Early next year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is expected to present the new Joe Biden administration with a provocative housewarming gift, most likely a missile test. This aggressive conversation piece would seek to shift attention back to the Korean Peninsula and kickstart diplomacy on Pyongyang’s preferred terms. But experts fear this move would not only advance North Korea’s capabilities and threaten the United States and its allies, but also produce the opposite of Pyongyang’s intended effect. North Korea’s belligerence would elicit international condemnation, necessitate economic and military countermeasures, undermine the peace-building constituency, and precipitate a downward spiral that could take years to reverse.
