North Korea Updates Constitution on Nuclear Retaliation

North Korea’s recent constitutional amendment now stipulates that a nuclear reprisal will be mandatory if leader Kim Jong Un is assassinated by an external force.

This change appears to be a direct response to the U.S.-Israeli operation that eliminated Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his key advisors during a strike on February 28.

According to the revised Article 3 of the nuclear-policy law, “If the command-and-control system over the state’s nuclear forces is placed in danger by hostile forces’ attacks … a nuclear strike shall be launched automatically and immediately.”

The decision for this revision likely took place during a session of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly that began on March 22 in Pyongyang. It was only recently disclosed to senior officials in South Korea, as reported by the New York Times.

While Kim Jong Un already had control over the country’s nuclear arsenal, this constitutional change underscores the protocol for retaliation in the event of his assassination.

As noted by Andrei Lankov, an international relations scholar at Kookmin University in Seoul, “This may have been policy before, but it has added emphasis now it has been enshrined in the constitution. Iran was the wake-up call. North Korea saw the remarkable efficiency of the U.S.-Israeli decapitation attacks, which immediately eliminated the greater part of the Iranian leadership, and they must now be terrified.”

Additionally, the constitutional amendment redefines North Korea’s borders, emphasizing its separation from South Korea by removing references to reunification. Changes to Article 2 introduce a territorial clause, noting that North Korea’s land includes areas “bordering the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation to the north and the Republic of Korea to the south.”