The next North Korea crisis could come this year

• Tensions are high between North Korea and South Korea, and it could soon erupt into a crisis.

• North Korea is expected to provoke conflict before the US election in November.

• An expert says that could drag the US into a clash on the peninsula.

Tensions are flaring between North Korea and South Korea, and it could lead to conflict sooner rather than later.

While there's no indication full-scale war is coming, a provocation from North Korea — heightened in an election year for South Korea and the US — could prompt retaliation from South Korea's hawkish president, an expert says.

"The real nature of any forthcoming North Korean crisis is difficult to predict," Sue Mi Terry, a senior fellow for Korea studies with the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in an article for Foreign Affairs last week, adding that "nonlethal provocations," like cyberattacks against government and defense institutions, should be expected at a minimum.

On the other end of the spectrum, North Korea could conduct more testing for its Hwasong-18 solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile or test a tactical nuclear weapon, or even go beyond "saber-rattling," as Terry described, launching "an actual, if limited, military attack against South Korea," not unlike incidents in 2010 when North Korea shelled Yeonpyeong and sank a South Korean naval vessel, killing 46 crew members.

North Korea has many reasons to provoke. They could be to seize international attention and fear for negotiating leverage or to drive a wedge in the US-South Korea alliance; some provocations seem to be in defiance of US-South Korean military exercises, for example.

Such a clash between North Korea and South Korea could quickly spiral into wider conflict. South Korea's president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has taken a tougher stance on North Korea since his election two years ago, strengthening ties with the US and Japan much to Pyongyang's disapproval.

Yoon, as Terry wrote, "is an avowed hawk and has promised to respond forcefully to any North Korean attack." What that looks like remains unclear, but it sets the stage for growing pressure.

A notable shift came this year when North Korea declared South Korea "our principal enemy" and threatened to "thoroughly annihilate" it along with the US if provoked. While these may just seem like fighting words, North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, conducted a major shift in the background, removing any goal of unification between the two Koreas from the government's policies.

This included the public demolition of the Monument to the Three Charters for National Reunification, built by Kim's father, Kim Jong Il, as a symbol of peaceful Korean reunification. Government offices, documents, websites, and plans for reunification also went dark. The move was alarming and likely partially influenced by the Yoon administration's taking a harder stance against North Korea than Yoon's immediate predecessor, Moon Jae-in, took.

Those larger issues are at play during an especially fraught time: a major election year for the US. South Korea also in April held legislative elections, in which Yoon's party lost seats; his domestic policies have often faced strong opposition.

On a recent episode of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' show "The Capital Cable" focusing on the future of North Korean policy, Terry talked about the potential of a provocation coming before the US election, referring to CSIS research from this year that found that North Korea staged more than four times as many weapons tests in US election years as it did in other years.

Commentary on the analysis by Victor Cha, the senior vice president for Asia and the Korea chair at CSIS, and Andy Lim, an associate fellow with the CSIS Korea chair, said: "North Korea exhibits a tendency to ramp up provocations during U.S. election years. While diplomacy could stave off some of the violence, Kim Jong-un has rejected all calls from the Biden administration to meet. Instead, the regime has more than doubled the number of tests since 2021, compared to under the previous U.S. administration."

The election, shaping up to be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, could be notable for North Korea, but that doesn't mean it's the only thing Kim is thinking about.

Things are quite different now than they were four years ago. Since talks in Hanoi with Trump failed in 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic further isolated the so-called Hermit Kingdom, Kim has taken a large step back from engagement with the US, instead turning toward the country's more traditional allies, Russia and China.

Allison Hooker, a former deputy assistant to the president and senior director for Asia on the National Security Council, said on "The Capital Cable" that a lot was happening on the global stage for North Korea to exploit for its own gain, including the war in Ukraine, for which North Korea has contributed weapons to Russia, and tensions between China and Taiwan.

There's a lot going on at home, too, including in missile and weapons testing and in North Korea's nuclear program. Hooker said Kim was hard at work in those areas and could be looking to reengage in foreign policy with the US and South Korea down the road.

"The point is to reengage from a position of great strength," she said.

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