THE NORTH KOREAN nuclear challenge is now best thought of as a deterrence problem rather than a denuclearization one. What North Korean provocations can South Korea and the United States deter? What would China’s role be in light of its rivalry with the United States? Can the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime be salvaged in the aftermath of North Korea’s evasion? What are the best policies for regional actors to realize their objectives, peace on the Korean Peninsula, and more broadly, regional stability and international security?
North Korea’s nuclear path has entered a “competency trap” and thus is not likely to reverse itself in the near future. According to James March and Johan Olsen, a competency trap is where old institutions resist accommodation of newer efficient elements.1 In North Korea, the competency trap takes place in the redistribution of resources, bureaucratic inertia, and leaders’ security concerns. The few who have taken advantage of the expansion of nuclear weapon development face few incentives to yield their gains. Organizational and bureaucratic structures are in line with the security strategy that is based on nuclear weapons and supporting delivery systems.
North Korea has exercised coercive, revisionist diplomacy not simply because it has nuclear weapons but also because its nuclear advancement has made the old bargaining chip, which was used in the 1990s, less beneficial. Tristan Volpe aptly noted this in his chapter. For instance, at the negotiation stage of the Agreed Framework in Geneva in 1994, North Korea, in exchange for only “freezing” its program, was able to obtain the pledge of two light-water reactors. However, the continued increase of its plutonium stockpile and the advancement of its uranium-enrichment program have resulted in a stronger hand when bargaining over its status. The meaning of freeze or denuclearization now differs significantly from that of the period of the negotiation for the Agreed Framework. The United States has adopted “strategic patience” and increased the level of sanctions; it is not likely to replicate the Iran nuclear deal of July 2015 on the Korean Peninsula, particularly after North Korea’s fifth nuclear test in September 2016. The costs of negotiation have therefore increased for every party. The international community, including the five states that participated in the Six-Party Talks from 2003 to 2008, now needs more diplomatic and economic resources to stop or denuclearize North Korea. North Korea also is in a dilemma. On the one hand, its bargaining chip has become too expensive; on the other hand, the pouring of resources to the nuclear program, coupled with the tightened sanctions initiated by the United Nations (UN), will continue to stagnate its economy and likely endanger the legitimacy of the Kim Jong-un regime.
North Korea’s above-mentioned competency trap and its diverse provocations on the Korean Peninsula have raised new research questions about the behavior of small nuclear powers and its effect on regional stability. In addition to the long-addressed issues of denuclearization of and engagement with North Korea, scholars and policymakers need to come to terms with the challenges of deterring Pyongyang. Conventional and nuclear deterrence was a significant topic throughout the Cold War. Applying what we know about deterrence to the Korean Peninsula will enrich our understanding of the North Korean nuclear challenge and substantially enrich discussions about policy trade-offs. It is, however, noteworthy that in dealing with the North Korean challenge, the concept of deterrence needs further sophistication and elaboration. The Kenneth N. Waltz–Scott D. Sagan debate has been useful for understanding different aspects of nuclear states’ behavior and approach to risk, but as Thérèse Delpech has pointed out, the behavior of the small nuclear states such as North Korea seems to have long been more risk acceptant than that of the great nuclear powers. The stability-instability paradox, a notion originally presented by Glenn Snyder, seems applicable to the Korean Peninsula, but what type of violence it would cause is unclear.2 As Michael D. Cohen pointed out in his chapter, extant frameworks do not allow us to explain variation in the foreign policy assertiveness of nuclear powers. US extended deterrence is the bottom line of the deterrence strategy on the Korean Peninsula, but its assurance that North Korea perceives needs to be better incorporated into scholarly and policy discussions. Furthermore, there are unique sources of perpetuating insecurity on the peninsula, such as national division, the despotic regime in Pyongyang, and the increasing US-China rivalry. Therefore, despite Washington’s superior nuclear and conventional capability and its joint efforts with South Korea to deter the North, stabilizing deterrence on the Korean Peninsula is not easily achieved.
To what extent does deterrence work on the Korean Peninsula? North Korea is continuing its nuclear advancement and revisionist strategy; the regime is not only surviving but also applying compellence on South Korea and the international community. For example, with five nuclear tests since 2006 and the continued ballistic missile firings, despite warnings from many sides, North Korea has demonstrated that it does not care about international concerns, including those of the United States and South Korea. Furthermore, it has continued military and nonmilitary provocations, including cyberattacks. The consequence is that deterrence against North Korea works to prevent a war but not that much else. This situation seems to support the stability-instability paradox. This is not good news.
The logic of the stability-instability paradox is that two competing nuclear powers are not likely to escalate to a nuclear war, but if this is true, then they are likely to conduct indirect or low-intensity attacks. North Korean behavior seems consistent with this logic; however, it is not the same as the standard dyadic setup in the stability-instability paradox. North Korean provocations play out in trilateral relations. Its provocations against South Korea aim to penetrate into the vulnerability of the United States’ extended-deterrence commitments. While enhancing its nuclear capability, North Korea has conducted various forms of low-intensity attacks against South Korea, the ally of the United States: the sinking of a South Korean navy ship Cheonan, the artillery attack on the South Korean island Yeonpyeong, the escalation of cyberattacks, and the placing of mines in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) (for more details, see the chapters by Sung Chull Kim, Van Jackson, and Terence Roehrig). In response, South Korea has strengthened its military cooperation with US forces and adopted the Tailored Deterrence Strategy.
Given this situation, the key question is whether or not it is possible to establish a stabilizing deterrence on the Korean Peninsula out of Pyongyang’s low-intensity provocations, backed by its nuclear advancement, and Seoul and Washington’s efforts to contain them. A stabilizing deterrence over the small nuclear power’s challenge requires that the defender nuclear state, the United States in this case, is able to assure the challenger that provocations will be followed by punishments and that restraints will be met with reciprocal restraints.
For its part, North Korea has made strenuous efforts to enhance the credibility of its nuclear threat. It has tried to prove that its words and deeds match. Not only has North Korea under Kim Jong-un reiterated its resolve to continue nuclear advancement, including miniaturizing and diversifying the weapons, but it has also demonstrated this through nuclear and missile tests, defying international and inter-Korean agreements. Van Jackson’s chapter in this volume showed that North Korean threats on nuclear tests and missile launches have been followed by corresponding actions. North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests—in 2006, 2009, and 2013 and twice in 2016. It has proved that its weapons’ explosive power is increasing. In particular, the September 2016 test produced more yield than previous ones, paralleling, observers estimate, that of the bomb used on Hiroshima. North Korea has also continued the advancement of delivery systems—advancing intermediate-range ballistic missiles, developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and introducing and deploying mobile launchers. Inasmuch as the North Korean nuclear threat aims at the United States, the latter is concerned about extended-deterrence credibility, which has been challenged. An exception to the match between North Korea’s words and deeds is its blatant threats of an all-out war—that is, a nuclear war. The talks of nuclear war are bluffing and blackmailing rather than credible threats.
The nuclear advancement has emboldened North Korean authorities to commit low-intensity provocations; in other words, the nuclear threats have sustained those provocations even if not escalating into an all-out war or a nuclear war. After the collapse of the Six-Party Talks at the end of 2008 and its second nuclear test in 2009, North Korea instigated two crises in 2010 with its sinking of the Cheonan in March and its shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in November.
The United States and South Korea have had an assurance problem. During the two incidents in 2010, the allies appeared to give an impression to the North that they had backed down because of their limited retaliation to the provocations. In response to China’s ambivalent stance over the incidents and its call for restraint of all relevant parties rather than criticizing North Korea, the United States restrained South Korea after the Cheonan incident.3 This was a disappointing outcome for South Korea. Likewise, after North Korea’s shelling of Yeonpyeong, the United States’ joint naval exercises with South Korea abated tensions surrounding the incident but without sufficient explicit warnings toward North Korea’s bad behavior. China saw that the joint exercises, just as Beijing wished, served as a useful tool for constraining South Korea.4 Consequently, in coping with the North Korean provocations, the United States and South Korea suffered from a lack of intra-alliance assurance and the concomitant limited display of resolve.
On the basis of the lessons taken from the two incidents in 2010, the United States and South Korea adopted the Tailored Deterrence Strategy, which is an activist strategy of developing diverse options to counter North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and conventional provocations. Details of the Tailored Deterrence Strategy, even if not publicized, have been implemented since 2014 in the joint exercises held annually by the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK). Owing to the strengthened US-ROK military cooperation and particularly tailored deterrence, North Korea has tended to avoid direct armed provocations against South Korea. In this regard, the US and South Korean Tailored Deterrence Strategy seems to have been at least partly successful. But it is fair to say that it has not been able to establish a stabilizing deterrence on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea has developed new modes of provocations: committing both conventional and nonconventional types of attacks while concealing the commandership of the operations. One was a cyberattack to disrupt the information-technology infrastructure of South Korean banks, government agencies, and telecommunications, and the other was laying mines in the DMZ.
The dilemma in deterrence on the Korean Peninsula was well signified by the aftermath of the mine incident that occurred at the inter-Korean border in August 2015. In response to the incident, in which two South Korean soldiers lost their legs to North Korean–laid ATM-74 mines, South Korea demonstrated its resolve to directly confront North Korea. South Korea resumed anti–North Korean loudspeaker broadcasting in retaliation, eleven years after the 2004 South-North agreement to stop such broadcasts.5 North Korea declared a quasi state of war, forward-deployed artillery, and apparently put fifty submarines to sea; South Korea raised its alert level from WATCHCON 3 to 2, signifying a vital threat; and US military intelligence and strategic assets were readied to support the South Korean military operations. Neither side wanted to back down or further escalate. The standoff ended with high-level talks between South and North Korea on August 25. The North expressed regret regarding the mine incident, whereas the South stopped the broadcasting and pledged not to resume it unless further provocations occurred.6
Did the military standoff and its resolution suggest a stabilizing deterrence on the Korean Peninsula? The answer is no. Both sides understood that escalation of the conflict would be disastrous. As the standoff ended, there was a widespread view, particularly in South Korea, that the Park Geun-hye administration’s principled approach had forced Pyongyang to virtually admit responsibility for the mine incident. Also, the North revealed its most sensitive and weakest nerve, the Kim Jong-un regime’s legitimization, which the South’s border broadcasting targeted. However, the inter-Korean high-level agreement in August 2015 was wiped away immediately. That is, the agreement meant a fragile, temporary balance on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea issued nuclear threats again during the seventieth anniversary of the Korean Workers’ Party on October 10 by restating the byeongjin strategy—simultaneous development of nuclear deterrent and economy (detailed in Chaesung Chun’s chapter). North Korea conducted the fourth nuclear test in January 2016 and a long-range ballistic missile test in the following month; in response, South Korea resumed its loudspeaker broadcasting at the inter-Korean border and decided to close the Gaesong Industrial Complex, which was immediately followed by North Korea’s retaliation and declaration of its confiscation of the South Korean assets remaining in the complex. As the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2270 in March, North Korea test-fired its Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile, which apparently aimed to demonstrate the credibility of its threat. North Korea declared that it was willing to preemptively use the nuclear weapons against South Korea, a declaration that starkly differed from its previous position. Moreover, on September 9, 2016, it conducted its fifth nuclear test in an attempt to miniaturize the nuclear warhead.
The difficulty of establishing a stabilizing deterrence lies, in part, in a built-in problem of extended deterrence, as Sung Chull Kim pointed out in his chapter. The challenger and the defender, who may reach stability at the nuclear level, are North Korea and the United States; at the low-intensity level, however, the challenger North Korea’s provocations target South Korea. Thus, instability on the peninsula at the low-intensity level in this extended-deterrence situation is likely to be more serious than in the bilateral situation. This is so because the dilemma of abandonment and entrapment is at work in this extended-deterrence situation. South Korea worries about abandonment or incomplete commitment, whereas the United States is concerned about the risk of entrapment. The US resolve for the security of South Korea is stronger than ever before. Amid the tension rising around the fourth nuclear test, the strong resolve of the United States was exemplified by its initiative to adopt an unprecedentedly coercive UN Security Council resolution and by its strengthened joint military exercises with South Korea (using strategic assets such as aircraft carriers and B-52, B-2, and F-22 aircraft). However, for South Korea, the US resolve is far from complete. In the eyes of South Koreans, the United States is also concerned about the risk of a war, or any kind of military conflict at least, on the Korean Peninsula. For North Korea, this is the point of weakness, which it repeatedly challenges.
A related problem appears in the nuclear umbrella, which is the central issue of the US assurance for its East Asian allies South Korea and Japan. As Terence Roehrig notes, an unanswered question is whether the United States would actually use nuclear weapons in the event of escalating conflict on the peninsula. In the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) in 2002, the United States revealed a contingency plan for the use of nuclear weapons against seven countries, including North Korea. Insofar as the use is concerned, however, the US nuclear posture was scaled back. In the 2010 NPR, the United States adopted a negative security assurance, which did not explicitly specify North Korea as a target for the US use of nuclear weapons. For the perceived incomplete nuclear umbrella, some South Korean advocates for a further strengthened US-ROK alliance argue that the nuclear-umbrella clause should be included in the mutual defense treaty, which was established in 1953 and has been continued until today.7 Despite the treaty’s vital role of sustaining the alliance and the security of South Korea, the United States has little reason to stipulate the clause in the bilateral treaty. Indeed, there is no bilateral security treaty in which the United States articulates its intention to use nuclear weapons.
In sum, a stabilizing deterrence is difficult to establish on the peninsula because of both North Korea’s low-intensity provocations, backed by its continued nuclear advancement, and the built-in problem of extended deterrence. In response to North Korea’s repeated nuclear tests, the South Koreans do not simply feel the threat but question the US nuclear umbrella and its related assurance. The result is their frequent call for South Korea’s nuclear development. Indeed, after North Korea’s two nuclear tests in 2016, many ruling party members (and even some opposition party members) in the National Assembly argued in favor of nuclear armament. The US response to North Korea’s increasing nuclear threats was a reconfirmation of its assurance of extended deterrence, including the flying of US bombers over South Korea in a show of force and the test-firings of Minuteman III ICBMs from an air base in California.8 However, a gap between US assurance and South Korean perception is likely to widen.
Deterrence, as well as denuclearization, on the Korean Peninsula is complicated by regional politics, particularly by China’s rise and the US-China rivalry in the Asia-Pacific region. Of course, North Korea’s nuclear weapon issue preceded the rise of China and the US-China rivalry; nuclear North Korea and its related tension on the Korean Peninsula are neither a result of China’s rise nor a proxy of the China-US rivalry. But the increasing contention between the United States and China hampers and limits cooperation between the two great powers over the North Korean issue despite their common interest in ratcheting down tensions. North Korea seems to have taken advantage of this. This is particularly true in relation to North Korea’s nuclear test on January 6, 2016, and its missile tests in the following months. The United States and China diverged at the UN over the extent of the economic sanctions, and thus the adoption of Security Council Resolution 2270 was delayed until March 2. Afterward, North Korea committed a series of provocations with the firing of a long-range rocket, which apparently was a ballistic missile, and several Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The regime also test-fired SLBMs, demonstrating significant technological advancement. North Korea will be able to deploy these weapons in the field earlier than observers have expected. On September 9, it alarmed the world by conducting its fifth nuclear test, which apparently produced a more powerful yield than previous tests. It is fair to say that North Korea has taken advantage of the rivalry between the United States and China; because of the rivalry, the two big powers have failed to produce concerted efforts to constrain those destabilizing acts.
China’s diplomatic efforts were distinctive in the multilateral negotiations at the Six-Party Talks in 2003, striving to find a common ground among the different interests and preferences of the participants. After the breakdown of the talks in 2008, however, in order to keep North Korea within its sphere of influence, China guarded North Korea when sanctions were implemented for Pyongyang’s provocative behavior. Despite North Korea’s repeated nuclear tests and missile firings, China opposed adoption of Chapter VII, Article 42, which allows the use of air, sea, and land forces to enforce sanctions.9 Consequently, the sanctions on North Korea focused on economic and financial sanctions and diplomatic pressure, thus having a limited effect on restricting activities related to development of weapons of mass destruction. After the September 2016 nuclear test, it is a prevalent assessment among the observers that the sanctions regime, specifically the UN Security Council resolutions, failed to achieve its intended objectives because of the loopholes China left open for North Korea to avoid the sanctions.10
It is, however, noteworthy that North Korea’s nuclear path, and its provocations backed by the nuclear advancement, would have two different implications for China’s national interest. It would damage Beijing’s international standing as a responsible partner for the maintenance of stability and peace in the Asia-Pacific. It is also true that North Korea is not a state that directly challenges China. For the time being, North Korea contributes to checking US power in the region. As Fei-Ling Wang noted in his chapter, North Korea’s nuclear weapons help the Chinese Communist Party’s interest of reducing, resisting, and replacing the US influence in the region. Thus, China certainly maintains its policy of red lines toward the peninsula: no North Korean collapse and no bordering with a unified Korea that hosts US forces. It is in China’s interest that North Korea remain a buffer zone between its territory and the United States’ power. But, as Wang pointed out, Beijing’s commitment to these red lines allows North Korea to get away with a spate of behavior that directly threatens Beijing, not least of which would be the nuclearization of South Korea and Japan in response to Pyongyang’s truculence.
North Korea’s nuclear development has directed more South Korean attention to China’s influence on the Korean Peninsula. Beijing’s interest lies not in choosing one of the two Koreas but in subtly dealing with both. Xi Jinping has listened to the South Korean position about North Korea recently. In doing so, he has successfully attracted the attention of the Park Geun-hye administration. As the Park administration has reiterated that reunification is the solution to North Korea’s nuclear challenge, Xi symbolically stated at the PRC-ROK summit in August 2015 that China would continue to support peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and the independent and peaceful unification of Korea.11 One may not conclude from Xi’s statement that China would not mind the South Korean style of unification; China’s priority lies in the status quo on the divided peninsula.12 In return, however, Park attended the military parade in Beijing for the seventieth anniversary of Victory over Japan Day, held in September 2015.13 She tried to employ a hedge strategy toward China because Seoul needed Beijing’s collaboration in coping with North Korean nuclear development.
Since North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in January 2016, the prospect for close China-ROK security cooperation has faltered. While believing that South Korea is the weakest link in the US-Japan-ROK security triangle, China has tried to take advantage of South Korea’s hedge strategy toward Beijing. Japan has gone hand in hand with the United States in all important security matters, as seen in the joint development of missile defense, the 2015 revision of US-Japan security guidelines, and Japan’s changes of the domestic law in accordance with the revision. In contrast, South Korea has taken an independent path of developing the Korean Air and Missile Defense and the Kill Chain and has been reluctant to participate in the US-led missile defense system. South Korea’s motivation was mainly associated with its wish for the improvement of the Seoul-Beijing relationship. In the same vein, South Korea was reluctant in expressing its position on the issue of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) deployment. Although speculations flourished about a possible US deployment of THAAD in one of the US bases in South Korea, Seoul consistently denied the possibility in consideration of China’s strong opposition. However, after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in January 2016, South Korea, despite its anticipation of China’s protest, dramatically changed its stance on THAAD. South Korean president Park stated on January 13, 2016, that South Korea would review the US plan for the deployment of THAAD on Korean territory.14 The Chinese ambassador in Seoul warned that a possible deployment of a THAAD battery would destroy South Korea’s ties with China.15 In the end, US-ROK military officials declared on July 7 that the two governments had decided to deploy THAAD in South Korea. For South Korea the decision virtually meant Seoul’s abandonment of its pursuit of a hedge strategy toward Beijing, and for China it was seen as an attempt to neutralize Beijing’s missile installations in eastern China.
Between the United States and China, a game is going on in dealing with the increasingly provocative North Korea. It took place over the extent of sanctions on North Korea right after the fourth nuclear test. In order to induce China’s tough stance on North Korea, Washington, along with Seoul, brought up the issue of THAAD deployment. In response to China’s strong opposition, US secretary of state John Kerry argued that “if we can get to denuclearization [of North Korea], there is no need to deploy THAAD.”16 Apparently US and South Korean pressure over the issue partly contributed to persuading Beijing to join Washington and Seoul in the adoption of the unprecedentedly punitive UN sanctions after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test.
The game has continued after the UN resolution was adopted in March 2016. US pressure on China repeated after Xi unexpectedly met North Korean envoy Ri Su-yong, whose visit to Beijing on June 1 was apparently aimed at finding a breakthrough amid toughened international sanctions. At that meeting, Xi relieved the envoy by saying that China “attached great importance to developing a friendly relationship with North Korea” and was seeking “calm” on the Korean Peninsula.17 The Chinese top leader’s statement was apparently in support of the isolated and bellicose ally. In response, the US Department of the Treasury took an independent measure to raise the level of sanctions against North Korea, calling for a secondary boycott by labeling the country a primary money-laundering concern. Under this new measure, non-American banks and others, particularly those of China, are prohibited from conducting dollar transactions with North Koreans.18 The tit-for-tat move between China and the United States signifies that the North Korean question is a power game between the great powers. Just as China often uses the North Korean issue to check US influence in the region, the United States tries to use its strategic assets, such as THAAD, and instruments of sanctions to press China. As the US-China rivalry intensifies and the North Korean nuclear push continues, the game over North Korea is only likely to escalate. Also, North Korea is likely to continue to take advantage of the rivalry between the two superpowers.
What is the critical limit for China’s tolerance of a nuclear North Korea? As the touchiest issue, South Korea’s and Japan’s positions on their nuclear armament is likely to decide China’s tolerance limit for North Korea’s nuclear defiance. If North Korea’s strategic use of its nuclear deterrent and the Kim regime’s continued provocations force South Korea and Japan to seriously deliberate the indigenous nuclear weapon question, Beijing would be much more likely to collaborate with the United States and with South Korea and Japan. China’s choice might be a grand compromise with the United States to contain North Korea, whereas the United States would persuade its allies not to take the indigenous nuclear path. Because a nuclear North Korea might drive the key players in East Asia into the nuclear orbit, Beijing needs to assess both its maximum interest and its leverage over Pyongyang. Nuclear armament of the two US allies would be a dreadful security outcome for China and would severely constrain Beijing’s influence in the Asia-Pacific. The Chinese dilemma is that it is difficult to assess and predict the limit of South Korea’s and Japan’s patience over the issue of North Korea’s nuclear advancement. Moreover, severely pressuring North Korea to put limits on its nuclear agenda would probably also involve pressuring the stability of the regime.
North Korean nuclear development has seriously undermined the NPT regime in general and the IAEA’s supervisory arm in particular. The North Korean case set a bad precedent in the history of the NPT regime. Above all, North Korea’s withdrawal from the NPT damaged the perceived effectiveness and reliability of the treaty in slowing the spread of nuclear weapons. To stay in or exit from the NPT became a North Korean bargaining chip in 1993, and North Korea’s eventual withdrawal in 2003 reinforced beliefs that the NPT has no enforcement power over a withdrawing state and that Article 10 of the treaty may be used as a sanctuary for a defiant state. The North Korean case will remain an example that a state crossing the threshold between peaceful use of the nuclear technology and military use may use Article 10 of the NPT as a negotiation tool and even freely chose its path afterward.
As Yangmo Ku elaborated in his chapter, North Korea has penetrated into the weakness of the NPT, which is unable to contain transfer of sensitive, critical technology between nuclear aspirants. North Korea signed the treaty in 1985, and the IAEA Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement entered into force in 1992. The transfer of uranium-enrichment equipment from Pakistan to North Korea in the late 1990s was unchecked by the NPT regime because Pakistan did not have treaty member status.19 The NPT and the IAEA have no authority to trace back the nonmember state’s records of supply.
The limits of the NPT regime also appear in the UN Security Council–mandated sanctions. The NPT is denounced by nonnuclear states for its unequal provision of the five nuclear states’ privileged status. Even worse, the five nuclear states—at the same time five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the so-called P5)—are always divided in dealing with outlaws, particularly when they adopt UN Security Council resolutions. Regarding North Korea’s repeated nuclear tests, the P5 has split on the extent of the sanctions and revealed the coordination problem in their implementation. North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in January 2016 forced the P5 to collaborate to produce an unprecedentedly strict resolution, but whether the P5 would make a concerted effort to fully implement the resolution is unclear. The sanctions’ effect on the UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea’s provocations is likely to be limited.
These weaknesses do not devalue the existence of the NPT regime and the treaty per se. The treaty, despite the problems of unequal provision, continues to address nonproliferation objectives. Along with such nonproliferation mechanisms such as the treaty, IAEA safeguards, and the Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines, the existing NPT regime restricts the transfer of technology, facilities, and materials, particularly when establishing atomic energy cooperation agreements between suppliers and recipients.
What can make the NPT a more credible regime with enforcement power, in the face of the limitations mentioned above, might be the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) by major nuclear powers such as the United States and China. The CTBT was a major achievement for nonproliferation in the post–Cold War era, owing not only to the long struggle of organized anti-nuclear-weapons movements but also to the major powers’ participation. Just as the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty contributed to constraining the nuclear states’ atmospheric and oceanic tests, so too the CTBT, if ratified by the two great powers, would have a constraining effect on underground nuclear tests by small nuclear states such as North Korea. Whereas the NPT regime reveals its weakness in the front end of nuclear weapon development, the CTBT will be able to supplement these weaknesses in the back end and to limit and delay, if not stop, their nuclear advancement. North Korea is not a state that cares about legal provisions, but the latter would delegitimize the position of those states that are relatively tolerant of North Korea’s nuclear provocations.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that the North Korean nuclear challenge generates more pessimism than optimism. The security situation in the Asia-Pacific will seriously deteriorate if North Korea’s nuclear advancement is not dealt with quickly. As the possibility of denuclearization fades away, deterrence remains a serious and urgent agenda. As Patrick Morgan aptly noted in his chapter, deterrence in general and that on the Korean Peninsula in particular are crude. Elements of deterrence have penetrated into every aspect of peninsula dynamics: international sanctions, US policy toward the Korean Peninsula, inter-Korean relations, and the two Koreas’ external relations. It is difficult for South Korea and the United States—and the international community broadly speaking—to establish a stabilizing deterrence in which they can comfortably constrain both North Korean nuclear advancement, such as testing, sophisticating, and improving warheads and delivery systems, and Pyongyang’s strategic use of them. Deterrence is closely related to domestic politics of all the relevant states, to international power politics shown in the China-US rivalry, and to the psychological dimension particularly at the moment of escalation.
The most pressing challenge is that of the near term. North Korea is likely to soon develop strategic nuclear missiles, increase its confrontations with Seoul and Washington, and plunge the peninsula into its most dangerous nuclear crisis. When Kim Jong-un does so, Washington and Seoul have to individually and collectively work out how to best deter and reassure North Korea. They must ensure that Kim believes that the costs and likelihood of their retaliation is so great that nuclear coercion is not worth undertaking. But if Kim comes to conclude that it is highly probable that his own destruction is inevitable, he may resort to conventional—and possibly nuclear—force to defend himself, deter aggression, or gamble for resurrection.
This challenge by itself is hard enough to overcome, but extended deterrence raises new challenges. Washington and Seoul need to continue coordinating responses to different North Korean provocations to ensure that both agree on the calibration of coercion and assurance. Seoul, which has greater stakes than distant Washington does, has long wanted greater commitments but now expresses its stern resolve to respond forcefully to North Korean attacks. The United States needs to coordinate such operations with Seoul in such a way that fits with regional stability and deters and reassures North Korea. The US-ROK alliance would also do well to continue military cooperation and joint exercises that signal to Pyongyang that responses to the most likely land, sea, and air challenges have been agreed upon, developed, and operationalized. North Korea would most likely attempt to undermine the alliance through questioning Washington’s commitment to a long fight. If the United States and South Korea can credibly signal to the North that undermining their shared interests and preferences would be difficult and that this unanimity applies not only to deterring challenges but also to living with an inevitably nuclear North Korea, a stabilizing deterrence can be built out of such great asymmetry. Because of the uniqueness of Kim’s dictatorial regime, the unanimity and credibility of the United States and South Korea’s signals should target the top leader. The US-ROK joint exercise titled Chamsu Jakjeon (Beheading Operation), which took place after the North’s fourth nuclear test, rightly sent such signals to Pyongyang, although the term seemed too insulting.
The United States would do well to come to terms with China on the North Korean challenge. But this most likely requires a greater settlement. As long as both Washington and Beijing believe that greater stakes elsewhere require more competition, any agreement on addressing the North Korean nuclear issue will remain elusive. For the United States and China, the North Korean challenge is not only a global proliferation problem, horizontal and vertical, but also a serious threat to regional security. On the one hand, given US-China rivalry, as far as North Korea is skewed toward or aligned with China, a nuclear North Korea will be more likely to serve the interest of China. In this regard, within the US-China competition, the United States’ strategic patience will simply delay any solution. On the other hand, if North Korea does not stop provocations but escalates tension into a nuclear crisis, or if its continued nuclear advancement at a certain moment is viewed to be crossing the tolerance level, Chinese interests would be seriously damaged. Both Washington and Beijing certainly do not want to be entrapped in such a crisis on the Korean Peninsula. In view of the likely rising costs of inducing North Korea’s cooperation, the sooner a settlement that can address North Korea becomes feasible, the better for the interests of China and the United States and for international stability. South Korea and the United States must prepare for and find the right time to enter a dialogue for reducing tensions and threats. For the two, the improvement of a preemptive-strike capability and the Tailored Deterrence Strategy will not always guarantee a durable deterrence situation. Sanctions alone, without being framed within a comprehensive policy, will not be able to curb Pyongyang’s determination of nuclear advancement and its low-intensity provocations. For North Korea, the sensitive nerve of Kim Jong-un’s legitimization—the so-called dignity—is apparently one of the most vulnerable parts of the regime; at the same time, it will be a volatile, explosive element in the event of an unexpected domestic crisis. Without dialogue and tension-reduction efforts between Seoul and Washington on the one hand and Pyongyang on the other, the current confrontational situation is likely to develop into a nuclear crisis. Cohen has shown that should Kim Jong-un perceive loss of control over nuclear and possibly conventional escalation, the crisis would likely escalate.
The relationship between the divided Koreas is not the same as that of other states, as Chaesung Chun noted in his chapter. The important agreements of the two Koreas have stipulated that inter-Korean relations are not a state-to-state relationship but “a special interim relationship stemming from the process towards reunification” and that confederation, although having different meanings in the South and the North, is a transitional stage toward a fuller Korean unification.20 Resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue will be possible when North Korea comes to conceive its own vision of politics, security and safety, economy, and identity and when it can be made to envision a peace regime on the peninsula and a peaceful unification of the two Koreas. North Korea still fears the United States, and the Kim Jong-un regime, in the process of legitimization, needs the warrior image with nuclear weapons. North Korea, in comparison to South Korea, feels the relative deprivation of economic and diplomatic capabilities. Given this, projection of unification by way of the South-North confederation would contribute to eliminating the North’s fear of absorption by the South Korean system. This transitional approach would be able to reduce China’s fear of bordering a South Korea hosting US forces and thus open an opportunity of serious US-China talks on the future of the peninsula.
In sum, deterrence as a strategy is more complex than deterrence as a theory. Theoretically, deterrence is a threat to prevent the enemy from provoking an anticipated and devastating outcome. If both sides feel the same, there will emerge a balance that might be called a stabilizing deterrence. Deterrence is an indispensable element for the security of those states that must cope with external nuclear threats. In reality, there are many elements that actually obstruct rather than facilitate deterrence. Deterrence against North Korea or a stabilizing deterrence on the peninsula needs concerted efforts, whether they are transmission of signals of assurance or demonstration of credible military capabilities. And deterrence must take place in diverse fronts—such as sanctions, diplomacy, military force, and dialogues. What should be noted is that the objective of deterrence per se is so narrow that it is one of the most exhausting strategies. It requires relevant states to pour lots of resources into a single objective, the outcome of which is later not tradable for any other values of security, as evidenced by the exhausting US-Soviet nuclear deterrence during the Cold War. Deterrence is necessary but should be deliberated within a broader, comprehensive security policy and diplomacy. Those states that are directly affected by North Korea’s nuclear advancement—particularly South Korea, the United States, and China—must make earnest efforts to collectively seek a path that will make deterrence unnecessary. But doing so will most likely rely intensively on deterrence for the foreseeable future.
1. For the notion, James March and Johan Olsen, Rediscovering Institution: The Organizational Basis of Politics (New York: Free Press, 1989), 63. For further discussions or similar views, see Sung Chull Kim, North Korea under Kim Jong Il: From Consolidation to Systemic Dissonance (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2006), 23–24, and Dorothy J. Solinger, China’s Transition from Socialism: Stalinist Legacies and Market Reforms, 1980–1990 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharp, 1993), 66.
2. For the contending arguments about the outcome of nuclear armaments, see Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate, 3rd ed. (New York: Norton, 2013); Kenneth N. Waltz, “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb: Nuclear Balancing Would Mean Stability,” Foreign Affairs 91 (2012): 2–5; Glenn Snyder, Deterrence and Defense: Toward a Theory of National Security (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961); Glenn Snyder, “The Balance of Power and the Balance of Terror,” in The Balance of Power, ed. Paul Seabury (San Francisco: Chandler, 1965); and Michael D. Cohen, “How Nuclear South Asia Is Like Cold War Europe: The Stability-Instability Paradox Revisited,” Non-Proliferation Review 20, no. 3 (November 2013). For small nuclear powers’ behavior today, see Thérèse Delpech, Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century: Lessons from the Cold War for a New Era of Strategic Piracy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2012).
3. The US urging of South Korea’s restraint on the North Korean provocations is exemplified by the Rangoon incident in 1983, in which sixteen South Korean ministers and presidential secretaries were killed. The United States wanted South Korea’s measured response to North Korea’s sinking of the Cheonan, which killed forty-six sailors in 2010. The United States, along with China, called for restraint by both Koreas during the exchanges of artillery shelling in August 2015. See “U.S. Urges Seoul to Exercise Restraint on Killings,” New York Times, October 13, 1983; Glenn Kessler, “U.S. Officials Urge Measured Response in Attack on South Korean Warship,” Washington Post, May 21, 2010; and “Migukeun bukhane, Chunggukeun nambukha myeongsi anhanchae ‘jaje’ yocheong” [Call on Restraints: US to North Korea; China virtually to both Koreas without mentioning], Hankyoreh, August 21, 2015, http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/international/america/705484.html.
4. International Crisis Group, “China and Inter-Korean Clashes in the Yellow Sea,” Asia Report No. 200, January 27, 2011, 9.
5. The broadcasting touched the nerve of North Korea in that it denounced the three generations of the Kim dynasty and poor management of the people’s living standard.
6. For the August standoff, see Choe Sang-hun, “Koreas Agree on Deal to Diffuse Tension,” New York Times, August 24, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/world/asia/south-korea-vows-not-to-back-down-in-military-standoff-with-north.html?_r=0.
7. For example, see Kim Tae-woo, “Seoul Insensible on N.K. Nukes,” Korea Herald, April 8, 2015, http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20150408000465.
8. “U.S. Air Force Test-fires Intercontinental Ballistic Missile across Pacific,” UPI, September 9, 2016, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2016/09/08/US-Air-Force-test-fires-intercontinental-ballistic-missile-across-Pacific/7491473340904/.
9. Article 42 reads in part: “Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security.” http://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-vii/index.html.
10. David E. Sanger, Choe Sang-hun, and Jane Perlez, “A Big Blast in North Korea, Big Questions on U.S. Policy,” New York Times, September 9, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/10/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-test.html?ref=world&_r=0.
11. “Returning from China, Pres. Park Says Unification Is Still the ‘Ultimate Goal,’ ” Hankyoreh, September 5, 2015, http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/
e_national/707575.html.
12. The Chinese media reported that Xi stated that “China always sticks to realizing denuclearization of the peninsula, maintaining peace and stability, and resolving the issue through dialogue and consultation” and that “both the south and north sides are welcomed to continue improving their relations through dialogue, boost reconciliation and cooperation, and achieve independent and peaceful unification.” “China, ROK Vow to Boost Cooperation,” People’s Daily, September 2, 2015.
13. Riding this tide, China has also tried to drive a wedge between South Korea and Japan in dealing with the Shinzo Abe cabinet’s historical revisionism. For example, see Xi’s speech at Seoul National University in 2014: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, “President Xi Jinping Delivers an Important Speech in ROK’s Seoul National University,” July 4, 2014, http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/topics_665678/
xjpzxdhgjxgsfw/t1172436.shtml.
14. Kang Seung-woo, “Park Hints at THAAD Deployment,” Korea Times, January 13, 2016.
15. Kang Seung-woo, “Chinese Envoy Summoned over THAAD Remarks,” Korea Times, February 24, 2016.
16. For the US position, see Chang Jae-soon, “Kerry: THAAD Not Necessary If N. Korea Is Denuclearized,” Yonhap News, February 24, 2016.
17. Jane Perlez, “Xi Jinping, China’s President, Unexpectedly Meets with North Korean Envoy,” New York Times, June 1, 2016.
18. “Caught between Superpowers,” JoongAng Daily, June 18, 2016.
19. For the Pakistan–North Korea technology transfer, see Smith, “Pakistan’s Nuclear-Bomb Maker.”
20. See “Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression, and Exchanges and Cooperation between the South and the North (Basic Agreement),” signed on December 13, 1991. http://2001–2009.state.gov/t/ac/rls/or/
2004/31012.htm. On June 15, 2000, the summit between Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il that produced the South-North Joint Declaration followed that spirit by stating: “We have agreed that there is a common element in the South’s concept of a confederation and the North’s formula for a loose form of federation. The South and the North agreed to promote reunification in that direction.” http://english.mosf.go.kr/pre/view.do?bcd=N0001&seq=1692.