Last week, Pyongyang blamed Washington for trying to exacerbate bilateral relations, pledging that the DPRK will “build up more reliable force to cope with the long-term military threats from the US”.
Experts have warned that North Korea may launch an attack, including a cyber effort, on the US presidential election scheduled for 3 November.
Sung-Yoon Lee, the Kim Koo-Korea Foundation professor in Korean Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Massachusetts-based Tufts University, was cited by Fox News as saying that Pyongyang “will be able to test how far and to what extent it can damage the US election system”.
“It would be surprising if North Korea did not test its abilities during the election”, he added.
Yoon also pointed to North Korea's increasing psychological and political pressure on Washington, Pyongyang's “main adversary”.
He suggested that the DPRK will try to become “a major concern to the integrity of the US election system”, which Sung-Yoon described as “a rational consideration for North Korea”.
“And it's unlikely that North Korea may pay any kind of real penalty in the wake of meddling in the US election. Any response to a future North Korean cyber attack must be firm”, he pointed out.
According to the expert, the main thing is not to allow Pyongyang to “feel further emboldened, to interfere in the US election system, or to blatantly violate UN Security Council…