In January, two veteran Korea watchers — Robert Carlin and Siegfried Hecker — published a provocative short piece that argues that, “like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war.” Carlin and Hecker contend that in the wake of the Hanoi Summit’s failure in 2019, the Kim regime abandoned North Korea’s thirty-year goal of normalizing relations with the United States. Citing recent shifts in government rhetoric and policy, they warn that “the situation may have reached the point that we must seriously consider a worst case” — meaning North Korean military action backed up by nuclear weapons.

Alarmist claims about North Korea are common, but the piece raised eyebrows precisely because the two analysts are not known for them. Both are widely respected and eminently credentialed: Carlin is the former head of the Northeast Asia Division in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department, and Hecker is a former director of Los Alamos who has actually visited North Korean nuclear facilities.

Their argument was provocative enough that it even garnered coverage in the mainstream press, with NBC News asking in a headline: “Is Kim Jong Un preparing North Korea for war?” While the Korea-watcher community has been skeptical, the article does raise some questions: what would lead two dovish analysts to warn of a strategic shift by North Korea? Is it possible the Kim government really has decided to go to war?