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Dangerous illusions over North Korea
By Yong Kwon
Apr 26, 2012
Reeling from North Korea's provocative rocket launch, the international community is shining the obligatory spotlight of shame on Pyongyang. As always the rhetoric of condemnation came from around the world and the United Nations even gained China's consent in the joint statement chastising North Korea. However, the monochrome analyses of the situation by policymakers and "experts" reflects how the world will continue to be ineffective in dealing with the North Korean problem.
In a recent article on Foreign Affairs, Jennifer Lind identified some of the reasons why the US has been rendered immobile on the Korean Peninsula: Pyongyang's unpredictability, the catastrophic consequences of North Korea's collapse, and the regime's nuclear capabilities. [1] Professor Lind's conclusions are not out of the ordinary, but her contextualization of the launch within a "long history of unpunished provocations" provides an interesting insight on a common shortfall in popular analysis of North Korean foreign policy.
Lind presumes a single linear narrative from the 1968 hijacking of the USS Pueblo to the 2010 shelling of the Yeonpyeong Island. While all these events share the common theme of North Korean instigation and Washington's inaction, without attempting to assess the various factors that motivate Pyongyang's provocative behavior, the broad interpretation of events implicitly reinforces the presupposition that North Korea's leaders act irrationally or without calculating risk.
Deprived of context, the provocations appear to be a mere application of brute force seeking immediate gratification (US hostages, death of South Korean politicians, etc) without long-term strategic gains. Yet evidence suggests that North Korea, like other states, practices doctrines, assumes legacies, and responds to international conditions. This is not to insinuate that Pyongyang's every move falls within some grand strategy, but there is no need to encourage an oversimplified interpretation, especially when there is empirical evidence that reveals the complexity of Pyongyang's foreign policymaking rationality.
The 1968 Pueblo crisis highlights this fact. Since Pyongyang did not share its intentions to hijack the US navy intelligence ship with other communist states, North Korea's true rationale behind the provocation remains unknown. Nonetheless, new documents uncovered in the archives of former communist states by the Woodrow Wilson Center underscore several key factors that were present in North Korea's decision-making process. Most recently, documents from the archive of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs note how Pyongyang may have sought closer ties with Beijing in 1968 by aggressively engaging Seoul and Washington. [2]
If cooperation with China was what incentivized North Korea's provocations during the Pueblo crisis, then Pyongyang would have been forced to reassess its behavior when China's relations with the United States shifted in the 1970s. This is consistent with the dramatic decrease in violence on the peninsula during the US-China detente despite Pyongyang maintaining hostile intentions towards Seoul. [3] Furthermore, this also explains why scholars have been unable to identify a singular motive running through North Korea's maritime provocations against South Korea in the Yellow Sea; Pyongyang is relentless responding to changes in the international environment. [4]
In short, there is little value in looking at the different North Korean provocations without assessing their causes and circumstances because each event developed from strategies responding to realities of that period of conflict. The manifestations of these strategies often appear violent and provocative because they are built upon pre-existing military tensions on the peninsula.
Failure to see all these variables at play results in a redundant assessment that yields no useful recommendation to break the tragedy and suffering in Korea. Likewise, while Lind is correct to criticize the ineffectiveness of current US policy that merely revolves around sanctions, she too does not present anything new.
Going forward, analysts and policymakers of the international community must keep in mind the current realities that will affect North Korea's strategic thinking. Pyongyang's willingness to forfeit the nutritional aid promised in the "Leap-day Deal" highlights the regime's readiness to combat the international order. Many see the rocket launch as a precursor to a nuclear test; in particular, now that the satellite has failed to enter orbit, experts suggest that the North Korean state may feel compelled to prove its destructive capacities to its citizens. [5]
Meanwhile, Moscow and Beijing's quiet responses to the rocket launch indicate that even in the event of a nuclear test, neither of Pyongyang's major supporters is likely to do anything substantial to reprimand the regime. On the contrary, growing Chinese investments and Russia's vision of a trans-Korean pipeline protect North Korea from rebuke that would jeopardize continued cooperation in these key projects. Pyongyang is undoubtedly aware of this and acts accordingly.
Despite solid support from China and Russia, North Korea is still dominated by extreme insecurities. In order to maintain parity with Seoul, Pyongyang has to project its greatest asset: the regime's apparent willingness to go to war. (See Calculus of an existential war Asia Times Online, April 21, 2011.)
However, since the sinking of the South Korean frigate Cheonan and the shelling of the Yeonpyeong Island, the North Korean military cannot attack physical assets in South Korea without provoking a serious response. Therefore, Pyongyang must choose other means to project deterrence. Rocket launches and nuclear weapons tests accommodate the needs of the state perfectly.
Recognizing that Pyongyang is motivated by insecurity, Washington's best chance of bringing stability to the region is to play a high stakes game where the US offers North Korea recognition, security, etc, in exchange for the nuclear program, ballistic missiles, and more.
Former ambassador Morton Abramowitz suggests exactly this approach and recommends sending a senior level official such as the vice president to negotiate. [6] While Abramowitz recognizes the inherent political challenges associated with dispatching such a senior politician to a rogue state, it is hard to see an alternative method of dealing with this crisis without broaching the subject of what the North Korean state most desires.
Washington bears the burden of dealing with Pyongyang. Allowing instability to overtake the region will be costly and unsafe for both North Korea's neighbors and North Koreans themselves. The fastest way for this to occur is if the US elects not to negotiate at all.
Unfortunately, this is most likely to happen in a sensitive time like an election year. Nonetheless, US policymakers must dispel the long-held assessment that North Korea will not alter its behavior under any circumstances and move forward towards engagement. Pyongyang will respond to changes, but Washington must initiate these changes.
The alternative is for the whole world to carry another security and humanitarian crisis into the decades to come. The time for change is now.
Notes
1. Jennifer Lind. "Why North Korea gets away with it." Foreign Affairs, April 12, 2012.
2. "This Warmongering State of Mind: New Materials on the Korean Crisis of 1968." NKIDP E-Dossier #5, April 20, 2012.
3. Christian F Ostermann and James Person. "The Rise and Fall of Detente on the Korean Peninsula, 1970-1974." NKIDP Critical Oral History transcript, July 2010.
4. Michishita, Narutshige. "North Korea's Military-Diplomatic Campaigns, 1966-2008." London: Routledge, 2009.
5. "Admission of failure." The Economist, April 13, 2012.
6. Morton Abramowitz. "Storms Brew in Pyongyang." National Interest, April 6, 2012.
Yong Kwon is a Washington-based analyst of international affairs
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/ND26Dg01.html
North Korea: Calculus of an existential war
By Yong Kwon
Apr 21, 2011
The general lack of knowledge regarding North Korea and its security concerns has forced observers into a dangerous habit of establishing conclusions based on limited information. The resulting trend has skewed analysis of North Korean history and foreign policy to confirm the characterization of North Korea as a state solely driven to sustain the hereditary regime of Kim Jong-il.
This widely propagated interpretation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK's) raison d'etre precludes that the North Korean state does not share the needs and wants of other sovereign states. However, North Korean foreign policy appears to be fundamentally driven by "state-survival," rather than the often touted "regime-survival". More specifically, all of Pyongyang's
pursuits focus on simultaneously deterring and undermining its existential foe, South Korea.
North Korea's heir apparent Kim Jong-eun is due to visit the People's Republic of China and analysts have already begun to dispense a cloud of speculation on the ramifications of his visit. Small details such as Beijing's request for the young Kim to fly into China instead of taking his father's armored train are attracting a lot of attention. At the same time experts on international security and weapons control speculate that North Korea may conduct a third nuclear test in the near future. [1] In the case that these two events coincide, even if out by a few months, the media will be choked with theories on the cursory connection between the regime's succession and nuclear weapons.
Nonetheless, until explicitly verified by documented evidence, this kind of analysis should be considered a hasty misinterpretation of Pyongyang's national interest. North Korea is unlikely to play the nuclear ticket to simply justify succession to its own people.
There is a legitimate debate among scholars of North Korean history regarding the influence of domestic conditions on Pyongyang's foreign policy. Mitch Lerner posited the hypothesis that Pyongyang's provocations in 1967-1968 targeted North Koreans themselves, to convince the public that self-defense was a cause worthy of economic sacrifice. [2] However, even in this example, the end-goal of the state remained deterring and undermining the regime in Seoul by focusing North Korea's industrial capacity on militarization.
Recognizing the hierarchy of motives poses difficulties when analyzing the behavior of most other states. Alexander George termed this the "value trade-off dilemma" and criticized analysts who implied that states compromised one "irreducible" national interest for another. [3] North Korea stands as a strong counter-example to the norm; the central tenant of any North Korean policy can be reduced to defending itself against the existential threat posed by South Korea.
Nuclear weapons were not produced spontaneously as a reaction to any one particular domestic or external condition, but as a calculated long-term strategy to ensure deterrence against South Korean-American forces. Archival evidence compiled by the North Korea International Documentation Project in Washington reveals a long-term effort by Pyongyang to acquire nuclear weapons and missile technology, disregarding Sino-Soviet relations, inter-Korean dialogue, detente, etc. [4] New evidence on North Korea's nuclear regime remains consistent with the theory that South Korea poses such threat through its sheer existence that North Korea cannot accept peaceful coexistence under the existing political paradigm.
Taking this historic assessment into account, Narushige Michishita posited key points that should form the basis for analyzing North Korean military and diplomatic strategy.
First, "an element of surprise has almost always been an important ingredient in North Korea's military actions, implant[ing] in our minds an impression that the North Koreans are 'crazy.'"
Second, "none of North Korea's major military-diplomatic actions have been primarily caused by domestic political factors".
Third, "the contention that North Korea tends to undertake military actions when it faces a hostile international environment is not true. History suggests it has initiated military [actions] when the international environment was favorable as well as when it was not." [5]
Taking these assessments in mind, the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island must be understood within context of North Korea's long term military strategy going back to the formative years of Pyongyang's military doctrine. From Pyongyang's perspective, the South Korean military with staunch US support and far greater capital could easily overwhelm the military firepower of the impoverished North. In order to maintain deterrence, random attacks on South Korea demonstrating its military capabilities increasingly become a necessary facet of Pyongyang's military strategy.
However, both Pyongyang and Seoul recognize the fact that the DPRK could not possibly maintain the balance of power on the Korean peninsula. Seoul is currently pursuing the purchase of Russian-made Murena assault hovercrafts and American Apache attack helicopters, both of which are expected to radically tilt the military parity in the favor of the South Korean military. [6] In addition, South Korea is expected to deploy a missile defense system by 2015, further undercutting North Korea's conventional deterrent offensive capabilities. [7]
The North Korean leadership came to the conclusion that it could not maintain conventional military parity with its southern counterpart in the 1970s after observing South Korea's impressive economic growth and the China's reluctance to support the DPRK. Subsequently, it abandoned the policy of waging a "people's war" in the South and opted for nuclear warfare. This consideration was made outside domestic reasons such as succession or other political interests. It was a visceral decision to maximize North Korea's prospects for survival.
In retrospect, the North Korean rationale proved incredibly prescient. It recognized early on that it would not be able to compete with South Korea's industrial output and will fall behind in military buildup. Therefore, the construction of nuclear weapons offered a pragmatic solution to maintaining an effective deterrence and allowing Pyongyang to continue military provocations against Seoul.
The failure to recognize North Korea's perception of South Korea as an existential threat yields confusion as to why Pyongyang cannot simply denuclearize or stop provocations against the South. Therefore, analysts search for the answer elsewhere: in the North Korean succession issue. However, the nuclear issue will continue to dominate the regional political scene whether or not Kim Jong-eun succeeds his father. At the same time, regime change in Pyongyang will not alter the established military doctrines and strategy of North Korea. The same goes for the prospects of the six-party talks yielding anything constructive as North Korea will not ever genuinely eliminate its nuclear weapons program and abolish its doctrine of deterrence unless it is prepared to abolish itself. Nuclear weapons have become a part of North Korea's identity.
The question of whether Pyongyang expresses a rational fear aside, the real question is how to change the fundamental political dynamic to both sustain South Korea and stop provocations from the North. For now, it does not seem like anyone has an answer.
Notes
1.) Katz, Lee Michael. "Ex-U.N. Panel Head Worries About Another North Korean Nuke Test." Global Security Newswire, April 11, 2011.
2.) Lerner, Mitch. "'Mostly Propaganda in Nature:' Kim Il Sung, the Juche Ideology, and the Second Korean War." NKIDP Working Paper #3, Dec. 2010
3.) George, Alexander L. Presidential Decision-Making in Foreign Policy. Boulder: Westview Press, 1980.
4.) "North Korea's Nuclear Program" NKIDP Virtual Archives
5.) Michishita, Narutshige. North Korea's Military-Diplomatic Campaigns, 1966-2008. London: Routledge, 2009: 3.
6.) Byeongseon, Chung. "'Our Russian high speed hovercraft…' North-South war over the 'Murena.'" Chosun Ilbo, April 2, 2011.
7.) Yong-won, Yu. "In four years we will strike down missiles targeting out capital and nuclear reactor." Chosun Ilbo, April 16, 2011.
Yong Kwon is a Washington-based analyst of international affairs.
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