Over the last two months, the regime in North Korea has indulged in an astonishingly vitriolic outburst of rhetoric. This has occurred mainly in keeping with the growth of UN sanctions against the rustic and the resumption people-South Korean Foal Eagle military exercises at the Korean Peninsula in March.

North Korea opened this one-sided disagreement with threats to make use of its ‘lighter and smaller’ nuclear weapons to show its enemies’ strongholds right into a ‘sea in flames’. Since then, its rhetorical volleys have ranged from the overall (issuing warnings of its troops’ state of readiness for ‘all-out-war’), the categorical (reminding the usa that its air forces on Guam are ‘within the striking range’ of North Korean missiles), the indirect (warning diplomats in Pyongyang to go away for his or her own safety), or even the self-destructive (stating the country’s intention to ‘close the [Kaesong industrial] zone without mercy’).

Yet with both-month-long exercises now drawing to a detailed, the item of the North’s chagrin (be it sincere or not) has receded. And having marked the birthday of the deceased ‘Dear Leader’ Kim Il-sung on 15 April, Pyongyang may feel that it has fuelled the revolutionary fires of its people sufficiently to last through to the following Kim family anniversary. Moreover, despite the pervasive atmosphere of crisis, over the past two weeks the stream of threats from the North has subsided and not using a shot being fired.

But while the storm now seems to have passed, developments that experience emerged in its midst could yet complicate future efforts to enhance the protection situation at the Korean Peninsula. Particularly, decisions taken by North Korea and the U.S. could now put diplomatic common ground even further out of reach.

In March, for instance, Pyongyang announced that it should restart the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons, rapidly undoing one of the notable successes of multilateral diplomacy up to now. Satellite imagery means that the North has indeed begun construction work around its mothballed nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, whose cooling tower was destroyed in 2007 as a ‘striking visual’ of its commitment to disarmament.

This is concerning: consistent with Siegfried Hecker, who visited the Yongbyon complex in 2010, the North could conceivably bring this reactor online within weeks and begin adding weapons-grade plutonium to its meagre stockpiles within three to four years. If this involves pass and the North regains an open-ended nuclear warhead stockpile, Pyongyang’s next outburst could be harder to shrug off, with this nuclear acceleration becoming the backdrop against which future North Korean and US postures take shape.

Indeed, one of the vital greatest unknowns of late have been the degree to which Pyongyang’s threats are shaped by the non-public approach of the country’s new leader. By the point the late Kim Jong-il assumed power in 1994, he had grown conversant in the conduct of his country’s foreign policy through his gradual assumption of responsibility. His son, Kim Jong-un, has had no such luxury, having been thrust into the North Korean system upon his father’s death with little experience in leadership or foreign relations. Therefore, he and Western governments remain poorly acquainted, making a correct assessment of Pyongyang’s latest outbursts each of the more difficult.

The latest conflict is the primary intensive exchange between Kim Jong-un’s North Korea and the West, which include its East Asian allies. There’s now little question that Kim Jong-un will adhere to the country’s historic ‘military-first’ policy or traditional modus operandi of megaphone diplomacy. In reality, he has enhanced those approaches, uttering unusually specific and severe threats and taking selective action to illustrate national resolve.

It should be asked, therefore, whether we must always expect this level of bellicosity at any time when the usa and South Korea conduct joint military exercises at the Korean Peninsula, or a brand new UN Security Council resolution imposing sanctions is passed.

There are two possibilities during this respect. The primary is that Kim Jong-un regards this crisis as a way of testing international responses to his actions, while also gaining maximum propaganda benefit and demonstrating his capacity to steer politically and militarily. In other words, through a risky exchange together with his adversaries, Kim Jong-un can have learnt what most successfully creates fear or causes pause in foreign capitals. Indeed, selective action to take advantage of international uncertainty in regards to the North’s military capabilities, including the deployment of mobile missile launchers, is probably going to was seen as having proven useful in attracting the eye of Washington and Seoul. So, too, could have been the limited self-harm caused, as an example, by the disruption of operations on the Kaesong Industrial Zone – an industrial complex just about the border with South Korea, operated jointly by both countries and employing greater than 50,000 North Koreans.

Similarly, Kim Jong-un could have learnt which threats are most quickly dismissed as bluster, notably his recommendation that diplomats in Pyongyang evacuate. With this experience under his belt, North Korea’s new leader would possibly not necessarily see the necessity to test his adversaries within the same way next time.

The second possibility, conversely, is that Kim Jong-un, in trying to consolidate his power over an uneasy military, might have created expectations that he’s going to continue to cope with external ‘aggressors’ with a noisy voice and a company hand.

Should he continue this behaviour, however, he may face diminishing propaganda returns as adversaries become acquainted with the increased level of antagonism. And while ‘business as usual’ with North Korea may turn out to be conducted more loudly under the young Kim than under his father, there can also be an unidentified threshold beyond which Washington and Seoul will now not see the relative advantage of enduring North Korea’s taunts, however ‘standard’ they could become. This becomes a particularly salient consideration as Pyonyang’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programmes advance, adding credibility to its threats.

Longer-term efforts to minimize tensions through multilateral diplomacy will likely even be complicated by the new posturing of parties to the conflict. A more regular dialogue between these parties wouldn’t likely bring a swift end to North Korea’s nuclear programme. However it could help to diffuse, and avoid, the kind of tensions witnessed of late, if, it is, concerned nations could agree on what to speak about. It’s here that the best divide now lies.

In an try to moderate tensions with North Korea on a visit to the region in April, US Secretary of State John Kerry publicly stated Washington’s openness to nuclear talks if certain conditions were met: most crucially, that North Korea demonstrate it has ‘the will to denuclearize’. His statement, however, would not represent an incredible departure in US policy: this conditional offer has, in theory, been quietly at the table for a while.

North Korea, for its part, retaliated with its own list of conditions which might convince it that the usa ‘truly stand[s] for dialogue’. These include an apology for the new provocations, an end to UN sanctions, a withdrawal of all nuclear-capable US assets from the region, and a pledge never again to conduct military exercises at the Korean Peninsula.

Indeed, Pyongyang isn’t interested by talks aimed toward its unilateral disarmament, some degree upon which it has become increasingly clear. The National Defence Commission declared flatly in January that North Korea does not denuclearise until the arena does so – a position confirmed by the Supreme People’s Assembly in its statement that nuclear weapons are ‘the nation’s life’, thereby cementing their role in national identity and security policy.

Whilst active, the Six-Party Talks – a chain of negotiations that began in 2003 between China, america, North and South Korea, Japan and Russia, and were abandoned by North Korea in 2009 – involved three multilateral working groups. One concerned with peaceful energy co-operation, chaired by South Korea; another at the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, chaired by China; and the third on broader regional peace and security, chaired by Russia.

The first of those topics is presently unappetising to most countries, especially the usa, South Korea and Japan. The second one is of little interest to Pyongyang in light of the emphasis put on nuclear weapons in its national doctrine, and as North Korea charges ahead with its nuclear development, Washington will continue to wish North Korea to comply with nuclear talks, instead of the reverse. So long as this remains the case, Pyongyang is unlikely to be tempted to the table for talks on denuclearisation.

However, Pyongyang has a robust interest in keeping the third avenue for dialogue open, within the hope that it could result in security assurances or the replacement of the armistice agreement with a peace treaty. Unsurprisingly, however, Washington rejects the potential of a peace treaty while Pyongyang has an active nuclear-weapons programme.

As a result, despite immense tensions, not one of the Six-Party Talks working-group topics currently seems palatable to any of the countries involved. Statements and actions throughout this crisis have only widened this vast gap in understanding, and that’s difficult to foresee anything within the near term that may create common ground.

Although unlikely, it’s possible, however, that developments over the arriving years will compel parties to back clear of their respective positions. Once the restarted reactor at Yongbyon becomes fully operational, as an example, the temptation for North Korea to work out this as a bargaining chip to elicit concessions in other areas will rise. Therefore, Pyongyang may remain unwilling to go into talks on ‘denuclearisation’, but will, while, grow more open to nuclear-focused talks with out a inherent or specific goal.

Similarly, because the first- and second-order effects of the North Korean issue combine with other regional security problems, the usa may find itself embroiled in an internet of tensions between North and South Korea, Japan and China. At this point, a non-nuclear-specific, multilateral dialogue on regional peace and security won’t look so undesirable to Washington.

Putting the possibility of this outcome aside, it really is nonetheless clear that, despite some echoes of past experience inside the latest tensions with North Korea, new and important decisions were taken by both Pyongyang and Washington which, if adhered to, could complicate the safety situation at the peninsula. Pyongyang may have a more diverse and steady supply of weapons-grade fissile material, while Kim Jong-un, perhaps emboldened by his country’s nuclear advancement and driven by domestic pressures for assertiveness and continuity, might lock himself into responding with equal belligerence in future. In the sort of context, common ground for dialogue, peculiarly between the U.S. and North Korea, will remain non-existent.

North Korean behaviour is usually spoken of as a cycle of escalation and de-escalation. And indeed, 2013 has already served as an invaluable reminder that even once tensions with Pyongyang recede, traces will endure, potentially adding new threads to an already daunting knot.

Andrea Berger and Hugh Chalmers
Research Fellow and Research Analyst, Nuclear Analysis, RUSI.