advantage of the West's attention being fixed on more immediate urgencies — the war in Iraq, the financial crisis, the Arab Spring, the war in Ukraine. This strategic patience is his greatest achievement.

Not repeating the error with other emerging threats

The second lesson is not to repeat this error with other emerging long-term threats. The rise of China's maritime power, the development of autonomous weapons, climate change as a conflict multiplier — all these threats have a progressive trajectory that does not create the urgencies that trigger policy responses. They require precisely the kind of long-term strategic thinking that our political systems struggle to generate and sustain. North Korea was the test we failed. Let it also be the warning that allows us not to fail the next ones.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency box

Who I am and my declared biases

I am a columnist-analyst who views the North Korean threat with growing concern and a sense of urgency. I assume a pro-Western and pro-democratic bias. I believe that Kim Jong Un's regime is profoundly hostile to democratic values and represents a real threat to regional and global security. This bias is owned and consistent.

What I do not know and my method

I do not have access to classified data on the precise capabilities of the North Korean nuclear and ballistic programme. The information I use comes from public sources — The Guardian, KCNA, Ukrainska Pravda, United24Media, Defence-UA, SIPRI. The analytical assessments I offer are judgments based on these sources, not certainties. I have flagged them as such.

Sources

Primary sources

The Guardian — Kim Jong Un's exponential nuclear programme — June 24, 2026

Reuters via US News — Kim oversees weapons tests, KCNA reports — June 25, 2026

Al Jazeera — North Korea conducts major weapons tests, South trains drone warriors — June 26, 2026

Secondary sources

Defence-UA — North Korea begins production of 155mm self-propelled howitzers — May 9, 2026

United24Media — North Korea reportedly plans new 155mm howitzers capable of reaching Seoul — May 2026

Taipei Times — Kim and the weapons tests: ranges revealed — June 26, 2026

Foreign Policy — Strategy analyses on the Korean peninsula — 2026