The Biden administration has released its 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS), along with its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and Missile Defense Review (MDR). Outlining U.S. policy and strategic priorities on a range of matters related to national defense, the documents have implications for the nuclear deterrence relationship between North Korea and the U.S.

But across the documents, the Pentagon does not treat the DPRK as a primary threat to the U.S. That distinction is reserved for China — which the administration’s National Security Strategy calls the “only country with both the intent to reshape the