In 2022, North Korea launched at least 59 ballistic missiles in an estimated 31 rounds of test firings, according to Japan’s defence ministry. The previous record was 25 missiles launched in 2019.

One North Korean source studying the history of the secluded nation’s Kim dynasty said Pyongyang has been eager to demonstrate that the country has enough military power to meet the challenge posed by the US and its allies.

There were two noteworthy events in North Korea last year. One was a speech delivered by Kim during an April 25 parade to mark the 90th anniversary of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army. In the speech, Kim indicated his willingness to use nuclear weapons in war. In North Korea, the supreme leader’s words were taken as a sign of his readiness to launch preemptive nuclear strikes. This jibes with his professed goal of commencing mass production of tactical nuclear weapons this year.

A second key development was a flurry of missile launches and artillery firings the North conducted in September and October, including a ballistic missile that flew over Japan.

These two notable events both took place at times when a US aircraft carrier was near North Korea. Kim’s speech in April was delivered shortly after a strike force led by the USS Abraham Lincoln was deployed in waters off the Korean Peninsula. In late September, another US nuclear-powered carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, arrived in the South Korean port of Busan for a joint exercise with South Korea, the first such drills involving an aircraft carrier in five years. In both cases, Pyongyang reacted fiercely.

“Pyongyang fears American aircraft carriers more than anything else,” said the North Korean source. “This fear may be hard to understand for people in the West.”

Kim and other North Korean leaders apparently believe the biggest threat to their survival comes from state-of-the-art stealth fighters like the F-35, which can carry nuclear warheads. The carrier-based aircraft could strike all major North Korean military facilities and carry out decapitation operations against the leadership. Most of North Korea’s radars and other air defence facilities are old systems from the Cold War era, vulnerable to air attacks. North Korean leaders know they have no way to fight high-tech aircraft that have entered the country’s airspace.

North Korea launched so many missiles in 2022 simply because it has no other weapons with which to threaten its enemy. Unlike the US and South Korea, it has neither advanced fighter jets nor strategic bombers, the source said. The North apparently does believe that the US is the one menacing the country, not the other way around, and has hardened its resolve to do everything it can to avoid the fate of Iraq or Libya.

Kim’s reference to the possibility of staging a preemptive attack can also be seen as an act of countering the threats posed by the US, Japan and South Korea.

At the end of March, a few weeks before Kim’s speech at the military parade, the US department of defence announced an outline of its Nuclear Posture Review, which said maintaining an effective nuclear deterrent was “a top priority,” in an apparent effort to reassure its allies that depend on US nuclear capabilities. In his campaign for the March election, now-President Yoon Suk-yeol talked about the need to secure preemptive strike capability against any potential attack.

In Japan, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, even before he took office, expressed his intention to make Japan’s Self-Defence Forces capable of launching counterstrikes against enemy bases.

With its weak economy, North Korea is ill-prepared for an arms race. Its leadership is well aware that the Soviet Union pushed itself into a corner by engaging in a costly arms race with the US, which had imposed economic sanctions on the country.

Even so, Pyongyang has no choice but to compete with the US, according to the North Korean source. “The US and South Korea have demonstrated overwhelming military power, and North Korea fears that it would have to make major concessions if it holds talks with the US,” he said. “Pyongyang believes that it cannot defend the country unless it meets the threat head-on, and spending a large amount of money on missiles is unavoidable.”

To meet this challenge, North Korea has been accelerating development of low-cost drones and spy satellites.

At the end of last year, five North Korean drones crossed into South Korea, one of which entered a no-fly zone around its presidential office. The possibility of the drone taking photos of the presidential compound fuelled criticism against the Yoon government in South Korea.

Kim seems to have realised the military potential of drones long time ago. “Kim Jong-un apparently believes all his regime needs is nuclear missiles, military drones and special forces,” said a former senior official of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party in 2016.

In fact, North Korea already had military drones before 2018, when it briefly pursued a dialogue with the US after bilateral relations had improved from a sharp deterioration in the previous year.

Both the US and South Korea are well aware of North Korea’s Achilles’ heel and have been trying to exploit its weakness. Between late October and early November, the two conducted a major joint exercise involving 240 aircraft. After the North responded by test-firing missiles, the US sent aircraft such as B-1B and B-52H bombers and F-22 stealth fighters to the Korean Peninsula as warnings.

But as seen in its missile development, North Korea moves at a different pace from the West, gradually and patiently overcoming its technological and other weaknesses through a trial-and-error approach. Its current five-year defence plan, now in its third year, calls for the operation of a reconnaissance satellite and the development of unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. Local media said the country will complete the work to launch its first spy satellite by April 2023.

It seems that the North has become more confident about its military power, as it did not cease its provocations during the recent US-South Korea joint exercise, according to pundits. But that means the two sides will continue to raise the ante as they play a game of chicken, making the current situation more dangerous than ever before.