In 2017, two people unknowingly working as proxies for North Korean intelligence approached Kim Jong Nam at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. In what they thought was a practical joke for a television program, the women took turns wiping Kim’s face with a cloth, which was later determined to be laced with a deadly chemical weapon, VX nerve agent. Kim’s nervous system began to shut down, and within minutes he was dead. North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, had successfully deployed a dangerous chemical weapon on foreign soil and assassinated his half-brother, deemed by the regime as a political threat. The assassination of Kim Jong Nam confirmed that Pyongyang had weaponized the covert delivery of chemical agents and had no hesitation in using them.

While significant focus is placed on Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, and rightly so, there is inadequate attention to the threat from the regime’s chemical and biological weapons programs. North Korea reportedly possesses a variety of chemical and biological agents. Despite decades of sanctions, the regime has proven adept at building and leveraging dual use industrial infrastructure to produce chemical and biological weapons. This infrastructure allows North Korea to maintain deniability while producing at scale. North Korea can deliver chemical and biological weapons in a variety of ways. Biological weapons can be introduced covertly into vulnerable supply chains. The regime has made plans to send special forces infected with biological agents into enemy territory. Moreover, conventional weapon systems, such as artillery and rockets, could deliver chemical and biological agents over large areas.

North Korea has multiple pathways to accelerate its biological and chemical weapons programs. Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) is one such pathway. CRISPR is a gene-editing technology that modifies DNA sequences to achieve various objectives. For example, an existing biological weapon could be modified to target specific animal, food, or human populations. Another pathway includes leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to augment gaps in scientific research. AI could both expand the threat from CRISPR or help North Korea develop entirely new weapons. North Korea’s deepening relationship with Russia is a third pathway. Russia has decades of experience developing and testing biological weapons going back to the Cold War, and has demonstrated its willingness to use chemical weapons for assassination and allegedly on the battlefield in Ukraine. A lack of consequences has undoubtedly given Moscow and Pyongyang the confidence to further develop these capabilities. Moreover, it is concerning that Russia appears to have few constraints on what knowledge and technology it transfers to North Korea. If Moscow decides to share its vast knowledge of chemical and biological weapons with Pyongyang, there is little Washington can do.

Beyond ethical considerations, Western military and political observers have long questioned the utility of these weapons on the battlefield. Chemical and biological weapons are sensitive to moisture, temperature, and other environmental factors. Does any of this matter to decisionmakers in Pyongyang? Consider that North Korea would not succeed in causing mass

casualties. It is plausible that the regime would be satisfied with causing mass disruption to military logistics, terrifying civilian populations, and complicating allied calculations and possible responses. In this scenario, Washington’s limited theater nuclear options may not credibly deter Pyongyang.

Furthermore, it is questionable whether a President would escalate to nuclear weapons, thereby risking North Korean retaliation against the homeland or elsewhere in the Pacific. This emboldens the regime, giving it confidence to engage in lesser forms of aggression with minimal risk. Kim’s confidence is likely to increase as his military capabilities modernize, his nuclear program becomes more sophisticated, and his relationship with Russia expands. Policy analysts and decisionmakers should avoid mirror-imaging and evaluate these issues from Pyongyang’s perspective.

North Korea has options. These options provide the regime with coercive leverage and mechanisms to escalate during a crisis or conflict. The evolving relationship between Moscow and Pyongyang, and Moscow’s potential role in a future conflict on the Korean Peninsula, is amplifying the danger. Given the rapidly evolving security situation, the United States should reevaluate its theater nuclear posture in the Pacific. However, to address the growing threat from North Korea’s chemical and biological weapons, Washington must consider a range of options. These include covert action, including cyber operations, against North Korean industry; strengthening preparedness and response infrastructure at home and abroad; and developing deeper insights into the regime’s strategic thinking on these issues through a comprehensive partnership between academia and government. Now is the time for Washington to think about the unthinkable.

Nathan A. Heard is an independent researcher and doctoral student in the Defense and Strategic Studies Program at Missouri State University, focused on deterrence issues and emerging threats. He holds a master’s degree in defense and strategic studies and a graduate certificate in countering weapons of mass destruction from Missouri State. Heard is the author of the graduate thesis “A Novel Deterrence Strategy: Denial Through Space and Cyberspace” (2025) and the article “The Coming Crisis with North Korea” (2026). The views expressed are his own.

North Korea Has Options was originally published on Global Security Review.

Ideology matters, as I learned from surviving 18 years under the Chavista regime in Venezuela. The United States pretended otherwise for three decades, clinging to the “end of history” and similar dreams. Today, with ideologically driven conflicts simmering around the world, it is time for America to integrate deterrence, defense, and a theory of victory across the so-called gray zone of geopolitics. Doing so will require policymakers to start listening to what America’s enemies have been saying for years about their ideological designs.

In 2004, when questioned about whether a Venezuela-Cuba alliance was exporting communist revolution throughout the Western Hemisphere, the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States averred: “It is a thing outdated in time and it is not understanding the relationships that exist between the countries.” That was a backhanded ‘yes,’ if there ever was one. The message was meant to assuage the busy, post-9/11 national security community, diverting attention away from the problems brewing south of the U.S. border. More than two decades later, the annual warnings of USSOUTHCOM Combatant Commanders before Congress have finally been heeded by the White House.

Ideology has been slapping America in the face since the late 1990s. For this era of refocusing on state-based threats, it comes in these forms and many others: Beijing’s obsession with employing “united front” organizations to silence dissidents overseas; Moscow’s obsession with Ukraine, kicking off a murky war in 2014 that is now sustained conventionally; Tehran’s obsession with aiding and abetting proxy martyrs of the Islamic Revolution; Havana’s and Caracas’ shared obsession with waging “asymmetric war” on Western powers (which included flooding the American homeland with illicit narcotics); and Pyongyang’s obsession with subverting Seoul’s political processes and civic life. All these gray-zone efforts have an ideology at the heart. Their ideologies, variously rooted in Marxism, religion, and revanchism, drive the leaders of these states to employ irregular warfare tactics without any remorse and at any cost to civilians in the West or anywhere else. You will not find high degrees of intellectual coherence between these constructs; shared hatreds and collectivist doctrines and dogmas are cohesive enough for what now amounts to an anti-Western coalition.

Anti-Western adversaries became sneakier when strategizing and aligning with those espousing similar worldviews. They also became more convinced of their moral superiority. The U.S. national security community makes arbitrary distinctions between geopolitics and ideology. These distinctions obfuscate reality, which is already tough to comprehend, and lead to poor policymaking. Nowhere is this weakness more prominent than in the domain of irregular warfare. How did ISIS carve out its domain between Iraq and Syria, for instance, if not through the aid of its ideology?

Discussing rival-state ideology in the Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security seems to generate discomfort despite some strides to understand strategic cultures. It started with the spectacular triumphs of 1991. After Saddam Hussein’s defeat in the First Gulf War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, international relations’ ideological variables have been marginalized in the Federal Government. The American bureaucrat could finally put ‘Sovietology’ to rest, and, with it, anything to do with alternatives to liberal internationalism. The term ‘Great-Power Competition’ continues the delusion; ‘strategic-ideological struggle’ captures reality much better.

Disclaimer: Ideologies are messy. Their study requires incredible levels of nuance, subtlety, cultural awareness, philosophical skill, and extensive interpretive room. It is not a field of expertise attuned nor prone to engineering solutions or linear responses, making it politically dangerous to confront ideological challengers. Bringing up ideology always risks alienating a group and hurting its feelings. Hence, American political leaders and senior officials have scarcely breathed a word about state-centric ideological conflict since the demise of the USSR.

This problematic approach is a vestige of America’s long-gone “unipolar moment.” Through mirror imaging, it takes our attention away from elements that the Western world’s rivals thrive on. Several foes of the West have developed highly complex irregular warfare doctrines, intelligently focusing on the types of operations that some of these actors can excel in, and backing off from the type of war that they know they cannot win. Because illegality is the common denominator to all irregular warfare activities coming from any type of challenger, ideological zeal and fervor are absolute strategic imperatives to the leaders of these revanchist entities. Indeed, during the Global War on Terror, we recognized it as an essential enemy warfighting capability. Ideology is the glue that authoritarians, totalitarians, and other extremists apply to bind together the domestic constituencies that they rely on for control and aggression. In ideology, those leaders find the corpus of thought and the narratives required to morally justify atrocities committed in pursuit of greed, territorial expansion, or a simple clinging to power.

Acknowledgement is growing that defeating mere symptoms of its rivals’ irregular warfare campaigns cannot bring American strategic victory or even achieve deterrence in the “gray zone.” Looking back at the U.S.-led quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq, more observers have called for defeating root ideologies, rather than just crushing the fighters who currently espouse a certain ideology’s flavor-of-the-moment (e.g., Taliban, al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, FARC, ELN, etc.).

Defeating our enemies must include defeating their ideologies. This no longer demands global wars in the traditional (conventional) military sense. To defeat regime ideologies, whole-of-government efforts require dusting off forgotten or atrophied competencies that America used to cultivate, including the ‘dark arts’ of U.S. foreign policy. Washington needs to articulate once again what it believes in, beyond vague notions of stability, and bring like-minded allies to our side.

David Guenni is completing his doctorate with Missouri State University’s Graduate School of Defense & Strategic Studies. His research focuses on nation-states’ employment of narcotrafficking as an irregular warfare modality. He is a Venezuelan political asylum seeker in the United States, having spent many years in the struggle against the Chavista regime in Caracas. His opinions are his own and no one else’s.

Why Ideology Matters in Irregular Warfare was originally published on Global Security Review.

Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK), as key American allies, should strengthen their conventional military capabilities, both offensive and defensive, to reinforce regional deterrence. Two critical steps are needed. First, Japan and South Korea must expand their capabilities to neutralize North Korea’s missile launchers. Second, Japan’s defense architecture should be aligned with South Korea’s Three-Axis System to create an integrated deterrence framework.

So far, to address concerns over potential nuclear decoupling, the US, Japan, and South Korea have explored multiple options. In addition to Washington’s repeated assurances that its nuclear extended deterrence remains intact, discussions have included modernizing American nuclear weapons, expanding nuclear-sharing agreements, redeploying tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea, and even the possibility of South Korea developing its own nuclear arsenal.

However, South Korea acquiring nuclear weapons remains highly improbable due to its significant political costs. From the 1960s to the 1980s, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member-states feared the US might hesitate to retaliate with nuclear weapons if the Soviet Union launched a nuclear strike on Europe. While NATO pursued multiple strategies—most notably the dual-key system and the deployment of Pershing II missiles—these measures never fully resolved nuclear decoupling concerns.

Ultimately, NATO never confronted the full extent of this dilemma as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Since the issue lies not in the US’s ability to retaliate but in its willingness to do so under specific conditions, the most practical approach is to adopt deterrence measures that North Korea perceives as credible.

First, Japan and South Korea should prioritize expanding their capabilities to neutralize North Korea’s nuclear missile launchers. A key advantage for the US, Japan, and South Korea—compared to NATO during the Cold War—is that North Korea is estimated to have around 50 nuclear warheads, far fewer than the tens of thousands in the Soviet arsenal.

In this context, Japan’s planned acquisition of enemy base strike capabilities should focus not only on expanding the number of available strike assets but also on improving their precision and destructive power to ensure maximum effectiveness against North Korean launch sites. At the same time, South Korea’s kill chain should further enhance its deep-strike capabilities by increasing assets like the Hyunmoo-4 missile, which is designed to penetrate deeply buried facilities.

Additionally, South Korea’s Drone Operations Command, established in 2023, should undergo a major expansion in drone assets capable of effectively detecting, tracking, and striking North Korean missile launchers. By integrating high-precision missiles and unmanned systems, both Japan and South Korea can significantly reduce North Korea’s ability to deliver nuclear strikes, thereby reinforcing deterrence.

Second, as Japan and South Korea expand their strike capabilities, Japan’s defense architecture should be aligned with South Korea’s Three-Axis System. This integration would allow both countries to allocate their finite military assets more effectively when targeting North Korea’s nuclear-related ground units. For example, given the geographic distance, Japan could focus on striking fixed targets such as command centers and underground missile storage sites while South Korea concentrates on eliminating mobile launchers that require rapid response and precision strikes.

Additionally, harmonizing Japan and South Korea’s missile defense structures would improve the likelihood of intercepting North Korean missiles. While Japan has developed its missile defense in close coordination with the United States, South Korea has opted to develop its own independent missile defense system, instead of fully integrating into the American-led ballistic missile defense framework.

However, aligning the two countries’ missile defense systems would significantly enhance regional interception capabilities. A fully integrated defense network would not only establish a more layered interception system against incoming North Korean missiles but also enable earlier response times—as Japan and South Korea deepen their real-time missile-tracking cooperation—South Korea’s response times could improve further. By improving both offensive and defensive coordination, Japan and South Korea can maximize deterrence and reduce North Korea’s nuclear strike effectiveness.

By implementing these measures, North Korea would be left with only a limited number of launchers capable of delivering nuclear weapons. While it is possible that some missiles could still be launched from the remaining launchers and a few might evade American missile defenses, North Korea would have to consider allocating few nuclear warheads against Japan, South Korea, and the United States. This would be necessary both to achieve its long-term political objectives and to deter US-ROK combined forces and US Forces Japan (USFJ) from retaliating in the short term.

Moreover, North Korean leadership would face significant uncertainty about whether its remaining nuclear missiles could successfully penetrate American missile defenses. In essence, by increasing their conventional strike capabilities and aligning their military strategies, Japan and South Korea could ensure that a substantial number of North Korean launchers are neutralized. This would force Pyongyang to operate with significantly reduced military options, making its attempt to create nuclear decoupling less credible.

However, this strategy is only viable as long as North Korea’s nuclear arsenal remains limited. If Pyongyang dramatically expands its warhead stockpile and launch platforms, conventional deterrence alone will no longer be sufficient, and the risk of nuclear decoupling will escalate beyond control. The US, Japan, and South Korea must act decisively—before the balance of power shifts irreversibly in North Korea’s favor. Time is running out.

Dr. Ju Hyung Kim, CEO of the Security Management Institute, a defense think tank affiliated with the South Korean National Assembly, is currently adapting his doctoral dissertation, “Japan’s Security Contribution to South Korea, 1950 to 2023,” into a book.

Strengthening Nuclear Deterrence in the Far East was originally published on Global Security Review.