North Korea won't strike U.S. first despite inflammatory threats, experts say

Oren Dorell | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption North Korea: Trump is a coward who deserves to die It’s no secret that President Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un have been feuding for months. But the Pyongyang’s state media evidently had enough of Trump's insults to the dignity of their “supreme leader.”

Despite repeated threats to incinerate the United States with its nuclear weapons, North Korea takes pains to note it won't strike first.

The over-the-top rhetoric is often misinterpreted in the West, but North Korea has been consistent in saying it is developing a nuclear arsenal solely to ward off a first-strike by the U.S. military, said Van Jackson, an analyst at the Center for Strategic Studies at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.

“North Korea makes pretty inflammatory statements all the time,” said Jackson, who wrote Rival Reputations Coercion and Credibility in US-North Korea Relations, about the history and credibility of U.S. and North Korean threats. “But largely ... defensive if-then things.”

North Korea has promised to launch a nuclear strike that would turn the U.S. homeland into “a sea of fire” if attacked. It recently tested an intercontinental missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

More: Is it time for U.S. concessions to defuse North Korea crisis? China says yes.

More: Two months without a North Korean missile test is a record for this year: Cause for hope?

While such threats are "extremely colorful and poetic ... they’re not going to attack us out of the blue," Jackson said.

President Trump has followed a similar script, warning that the U.S. will annihilate North Korea if it strikes first.

Addressing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in a speech to the South Korean parliament Nov. 8, Trump said: “Do not underestimate us, and do not try us. We will not allow American cities to be threatened with destruction. We will not be intimidated."

In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly Sept. 19, Trump warned that “the United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”

On Oct. 20, Choe Son Hui, who heads the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s North American Department, reiterated her country's self-defense message at a Moscow conference on nuclear non-proliferation.

"Our leader Kim Jong Un has explained our stance: We will coerce the Americans to peace and respond to fire with fire,” Choe said, according to the official Russian news agency Tass. “We have nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, but we will not use them if there is no threat."

"Our weapons are meant for protecting our motherland from the permanent U.S. nuclear threat,” she said. "The U.S. has to get along with the DPRK’s nuclear status,” she added, using the acronym for North Korea.

More: North Korea on Trump's Asia visit: He deserves death

More: China sending special envoy to North Korea days after Trump's visit

More: At United Nations, Trump threatens to 'totally destroy North Korea' if it continues on nuclear path

Choe later added that talks with the U.S. could proceed if Trump stops threatening her country. “For a diplomatic and peaceful resolution to happen, the right atmosphere must be formed,” she said, according to the South Korean daily The Hankyoreh. “But North Korea cannot sit down at the negotiating table when there are threatening tweets from President Trump every day.”

Choe’s speech came three days after an Oct. 17 statement was published on the state-controlled website Uriminzokkiri in response to reports that the U.S. is considering using low-yield nuclear weapons to destroy the North's nuclear facilities.

It described U.S. naval forces arrayed in the seas around North Korea for joint drills with South Korea, including the nuclear-power aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, an Aegis destroyer, a missile cruiser and nuclear-armed Ohio class strategic nuclear submarines.

“The Trump group should think twice about what terrible consequences the U.S. will face due to its scheme for a nuclear attack on the DPRK,” it said. “The U.S. reckless military gambling against the DPRK may lead to its total destruction.”