In September, North Korea passed new legislation that marks the most significant update to its nuclear doctrine in a decade. This milestone document outlines 11 articles describing the regime’s “nuclear weapons policy,” including the conditions under which Pyongyang would launch nuclear weapons. Since the legislation was passed, analysts have been pondering its implications for North Korea’s nuclear strategy and how it fits with recent missile tests or the regime’s expected seventh nuclear test. Even though news reports on North Korea’s new nuclear doctrine have highlighted the regime’s willingness to launch nuclear weapons preemptively, the most important update from the legislation is North Korea’s novel articulation of its nuclear command and control system or, in other words, its nuclear decision-making process. The legislation and recent developments together indicate that Pyongyang is moving toward a more coherent first-use nuclear strategy.
North Korea is already on record for issuing threats of preemptive nuclear attacks, but other indicators of the Hermit Kingdom’s nuclear strategy have been contradictory. For example, its command-and-control system and its lack of field-deployed tactical nuclear weapons have both undermined Pyongyang’s statements. These misaligned indicators created uncertainty that led experts to disagree over what strategy North Korea is pursuing, particularly since 2017, when the regime tested multiple short- to long-range ballistic missiles and conducted its sixth nuclear test during the “fire and fury” crisis with the United States. The September 2022 legislation, however, moves North Korea more squarely toward a first-use nuclear strategy, which aims to deter aggression by threatening to asymmetrically escalate to a nuclear strike before its adversaries in a crisis or conventional conflict.
Regional power nuclear strategies have traditionally been distinguished from the nuclear strategies of the two superpowers—Russia/Soviet Union and the United States. Political scientist Vipin Narang, for example, identifies three regional power nuclear strategies. One strategy is based on a first-use approach that threatens to launch nuclear weapons before its adversaries to deter aggression (e.g., present-day Pakistan).
