The world has long been focusing on the threat to international peace and security posed by North Korea's missile and weapons of mass destruction programs, in particular its development of nuclear weapons. The threat posed by Pyongyang's increasing reliance on cybercrime and blockchain exploitation has also rightly drawn global attention and concern.
The COVID-19 epidemic, however, presents a new and invidious threat that has the potential to emanate from North Korea and threaten global security. Given its proximity to countries with major outbreaks of the new coronavirus, its virtually nonexistent medical infrastructure outside Pyongyang, and its political culture of secrecy and deception, North Korea represents a human petri dish that could prove a source for major international infections.
Ironically, repeated missile tests by North Korea have seemingly desensitized world opinion, despite multiple violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions. Recent photos of Kim Jong Un published in the official newspaper of the North's ruling Workers Party, showing him viewing a missile launch, have drawn attention primarily because the senior military officials accompanying him were wearing black face masks. This image, strangely evocative of Hollywood Western movie portrayals of villains, demonstrated strikingly how North Korea is taking extreme precautions to contend with the COVID-19 infections.