U.S. officials, experts pick N.K.-triggered crisis among plausible top-tier contingencies in 2024

▲ This photo, carried by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Dec. 31, 2023, shows the North's leader Kim Jong-un (C) attending a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea the previous day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

think tank-N Korea threat

U.S. officials, experts pick N.K.-triggered crisis among plausible top-tier contingencies in 2024

By Song Sang-ho

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 (Yonhap) -- U.S. officials and experts have singled out a possible North Korea-triggered security crisis as one of top-tier contingencies deemed plausible this year, a U.S. think tank report showed Thursday, as Pyongyang has ratcheted up tensions through hardened rhetoric and its focus on military reinforcement.

The Center for Preventive Action under the Council on Foreign Relations released the report, entitled the "Preventive Priorities Survey 2024," where about 550 U.S. officials, experts and academics responded to the possibility of conflicts around the world that may need Washington's timely policy action.

The report put a potential North Korea-driven crisis on the "Tier I" list of eight contingencies. Contingencies were sorted into three tiers with Tier 1 being the top category involving events more likely to happen with "high" impacts on U.S. interests.

The top-tier list includes a protracted war between Israel and the Hamas militant group, an escalation of Russia's war in Ukraine as well as a cross-strait crisis, which could arise from China's increased pressure toward Taiwan.

"An acute security crisis in Northeast Asia triggered by North Korea's further development and testing of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles," the report said in its listing of Tier I scenarios in the year.

The report characterized the North Korea-related contingency as a "moderate"-likelihood one with a "high" impact.

Concerns about North Korea's potential saber-rattling have run deep as Seoul's National Intelligence Service raised the possibility of the recalcitrant regime engaging in provocative acts ahead of South Korea's parliamentary elections in April and the U.S. presidential vote in November.

The report's Tier II list includes an escalation in violence between Turkish forces and armed Kurdish groups within Iraq or Syria, and Chinese actions in the South China Sea, especially toward the Philippines, leading to an armed confrontation involving China, the United States, and U.S. allies.

On the Tier III list are potential cases involving Afghanistan, Haiti, Sudan, Somalia and other countries.

The survey was launched in 2008 to alert U.S. policymakers to potentially threatening sources of instability and conflict overseas so as to help them take timely action.

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