Inter-Korean impasse

North Korea’s military personnel dismantled some of the country’s loudspeakers along the border with South Korea on Saturday, days after South Korea’s forces said they completed removing the 20 or so loudspeakers on its side. Seoul stopped blasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda, world news, and K-pop music into the North in June. Pyongyang followed suit, turning off its broadcasts of gunshots, explosions, and screams across the border.

The two countries have engaged in intermittent loudspeaker wars over decades. Seoul’s attempts to ease tensions with Pyongyang come as left-leaning President Lee Jae Myung, who took office in June, seeks to improve relations with the North. While the North appears to reciprocate the South’s efforts, it is also deepening its ties with Russia, which could make resuming diplomacy with the South less of priority.

Since Lee began his term, he has banned activists from flying balloons filled with anti-Pyongyang leaflets to the North. South Korean police also detained six Americans in June for trying to float more than 1,000 bottles containing rice, miniature Bibles, $1 bills, and USB sticks by sea to the North from South Korea’s Ganghwa Island. Authorities are investigating the Americans for allegedly violating safety and disaster law.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister Kim Yo Jong has spurned the South’s attempts to restart dialogue. “We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it,” she said in a statement. There is “neither a reason to meet nor an issue to be discussed.”

The North sees less need to engage with the South “because it’s getting far more benefits from Russia with far fewer conditions,” said Bruce Klingner, senior fellow at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation. The Washington, D.C.–based think tank focuses on U.S.-Asia relations. North Korea has supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by sending artillery systems, shells, and missiles in return for food, fuel, funding, and likely some kind of military technology, Klingner said. He added that this exchange with Russia buffers the effect of international sanctions on North Korea.

Pyongyang has received between $9.6 billion and $12.3 billion from Russia, according to estimates from the Center for Strategic and International Studies based in Washington, D.C. North Korea has provided up to 12 million rounds of ammunition—at least half of the munitions Russia has fired on Ukraine—hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles, and up to 15,000 troops and 15,000 laborers.

Last year, the two countries ratified a mutual defense treaty that stipulates immediate military assistance if either side comes under attack. At the same time, Klingner doubts Russia would send troops to North Korea.

Amid threats from North Korea’s expanding nuclear weapons program, South Korea and the United States will conduct their annual large-scale joint military drills from Aug. 18 through Aug. 28 in South Korea. Seoul has postponed about half of the 40 field exercises until September, citing concerns over the hot weather. Many consider the postponement, which could become an eventual cancellation, another conciliatory gesture from the Lee administration to Pyongyang.

The North, however, accuses the countries of staging a “direct military provocation” and has vowed a “resolute counteraction posture” against the upcoming drills. In March, Pyongyang fired ballistic missiles into the sea in response to U.S.-South Korea joint training.

Lee and U.S. President Donald Trump are expected to discuss defense cooperation and trade at their first summit, set for Aug. 25 in Washington. Klingner believes the United States will likely push South Korea to pay more for the American troops stationed there and to increase its defense spending from the current 2.8% of its gross domestic product to closer to 5%, as NATO members committed this year. Klingner also thinks the United States, seeking to reorient its forces in the Pacific more toward the China threat, could reduce the 28,500 U.S. troops currently stationed in the South.

Lee’s administration has so far been “very pragmatic” in trying to not alienate the United States, North Korea, and China, Klingner said. “But the jury’s still out,” he said. “There’s a lot of questions here in Washington as to what his policies will be.”