With Kim Jong Un’s self-proclaimed year-end deadline expiring without any major weapons testing, January 2020 began with the announcement of North Korea’s new “head-on breakthrough battle” policy line.

Kim Jong Un, replacing for the first time his annual New Year’s Address with a readout of the four-day party plenum at the end of 2019, proclaimed that a “long-term confrontation with the U.S.” was inevitable, vowing to continue developing “strategic weapons” and to maintain its “nuclear deterrent.”

During and after the party plenum, January 2020 saw a series of high-level personnel changes in North Korea