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Changes in North Korea's Strategy Following the 9th Party Congress and the Advent of a New Policy Environment

North Korea's 9th Party Congress has once again demonstrated that South Korea's inter-Korean policy requires a fundamental paradigm shift. Through this Party Congress, North Korea has entrenched its status as a nuclear-armed state as an irreversible national reality, and has defined South Korea no longer as a partner within the same nation but as a hostile counterpart in an inter-state relationship. Furthermore, under the perception that a U.S.-centered international order is weakening and a multipolar world is arriving, North Korea has made its position clear that it will further strengthen its line of self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and self-defense. These changes should not be seen merely as a shift in North Korea's rhetoric toward the South or a temporary change in negotiating tactics, but rather as a presentation of the basic national strategy framework that North Korea intends to maintain for the coming decades.

The familiar combination of dialogue and pressure, engagement and sanctions, and peace and denuclearization is no longer sufficient for South Korea's inter-Korean policy. While it is natural to emphasize the need for peace and dialogue when exploring the direction of North Korea policy, specific concepts that sufficiently reflect the changed North Korean strategy and the structural transformation of the international order have yet to be clearly articulated. Notably, Pyongyang is increasingly rejecting the very concept of inter-Korean relations, designating South Korea as a direct target of its nuclear deterrence, and refusing to approach U.S.–North Korea relations through the traditional framework of denuclearization. Consequently, the South Korean government must establish new, long-term, and fundamental principles for its North Korea policy.

The most critical variable in this shift is the transformation of the international order. North Korea perceives the current global landscape as one defined by waning U.S. unipolar hegemony and advancing multipolarity. From Pyongyang's perspective, while the United States remains a hostile power, it is no longer the absolute hegemon capable of unilaterally dictating the international order or uniformly pressuring other states. Thus, North Korea has concluded that U.S. hegemonic policies are destabilizing the existing international system, leaving sheer national power as the only guarantee for a state's survival and development. In the report to the 9th Party Congress, North Korea reiterated the logic that nuclear possession is the only means by which imperialist aggression can be deterred, and formalized the point that its status as a nuclear-armed state is irreversible.

However, in North Korea's perception of the international landscape, a degree of realism and a considerable possibility of miscalculation coexist. While the relative decline of U.S. hegemony is a clear trend, the United States remains the world's preeminent power in terms of its military, financial, technological, and alliance network capabilities. Even if the U.S.-centered liberal international order has become difficult to maintain with the same consistency as in the past, that does not mean that a situation has arrived in which the U.S. is inevitably compelled to make decisive concessions in negotiations with North Korea. North Korea may judge that the need to negotiate with the U.S. has diminished in the multipolar era, but, in reality, it is far more likely that the North Korean issue will be progressively marginalized in priority amid the complex intersection of interests among major actors such as the U.S., China, Russia, Europe, and Japan.

Furthermore, the current international order is unlikely to solidify into a clear new Cold War of two blocs as North Korea claims. While the U.S. and China are in strategic competition, they continue to maintain deep mutual interdependence in economic, technological, supply chain, and financial terms. For a considerable period ahead, U.S.–China relations are likely to persist not as a complete rupture but as competition managed amid tension and rivalry, and in the form of weaponized interdependence. In this process, North Korea may serve as a strategic asset for China, but it will simultaneously remain a burdensome presence. Even if China can tacitly acquiesce to North Korea's nuclear possession, the possibility that China will formally recognize or accept it as a nuclear state is very low. China, as an aspiring leading state, is compelled to place importance on the role of the UN system and international institutions, and it is difficult for it to view the complete collapse of the nuclear non-proliferation regime as consistent with its own long-term interests.

Nevertheless, it is also true that the non-proliferation regime is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain with the binding force it once had. North Korea has already advanced its nuclear weapons development to a considerable level, and has institutionally entrenched its policy of non-abandonment of nuclear weapons through the legalization and constitutionalization of its nuclear forces. Even if the U.S. maintains the official goal of North Korean denuclearization, in actual policy it is likely to move rapidly toward a deterrence-centered model. The U.S. is increasingly likely to treat North Korea as a de facto nuclear power without legally recognizing it as a nuclear weapons state, focusing instead on extended deterrence, arms control-oriented approaches, crisis management, and the prevention of nuclear use. This creates a very difficult strategic environment for South Korea. This is because, while the ultimate goal of denuclearization cannot be abandoned, policy cannot be designed while ignoring the reality that North Korea is acting as a de facto nuclear weapons state.

Second, North Korea's domestic strategy carries two simultaneous tasks: the continuity of the authoritarian regime and economic performance. At this Party Congress, North Korea emphasized the achievements of the past five years and presented regional development, rural construction, housing construction, public health, education, tourism, and the information industry as new development tasks. This demonstrates that the North Korean regime seeks to secure political legitimacy not merely as a military state but through improvements in residents' living standards and economic performance. However, the development vision North Korea has presented still remains within the framework of a self-reliant economy, state control, political-ideological mobilization, and a military-first doctrine. It is difficult to achieve a new leap in economic development without external openness, market expansion, a technological innovation ecosystem, and the attraction of international investment.

In particular, the advent of the AI era will further deepen North Korea's long-term vulnerabilities. At this Party Congress, North Korea mentioned cutting-edge technological sectors such as the artificial intelligence industry, the space industry, and the new energy industry, but in reality such industries require open knowledge networks, the free movement of highly skilled talent, large-scale data, semiconductor and cloud infrastructure, international research cooperation, and a private sector innovation ecosystem. A closed authoritarian system like North Korea's may achieve a degree of results in limited AI applications for military purposes or in strengthening cyber capabilities, but it will be very difficult to achieve the level of AI transformation that renovates the entire national economy. Conversely, because South Korea possesses world-class competitiveness in AI, semiconductors, bio-industry, digital platforms, defense technology, and financial technology, there is a strong likelihood that the gap in technology, industry, and living standards between North and South Korea will expand exponentially in the future.

This could have two contradictory effects on North Korea. One is an increase in regime instability. The more that North Korean residents are exposed to external information and the progress of South Korean society, the greater the pressure from system comparison will inevitably become. It is precisely for this reason that North Korea is extremely wary of the influx of the Korean Wave and the spread of external information. The other is a reinforcement of its obsession with the military. If North Korea cannot keep pace with South Korea in economic development and cannot overcome its lack of socio-political allure, there is a strong likelihood that the North Korean regime will seek to maintain internal cohesion through nuclear weapons, military power, internal control, and anti-South hostile discourse. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the AI era may, in the short term, push North Korea toward stronger control and greater military dependence rather than transforming it into a more open and rational economic state.

Third, North Korea's obsession with nuclear weapons will be further reinforced. At the 9th Party Congress, North Korea explicitly stated the expansion and strengthening of its nuclear forces, the exercise of its status as a nuclear-armed state, an increase in the number of nuclear weapons, and the expansion of means of nuclear delivery and operational scope. Furthermore, by mentioning an integrated nuclear crisis response system, nuclear weapons operational training, and the possibility of various nuclear response operations, it demonstrated the will to develop its nuclear forces not merely as a political symbol, but as a practical means of deterrence. This signifies that North Korea views nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantee of regime survival and as the central asset of its strategies toward South Korea, the U.S., and other foreign countries.

In such a situation, the prospect of denuclearization has become very slim. North Korea perceives the abandonment of nuclear weapons as the abandonment of regime security, and in negotiations with the U.S. is likely to be willing to examine only limited agenda items such as nuclear arms reduction, a nuclear freeze, sanctions relief, and normalization of relations. While it is natural that South Korea must still aim for complete denuclearization, in the actual operation of policy a complex approach is needed that involves deterrence against a nuclear-armed North Korea, crisis management, arms control, strengthening of extended deterrence, and the induction of long-term change. The problem is that this recognition of reality may be misunderstood as an acknowledgment of North Korea's nuclear possession. Therefore, South Korea faces the difficult task of refraining from legally and politically recognizing North Korea's nuclear possession while developing a sophisticated strategy premised on the de facto nuclear threat.

Fourth, within the global multi-theater environment, the international priority placed on the North Korean issue is likely to diminish. The major international security issues of the Ukraine War, the instability of the Middle East following the Iran War, tensions in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, U.S.–China strategic competition, the expansion of China's nuclear capabilities, the reorganization of global supply chains, and climate and energy crises are unfolding simultaneously. From the U.S. perspective, the most important military task is progressively shifting toward the containment of China, and in particular, responding to China's naval power, missile forces, nuclear forces, and space and cyber capabilities in the Indo-Pacific. In this process, North Korea will not disappear entirely from U.S. strategic attention, but it may be difficult for it to be treated as an independent issue with high priority as in the past.

For South Korea, this carries significant implications. The core variable of the ROK–U.S. alliance is likely to shift from simply deterring North Korea to the extent of South Korea's participation in U.S. military containment of China and the Indo-Pacific strategy. The U.S. will demand of South Korea an expanded role beyond North Korea defense—in China containment, supply chain security, advanced technology cooperation, maritime security, and the cyber and space domains. However, the deeper South Korea's involvement in the China strategy becomes, the more North Korea may characterize this as anti-North hostility on the part of South Korea–U.S.–Japan military cooperation and raise military tensions. Therefore, South Korea needs a sophisticated strategy for how to manage the linkage between strengthening the ROK–U.S. alliance and participating in the China strategy while also maintaining North Korea deterrence.

In this situation, U.S. extended nuclear deterrence will remain the core pillar of South Korean security. As North Korea's nuclear capabilities become more sophisticated and the U.S. invests more resources in the China strategy, doubts about the credibility of U.S. extended deterrence may grow within South Korea. If the U.S. pursues negotiations focused on limiting North Korea's ICBM capabilities, or if it seeks a partial agreement with North Korea in a manner that prioritizes U.S. homeland security, South Korea's security anxiety will be further amplified. Therefore, South Korea must ensure that U.S. extended deterrence is institutionalized not merely as a declaration but within actual planning, training, asset deployment, nuclear consultation, and decision-making structures in times of crisis.

Fifth, the direction of the Russia–North Korea relationship is an important variable in North Korea's strategy. The Russo-Ukrainian War will inevitably conclude in some form or another, whether as a termination or a ceasefire. How Russia resets its relationship with Europe after the war will have a significant impact on the continuity of the Russia–North Korea relationship. If Russia remains in a state of long-term isolation from Europe even after the war, Russia is highly likely to sustain its military and political cooperation with North Korea. Conversely, if even a limited space for normalization of relations emerges between Europe and Russia, the strategic attention and resources that Russia can provide to North Korea may diminish.

However, in either case, what Russia can provide to North Korea is limited. Russia lacks the capacity to economically revitalize North Korea over the long term, and must invest considerable resources in post-war reconstruction and the restructuring of its own economy. Ultimately, the core assets that Russia can provide to North Korea are likely to consist of military technology, energy, food, diplomatic patronage, and space for evading international sanctions. While this may help strengthen North Korea's short-term military capabilities, it may actually have a negative impact on North Korea's path to autonomous economic development. Military cooperation and a wartime-mobilization economic relationship will only make North Korea a more militarized survival state, and it will be difficult to transform it into a normal developmental state.

Sixth, North Korea's strategy toward South Korea simultaneously possesses a defensive and an offensive character. North Korea's designation of South Korea as a hostile two-state relationship stems in part from deep anxiety about the influence of South Korean society. The Korean Wave, the influx of information, South Korea's economic prosperity, and its free social culture are the most fundamental threats to the North Korean system. North Korea's denial of the concept of ethnic nationhood and its attempt to eliminate the special character of inter-Korean relations are defensive measures aimed at shielding North Korean residents from the socio-cultural allure of South Korea.

However, on the other hand, this is also an offensive strategy. By defining South Korea no longer as a partner within the same nation but as a hostile state, North Korea seeks to expose South Korea as a target of possible nuclear strikes and to maximize the effect of political deterrence. As South Korea continues to deny North Korea's nuclear status and demand denuclearization, Pyongyang will increasingly frame this as a direct challenge to its constitutional sovereignty. That North Korea stated at this Party Congress that it has nothing to discuss with South Korea and will permanently exclude it from the category of fellow compatriots demonstrates this fundamental change in its South Korea strategy.

Ultimately, North Korea is likely to seek to treat South Korea not as a partner in negotiations but as a target of deterrence and pressure. The space for inter-Korean dialogue will narrow, the risk of military conflict will increase, and crisis management channels may weaken. As North Korea moves further from international attention, there is also a possibility that it will seek to heighten its presence by threatening South Korea and Japan. If it judges that nuclear and missile provocations alone are insufficient to command adequate attention, the possibility of cyberattacks, gray zone provocations, the creation of military tension in the West Sea and the Demilitarized Zone, and new provocations in the space and electronic warfare domains also cannot be excluded.

All of these changes demand a fundamental reconsideration of South Korea's North Korea policy. North Korea is no longer simply a state that has no choice but to come to the negotiating table because of economic difficulties, nor is it a partner capable of pursuing gradual reconciliation and cooperation within the framework of an inter-Korean national community. At the same time, North Korea is neither a fully self-reliant and stable nuclear power, nor a state that can become a winner in the multipolar era. North Korea is a contradictory state: it is increasingly dependent on nuclear weapons while its prospects for economic development weaken; it relies on China and Russia externally but cannot be guaranteed complete security and prosperity from them; and it defines South Korea as a hostile state while deeply fearing the widening gap with South Korea.

Therefore, South Korea's new North Korea policy must avoid both of the following illusions. One is the expectation that North Korea will soon collapse or will change its strategy through external pressure alone. The other is the expectation that if only the will for dialogue and cooperation exists, North Korea can return to the inter-Korean relationship framework of the past. While North Korea is likely to weaken over the long term, in the short term it can hold out for a considerable period through nuclear weapons, military provocations, internal control, and an external balancing strategy. Therefore, South Korea must establish a long-term North Korea policy with a 30-year horizon. This must not be a short-term, administration-specific policy, but a new national strategy that comprehensively integrates the transformation of the international order, the transformation of technological civilization, the continuity and vulnerability of the North Korean system, the reality of nuclear threats, changes in the ROK–U.S. alliance, and the widening gap between the two Koreas.

New Principles for South Korea's North Korea Strategy

South Korea's North Korea strategy must begin from the recognition that the present moment is a period of great transformation in the international order. The current changes are not a simple change of regime or a temporary change in the diplomatic environment, but a structural transformation comparable to the period when the era of U.S. hegemony began following the end of the Cold War in 1991. Since the post-Cold War era, the Korean Peninsula issue has been addressed on the basis of conditions including a U.S.-centered order, the liberal international order, the nuclear non-proliferation regime, the ROK–U.S. alliance, and the relative stability of U.S.–China relations. However, these conditions are now all simultaneously being shaken. The relative decline of U.S. hegemony, the long-term intensification of U.S.–China strategic competition, Russia's departure from the international order, the rise of the Global South, the weakening of nuclear non-proliferation norms, and the full-scale commencement of AI and advanced technology competition are all proceeding simultaneously. In this situation, South Korea's North Korea policy must become not merely a management strategy for inter-Korean relations but a national strategy that newly defines the position of the Korean Peninsula within a changing international order.

The North Korean nuclear issue and the Korean Peninsula issue take on the character of international problems. While the special character of inter-Korean relations exists and the historical context within the nation is important, the North Korean nuclear issue is already closely connected to the Northeast Asian security order, U.S.–China strategic competition, the nuclear non-proliferation regime, the ROK–U.S. alliance, the UN sanctions regime, and the foreign strategies of Russia and China. Therefore, South Korea's North Korea policy cannot be designed solely on the basis of dialogue and tension reduction within the Korean Peninsula. It is first necessary to judge in what direction the international order is changing, whether that change is short-term (a few years), medium-term (over a decade), or a structural shift that will persist for decades. The policy's time horizon must be adjusted accordingly.

What is needed now is the principle of a North Korea policy that looks at least ten years ahead into the medium and long term. Through the 9th Party Congress, North Korea formalized its permanent status as a nuclear-armed state, a hostile two-state relationship with South Korea, the doctrine of self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and self-defense, and a survival strategy within a multipolar world order. North Korea also defined its nuclear forces as the basic guarantee of the state's right to survival and development, and, even in its relations with South Korea, declared a hostile state relationship that excludes the concept of a shared ethno-national identity. This should be seen not as temporary negotiation rhetoric but as North Korea's long-term strategic line. South Korea must also respond by preparing a grand strategic approach that considers not five-year administration-by-administration North Korea policies, but the fluctuations of the international order and the long-term changes of the North Korean system together.

First, South Korea must reconfirm the principle of North Korean denuclearization at the level of international non-proliferation norms. North Korean denuclearization is not simply a matter of South Korean security alone. If North Korea's nuclear possession were to be de facto or legally acquiesced to, this would bring significant repercussions for the entire Northeast Asian region and the global nuclear order. If the trend of the legalization or international tacit acceptance of North Korea's nuclear armament solidifies, discussions of nuclear armament in Northeast Asia—including South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan—may spread rapidly. This will also affect the nuclear strategies of China and Russia, and will have a cascading impact on the security order of the Indo-Pacific and Europe. At the global level, the normative foundations of the nuclear non-proliferation regime will further weaken, and the possibility of nuclear war will inevitably increase over the long term.

Therefore, South Korea must realistically acknowledge the North Korean nuclear threat, but must not recognize North Korea's nuclear possession as a legitimate status. Politically, deterrence, an arms control-oriented approach, crisis management, and the strengthening of extended deterrence are necessary, but at the normative level the principle of denuclearization must be maintained. This is not an unrealistic slogan but a matter of preserving the minimum safety mechanisms of the international order. The moment the goal of North Korean denuclearization is completely abandoned, the UN sanctions regime and non-proliferation norms may rapidly be rendered powerless. Economic sanctions will also lose their international legitimacy, and China and Russia will gain the pretext to more openly support North Korea. Ultimately, the abandonment of the principle of North Korean denuclearization may appear to be a realistic short-term acknowledgment, but in the long run it can bring far more dangerous consequences for South Korean security.

Second, South Korea must maintain a minimum level of strategic consensus with China on North Korean denuclearization. It has become difficult for China to openly and forcefully pressure North Korea on denuclearization. As U.S.–China strategic competition intensifies, China views North Korea as a buffer zone in its strategic competition with the U.S. and as a geopolitical asset. However, China does not genuinely view North Korea's nuclear possession as desirable. This is because if North Korea's nuclear armament is legitimized, discussions of nuclear armament in South Korea and Japan will strengthen, U.S. nuclear strategy and missile defense systems in Northeast Asia will expand, and the nuclear competition across all of Northeast Asia may accelerate. This also conflicts with China's long-term security interests.

Therefore, in its relations with China, South Korea must not raise the issue of North Korean denuclearization merely as a tool of pressure against North Korea. Rather, strategic dialogue with China must be sustained with the goal of maintaining non-proliferation norms, preventing a nuclear domino effect in Northeast Asia, managing the Korean Peninsula crisis, and deterring the possibility of North Korean nuclear use. Even in a situation in which China finds it difficult to publicly advocate for North Korean denuclearization, efforts must be made to ensure that China internally shares the recognition that North Korea's nuclearization destabilizes the Northeast Asian order. This is a limited but important space in which South Korea can cooperate with China amid U.S.–China competition. South Korea must persuade China that the North Korean nuclear issue is not simply a matter for the U.S. and South Korea, but a problem that worsens China's own long-term security environment.

Third, South Korea must newly establish its U.S. strategy on the premise of changes in the U.S.'s North Korea nuclear strategy. In the future, U.S. North Korea policy is unlikely to revert to the comprehensive negotiations centered on denuclearization of the past. Even if President Trump re-pursues a U.S.–North Korea summit, the possibility that it will bring substantive progress on North Korean denuclearization is very low. North Korea has already entrenched its status as a nuclear-armed state in its constitution and party line, and the U.S. is also in a situation where it is difficult to treat the North Korean issue as the top foreign policy priority. It is also not highly likely that the U.S. administration after Trump will fundamentally reset its relations with North Korea. Rather, the U.S. is likely to invest more strategic resources in China containment, the Taiwan Strait, European security after the Russo-Ukrainian War, Middle Eastern instability, and advanced technology competition.

In such a situation, the priority placed on the North Korean issue within the U.S. may gradually diminish. The U.S. may place greater emphasis on limiting the direct threat to its homeland, preventing nuclear use, crisis management, and maintaining extended deterrence, rather than on North Korea's complete denuclearization. This may create a very dangerous situation for South Korea. If the U.S. pursues a limited agreement focused on the North Korean ICBM threat, or attempts to manage the U.S.–North Korea relationship without sufficiently considering the nuclear threat to South Korea, the credibility of the ROK–U.S. alliance may weaken.

Therefore, South Korea must systematize its strategic discussion with the U.S. far more thoroughly. ROK–U.S. policy cooperation on North Korea must go beyond simple policy coordination and become a process of building a shared strategic understanding of what position the North Korean issue occupies within U.S. China strategy, nuclear strategy, extended deterrence, alliance strategy, and arms control initiatives. South Korea must continuously emphasize to the U.S. that the North Korean nuclear issue is connected not only to the security of the U.S. homeland but to the credibility of the entire Northeast Asian alliance network. If U.S. extended deterrence weakens or the North Korean nuclear issue is reduced to narrow, U.S.-centric threat management, security anxiety in South Korea and Japan will increase and the Northeast Asian nuclear order will fall into greater instability. Therefore, South Korea must actively intervene to ensure that U.S. North Korea policy is designed within the overall strategic balance of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia as a whole.

Fourth, South Korea must prepare a long-term response strategy to Russia's support for North Korea. Following the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Russia–North Korea relationship has emerged as an important axis in North Korea's foreign strategy. North Korea seeks to alleviate its diplomatic isolation through military cooperation with Russia, obtain military technology and economic rewards, and raise its strategic value amid changes in the international order. However, the Russo-Ukrainian War will inevitably enter a new phase in some form—whether as a termination or an armistice. How Russia and Europe reset their relationship at that time will have a significant impact on the direction of the Russia–North Korea relationship.

In discussing North Korea policy, South Korea must not think of its Russia and Europe strategies as separate matters. How European states will handle Russia following the Ukraine War, whether Russia will remain in long-term isolation from Europe, whether a space for limited normalization of relations will emerge, and whether Russia will come to rely more deeply on Asia and North Korea are all connected to the Korean Peninsula issue. If Russia remains in long-term isolation from Europe, there is a possibility that Russia will further strengthen its military cooperation with North Korea. Conversely, if Russia comes to feel the need for post-war reconstruction and normalization of its external relations, excessive military cooperation with North Korea may become a burden.

Therefore, South Korea must strengthen strategic dialogue with Europe and highlight the fact that Russia's provision of military technology to North Korea simultaneously threatens both European and Northeast Asian security. The North Korean denuclearization issue is no longer solely a matter for South Korea, the U.S., and China, but is also connected to the European security order. The military technology, missile technology, space and reconnaissance technology, and electronic warfare technology that Russia can provide to North Korea will not only worsen security on the Korean Peninsula. They are also directly related to the international sanctions regime and Europe's Russia strategy. South Korea must ensure that the North Korean issue is not excluded from the process of European security restructuring following the Russo-Ukrainian War, and must pursue diplomacy aimed at raising Russia’s cost of using North Korea as a strategic card.

Fifth, South Korea must consistently point out the limitations of North Korea's perception of the international situation. North Korea is interpreting the current international order as the decline of U.S. hegemony, the advance of multipolarity, and the rise of an anti-imperialist self-reliance camp. However, the actual international order is far more complex than North Korea perceives it to be. The world is not simply moving from a U.S.-centered unipolar order to a bipolar order of China–Russia versus South Korea–U.S.–Japan. U.S.–China strategic competition will continue, but simultaneously economic interdependence and supply chain linkages, climate, finance, technology standards, and competitive cooperation with the Global South will operate in complex combinations. The interests of Russia and China do not fully coincide, and Global South nations will also not unilaterally be drawn into North Korean-style anti-U.S. solidarity.

Rather, the international order ahead is more likely to become a complex order in which great power transactions and selective cooperation, sectoral competition and limited compromise coexist. In such an order, North Korea may hold a degree of strategic value, but that value is not unlimited. China needs North Korea, but does not want North Korea's nuclear armament and provocations to trigger a nuclear domino effect in Northeast Asia. Russia can utilize North Korea, but it lacks the capacity to economically revitalize it over the long term. The U.S. must manage the North Korean issue, but is unlikely to treat it as the top priority. Ultimately, the full-scale support that North Korea expects is unlikely to materialize, and its economic difficulties will continue.

South Korea must consistently raise these realities to both the international community and North Korea. The idea that North Korea can obtain long-term prosperity through nuclear weapons and anti-U.S. solidarity alone is a miscalculation. If North Korea completely severs its relationship with South Korea and relies solely on China and Russia, North Korea is likely to become increasingly trapped in a more militarized and isolated economic structure. Rather than reinforcing regime security, this choice will ultimately diminish the system's potential for long-term development. South Korea must consistently demonstrate that, contrary to the propaganda logic of the North Korean regime, completely severing a relationship with South Korea is not a rational choice even for the long-term survival and development of North Korea.

Sixth, South Korea must prepare new inter-Korean cooperation measures that are not mechanically bound by North Korea's hostile two-state policy. North Korea's designation of South Korea as a hostile state and its denial of the special character of inter-Korean relations is a significant change. However, it is not necessary for South Korea to respond by abandoning in the same manner all historical, ethnic, humanitarian, and peaceful dimensions of inter-Korean relations. While North Korea's two-state theory may help in system defense in the short term by blocking the possibility of cooperation with South Korea, whether it is a strategy advantageous to North Korea in the long run remains to be observed. It is difficult for North Korea to achieve long-term development completely severed from South Korea's economic power, technological capability, cultural influence, and international standing.

Therefore, South Korea must not recognize or accept North Korea's two-state theory, but rather prepare new inter-Korean relationship concepts that transcend that framework. The past framework of an ethno-national community alone is insufficient to fully explain the changed reality, and a simple state-to-state relationship theory alone is inadequate to contain the historical particularity of the Korean Peninsula and the long-term possibility of integration. South Korea must explore new policy concepts that together encompass peaceful coexistence, humanitarian cooperation, crisis management, mutual threat reduction, improvements in residents' lives, and the long-term possibility of integration. This must be prepared in advance even in a situation where North Korea does not respond to dialogue. North Korea policy is not only necessary when North Korea cooperates immediately; rather, it must be prepared even more sophisticatedly during periods when North Korea refuses to cooperate.

New inter-Korean cooperation must not be designed around large-scale economic cooperation as in the past or centered on highly publicized political events. In a situation where North Korea is strengthening its nuclear forces and defining South Korea as a hostile state, unconditional cooperation is neither possible nor desirable. However, in areas such as humanitarian issues, public health, disasters, climate, environment, infectious disease, food security, border area safety, prevention of accidental conflict, separated families, access to information, and improvements in residents' lives, the possibility of long-term cooperation must be kept open. Even if North Korea invokes the hostile two-state policy, South Korea must continue to prepare the minimum space for inter-Korean cooperation at the level of the lives and safety of the residents living on the Korean Peninsula and the peace of future generations.

Seventh, the advent of the AI era must be reflected as a core variable of South Korea's North Korea strategy. In the future, the gap between North and South Korea will expand beyond simple differences in economic scale or military expenditure to encompass the entirety of technological civilization. AI, semiconductors, quantum technology, bio-industry, space, robotics, autonomous weapons, cyber, and the data economy will become the core of national capacity. North Korea may strengthen asymmetric capabilities in some military and cyber domains, but due to its closed political system, sanctions, limited infrastructure, low industrial base, and impoverished data ecosystem, it will be difficult to achieve the full-scale development of the AI era.

In this regard, South Korea is likely to hold an absolute long-term advantage over North Korea. However, this advantage must not be used solely as a means of pressure. South Korea must strengthen the ability to deter and defend against North Korea based on AI-era technological superiority, but must also simultaneously prepare the possibility of cooperation aimed at improving the lives of North Korean residents and designing the future of the Korean Peninsula as a whole over the long term. AI-based crisis prediction, prevention of military conflict, disaster response, healthcare support, improvement of agricultural productivity, environmental monitoring, border area management, and humanitarian aid systems can become new areas of inter-Korean cooperation in the future. Even if the North Korean regime does not immediately accept this, South Korea must prepare the technological, institutional, and diplomatic readiness for future cooperation.

Ultimately, South Korea's new North Korea strategy must combine the principle of denuclearization, deterrent capabilities, international cooperation, the ROK–U.S. alliance, strategic dialogue with China, multilateral diplomacy including Russia and Europe, long-term preparation for change in North Korea, and AI-era technological superiority. This is not a matter of simply choosing one of the past policies—the Sunshine Policy, the pressure policy, the engagement policy, or the sanctions policy. It is a matter of a long-term national strategy regarding what kind of Korean Peninsula South Korea will create within a changed international order.

The core of this strategy is long-term confidence. While North Korea may secure short-term deterrent power through nuclear weapons, it will be difficult for it to keep pace with South Korea in AI-era economics, technological civilization, international credibility, residents' quality of life, and institutional dynamism. South Korea must not consume this advantage through premature notions of unification by absorption or short-term pressure tactics. Rather, it must develop into a mature North Korea strategy that combines long-term peace, the maintenance of denuclearization norms, improvements in the lives of North Korean residents, Korean Peninsula crisis management, and the possibility of future cooperation. The future medium to long-term North Korea policy must commence on precisely these new principles.  ■ 

■ Chaesung CHUN is the President of the East Asia Institute and Professor of International Relations at Seoul National University .

■ Translated and edited by Sangjun LEE, EAI Research Associate; Inhwan OH, EAI Senior Research Fellow; Sowon KIM, EAI Intern.
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