A major goal of U.S. policy must therefore be to move Moscow away from nuclear saber-rattling and back to the more responsible role it has played since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis in controlling nuclear weapons and avoiding their proliferation.
Kim Jong-un's foot is fully on the accelerator. If his father's policy was military first, then for Kim at this point, it seems to be nuclear weapons first. He is all in on nuclear development.
China, India, and Pakistan could build predictability in the region and mitigate potential sources of conflict through new measures to manage common-pool resource competition, dangerous behaviors in space, and a range of crises and emergencies.
By choosing to emulate certain aspects of U.S. nuclear policy and diverge from others, North Korea is attempting to simultaneously demonstrate a willingness to escalate a conflict while projecting an image of a responsible nuclear possessor that should be accommodated as such in the international system.
2022 has been unprecedented just in the intensity of North Korea's launch activity. After this month on November 2022, it just has become completely impossible to keep track of the precise number of missiles that North Korea has been launching.
If the upcoming US-Russian New START commission meeting goes well, its technical format might be valuable for other urgent discussions.
Although Russia’s war has created nuclear risks, the risk that it will unleash a wave of nuclear proliferation is lower than many believe.
It wouldn’t be an altruistic giveaway to Pyongyang; it would help the United States and its Northeast Asian allies improve their own security.
At a time when North Korea shows little interest in engagement, both Seoul and Washington can and should take unilateral measures to mitigate the risk of inadvertently prompting nuclear escalation. This would not be altruism but rather in self-interest to reduce the risks of unnecessary inadvertent escalation.
“For Putin, this war is a game of a chicken.”