North Korea Warns Seoul Could Face Collective Retaliation

On Sept. 25, 2026, Kang Chol-su, section chief at North Korea's Institute of Enemy State Studies, said in a KCNA commentary that South Korea will become a "decisive target of collective punishment." The United States maintains about 28,500 troops in South Korea. North Korea cited joint military exercises and U.S. deployments and said it had prepared countermeasures. Kang said Brunson "talked about the redesigning of the security of the Korean peninsula, stressing the need for the ROK and the U.S. to jointly cope with the threat from outside the Korean peninsula." That collective-defense framing—joint action against threats beyond the peninsula rather than defense of South Korea alone—is what Pyongyang treated as the shift. Kang called it a clearer attempt "to completely discard the deceptive veil of 'defense of the ROK'" and "tie the ROK to the aggressive 'collective defense' system for implementing the strategy for world hegemony." He said South Korea is playing "a suicidal role as top-class war servant of the U.S. by willingly accepting to increase its defense cost," and that the ROK "will become a decisive target of collective punishment." Kang presents the alliance purpose as hegemony and overseas use of Seoul; Brunson's quoted words only describe redesigning security and jointly coping with outside threats. No source confirms Kang's characterization. The record shows no South Korean or U.S. response.