North Korea and Nuclear Weapons

7 STABILITY OR INSTABILITY?

The US Response to North Korean Nuclear Weapons

Terence Roehrig

THE POSSIBILITY of North Korea relinquishing its nuclear capability is a fading memory. Indeed, North Korea will likely continue to grow its nuclear weapon stockpile to maintain a small nuclear deterrent along with land-based mobile ballistic missiles and eventually a ballistic missile submarine. A June 2016 study put Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons arsenal at thirteen to twenty-one warheads based on separated plutonium and enriched uranium.1 North Korea destroyed the cooling tower at Yongbyon in 2008, largely a symbolic act, but reports indicate it has been restarted, possibly providing the capability of producing one additional nuclear weapon per year, in addition to any output from its uranium-enrichment program.2

Nuclear deterrence is a core element of North Korea’s national security strategy to maintain the survival of the North Korean regime. In his 2015 New Year address, Kim Jong-un declared: “The present situation, in which high-handedness based on strength is rampant and justice and truth are trampled ruthlessly in the international arena, eloquently demonstrates that we were just in our efforts to firmly consolidate our self-reliant defence capability with the nuclear deterrent as its backbone and safeguard our national sovereignty, the lifeblood of the country, under the unfurled banner of Songun.”3 Finally, in the formal announcement of the January 2016 nuclear weapon test, North Korea proclaimed that “there can neither be suspended nuclear development nor nuclear dismantlement on the part of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) unless the United States has rolled back its vicious hostile policy toward the former. The army and people of DPRK will steadily escalate its nuclear deterrence of justice both in quality and quantity to reliably guarantee the future of the revolutionary cause of Juche for all ages.”4 Thus, Northeast Asia will need to learn to live with a nuclear-armed North Korea.

For years, scholars and analysts have debated the role nuclear weapons play in state behavior. Studies have focused on the dynamics of US-Soviet relations during the Cold War and the impact nuclear weapons have had on new entrants to the nuclear club such as India and Pakistan.5 International relations scholars have often examined this issue in the context of the stability-instability paradox whereby possession of nuclear weapons helps to maintain strategic stability but then allows the possibility of provocative behavior at lower levels because nuclear weapons provide a shield that makes escalation unlikely. Early in the Cold War, B. H. Liddell Hart argued that “to the extent that the H-bomb reduces the likelihood of full-scale war, it increases the possibilities of limited war pursued by widespread local aggression.”6 For Korean security, this literature provides a framework for examining the impact of North Korean nuclear weapons on the region. Whether the stability-instability paradox will accurately describe security under a nuclear North Korea is uncertain and, at this point in time, does not appear to have made North Korea any more tolerant of risk than it has been in the past. However, these considerations remain important elements for which officials and military planners need to remain vigilant.

While scholars have addressed the role nuclear weapons might play in emboldening state behavior, less has been done to examine how other states respond to a more risk-tolerant adversary. The US response to North Korea is a case study of how states might react to the possibility of an emboldened adversary at both strategic and nonstrategic levels and the degree to which these measures are effective. US actions have largely been in three areas. First, US policy, often described as “strategic patience,” has sought to obtain a diplomatic solution to the problem of denuclearizing North Korea. Washington has offered to open a dialogue with North Korea so long as the goal of the talks is DPRK denuclearization. But if the DPRK continues to ignore its commitment to give up nuclear weapons as spelled out in the 2005 Six-Party Talks agreement, Washington will maintain the sanctions regime against North Korea and bolster efforts to prevent Pyongyang from proliferating materials and expertise to other nuclear aspirants.

Second, the US military has also sought to address the evolving North Korean military challenge at both strategic and lower levels with the goal of strengthening deterrence while improving the ability to respond should deterrence fail. Through increased joint planning and preparation, the United States and South Korea have sought to increase their capability and resolve to deter and, if need be, respond to North Korea’s growing nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Finally, the United States has worked with its two regional allies, South Korea and Japan, to reassure them of the US defense commitment and build combined, trilateral military capabilities and cooperative security arrangements to better defend these allies should deterrence fail. In all of these areas, the United States must continue to work closely with its allies to address the political and military challenges of a nuclear North Korea. The goal of denuclearization may be impossible to reach short of the North Korean regime collapsing, but continued efforts to reinforce deterrence that demonstrate the likelihood of a joint response help to convince Pyongyang that the costs would be severe should its behavior become too tolerant of the risk associated with the stability-instability paradox and stray outside certain boundaries.

The remainder of this chapter will examine North Korean military capabilities and provocative actions that create instability in the region, discuss the US diplomatic, military, and alliance management efforts to deal with the dynamics of a potential stability-instability paradox, and conclude with an assessment of US policy.

The North Korea Challenge: Capabilities

The DPRK maintains a large, formidable military capability that continues to be a threat to regional security. The Korean People’s Army (KPA) has 1.19 million personnel, making it the fourth largest in the world behind China, the United States, and India. This active-duty force is supported by 600,000 reservists and 5.7 million members of paramilitary units.7 The army, the largest branch of the KPA, fields over 4,000 tanks of different types and more than 8,500 self-propelled and towed artillery, along with 5,100 multiple rocket launchers (MRLs). North Korea’s tank force exceeds the 2,414 tanks maintained by the South. However, the numbers are balanced by the age of North Korea’s tanks; many are old Soviet models such as the T-34, T-54/55, and T-62 and Chinese light tanks. Pyongyang has worked to modernize its tank force, but the total number it has been able to deploy owing to economic constraints is uncertain. The artillery and MRL systems are a serious worry, as many of these have sufficient range to reach much of Seoul. In addition, North Korea has added new 240 mm and 300 mm MRL systems to its arsenal that provided increased range compared to the older weapons.8 The KPA has used artillery on several occasions to conduct lower-level operations, including the November 2010 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island and the August 2015 artillery exchange along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). North Korea also has developed a strong, well-trained special operations force of two hundred thousand strong that has been used in the past for infiltration operations.9

The Korean People’s Navy (KPN) has 382 coastal and patrol vessels but only three frigates to compare with South Korea’s large, modern naval force. Reports indicate the KPN has built two new helicopter-carrying frigates to help protect its West Sea fisheries and improve its antisubmarine warfare capability to counter South Korea’s growing submarine force.10 The KPN has been an instigator for actions along the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the West Sea maritime line that North Korea does not accept. More menacing is North Korea’s submarine fleet, which consists of seventy-two boats, including twenty Yeono-class midget submarines, the type that likely fired the torpedo that sank the Republic of Korea (ROK) corvette Cheonan in March 2010. North Korean submarines can disrupt ROK shipping lanes and deliver special operations personnel to positions south of the DMZ.

The Korean People’s Air Force (KPAF) has a sizable number of planes, with a total of 545 combat aircraft, including bombers, fighters, and ground-attack planes, providing a quantity advantage over the ROK Air Force. However, the majority of its airframes are of older Soviet and Chinese models, with only fifty-two of the more advanced versions of the Soviet MiG-29 fighter and Su-25 ground-attack plane. Most of the KPAF would face a challenging task against modern ROK and US fighters. Moreover, the training and readiness of the force remains in question given the lack of fuel and spare parts, along with estimates that KPAF pilots train a paltry twenty hours per year in their aircraft.11

North Korean conventional forces would cause tremendous death and destruction in the early days of a conflict. Moreover, some of these assets are the likely capabilities North Korea would use to confirm the stability-instability paradox. Yet, given the shortage of fuel and spare parts, along with problems in logistics, the DPRK would have a difficult time sustaining major combat operations beyond sixty to ninety days. In addition, much of North Korea’s conventional capability is old Soviet-era equipment that continues to age and compromises its effectiveness. However, despite these difficulties, North Korea’s conventional forces remain a dangerous threat, particularly the artillery and rockets that can reach Seoul, providing the capability to punish South Korea without nuclear weapons.

In part to address its aging conventional force and the costs it would entail to modernize, North Korea has acquired a number of asymmetrical capabilities. The most serious are its ballistic missile and nuclear weapon programs. For several decades, North Korea has been working on its ballistic missile force.12 Pyongyang possesses approximately 500 short-range Scud missiles capable of targeting most of the Korean Peninsula and 150 to 200 medium-range Nodong missiles that can reach almost all of Japan.13 North Korea has also conducted tests of the short-range KN-02, a solid-fuel, mobile ballistic missile based on the Soviet SS-21. Work continues on longer-range systems, including two mobile missiles, the Musudan and the KN-08. The Musudan has had failed several flight tests, but finally one in June 2016 was deemed a success; North Korea has yet to flight test the KN-08, but both have been deployed and put on display in parades. The Musudan is believed to be an intermediate-range missile capable of reaching Guam, while the KN-08 is an intercontinental ballistic missile, but the actual capabilities of both are uncertain.14 North Korea also continues work on other long-range systems such as the Taepodong missile, which is also is projected to have intercontinental range.15

Finally, North Korea has been working to build a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) along with a submarine to launch it. Since October 2014, it has conducted several tests of the SLBM designated the KN-11 from shore, on a submerged platform, and from its Sinpo-class submarine. The success of recent tests has surprised analysts with the progress of the SLBM program and moved up estimates for when Pyongyang may have a functioning ballistic missile submarine. However, DPRK scientists face a number of hurdles before they can reach that goal.16

North Korea’s nuclear weapon ambitions remain the most serious threat. The DPRK has tested a nuclear weapon on five occasions: October 2006, May 2009, February 2013, January 2016, and again in September 2016. It is believed to have thirteen to twenty-one nuclear warheads, but a 2015 report authored by David Albright provided three possible scenarios for North Korea’s future arsenal, projecting a stockpile of twenty, fifty, or one hundred nuclear weapons by 2020.17 Regarding the question of whether the North has mastered the technological challenge of miniaturizing a warhead, the majority of assessments are now converging on the consensus that North Korea has mastered this problem, though definitive evidence such as a test of a nuclear-armed missile has yet to occur.18 In March 2016, Kim Jong-un appeared with scientists next to a silver globe that was likely a mock-up of a nuclear warhead, and the following month the ROK government finally provided an assessment that North Korea likely can mount a warhead on a ballistic missile.19

The progress North Korea has made toward having an effective and reliable nuclear deterrent with ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead is uncertain. However, it is clear that it will reach this goal at some point in the future. Yet, North Korean scientists and technicians face numerous challenges to ensure a reliable nuclear deterrent, including development of a long-range reentry vehicle that can survive the jarring return through the atmosphere, improvement of the range and accuracy of its ballistic missile force, and conversion of its missile force from liquid to solid fuel. These are difficult problems to overcome. In addition, retired US Air Force colonel and missileer Dana Struckman argues that “building a nuclear weapon and its delivery system, and then keeping them operational for the long term is hard—even harder for those states attempting to do it under the umbrella of international sanctions and monitoring,” and that “it won’t be easy . . . or cheap.”20 North Korea’s program is a serious concern that requires the close attention of policymakers, and North Korea may already be able to mount a nuclear warhead on a medium-range Nodong missile. The United States, South Korea, and others will not accept North Korea as a nuclear weapon state, but the use of force to take out the North Korean program is unlikely. In the end, there may be little that can be done to address North Korean nuclear weapons other than reinforcing deterrence, improving missile defense, ensuring the DPRK does not become a proliferator to other entities, and through continued sanctions, making it difficult and costly for North Korea to maintain its program.

Finally, North Korea has two other asymmetrical capabilities that are serious challenges for US and ROK defense planners. North Korea is believed to have from 2,500 to 5,000 tons of chemical munitions, including sarin, mustard gas, phosgene, and V-agents among others.21 DPRK chemical weapons are manufactured indigenously and deliverable on ballistic missiles, rockets, and artillery. North Korea also has a biological weapon program, but far less is known about this effort.

The second asymmetrical challenge is a growing offensive cyber capability.22 The DPRK’s cyber force is contained in Bureau 121 and consists of six thousand personnel in its “cyber army.”23 Over the past several years, North Korean hackers have been blamed for taking down the websites of South Korean financial institutions, media outlets, and parts of the ROK government. In 2009, North Korean hackers are believed to have orchestrated a coordinated attack on ROK government websites, including the Blue House (the South Korean equivalent of the White House) and the Defense Ministry, along with the US Department of the Treasury and Federal Trade Commission. In March 2013, North Korean operatives took down sites for three South Korean television stations (KBS, MBC, and YTN) and three banks (Shinhan, Nonghyup, and Jeju).24 DPRK hackers penetrated the networks of the Sony Corporation in 2014 in response to the pending release of the movie The Interview, a comedy whose plotline entailed the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. North Korea denied responsibility for the cyberattack but congratulated those who undertook such a “noble act.” The cyber domain is another area North Korea could seek to disrupt under the cover of nuclear weapons.25 Despite suggestions by some cybersecurity experts that North Korea may not have been the culprit, Washington insisted it was certain that Pyongyang was behind the attack, and later a press report uncovered that the National Security Agency had penetrated North Korean networks in 2010.26

The North Korea Challenge: Actions

While North Korean military capabilities that provide the tools to generate instability continue to grow, the DPRK’s willingness to disrupt security in the region is not a new phenomenon and has long been a serious concern. North Korea attempted to challenge strategic stability in 1950 and reunify the peninsula by force, though ultimately failing. Though it has never again challenged strategic stability in a similar manner, it never stopped lower-level provocations. Throughout the 1960s, Kim Il-sung sought to foster revolutionary forces and build a base in the South that would lead to reunification of the fatherland.27 The late 1960s marked a particularly concerted effort in which the incursions of North Korean operatives into the South reached new heights. Most of these infiltrators were either killed or captured, but they did much to raise tension levels. The most serious DPRK infiltration attempt came on January 21, 1968, when a thirty-one-man commando squad attempted to assassinate President Park Chung-hee at his Blue House residence in Seoul. In later years, North Korea was responsible for other destabilizing actions, including another assassination attempt in 1974 that failed to kill Park but claimed his wife, Yuk Young-soo; the 1976 axe murder of two US soldiers near Panmunjom; the bomb that destroyed KAL flight 858 in 1987 killing all on board; and in 1983, the attempted assassination of President Chun Doo-whan in Burma, which resulted in the deaths of three high-level officials and fourteen others in the South Korean delegation.

Though the types of incidents have changed over the years, North Korea continues to take periodic actions that generate instability. Among the many examples, here we look at three in greater detail—weapon tests, violations of the NLL, and incendiary rhetoric. Though these have not sparked a major clash between North Korean and ROK-US forces, at times escalation to a broader conflict was a very real possibility, and they have done much to disturb regional security. These and other incidents remain serious potential flashpoints for disrupting stability in Korea.

Weapon Tests

Each time North Korea has tested a nuclear weapon, tension levels in Northeast Asia have risen. After the January 2016 test, the United Nations (UN) Security Council passed unanimously another resolution that imposed increased sanctions in a campaign to punish and convince North Korea to refrain from further testing and to move toward denuclearization. Yet, if North Korea desires a working, effective nuclear deterrent, it may likely have to conduct subsequent tests again at some point in the future.

Missile tests have also been a serious source of consternation, not only for the possibility of accidents but also as indicators of the progress North Korea has made in improving this capability. In August 1998, North Korea tested a long-range Taepodong-1 missile that traveled over Japanese airspace. Japanese leaders were incensed by the test, and one press report noted, “North Korea yesterday stirred up a strategic weapons storm in the Pacific.”28 Since then, North Korea has followed with regular tests of various rockets and missiles, sometimes to test a new system and sometimes to make a deterrence statement, often in response to the annual fall and spring ROK-US military exercises. For example, on April 13, 2012, the DPRK attempted to launch a satellite into orbit. North Korean authorities provided unprecedented access to international media to cover the event, which turned out to be a serious embarrassment when the missile failed soon after takeoff. Though North Korea claimed the launch was a space vehicle, the technology is the same as that of a ballistic missile and is prohibited under the UN Security Council resolutions that had followed previous nuclear weapon tests. In addition, the launch scuttled what became known as the Leap Day Deal between Washington and Pyongyang, which imposed limits on North Korean testing in return for US nutritional assistance.

North Korea conducted a similar space launch on December 12, 2012, with a more successful result, though the satellite did not end up functioning as intended. The launch was followed in February 2013 by the DPRK’s third nuclear test and more sanctions, along with a tense spring of heightened concerns for stability in Korea. More missile tests occurred in subsequent years of short- and medium-range missiles, tests that have become somewhat routine. In addition, North Korea has conducted of series of tests of the intermediate-range Musudan and has continued testing of its SLBM, tests that have often been observed in person by Kim Jong-un, an indication of the importance of the program. Pyongyang tried another satellite launch in February 2016, and though the satellite reached the necessary altitude, it was reported to be “tumbling in orbit” and not functioning properly.29 All of these launches demonstrate North Korea’s continued work on this capability.

Disputes along the NLL

On August 30, 1953, the UN Command promulgated the NLL, a maritime border in the West Sea between North and South Korea.30 The demarcation line was drawn to keep ROK vessels from straying northward, and DPRK officials were not notified of the line. Over the years, the NLL has been a source of conflict between Seoul and Pyongyang that has often lead to violence, with ships sunk and sailors killed on both sides. In 1973, North Korea declared the line void, and in 1999, after the first major naval engagement between the two sides that was instigated by the North, Pyongyang proclaimed its own version of the maritime line between the two Koreas. In addition to numerous small-scale incursions by DPRK fishing boats and naval vessels, other clashes occurred in June 2002 and November 2009. The NLL became a focal point for security concerns in March 2010 when a North Korean torpedo sank the Cheonan, killing forty-six sailors, followed by the artillery barrage of Yeonpyeong Island in November in which two civilians and two ROK marines stationed on the island were killed. After these incidents, South Korea beefed up its military assets on the five Northwest Islands, which lie along the NLL, and there have been no major incidents since.

The NLL remains an important security line between the North and South. Yet, North Korea has every right to protest the NLL without violence and according to international law is not completely unreasonable with its objections. However, violations of the NLL by North Korean vessels continue, and the NLL remains a potential zone of conflict where a small incident could escalate into a wider conflagration.

North Korean Rhetoric

Finally, North Korean leaders and state-run media outlets are well known for provocative and threatening outbursts. Spring 2013 was a particularly bad time as it followed a satellite launch, a nuclear test, additional UN Security Council resolutions, and ROK-US military exercises. For example, in April 2013, a commentary in the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) noted: “The arrows indicating the merciless retaliatory strikes have already been drawn directing [sic] at the U.S. mainland, U.S. military bases in the Pacific and all other bases where the U.S. imperialist aggression forces station [sic]. The powerful strike means of the revolution [sic] armed forces of the DPRK have been put in their places and the coordinates of targets put into the warheads. Just pressing the button will be enough to turn the strongholds of the enemies into a sea of fire.”31

In another April piece, KCNA noted, “If the enemies dare provoke the DPRK while going reckless, it will immediately blow them up with an annihilating strike with the use of powerful nuclear means.”32 March and April 2016 saw a similar confluence of events, leading to DPRK threats to drop a hydrogen bomb on Manhattan, the release of videos depicting attacks on the White House and the Blue House, and nasty personal attacks hurled at Park Geun-hye and Barack Obama. While many have become desensitized to these outbursts and most of these actions are North Korean deterrence posturing, they continue to jangle nerves and raise serious questions about DPRK intentions.

US Responses to the North Korean Challenges

The US response to the potential stability-instability dynamics of a nuclear North Korea has been challenging. While Washington and others insist that denuclearization remains the goal and efforts continue to coax and coerce North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, increasingly the DPRK is being dealt with as a de facto nuclear state. Over the past decade, the United States has pursued a policy often described as “strategic patience,” a willingness to use diplomacy to achieve North Korean denuclearization while maintaining economic and political pressure in addition to fortifying strategic deterrence and discouraging lower-level provocations. Moreover, the United States has also sought to build greater trilateral cooperation to address the North Korea challenge. We now turn to a more detailed discussion of each of these tracks.

Diplomatic Efforts

President Barack Obama came into office in January 2009 promising in his inaugural address to reset relations with several adversaries, including North Korea. Consequently, many expected the Obama administration would reach out to Pyongyang to begin some type of dialogue to address the nuclear weapon problem. On May 25, 2009, North Korea brought the likelihood of improved relations to a screeching halt with the detonation of its second nuclear device. The benchmark for US–North Korea relations became the September 2005 agreement concluded during the Six-Party Talks, whereby “the DPRK committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning, at an early date, to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] safeguards.”33 For Washington, this was the starting point for negotiations with North Korea; renewed Six-Party dialogue would not return to the question of whether North Korea would denuclearize but, rather, how this would occur. North Korea could not attempt to renegotiate its commitment in return for additional aid or lifting sanctions. In October 2009, the then secretary of state Hillary Clinton maintained:

Thwarting the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran is critical to shoring up the nonproliferation regime. Within the framework of the six-party talks, we are prepared to meet bilaterally with North Korea, but North Korea’s return to the negotiating table is not enough. Current sanctions will not be relaxed until Pyongyang takes verifiable, irreversible steps toward complete denuclearization. Its leaders should be under no illusion that the United States will ever have normal, sanctions-free relations with a nuclear armed North Korea.34

Despite early indications in the Obama administration that improved relations might have been possible, US-DPRK ties remained tense, and progress seemed unlikely.

The United States, and others in the Six-Party process will not accept a nuclear North Korea, and under the September 2005 agreement, North Korea has already committed to that end. Negotiations are desirable, but they will have conditions—namely, that the goal of talks is denuclearization and that Pyongyang must provide an indication that it is sincere about fulfilling that goal. Until that time, Washington is prepared to wait out Pyongyang, believing this problem can be contained and unwilling to compromise on a deal that has already been struck. Should North Korea comply and take irreversible measures toward denuclearization, aid and investment will begin to flow and revive the moribund North Korean economy. If North Korea continues its unwillingness to denuclearize, UN and US sanctions will remain in place, with further sanctions forthcoming should Pyongyang conduct more nuclear weapon tests or undertake other provocative actions.

At times, critics and some members of the Obama administration questioned the wisdom of maintaining a policy of strategic patience, given North Korea’s determination to maintain its nuclear program. Moreover, some have argued strategic patience is based on an unrealistic expectation that North Korea will eventually collapse.35 US policy has produced no tangible results, while North Korea has continued to test and improve its nuclear and missile capabilities. As a result, Obama reached out to North Korea, and on February 29, 2012, Washington announced the conclusion of the Leap Day Deal. Under the terms of the arrangement, North Korea agreed to forgo any further tests of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, suspend enriching uranium, and readmit inspectors from the IAEA. In return, the United States would provide 240,000 tons of “nutritional assistance,” a label for food aid that could not be easily diverted for sale or use by the KPA.36 Some early criticism focused on linking humanitarian assistance to security goals, but the Leap Day Deal provided a glimmer of hope that progress on at least containing the North Korean program might be possible.

These hopes were short-lived, as soon afterward North Korea announced its intention to launch a satellite into orbit.37 Despite warnings from the United States and many others, North Korea conducted the space launch on April 12, 2012, in part to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s birth. As mentioned above, the launch turned out to be an abject failure.38 After that time, the Obama administration was reluctant to reach out too far to Pyongyang, largely letting Seoul take the lead.

Some efforts at dialogue continued, often through the “New York channel” at the UN, but most of these meetings were quiet and produced little progress. The Obama administration continued to maintain that it was willing to meet with North Korea but that the DPRK had to show some sign of willingness to work toward denuclearization.39 North Korea called for the resumption of talks without preconditions and a halt to ROK-US military exercises. In early January 2016, Pyongyang approached Washington on the possibility of talks to conclude a formal peace treaty to replace the current armistice that has been in place since 1953. The Obama administration insisted that the focus on denuclearization remain but that it would also be willing to discuss a peace treaty. North Korea declined the US counterproposal and shortly after conducted its fourth nuclear weapon test.40 Despite these and other efforts, diplomatic progress remained deadlocked.

Though some have argued that strategic patience has been the best policy given the lack of more palatable options, critics on both the left and right maintain the policy has obtained nothing but more tests, improved North Korean capabilities, and increased tensions. Those on the left maintain greater effort should be made to engage North Korea to lower tension levels and seek to reduce DPRK insecurities, which are argued to be the chief motivation behind its desire for nuclear weapons. North Korea may not be willing to give up its nuclear weapons in the short term, but dialogue might be able to cap its weapon programs, reduce its hostility toward the United States and South Korea, constrain any proliferation activities, and move toward denuclearization at a later date.

Conservatives argue that engaging North Korea will never work and that the only solution is more pressure, particularly an increase of economic sanctions to coerce the regime into giving up its nuclear weapons. Indeed, perhaps the only solution, according to this line of argument, is to turn up the pressure sufficiently high to collapse the Kim regime and move toward reunification under South Korea.41 Conservatives say that this is the only way to achieve denuclearization and a solution to the security problems on the Korean Peninsula. Which of these two policy directions is the best route remains contested and each has its difficulties. However, given the other issues on the US foreign policy agenda and relative paucity of time left for Obama, there will likely be no major initiatives during the remainder of this term, and it will remain for the winner of the presidential election, Donald Trump, to decide if a new path is warranted.

Economic Responses

As North Korean nuclear weapon and ballistic missile capabilities have grown, Washington has been very reluctant to consider the use of force to remove these programs in a manner similar to the actions taken by Israel against Iraq and Syria. Instead, the United States has resorted to the use of sanctions to make the acquisition of materials and technology more difficult and provide a degree of economic punishment to coerce North Korea into giving up its nuclear ambitions. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel noted that sanctions are not intended to hurt the North Korean people or “to destroy North Korea, but to bring its leaders to their senses.”42

US sanctions on North Korea have been essentially of two types.43 First, the United States has led the effort to pass UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions after each nuclear test that progressively increased pressure on North Korea. These sanctions are designed to block further development of Pyongyang’s nuclear program and halt proliferation activities. In March 2016, the UN Security Council approved Resolution 2276, which extended sanctions to include the export of coal, iron ore, gold, and rare earth minerals, along with expanded provisions for inspecting North Korean cargo transiting to and from its ports.

Second, the United States has imposed various Treasury Department sanctions through executive orders beginning in 2005 during the George W. Bush administration and continuing through the Obama years.44 In 1988, North Korea was added to the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism and placed under a number of corresponding sanctions, including prohibitions on US foreign assistance, limits on arms sales and dual-use technology, and a requirement that Washington oppose Pyongyang’s access to loans from the World Bank and other international financial institutions. In 2008, North Korea was removed from the list but there have been calls to have it relisted.45

Finally, President Obama issued several executive orders to increase the level of sanctions on the DPRK. In January 2015, following the cyberattack on Sony, he sanctioned ten individuals and three institutions, including the Reconnaissance General Bureau, which is responsible for North Korean cyber operations along with DPRK arms sales.46 After the 2016 nuclear test, Obama issued another executive order that further tightened sanctions. Despite all of these efforts, North Korea has been able to work around many of these sanctions, in part owing to its lack of connectivity to the global economy and lax enforcement, though the 2016 sanctions appear to be having a greater impact.

Military Responses

While diplomacy to solve the problem has been deadlocked, the United States, in concert with its allies in the region, has worked to bolster deterrence and maintain peace and stability in the region. The chief challenge is deterring lower-level provocations, such as the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island and weapon tests. As the stability-instability paradox suggests, strategic deterrence on the Korean Peninsula has been solid; the likelihood of a North Korean invasion of the South is remote, but North Korea may be emboldened to conduct lower-level operations, believing its possession of a nuclear deterrent provides the ultimate security guarantee for the regime. It is uncertain whether North Korea will move in this direction, but to address these concerns Washington and Seoul have undertaken several measures to bolster deterrence at all levels. We begin first with strategic deterrence.

REINFORCING STRATEGIC DETERRENCE

To directly address the North Korean nuclear problem during the October 2013 Security Consultative Meeting (SCM), Washington and Seoul announced the conclusion of a Tailored Deterrence Strategy. The strategy is a bilateral plan to address North Korea’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapon programs by developing a set of options to counter these capabilities. The strategy evolved from discussions within the Extended Deterrence Policy Committee (EDPC), another effort to address nuclear weapons and extended deterrence. The EDPC, now named the Deterrence Strategy Committee, is a bilateral planning group formed in 2010 to enhance understanding and planning on nuclear weapons, extended deterrence, and the nuclear umbrella. The SCM joint communiqué noted that the Tailored Deterrence Strategy “establishes a strategic Alliance framework for tailoring deterrence against key North Korean nuclear threat scenarios across armistice and wartime, and strengthens the integration of Alliance capabilities to maximize their deterrent effects. The ROK and the United States are committed to maintaining close consultation on deterrence matters to ensure that extended deterrence for the ROK remains credible, capable, and enduring.”47 Details of the strategy are classified, but some reports indicate preemptive strikes on North Korean nuclear and missile targets are planned should Pyongyang appear to be preparing to use its nuclear weapons.48 Defense planners have utilized the Tailored Deterrence Strategy in joint ROK-US exercises for the 2016 spring exercises.49

Another area of emphasis at the strategic level has been ballistic missile defense (BMD). Whether deployed with a nuclear, chemical, or conventional warhead, North Korea’s ballistic missile force has long been a serious concern for US and ROK defense planners. Continued testing and improvement of several types of missiles over the past decade, along with the large numbers of short- and intermediate-range missiles, have lead officials to devote significant resources to BMD.

In the Asia-Pacific, the Pentagon has worked to construct a regional BMD system with key allies including Australia, Japan, and South Korea. BMD assets include Aegis destroyers equipped with AN/SPY-1 radar that can track multiple targets at one time. These ships can be equipped with SM-3 missiles capable of shooting down incoming ballistic missiles at high altitudes, though these are expensive systems. US destroyers along with several Japanese destroyers are equipped with the SM-3, but ROK destroyers do not have this capability, though ROK Navy leaders are working to acquire them. The United States has also sent two TPY X-band radars to Japan to assist in tracking North Korean ballistic missile launches.

Japan has been an eager participant in the regional BMD effort, but South Korea has not, insisting it will develop its own independent Korea Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) system and a “Kill Chain” capable of launching conventional, preemptive strikes against North Korean missile targets should that become necessary. Chinese officials have long argued that the US regional system is primarily directed against Beijing’s deterrent and has regularly expressed its objections, despite US insistence that the chief concern is North Korea.50 Chinese officials have put significant pressure on Seoul to refrain from joining, and ROK officials have been reluctant for fear of angering its largest trading partner and the key driver of South Korean economic growth.51

The Pentagon has also raised the possibility of deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to South Korea to defend US forces based there. THAAD is a “hit-to-kill” missile interceptor with range sufficient to shoot down short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles at high altitudes. In spring 2013, the Pentagon deployed a THAAD system to Guam in response to North Korean threats to strike US targets in the region, though it was questionable whether North Korea had the capability to do so.52 Officials in Seoul are concerned that deployment of a THAAD battery to South Korea is an incremental step that might give the appearance of joining the US regional BMD system. After an April 2015 meeting in Seoul, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter declared that THAAD was not on the US-ROK agenda, apparently setting the issue on the back burner.53 After North Korea’s January nuclear test, THAAD resurfaced. China’s initial response to the test was discouraging, so Seoul announced that it was reconsidering the decision to let Washington deploy a THAAD battery to South Korea and in July 2016 agreed to the deployment.

Finally, the United States and South Korea made another strategic-level decision, in large measure based on the prevailing North Korea threat—to postpone the return of wartime operational control (OPCON) to South Korea. At the start of the Korean War, ROK president Syngman Rhee turned over OPCON of the country’s forces to the UN Command. When the war ended, OPCON shifted to the US military in South Korea. In 1994, the United States returned peacetime OPCON, giving ROK commanders control of their forces during normal peacetime operations. In 2002, President Roh Moo-hyun argued that wartime OPCON should be returned as well, maintaining this was an issue of ROK sovereignty. The return would mean that in wartime, the ROK military would be in the lead as the supported command, while the US military would be the supporting command. US officials agreed to the transfer, and April 17, 2012, was set for the return of wartime OPCON. However, as the date approached and security concerns increased after the sinking of the Cheonan, ROK officials asked for a postponement, which they received in June 2010. The new date was set for December 2015, but this too was postponed in October 2014. Worries about the North Korean threat were important reasons for another delay but so too were concerns that South Korea simply did not possess the necessary capabilities to be in the lead. Formally announced in the October 2014 SCM communiqué was a “conditions-based approach” whereby OPCON would be transferred at an appropriate time “when critical ROK and Alliance military capabilities are secured and the security environment on the Korean Peninsula and in the region is conducive to a stable OPCON transition.”54 In 2018, officials will begin assessing whether the transfer could occur by 2020, but this is not set as a firm date for the change.55

ADDRESSING LOWER-LEVEL PROVOCATIONS

While the United States and South Korea implemented several measures to buttress deterrence at the strategic level, the more challenging problem has been trying to shore up deterrence of lower-level provocations where the stability-instability paradox predicts more activity. Following the sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, Washington and Seoul began to reassess possible ways to address provocative North Korean behavior and more effectively deter these actions in the first place. The result was the announcement on March 22, 2013, of the Combined Counter-Provocation Plan (CCP). Details of the CCP are classified, but it has South Korea in the lead for responding to North Korean provocations that fall short of all-out war, with options for requesting US assistance and the possibility of joint ROK-US actions. One US official noted the CCP “defines action down to the tactical level and locks in alliance political consultations at the highest level.”56 An ROK spokesman asserted that the CCP increases ROK joint readiness to “quickly and firmly punish any kind of provocations of North Korea.”57

Despite these efforts to codify a joint and determined ROK-US response, much will depend on the nature of the North Korean provocation and the ROK and US leaders in charge at the time. The timing and nature of ROK-US responses will be nearly impossible to script precisely ahead of events, but planning will help to facilitate a more smooth and coordinated response by both allies. The CCP addresses actions that occur during peacetime under armistice conditions and does not alter current OPCON arrangements. In the wake of the Yeonpyeong Island shelling, South Korea made it very clear that it would respond the next time North Korea used military force. Moreover, the planning and exercises of a possible joint ROK-US response has been an important effort to reinforce deterrence.58

Reassuring Allies

Since North Korea conducted its first nuclear weapon test in 2006, the regional security environment has been irreparably changed. Security concerns have been heightened, imposing greater challenges for the United States and its two key alliance partners in the region, South Korea and Japan. Washington has gone to great lengths to reassure its two allies of the US defense commitment and in particular to provide reassurances of the US nuclear umbrella as a specific response to North Korea’s nuclear weapon program. In addition, Washington has sought to bolster trilateral cooperation with Seoul and Tokyo to address North Korean behavior and the uncertainty about China’s strategic direction.

For years, US and South Korean officials have held regular meetings to collaborate and coordinate planning for the defense of the peninsula. Every fall since the late 1960s, two forums, the SCM and the Military Committee Meeting (MCM), have gathered to discuss security issues and alliance cooperation to address the challenges. The SCM is a high-level meeting of the ROK defense minister and the US secretary of defense. The MCM is a meeting of the chairmen of the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, the US Pacific Command commander, the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate, and the commander of US Forces Korea. The latter is the US four-star general who is also commander of UN Command and, during wartime, the Combined Forces Command.

The SCM releases a joint communiqué after every fall meeting that provides important indicators of the military direction of the alliance, including threat assessment, alliance initiatives, joint planning, and confirmation of the alliance’s importance. The 2015 joint communiqué “reaffirmed the two nation’s mutual commitment to the fundamental mission of the alliance to defend the ROK through a robust combined defense posture, as well as to the enhancement of mutual security based on the US-ROK Mutual Defense Treaty.”59 Moreover, US and ROK defense officials “reiterated the firm view . . . that North Korea’s policies and actions, including its United Nations–proscribed nuclear and ballistic missile programs and proliferation activities, pose a serious threat to regional stability and global security, as well as to the integrity of the global nonproliferation regime,” and as a result “any North Korean aggression or military provocation is not to be tolerated and that the ROK and the United States would work shoulder to shoulder to demonstrate our combined resolve.”60

The SCM communiqués also provide a nuclear security guarantee and since 1978 have included a line to the effect that “Korea is and will continue to be under the U.S. nuclear umbrella.”61 The 2015 joint communiqué stated, “The Secretary [Secretary of Defense Carter] reaffirmed the continued US commitment to provide and strengthen extended deterrence for the ROK using the full range of military capabilities, including the U.S. nuclear umbrella, conventional strike, and missile defense capabilities.”62 The rewording of this commitment to include conventional strike and missile defense, first done in 2009, is an important indicator that the US commitment is more than simply the possibility of using nuclear weapons.

US leaders have provided assurances in other venues, including immediately after North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006. Before leaving on a plane to Seoul and Tokyo to reassure US allies of Washington’s continuing commitment, the then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice declared that “the United States has both the will and capability to meet the full range of our security and deterrent commitments,” a less than subtle reference to US nuclear capabilities.63 In June 2009, in the wake of North Korea’s second test in May, Presidents Barack Obama and Lee Myung-bak included a line in their Joint Vision Statement reiterating “the continuing commitment of extended deterrence, including the U.S. nuclear umbrella.”64 South Korean officials lobbied hard for the summit to include this explicit reference to the nuclear umbrella, and though Washington was reluctant, it acceded to Seoul’s wishes. Most likely, the administration hesitated to provide the statement because it ran counter to Obama’s Prague speech two months earlier, which had downplayed the role of nuclear weapons in international security while calling for their eventual elimination.65 The United States has gone to similar lengths over the years to reassure Japan of the US defense commitment and the nuclear umbrella.

In April 2010, the United States released its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the document that provides the primary insight into US nuclear strategy and doctrine. The NPR restated the Obama administration’s goal of reducing the role of nuclear weapons in international security and eventually moving toward a total elimination of nuclear stockpiles. Yet, it also maintained that “so long as nuclear weapons exist, the United States will maintain safe, secure, and effective nuclear forces.”66 The NPR also maintained that “the fundamental role of U.S. nuclear weapons . . . is to deter nuclear attack on the United States, our allies, and partners.”67 Moreover, the United States would continue to provide an extended deterrence commitment to its allies but would only consider using nuclear weapons in “extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.”68 As a result, while the United States has reduced the role of nuclear weapons, they remain part of the extended deterrence commitment, but the United States will also strengthen and utilize conventional options that provide significant and usable capabilities to bolster deterrence. Rose Gottemoeller, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, phrased it thus in a 2014 interview:

Extended deterrence is not only about nuclear weapons. Extended deterrence has to do with our complete alliance relationship and that, of course, contains within it a full panoply of weapons systems and everything that goes with weapons systems to make them effective—such as effective command, control, communications, and reconnaissance capabilities. Conventional weapons—and very effective conventional weapons at that—are a core, inherent part of extended deterrence. And, along with that, when we get to where the President wants to go, which is—as he mentioned in his Prague speech in 2009—the security of a world without nuclear weapons, our extended deterrence relationship with our allies will still be very much intact, and very coherent in the array of conventional defense that we will have to offer them.69

Thus, extended deterrence is about far more than the nuclear umbrella and includes the totality of US assets and the US commitment to defend its allies.

While these efforts are intended to reassure threatened allies, they are also part of US nonproliferation goals. Assurances to include South Korea and Japan under the US nuclear umbrella are intended to convince both allies that they need not acquire their own nuclear weapons. Even though these are two US allies, the United States does not wish to see the region have more nuclear weapon states than is already the case. Indeed, there are many problems for South Korea and Japan should they decide to go down that path, an action that would likely have serious consequences for their respective alliances.70 Thus, while the nuclear umbrella and other measures to reassure South Korea and Japan are part of US extended deterrence, they are also a crucial element of US nonproliferation policy.

The link between US extended deterrence and nonproliferation also contains an inherent contradiction. Extended deterrence and the assurances provided to allies have the opposite effect on adversaries. If an enemy is acquiring nuclear weapons because of security concerns, further threats of retaliation, either conventional or nuclear, toward that enemy to reassure allies will likely reinforce the foe’s motives for acquiring nuclear weapons in the first place. Consequently, extended nuclear deterrence is a double-edged sword and can be a problematic nonproliferation policy in the long run.

Trilateral Cooperation: The United States, South Korea, and Japan

Another US response to ensure stability has been efforts to promote greater trilateral cooperation between South Korea and Japan. US leaders have worked hard to promote dialogue at the highest levels in an attempt to ameliorate the difficult relations between its two allies. In March 2014, Obama held a trilateral meeting with Park Geun-hye and Shinzō Abe on the sidelines of the third Nuclear Security Summit, in The Hague. Obama remarked: “It is the first time that the three of us have an opportunity to meet together [on] some serious challenges that we all face. Over the last five years, close coordination between our three countries succeeded in changing the game with North Korea: our trilateral cooperation has sent a strong signal to Pyongyang that its provocations and threats will be met with a unified response.”71

These efforts are also part of the overall rebalance strategy. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel noted in January 2014, “In terms of what rebalance is, I can attest very deliberately that the U.S. strategy—the Obama administration’s strategy—began and begins with our friends and allies and partners. The very first visitor to the White House in 2009 was the prime minister of Japan. The president of Korea was not far behind; the prime minister of Australia was not far behind. In the Asia-Pacific region, our strategy has been to strengthen our partnerships and modernize our alliances, and that has been a major and active project for the last five years.”72 In addition to high-level meetings, Washington has also sought to encourage contacts at lower levels, including minister-level meetings on the sidelines of the Asia Security Summit (more commonly known as the Shangri-La Dialogue) and assistant/deputy-level trilateral meetings.73

Direct military cooperation also occurs, especially between the three navies through exercises that are either trilateral operations or part of larger multilateral exercises.74 Indeed, there is often more cooperation occurring than many are aware of. The navies hold numerous exercises that deal with search and rescue (SAR), counterpiracy, and humanitarian assistance. For example, in December 2013 in the wake of China’s declaration of an expanded air defense identification zone, South Korea and Japan conducted a SAR exercise in the vicinity of the ROK-administered reef of Ieo-do. Both refrained from submitting flight plans to China to demonstrate their refusal to recognize the Chinese zone.75 In January 2014, the three navies held a joint counterpiracy exercise off the Horn of Africa that included boarding, search and seizure, medical training, and deck landing. Finally, in December 2014, the three navies conducted a trilateral SAR exercise off the coast of Jeju Island.76 The three navies have a good working relationship and understand why cooperation is necessary. Yet, these activities must often be conducted with little fanfare, and because of disputes over history and the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands, deeper levels of cooperation have been difficult to achieve.77

South Korea and Japan were close to deepening their defense relationship in June 2012 with an intelligence-sharing agreement called the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). Cooperation under the agreement would have dealt with North Korea and capitalized on South Korea’s strengths in human intelligence while leveraging Japan’s signals intelligence assets. Washington worked very hard for the conclusion of the agreement, but minutes before representatives were to sign the pact, South Korea pulled out, in large part owing to mishandling of the politics of the issue. Both Tokyo and Seoul have these types of agreements with others, and a GSOMIA would have facilitated more direct intelligence sharing in a variety of ways. Yet South Korea’s reluctance put the issue on hold.

A chance to conclude an information-sharing agreement rose again in April 2014 when the ROK government expressed an interest in concluding a deal. After several rounds of talks including meetings on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue and with continued encouragement from Washington, the allies concluded a trilateral intelligence-sharing arrangement (TISA).78 At Seoul’s insistence, the measure was confined to sharing intelligence on North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs to avoid any indication that the agreement was directed at China. Though the TISA will have a relatively small impact on intelligence sharing, in part because it maintains the arrangement of the United States as an intermediary rather than direct sharing between Japan and South Korea, it was an important step to advance trilateral cooperation, and without US efforts would have likely not come to fruition.79

One last element of trilateral cooperation that is often overlooked by many analysts is the critical role Japanese bases would play if war broke out in Korea. At the end of the Korean War, Tokyo agreed to a UN-Japan Status of Forces Agreement to provide logistics support through seven US bases located in Japan to facilitate the flow of forces and supplies to the Korean Peninsula. Known as United Nations Command Rear, its headquarters are located at Yokota Air Base, and the bases have been described by a UN Command leader in South Korea as “essential to our mission,” and “a critical enabler to our response to crisis.”80

Conclusion

Short of a regime collapse and Korean reunification under Seoul’s leadership, the DPRK will continue to exist for some time, and it will have nuclear weapons. Strategic deterrence has been stable for over six decades and will likely continue, though now it will have the added overlay of North Korean nuclear weapons. Thus, the “stability” side of the paradox will remain. North Korea will not commit regime suicide by using nuclear weapons unless its survival is at stake, so its chief use of nuclear weapons is for deterrence. To be sure, there are serious concerns for stability in a crisis that could potentially involve nuclear weapons, making it paramount that crisis management mechanisms are in place and all sides work to avoid having security devolve into a crisis in the first place. However, baring a crisis that escalates, strategic stability will hold.

The more difficult challenge has been to prevent potential problems at lower levels that are predicted by the instability side of the paradox. To address these concerns, US and ROK planners have sought better ways to deter lower-level provocations such as those that occurred in 2010. South Korea has also taken unilateral actions such as improving its BMD capabilities and developing a Kill Chain of conventional assets, including extended-range cruise and ballistic missiles that can strike North Korean targets either preemptively or in rapid response to a North Korean action. In September 2016, South Korea announced the development of the Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation concept, which will operationalize plans for preemptive strikes on North Korean targets should an attack or nuclear weapon use appear imminent. So far, these efforts along with the joint CCP appear to be succeeding. While North Korea continues weapon tests and its abrasive rhetoric, much of this should be read as deterrence and not the offensive, risk-taking behavior predicted by the stability-instability paradox.81 More important, ROK statements and actions following the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island indicating that they would indeed retaliate should North Korea conduct another similar kinetic action have likely played an important role in deterring North Korea. In fact, North Korea’s apparent focus on the cyber realm may show that deterrence is working; rather than challenge Seoul with an overt military operation, Pyongyang has opted for more covert cyber actions that do not carry as a great a risk for direct military retaliation.

The challenges posed by the possibility of a stability-instability paradox in Korea have been complex and multifaceted. The response undertaken by the ROK and the United States largely in the context of the alliance has focused on increasing their deterrence postures at several levels. The North Korean nuclear problem will not go away, and no one is truly interested in conducting a military operation to take out the DPRK nuclear forces or a regime-change operation that would lead to war. Though a DPRK collapse may be the only route to denuclearization, the goal of economic sanctions is to change North Korean policy, not collapse the regime. In the end, the competition of security postures where both sides will seek to deter the other will remain. With continued attention to maintaining a strong alliance, deterrence will hold at both the strategic and lower levels, despite the predictions of the stability-instability paradox.

Notes

1. David Albright and Serena Kelleher-Vergantini, “Plutonium, Tritium, and Highly Enriched Uranium Production at the Yongbyon Nuclear Site,” Institute for Science and International Studies, June 14, 2016, http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/
Pu_HEU_and_tritium_production_
at_Yongbyon_June_14_2016_FINAL.pdf.

2. Nick Hansen, “North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Facility: Restart of the 5 MWe Reactor?,” 38 North, January 28, 2015, http://38north.org/2015/01/yongbyon012815/.

3. Kim Jong-un, “New Year Address,” Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), January 1, 2015, http://www.kcna.kp/
kcna.user.article.retrieveNewsViewInfoList.kcmsf#this

4. “DPRK Proves Successful in H-bomb Test,” KCNA, January 6, 2016.

5. Benjamin S. Lambeth, “The Political Potential of Equivalence,” International Security 2 (Fall 1979): 22–39; Robert Jervis “The Political Effects of Nuclear Weapons: A Comment,” International Security 13 (Fall 1988): 80–90; Šumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur, India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in Asia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010); Peter R. Lavoy, “The Strategic Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation,” Security Studies 4 (Summer 1995): 695–753.

6. B. H. Liddell Hart, Deterrent or Defense: A Fresh Look at the West’s Military Position (New York: Praeger, 1960), 23. See also Glenn Snyder, Deterrence and Defense: Toward a Theory of National Security (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), 226.

7. International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), The Military Balance 2015 (London: IISS, 2016), 264.

8. Bruce Bechtol Jr., North Korea and Regional Security in the Kim Jong-un Era: A New International Security Dilemma (New York: Palgrave, 2014), 28–29.

9. ROK Ministry of Defense, 2014 Defense White Paper, 29.

10. Joseph Bermudez Jr., “New North Korean Helicopter Frigates Spotted,” 38 North, May 15, 2014, http://38north.org/2014/05/jbermudez051514/.

11. IISS, Military Balance 2015, 266.

12. Markus Schiller, “Characterizing the North Korean Missile Threat,” RAND, 2012, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/
technical_reports/2012/RAND_TR1268.pdf; Daniel Pinkston, “The North Korean Ballistic Missile Program,” International Crisis Group, February 2008, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/
pub842.pdf.

13. Greg Thielmann, “Sorting Out the Nuclear and Missile Threats from North Korea,” Arms Control Association, May 21, 2013, http://www.armscontrol.org/files/
TAB_Sorting_Out_North_Korea_2013.pdf.

14. Markus Schiller and Robert H. Schmucker, “The Assumed KN-08 Technology,” April 26, 2012, http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/files/
2012/05/Addendum_KN-08_Analysis_Schiller_Schmucker.pdf.

15. John Schilling and Henry Kan, “The Future of North Korean Nuclear Delivery Systems,” US-Korea Institute, SAIS, 2015, http://38north.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/NKNF_Delivery-Systems.pdf.

16. John Schilling, “North Korea’s SLBM Program Progresses, But Still Long Road Ahead,” 38 North, August 26, 2016, http://38north.org/tag/john-schilling/.

17. David Albright, “Future Directions in the DPRK’s Nuclear Weapons Program: Three Scenarios for 2020,” US-Korea Institute, SAIS, 2015, http://38north.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/NKNF-Future-Directions-2020-Albright-0215.pdf.

18. See Jeffrey Lewis, “North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons: The Great Miniaturization Debate,” 38 North, February 5, 2015, http://38north.org/2015/02/jlewis020515/; Bruce Klingner, “Allies Should Confront Imminent North Korean Nuclear Threat,” Heritage Foundation, June 3, 2014, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/06/allies-should-confront-imminent-north-korean-nuclear-threat.

19. Choe Sang-Hun, “South Korea Says North Has Capacity to Put Nuclear Warhead on a Missile,” New York Times, April 5, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-warhead-rodong-missile.html?_r=0.

20. Dana Struckman and Terence Roehrig, “Not So Fast: Pyongyang’s Nuclear Weapons Ambitions,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, February 20, 2013, http://journal.georgetown.edu/not-so-fast-pyongyangs-nuclear-weapons-ambitions-by-dana-struckman-and-terence-roehrig/.

21. “Strategic Weapons Systems: North Korea,” Jane’s Sentinel Security Assessment, January 20, 2011, http://jmsa.janes.com/JDIC/JMSA.

22. Alexandre Mansourov, “North Korea’s Cyber Warfare and Challenges for the U.S.-ROK Alliance,” Korea Economic Institute Academic Paper Series, December 2, 2014, http://keia.org/sites/default/files/
publications/kei_aps_mansourov_final.pdf.

23. “North Korea Boosted ‘Cyber Forces’ to 6,000 Troops, South Says,” Reuters, January 6, 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/06/us-northkorea-southkorea-idUSKBN0KF1CD20150106.

24. Choe Sang-Hun, “Computer Networks in South Korea Are Paralyzed in Cyber-attacks,” New York Times, March 20, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/world/asia/south-korea-computer-network-crashes.html?_r=0.

25. Stephan Haggard and Jon R. Lindsay, “North Korea and the Sony Hack: Exporting Instability through Cyberspace,” Asia-Pacific Issues, East-West Center, May 2015.

26. David Sanger and Martin Fackler, “N.S.A. Breached North Korean Networks before Sony Attack, Officials Say,” New York Times, January 18, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/world/asia/nsa-tapped-into-north-korean-networks-before-sony-attack-officials-say.html?_r=0.

27. Terence Roehrig, From Deterrence to Engagement: The U.S. Defense Commitment to South Korea (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2006), 44–45.

28. John Gittings, “North Korea Fires Missile over Japan,” Guardian, September 1, 1998, http://www.theguardian.com/world/1998/sep/01/northkorea.

29. Tiffany Ap, “North Korea Satellite ‘Tumbling in Orbit,’ US Official Says, CNN, February 9, 2016. http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/08/asia/north-korea-rocket-launch/.

30. Terence Roehrig, “Korean Dispute over the Northern Limit Line: Security, Economics, or International Law?,” Maryland Series in Contemporary Asian Studies 2008, no. 3 (article 1), http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mscas/vol2008/iss3/1.

31. “CPRK Warns US, S. Korea Not to Make Misjudgment,” KCNA, April 11, 2013.

32. “Nodong Sinmun Denounces S. Korean Large-Scale Joint Firepower Drills,” KCNA, April 13, 2013.

33. US Department of State, “Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of the Six-Party Talks,” September 19, 2005, http://www.state.gov/p/eap/regional/c15455.htm.

34. Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Remarks at the United States Institute of Peace,” US Department of State, October 21, 2009, http://www.state.gov/secretary/
20092013clinton/rm/2009a/10/130806.htm.

35. Jong Kun Choi, “The Perils of Strategic Patience with North Korea,” Washington Quarterly 38, no. 4 (Winter 2016): 57–72.

36. US Department of State, “Press Statement: U.S.-DPRK Bilateral Discussions,” February 29, 2012, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/02/184869.htm.

37. “North Korea Satellite Plan Is Highly Provocative, Says US,” Guardian, March 16, 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/16/north-korea-satellite-highly-provocative.

38. Choe Sang-Hun and Rick Gladstone, “North Korean Rocket Fails Moments after Liftoff,” New York Times, April 12, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/world/asia/north-korea-launches-rocket-defying-world-warnings.html?pagewanted=all.

39. See Sung Kim, “Remarks to Reports at the Westin Chaoyang Hotel,” January 30, 2015, http://www.state.gov/p/eap/rls/rm/2015/01/236976.htm, and Glyn Davies, “U.S. Policy towards North Korea,” Statement before the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, July 30, 2014, http://www.state.gov/p/eap/rls/rm/2014/07/229936.htm.

40. Alastair Gale and Carol E. Lee, “U.S. Agreed to North Korea Peace Talks before Latest Nuclear Test,” Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-agreed-to-north-korea-peace-talks-1456076019.

41. Sue Mi Terry, “A Korea Whole and Free: Why Unifying the Peninsula Won’t Be So Bad after All,” Foreign Affairs 93 (July–August 2014): 153–62; Mark Fitzpatrick, “North Korea: Is Regime Change the Answer?” Survival 55, no. 3 (June–July 2013): 7–20.

42. US Department of State, Daniel Russel, “North Korea: How to Approach the Nuclear Threat,” April 4, 2016, http://www.state.gov/p/eap/rls/rm/2016/04/255492.htm.

43. See John S. Park, “The Key to the North Korean Targeted Sanctions Puzzle,” Washington Quarterly 37 (Fall 2014): 201–2.

44. See US Department of the Treasury, “North Korea Sanctions,” April 22, 2015, http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/pages/nkorea.aspx; Park, “Key to the North Korean Targeted Sanctions Puzzle.”

45. Joshua Stanton, “Arsenal of Terror: North Korea, State Sponsor of Terror,” Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, 2015, http://www.hrnk.org/uploads/files/
4_27_15_Stanton_ArsenalofTerror.pdf.

46. David E. Sanger and Michael S. Schmidt, “More Sanctions on North Korea after Sony Case,” New York Times, January 2, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/03/us/in-response-to-sony-attack-us-levies-sanctions-on-10-north-koreans.html?_r=0.

47. US Department of Defense, “Joint Communiqué: The 45th ROK-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting,” October 2, 2013, http://archive.defense.gov/pubs/Joint%20Communique,%2045th%20ROK-U.S.%20Security%20Consultative%20Meeting.pdf.

48. Kwanwoo Jun, “U.S., South Korea Sign Pact on Deterrence against North,” Wall Street Journal, October 2, 2013, http://www.wsj.com/articles/
SB10001424052702304906704579110891808197868.

49. Brice Padden, “U.S., South Korea to Practice Offense during Joint Exercises,” Voice of America, February 22, 2016, http://www.voanews.com/content/us-south-korea-forces-to-practice-offense-during-joint-exercises/3201231.html.

50. “China Criticizes U.S. Missile Defense Radar in Japan,” Reuters, October 23, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/23/us-china-japan-usa-idUSKCN0IC16P20141023.

51. Choi Kang and Kim Gi Bum, “Breaking the Myth of Missile Defense,” Issue Briefs, Asan Institute, August 8, 2014, http://en.asaninst.org/contents/breaking-the-myth-of-missile-defense/.

52. Karen DeYoung, “U.S. to Deploy Anti-missile System to Guam,” Washington Post, April 3, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-to-deploy-anti-missile-system-to-guam/2013/04/03/b939ecfc-9c89–11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.html.

53. Oh Seok-min, “Carter: U.S. Not Ready to Discuss THAAD Deployment in S. Korea,” Yonhap, April 10, 2015, http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2015/
04/10/6/0301000000AEN20150410006252315F.html.

54. US Department of Defense, “Joint Communiqué: The 46th ROK-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting,” October 23, 2014, http://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/
pubs/46th_SCM_Joint_Communique.pdf.

55. US Department of Defense, “Press Briefing by Secretary Hagel and ROK Minister of National Defense Han Min Koo in the Pentagon Briefing Room,” October 23, 2014, http://www.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=5524.

56. David Sanger and Thom Shanker, “U.S. Designs a Korea Response Proportional to the Provocation,” New York Times, April 7, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/world/asia/us-and-south-korea-devise-plan-to-counter-north.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

57. Steve Herman, “US, South Korea Announce New Counter-Attack Plan,” Voice of America, March 25, 2013, http://www.voanews.com/content/us-south-korea-announce-new-counter-attack-plan/1627869.html.

58. Terence Roehrig, “Reinforcing Deterrence: The U.S. Military Response to North Korean Provocations,” in Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies: Facing Reality in East Asia; Tough Decisions on Competition and Cooperation, ed. Gilbert Rozman (Washington, DC: Korea Economic Institute, 2015), 221–39.

59. US Department of Defense, “Joint Communiqué: The 47th ROK-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting,” November 1, 2015, http://www.usfk.mil/Media/News/tabid/12660/Article/626859/
full-text-of-47th-rok-us-joint-communique.aspx.

60. Ibid.

61. “Joint Communiqué: The 11th ROK-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting,” October 1978, in the author’s possession.

62. US Department of Defense, “Joint Communiqué: 47th ROK-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting.”

63. Glenn Kessler and Dafna Linzer, “Rice Trip to Push Full Sanctions for N. Korea,” Washington Post, October 17, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/16/AR2006101600445.html.

64. “Joint Vision for the Alliance of the United States of America and the Republic of Korea,” White House, Office of the Press Secretary, June 16, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Joint-vision-for-the-alliance-of-the-United-States-of-America-and-the-Republic-of-Korea/.

65. “Remarks by President Barack Obama in Prague as Delivered,” White House, Office of the Press Secretary, April 5, 2009, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered.

66. US Department of Defense, “Nuclear Posture Review Report,” April 2010, 6.

67. Ibid., 15.

68. Ibid., 17.

69. Michael Chermin and Sabin Ray, “On the Frontline of U.S. Nuclear Policy with Under Secretary Rose Gottemoeller,” Brown Journal of World Affairs 21 (Fall 2014): 255–56.

70. For example, see Mark Fitzpatrick, “Why South Korea Should Not ‘Go Nuclear,’ ” Korea Herald, February 19, 2016, http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160219000241, and Terence Roehrig, “The Case for a Nuclear-free South,” JoongAng Daily, June 19, 2014, http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2990820.

71. Thomas Escrit and Steve Holland, “Obama Brings U.S. Allies South Korea and Japan Together for Talks,” Reuters, March 25, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/25/us-japan-korea-trilateral-idUSBREA2O1OT20140325.

72. Daniel R. Russel, “Transatlantic Interests in Asia,” remarks at Chatham House, January 13, 2014, http://www.state.gov/p/eap/rls/rm/2014/01/219881.htm.

73. Oh Seok-min, “S. Korea, Japan, U.S. to Hold Defense Talks on N. Korea,” Yonhap News, May 30, 2015, http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/
2015/05/29/22/0301000000AEN20150529009400315F.html.

74. Samuel J. Mun, “ ‘Destined to Cooperate’: Japan-ROK Naval Cooperation and Its Implications for U.S. Strategic Interests in Northeast Asia,” Project 2049 Institute, January 31, 2014, http://www.project2049.net/documents/
Japan_ROK_naval_cooperation_Sam_Mun.pdf.

75. Kim Eun-jung, “S. Korea, Japan Conduct Search, Rescue Drill in East China Sea,” Yonhap News, December 12, 2013, http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2013/
12/12/23/0301000000AEN20131212007100315F.html.

76. “Japan, South Korea, and U.S. Begin Search and Rescue Exercise,” Japan Times, July 22, 2014, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/07/22/national/japan-south-korea-u-s-begin-search-rescue-exercise/.

77. Author interview, July 1, 2015.

78. US Department of Defense, “Trilateral Information Sharing Arrangement,” December 2014, http://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/Trilateral-Information-Sharing-Arrangement.pdf.

79. Martin Fackler, “Japan and South Korea Vow to Share Intelligence about North via the U.S.,” New York Times, December 29, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/30/world/asia/japan-south-korea-north-intelligence.html?_r=0.

80. Osakabe Yasuo, “UNC Celebrates the 67th Anniversary of the United Nations in Japan,” Yokota Air Base Public Affairs Office, November 28, 2012, http://www.yokota.af.mil/News/
ArticleDisplay/tabid/2053/Article/410942/unc-celebrates-the-67th-anniversary-of-the-
united-nations-in-japan.aspx

81. Terence Roehrig, “North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, and the Stability-Instability Paradox,” Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 28, no. 2 (Summer 2016): 417–34.