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North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun released this photo along with an article on April 23, 2024, which said that Kim Jong-un had overseen a simulated nuclear counterattack using 600 MM super-large multiple rocket sub-units in a drill of its “Nuclear Trigger” nuclear weapon combined management system on April 22. (KCNA/Yonhap)

North Korea conducted its first-ever counterattack drill with simulated nuclear warheads on 600 mm super-large multiple rocket launchers as part of its “Nuclear Trigger” system for comprehensive nuclear weapon management, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported.

Coming in response to a joint South Korea-US aerial infiltration exercise reminiscent of a “decapitation drill,” the exercise amounted to the North answering with an overt nuclear threat.

The extreme confrontation unfolding now between South and North is one where even a small mistake could lead to disaster. Both sides need to waste no time in resuming dialogue to relieve tensions.

On Tuesday, the Rodong Sinmun reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had “guided a combined tactical drill simulating a nuclear counterattack” with the participation of 600 mm super-large multiple rocket launcher sub-units.

In terms of North Korea’s nuclear doctrine, the report included first-ever mentions of the previously unknown concepts of the “Volcano Alarm” system and “Nuclear Trigger.”

An examination of the article in question showed that the “combined tactical drill simulating a nuclear counterattack” that was conducted on Monday was intended to provide training in the “procedure and process of switching over to a nuclear counterattack posture at a time when the ‘Volcano Alarm’ system, the state’s greatest nuclear crisis alarm, is issued.” It was also the first such drill to be conducted “under the state’s nuclear weapon combined management system ‘Nuclear Trigger,’” the article said.

North Korea formalized its nuclear doctrine in a document called “About the Nuclear Forces Policy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” in September 2022. That doctrine permits the use of nuclear weapons (1) when North Korea has been or is about to be attacked by a nuclear weapon or another weapon of mass destruction or (2) when the state leadership has been or is about to be attacked, whether by nuclear or non-nuclear weapons.

Linking those provisions to Monday’s drill, aerial infiltration exercises simulating the elimination of the North Korean leadership of the sort carried out by South Korean and American special forces on Thursday met the conditions for activating the “Volcano Alarm,” leading to the firing of North Korea’s “super-large multiple rocket launchers tipped with simulated nuclear warheads” within the framework of the “Nuclear Trigger” system.

Setting the specific procedures for using nuclear weapons makes North Korea’s nuclear threat — which had previously been mostly conceptual — much more tangible.

Dialogue between South and North Korea, and between North Korea and the US, has been on ice for five years now, following the failure of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un’s second summit in 2019. It’s undeniable that North Korea’s nuclear capabilities have undergone dramatic growth during those years.

But South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol seems to have little thought for anything other than the US’ “extended deterrence” and has taken no interest whatsoever in dialogue with the North. All the while, concerns have been growing about the possibility of war breaking out on the Korean Peninsula.

Peace on the Korean Peninsula cannot be preserved through our current unilateral policy toward North Korea. We need a total reset of our North Korea policy.

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