Spy satellite launches on Korean peninsula bode ill for peace

The launching of spy satellites has caused the border buffer agreement between North Korea and South Korea to fall apart, amid more military drills and missile tests – and a diplomatic breakdown

Gabriela Bernal

Published: 9:30am, 7 Dec 2023

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A new, dangerous layer has been added to the already tense situation on the Korean peninsula. Both Seoul and Pyongyang have successfully launched their first spy satellites, boosting their ability to surveil each other.

North Korea launched its satellite on November 21 after two failed attempts earlier this year. Although South Korean intelligence claims that Russian help was responsible for the successful launch, evidence to support this has not been made available.

North Korea also announced plans to conduct more launches soon while saying that its new satellite has sent back detailed images of major South Korean cities, American military bases in Guam and Hawaii, and the White House.

Immediately after the launch, South Korea partially suspended a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement in which the two Koreas agreed to de-escalate tensions along the border. The actions agreed on in the deal included halting field training exercises and stopping live-fire artillery drills near the Military Demarcation Line, designating no-fly zones and establishing maritime buffer zones.

Soon after its decision, the South Korean military deployed surveillance drones and reconnaissance aircraft near the border with the North.

North Korea has now fully scrapped the deal, calling Seoul’s move a “reckless act” while adding that South Korea “will be held wholly accountable in case an irretrievable clash breaks out between the north and the south”. North Korea’s state-run news agency posted an article by an unnamed military commentator that said the border buffer zone was now “completely destroyed and the unpredictable danger of war is escalating”.

The situation reached a new low point last weekend, however, when South Korea launched its spy satellite from the Vandenberg US Space Force Base in California using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. According to South Korean military officials, the satellite will help in the early detection of a North Korean nuclear or missile attack while bolstering the South’s pre-emptive strike capability.

Although South Korea sees the launch as a major win, the immediate consequences will not be greater security but instead higher tensions and possible military clashes with the North, which views South Korea’s satellite launch, paired with its decision to suspend part of the 2018 military accord, as attempts by the Yoon Suk-yeol government to divert attention away from domestic political issues.

Beyond mere rhetoric, the possibility of a military clash, even conflict, is increasing on the Korean peninsula. With the 2018 border buffer agreement effectively dead and South Korea reacting to North Korean actions in kind, there seems to be little room for a de-escalation of tensions.

On the contrary, the chances of clashes taking place next year are higher than they have been in years. While the world feared conflict in 2017 amid inflammatory rhetoric from both the US and North Korea along with multiple North Korean nuclear and missile tests, the situation this time around could escalate much more quickly.

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The North has refrained from conducting any nuclear tests for more than six years. Instead, it has expanded and modernised its military and missile programmes, and has now gained the capacity to launch spy satellites into space.

Even though tensions escalated last year due to the relentless tit-for-tat series of military provocations by both the North and South, an actual clash between the two militaries was avoided. But will the same be possible in the coming months with the 2018 buffer agreement no longer in place? The answer is uncertain.

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Meanwhile, neither the United States nor South Korea is showing any sign of changing its strategy, choosing instead to continue to prioritise deterrence and a military-centred approach.

After North Korea’s satellite launch, the US imposed new sanctions against “foreign-based” agents while South Korea’s ministry of foreign affairs blacklisted 11 North Koreans believed to be connected with the country’s satellite and ballistic missile development.

With the land and maritime buffer zones on the Korean peninsula gone, the US and South Korea pursuing joint military drills, and North Korea likely to continue testing more missiles and to launch more rockets, the chances of accidental clashes along the border are high.

And neither side seems genuinely interested in pursuing diplomacy. Although Washington continues to express its willingness to talk to Pyongyang, the North accuses the US of being “double-faced”, its actions (such as deploying nuclear-powered vessels to the South) not aligning with its words.

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Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, made her country’s stance clear in a statement published last week, saying it “will never sit face to face with the US” as long as the latter keeps pushing to negotiate away North Korea’s “sovereignty”. Seoul also seems uninterested in diplomacy, with the South Korean defence ministry announcing on December 4 the third test flight of a solid-fuel space rocket for surveillance operations.

President Yoon has made his disinterest in engaging diplomatically with the North abundantly clear, arguing instead that “true peace is built on overwhelming and strong power, and a firm will to use that power at any time to protect oneself”.

The chances of such power being used for offensive purposes, however, continue to rise with every action the South takes in response to the North.

Gabriela Bernal is a North Korea analyst and PhD scholar at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, South Korea