Watching a North Korean missile launch, Seoul, South Korea, March 2020
Heo Ran / Reuters
Editor’s Note: On July 16, 2024, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment alleging that Sue Mi Terry had acted as an unregistered agent of the South Korean government, citing this article as well as articles in other publications. Foreign Affairs requires all contributors to disclose any affiliation or activity that could present a genuine or perceived conflict of interest or call into question the integrity of their work. We take these allegations very seriously.
Among the more overlooked geopolitical developments in 2022 was North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. During the year, it