What's happening at the North Korea border?

Tensions on the Korean peninsula continue to rise, with North Korean state media reporting that the country has changed its constitution to define South Korea as a "hostile state".

The Pyongyang-based KCNA news agency said the recently-amended constitution "clearly defines the ROK [South Korea] as a hostile state", Reuters reported. The country's Supreme People's Assembly "had been expected to amend the constitution to officially designate South Korea as a separate country and a main enemy" at a meeting last week, but this is the first apparent public confirmation of such a move.

This week, Kim Jong Un's regime has blown up roads connecting it to the south, with Seoul firing from its side of the border in retaliation. The North accused its neighbour of engaging in "grey zone" drone operations over Pyongyang, part of "an escalation of hostility" on the Korean peninsula, where tensions were already "at their highest point in years", said the BBC.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What's going on at the border?

The North Korean People's Army said it blew up the roads as a "self-defensive measure for inhibiting war", in response to military exercises in South Korea and the frequent presence of US nuclear assets in the region.

South Korea's military said the explosions had not caused any damage on its side of the border, but the roads were "seen as symbolic of efforts to improve ties and, eventually, reunite the peninsula", said The Guardian.

Behind North Korea's "demolition politics" is the same "psychological game" as its destruction of the inter-Korean liaison tower in 2020, said South Korean author and commentator Sung-Yoon Lee on X. The aim is to "raise stress" and "war fear", as well as "bashing" the government of its neighbour.

The South Korean unification ministry described the North's move as "abnormal" and a violation of bilateral agreements that are supposed to reduce tensions. Its joint chiefs of staff said the military had fired "retaliatory" warning shots near the border, but didn't provide any further details.

How did we get here?

In January, Pyongyang constitutionally abandoned its "decades-long objective" to seek the "unification of the two Koreas", said Al Jazeera. Kim declared the South his country's "principal enemy" and the hermit kingdom has "laid fresh mines, erected anti-tank barriers and deployed missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads", said The Guardian.

Since then, the North has unveiled a "secretive" uranium-enrichment nuclear facility, and vowed to build more nuclear weapons while continuing its record run of "provocative" missile tests, said The Associated Press. Foreign experts believe that North Korea hopes to use an expanded nuclear arsenal as "leverage to win outside concessions like sanctions relief", particularly if Donald Trump is re-elected.

What do drones have to do with it?

Tensions reached a new high when North Korea accused Seoul of flying drones over Pyongyang: a new "grey zone" attack. The drones allegedly scattered propaganda leaflets over Pyongyang in what the North described as a provocation that could lead to "armed conflict and even war". Pyongyang said last week it would permanently block its border with South Korea in response, build front-line defence structures and order border troops to be prepared to fire.

South Korea's defence ministry has denied involvement in drone flights over Pyongyang. But Seoul has warned that if the safety of its citizens was threatened, it would signal the "end of the North Korean regime". Its joint chiefs of staff said its military was maintaining "fully readiness posture under cooperation with the US".

What might happen next?

North Korea has threatened to respond with force if drone flights occur again, and to put frontline artillery and other army units on standby in such an eventuality. Pyongyang said North Korean forces would prepare "all means of attack".

The North is likely to stage more provocations, even a nuclear test explosion and a long-range missile test. Kim "has a habit of demolishing things when he is feeling cross", said The Times Asia editor Richard Lloyd Parry. Such "pointless pyrotechnics are part of North Korean rhetoric, on a par with the repeated warnings of imminent nuclear war". What was "notable" this week was South Korea's response: mysterious "counter-fire" intended to "make a point". South Korea has joined the North in "the game of setting off big bangs for rhetorical, not military, reasons". The policy of South Korea's conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, and his "uncompromising" defence minister is to "match North Korean provocation". But any all-out war on the peninsula would be "catastrophic", and likely to draw China into a superpower conflict.