A warning from South Korea’s top general reflects a deeper reality: as the Kim regime faces mounting internal strain and ideological erosion, provoking the South has become an indispensable, last-resort strategy for regime survival.

North Korea’s pre–party congress rocket test and pledge to expand its nuclear deterrent signal that Kim Jong Un is preparing more provocations going forward—not from confidence, but from deepening insecurity, having watched sanctioned regimes like Iran and Venezuela begin to fall under U.S. pressure.