As President Donald Trump escalates military pressure on Iran, with signs mounting that the U.S. leader will once again make good on his threat of action, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un watches on under a nuclear shield.

Unlike Tehran, which has never produced nuclear arms despite long lingering at the precipice, Pyongyang pushed forward with developing weapons of mass destruction, conducting its first test two decades ago despite international condemnation. North Korea has since advanced on other fronts, including testing missiles capable of striking the United States, thus securing for the nation a level of deterrence more on par with great powers like China and Russia—both of which have come to de facto accept the neighboring state’s nuclear status in recent years.

As for Washington’s outstanding opposition, neither pressure nor diplomacy—both of which Trump employed extensively during his first administration—have convinced Kim to abandon weapons he views as vital to his nation’s survival, perhaps today more than ever during his 14-year reign.

“I have long held the view that the North Koreans successfully deterred the United States with their nuclear weapons,” Ankit Panda, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Nuclear Policy Program and leading North Korea nuclear expert who has provided analysis for U.S. officials, told Newsweek.

And as Kim now oversees the latest quinquennial Korean Workers’ Party Congress, complete with military displays showcasing the progress of the country’s armed forces, Panda argued that this strategic insurance policy “factors into it in a different way” since the U.S. strikes that targeted Iranian nuclear facilities in June and the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at the hands of a U.S. Delta Force raid in January.

“The bottom line is that the North Koreans are going to stand as vindicated, that they do not face the types of regime-ending challenges that might potentially face Iran in the coming days and weeks, and certainly the kind that Maduro has to endure at the hands of the United States,” Panda said. “And so nuclear deterrence does provide a level of assurance to the North Korean leadership that is very difficult to find through any other means.”

The Great Gambit

North Korea’s nuclear story began early on under the years of Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, who first led the communist nation established with Soviet support opposite U.S.-backed South Korea following World War II. While both the Soviet Union and China would provide crucial aid to North Korea throughout the devastating war between the two sides on the Korean Peninsula in the 1950s, neither Moscow nor Beijing proved willing to directly assist Pyongyang’s desire to establish its own nuclear arsenal.

Thus, North Korea’s path to the bomb in the following decades was forged through largely indigenous efforts that relied on illicit intelligence and material acquisition networks and reverse engineering. By the 1990s, as Kim Jong Il became the second-generation ruler of North Korea following his father’s death, U.S. officials had concluded that Pyongyang was on its way to nuclear breakout, leading to a 1994 crisis during which then President Bill Clinton seriously considered military action.

Diplomacy ultimately prevailed in the form of the Agreed Framework, followed nearly a decade later by the Six-Party Talks launched in 2003 after North Korea scrapped its participation in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). That same year, the U.S. led an invasion of Iraq on the pretext of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein allegedly developing weapons of mass destruction, while Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi opted to shutter his nascent nuclear program in exchange for better ties with the West, only to be toppled in a 2011 uprising backed by NATO.

North Korea took a different path. As the Six-Party Talks involving China, Japan, Russia, the U.S. and both Koreas continued, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in October 2006, becoming the latest nation to date to demonstrate such capabilities.

Iran, whose nuclear facilities are believed to have received some level of assistance from North Korean experts, did not follow suit, instead continuing to ramp up nuclear activities just short of weaponization until the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The JCPOA was ultimately abandoned by Trump during his first term in 2018, just as the U.S. leader embarked on historic direct talks with Kim Jong Un in a bid to achieve a peace-for-denuclearization agreement that unraveled the following year.

“The North Koreans have not learned anything that they didn’t already know,” Panda said. “Their view has long been that Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi made the fatal error of diplomatically acquiescing to the United States on non-proliferation, and they paid the price.”

“And I think the case of the Iranians in particular is going to be perplexing for the North Koreans,” he added. “This kind of strategy that they’ve pursued for so long after the collapse of the JCPOA, to basically remain at the threshold of a nuclear capability, which backfired pretty spectacularly last year, I think confirmed that there is a meaningful difference between weaponized deterrence which the North Koreans enjoy and non-weaponized deterrence which the Iranians certainly did not enjoy.”

This privileged position deeply complicates any prospect of Trump seeking to reignite the escalation-to-diplomacy cycle he pursued with Kim during his first term and has since wielded to greater effect against other adversaries.

“The North Koreans are basically playing hard to get, and they want the United States to make the first move,” Panda said. “They are sitting pretty. They have nuclear weapons. They’re making more of them. They’re making them better. They’re getting assistance from Russia. It’s a very good world if you are Kim Jong Un right now, and so he can afford to wait.”

Diplomatic Maneuvering

Pyongyang’s growing ties with Moscow have also afforded a new layer of support for Kim. While the two nations have always maintained close ties, dating to their Cold War-era partnership, their bonds have been reinvigorated on the battlefield for the first time since the Korean War, with an estimated figure of more than 10,000 Korean People’s Army personnel backing Russia’s war in Ukraine, along with a steady flow of North Korean military aid.

The strategic partnership agreement signed between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin in June 2024 also marks the first time that North Korea has codified a mutual defense pact since the long-standing friendship treaty established with China back in 1961. Beijing and Moscow have also shifted away from backing international sanctions on Pyongyang’s nuclear program, abstaining at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for the first time in May 2022, months after the Russia-Ukraine war began.

“Sure, North Korea’s growing WMD and conventional arsenal would make any U.S. president think twice before applying the kind of pressure Trump has applied in Venezuela and Iran,” Joel Wit, founder of the Stimson Center’s 38 North project and a former State Department official who helped negotiate the 1994 Agreed Framework, told Newsweek. “But just as, if not more, important is that both Russia and China are now helping Kim evade any sanctions, very different from Trump’s first term in office.”

“Moreover, it’s debatable how effective any pressure on North Korea, especially sanctions, have been in the past given Pyongyang’s extensive overseas smuggling network,” Wit said. “And for the past decade, the North Koreans have been earning a huge amount of money through cybercrime, much more than in traditional smuggling operations.”

While China and Russia had also forged close ties in various sectors with Iran and Venezuela, neither partnership ever rose to the level of security guarantees. Backlash to U.S. operations targeting the two nations was limited to expressions of condemnation, with both nations appearing to prioritize their bilateral interests in dealing with the Trump administration.

When it comes to North Korea, both the nation’s nuclear arsenal and its international ties, the product of a strategic balancing act between China and Russia over the years, means Trump may need to find a different paradigm.

“North Korea is a de facto nuclear weapons state, with a sizable arsenal of nuclear warheads that can be mated to ballistic missiles,” Joseph DeTrani, former CIA director of East Asia Operations and associate director of national intelligence and mission manager for North Korea, told Newsweek. “The Hwasong/20—and previous ballistic missiles like the Hwasong/17 and 18—can reach the whole of the U.S. This is the BIG difference with Iran and Venezuela—they don’t have nuclear bombs that can target the U.S. Also, Russia and China will make sure the UNSC does not further sanction North Korea.”

“Yes, KJU said the U.S. would have to accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state,” DeTrani said. “We say no, but it’s a conditional no.”

Rather than continue a maximalist approach, like the so-called “Libya model,” he advocated for a phased, longer-term strategy that may still seek to achieve North Korea’s denuclearization after a series of measures intended to boost trust and collaboration.

“Hopefully, we are now apparently willing to make denuclearization the last phase of a likely long process, with security assurances, economic development assistance, civilian nuclear energy, lifting of sanctions and a path to normal relations all preceding talk of complete and verifiable denuclearization,” DeTrani said. “This could take one or more decades before we in fact talk about complete and verifiable denuclearization.”

A lack of engagement, he warned, may only mean facing an even more brazen and well-equipped North Korea down the road.

“They will continue to upgrade their hypersonic program (to defeat missile defense systems), their nuclear-powered submarine program and AI-enhanced drones,” DeTrani said. “Russia most likely is helping with all of these programs, but certainly with their nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Indeed, KJU is enhancing his deterrence capabilities, big time. There is no comparison here with Iran and Venezuela.”

“And it’s mainly for this reason why President Trump should again meet with KJU—to de-escalate tension on the Korean Peninsula,” he added. “An emboldened KJU may do something provocative with South Korea; and that could escalate quickly. North Korea has been testing their tactical nuclear weapons, which could be used if there’s conflict with South Korea. And this, also, could escalate.”

Reached for comment, a State Department spokesperson told Newsweek that “the United States remains committed to the complete denuclearization of North Korea.”

“President Trump pursued historic diplomacy with North Korea during his first term—resulting in the first leader-level commitment from North Korea to denuclearize,” the spokesperson said.

‘Sleeping Dogs’

Since entering the Oval Office for a second nonconsecutive term in January 2025, Trump’s statements on North Korea have largely been limited to fleeting references, often positive characterizations of his “great relationship” with Kim, as Trump said most recently during his October trip to South Korea.

Trump explained at the time his reason for not reaching out to Kim during the trip was because the U.S. leader was “busy.”

“I think it would’ve been maybe disrespectful to the importance of this meeting if we did that,” Trump told reporters in Busan. “So, I’d come back with respect to Kim Jong Un.”

Kim has also often avoided direct criticism of the U.S. leader despite a routine salvo of condemnation being fired against U.S. foreign policy decisions through state media organs. When addressing the Korean People’s Assembly in September, Kim said that he still had “good memories” of his dealings with Trump, opening the door for renewed talks on the condition that the U.S. “drops its hollow obsession with denuclearization and wants to pursue peaceful coexistence with North Korea based on the recognition of reality.”

For the time being, however, both sides appear to be relatively content with the status quo.

“North Korea has always played an extremely long-term game,” Thomas Countryman, chair of the Arms Control Association board who previously served as acting undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, told Newsweek. “Even though they are often characterized as acting impulsively or unpredictably, they’ve been very consistent about the leader’s perceived need to have nuclear weapons to guarantee regime security.”

“And I expect—although I am certainly no expert on how the man thinks—that the U.S. actions in Iran and Venezuela have further convinced him he was right all along,” Countryman said. “I think it’s also kind of smart for both supreme leaders—Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim—to not try to rush this issue, not try to look for a solution right now.”

For Kim, Countryman argued, there’s a lack of urgency “because he’s not being pushed. He’s got time to work on other weapon systems. He knows he has a credible minimum deterrent,” while for Trump, “he’s got no good answers. And in fact, to try to make a deal with North Korea this time would only detract from the kind of pressure that he’s trying to put on everybody else.”

“I think that if [Kim] is as smart as he’s usually been, he will not seek provocative language towards the United States like he’s made towards the ROK and towards Japan,” Countryman said, “but it is a good time for him to let sleeping dogs lie, and the Trump administration towards North Korea is sleeping right now.”