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Decepticons in Pyongyang

I'm sure by now you've heard of the ongoing crisis in North Korea regarding their renewed weapons programs. The Obama administration has yet to indicate it's foreign policy in North Korea, and on April 5th Pyongyang tried in vain to force the President's hand with the launch of a Taepodong-2 missile, under the guise of jumpstarting a North Korea satellite program. Though the rocket ultimately never reached orbit, through these efforts they have come one step closer to their goal of capturing the Moon, Earth's #1 best buddy "cheese-orb."

The latest provocation in a series of missile and nuclear tests has the global community urging current North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, to reverse his brinksmanshippery and return to vehicular form.


Kim Jong Il in offensive mode, ready to strike

The most recent crisis was kicked off this Sunday when Kim Jong Il, attempting once again to gain international attention, changed from his normal form, a go-kart, into his combat state, bristling with weaponry. In this form he would be able to unleash tremendous destruction upon South Korea, with implications that even Japan could be within range of the rockets that launch from his kneecaps, which have allegedly been upgraded from what we saw in the North Korean transformer crisis of 2006.

President Barack Obama has yet to announce additional economic sanctions on Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or plans of increased engagement with Pyongyang. So far the U.S. and the U.N. have roundly condemned North Korea's latest attempt to incite fear in the hearts of its regional neighbors and the world community. The President has been quoted as saying, "It will not stand for North Korea and Kim Jong Il to threaten the peace of Northeast Asian and freedom-lovin' peoples everywhere with threats of vehicle-robot-hybrid proliferation."


President Obama

Kim Jong Il's father and founder of the D.P.R.K. Kim Il Sung has been safely stored in a memorial garage since his passing in 1994.


Kim Il Sung in 1992

Read the full story here.

Korean War Seminar Midterm Paper (Origins of the Korean War)

Origins of the Korean War

As the onset of the Cold War struck the Western world into two divided factions, the Far East, Korea in particular, became the first major arena for international contention and geopolitical jockeying of the two post-war superpowers. However, this international history was at the same time laid over a preexistent regional strife and, following the defeat of the Empire of Japan, an uncertain future for the Korean people. It was this uncertainty that was enhanced, complicated, and eventually warred over by the United States and Soviet bloc.

Some may contend that the Korean War’s origins are entirely civil or international in origin. Focusing on the disagreement between the United States’ actions on the international scale and the mishandling of the American military government and Rhee’s regime in South Korea, I argue that the volatility of international politics at that time made it impossible for outside forces to successfully stabilize the precarious situation in Korea and regulate the formation of a united, independent nation. However, it was the irreconcilability of all parties’ interests, including the Soviet Union, the United States, the UN, leaders on both sides of the 38th parallel, and the Korean people themselves, that doomed South Korea to years of instability and an inevitable armed conflict. The political stalemate that eventuated from the international down to the community level in South Korea should come as no surprise, and indeed the harbinger of the Korean War.

In this survey I will first address the pursuit of self-serving policies and subsequent frustrations of international players in Korea, which is principally highlighted by the dealings between the United States and Soviet Union. These negotiations took on the character of Cold War strategies while failing to realistically address the circumstances of a newly liberated, yet divided Korea. Secondly I will examine the United States presence in Korea, from the first missteps of the military government to dealing with an intractable South Korean administration, as well as Syngman Rhee’s role in aggravating the hostilities within his own regime.

Perhaps the initial act paving the way towards the Korean War was the establishment of the 38th parallel as the demarcation line between politically oppositional American and Soviet occupation forces. Locked in an international confrontation, to these superpowers Korea represented less a struggle to unify a country than the opening of a new front on which to contend, and possibly humiliate or best the other. Consequently the Soviets backed Kim Il Sung, a Communist who purportedly fought with the Russians in the Second World War, and the United States supported Syngman Rhee, a long-time exile whose vehemently anti-Communist stance won him favor with the Americans but whose ambition would soon eclipse anything but supreme leader of Korea. The implication here is that with the inception of two inherently antagonistic factions in the North and South, both marked by fervent nationalism and political single-mindedness, the prospect of a timely or peaceful unification had already been closed.

With this in mind, in late 1945 the Americans and Soviets agreed to a four-power trusteeship of Korea and the formation of a U.S.—Soviet Joint Commission to reconcile their administrations toward an interim government. In the absence of prospective unification, trusteeship was an acceptable alternative from an international perspective; but vastly overlooked was the point that a new foreign-delegated administration was anathema to Koreans who had spent their last 35 years under Japanese colonization. (Allan 75) The forcible acceptance of trusteeship on the part of a Communists directive lent popular support and solidarity to the rightists in South Korea, but the Soviets also meant to give themselves political leverage: In further meetings of the Joint Commission they obstinately stipulated that all Koreans who opposed the Moscow agreement should be excluded from consultations pertaining to the formation of a provisional government i.e. everyone except for their North Korean adherents. (Allan 80) This among other issues plagued the Joint Commission, and as the negotiations finally ground to a halt in 1947 the United States turned to the newly formed United Nations for support in supervising national elections and advising the establishment of a unified, independent Korea. However, the presence of the UN guaranteed neither immediate independence nor unification for Koreans, as the position of the UN was generally in accord with United States foreign policy and the Soviets made their noncooperation clear. Barring the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea entry into the North while at the same time advancing their own Soviet-inspired regime, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the UN could only monitor and verify elections in the South, and when the UN formally recognized the Republic of Korea in 1948 it was wittingly ambiguous as to whether the ROK represented South Korea or Korea as a whole, though the ROK goes on to claim this prerogative in its constitution. (Lowe 48)

For many Koreans, and indeed members of the UN superintending body, the idea of separate elections was a contentious issue, representing the official disunion of the peninsula, even though the formalization of two discrete states had been ideologically preordained by a joint U.S.-Soviet occupation. After determining the governing capacity of the ROK the UN commission advocated the prompt withdrawal of American and Soviet occupying troops and the restructuring of the commission itself as a permanent body. However, their qualification of military extraction was the opening of negotiations between North Korea and the nascent ROK prior to withdrawal; the UN’s disregard for this prerequisite was likely the enabler of further deterioration of relations between the divided Koreas. (Lowe 49) While the transfer of management to UN control also aided United States plans for expedient withdrawal from South Korea, the actual timeliness of a U.S. withdrawal of troops was hampered by the relative unreadiness of South Korea’s forces compared to the North’s, and Soviet geopolitical advantage with regards to their subordinate administration in North Korea—in other words continual fears of a Communist sweep of the peninsula.

It is this dilemma, the dissonance between the diminishing viability of continued economic and military support of South Korea and the unacceptability of Communist ascendancy on the Korean peninsula, which characterizes America’s equivocal policies in Korea before June 1950. As head of the Western bloc, by the mid-40s the United States had major economic and military commitments all over the world; the designation of Korea as not a vital strategic asset coupled with Kennan’s then-prevailing policy of asymmetrical response made the American divisions stationed in Korea and the vast sums aid seem likely to have better uses elsewhere. It wasn’t all just a matter of foreign policy, though, as Congress would not always approve the large expenditures the administration requested. (Lowe 59) The United States’ seemingly noncommittal intentions influenced many a defeatist attitude of inevitable Soviet conquest on the peninsula, both at home and abroad. Nevertheless, while it may have been strategically expendable, a Communist-controlled Korea would threaten the security of the entire Far East, especially if the Soviet Union considered Korea as a jumping-off point, a region where the United States clearly did have an essential interest in Japan. Abandoning Korea would disconcert America’s allies in the region and any other nonessential but U.S.-friendly areas, as well as significantly damage the prestige of the United States and the authority of the UN once they became involved. Losing Korea was still a worst-case scenario even after the American’s withdrawal, as evidenced by the approval of Economic Cooperation Administration aid to Korea and the sustained presence of the Korean Military Advisory Group, both after the official end of the occupation. Perhaps the greatest foreign policy blunder of the administration was its lack of clarity in expressing a realistic position on the Korean situation. While it is obvious now that the United States would go to war to protect its interests there, Korea was frequently left out of the Asiatic defensive perimeter, most famously by Acheson in early 1950. (Lowe 63) Willing to go to great lengths to avoid an overt war with the United States, without this unintentional encouragement from the U.S. the Soviet Union was far less likely to have authorized North Korea’s invasion plans and it is likely that international conflict could have been averted—I argue that international conflict was preventable and not civil conflict because the events leading up to the creation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north and the Republic of Korea in the south irrevocably precipitated an armed struggle between the emergent states as a desperate means of unification, which the international community had failed to achieve through diplomatic means. In addition, while the onset of the Korean War is often attributed to the date of the North’s invasion on June 25 of 1950, North and South Korea had been in a de facto state of civil war since the early joint occupation in 1945, with the 38th parallel the primary setting for intermittent clashes between their forces.

By examining the relationship of the United States with Korea not in the respect of directly causing the Korean conflict but as a destabilizing influence on South Korea, we find that the military government had an unintentional hand in shaping how and when the war erupted. As enumerated above, the ambivalence of American foreign policy was a major originating factor in the outbreak of the Korean War, but here I would like to review the role the United States played within South Korea, both in the maladroit governance in the early stages of the occupation and the consequent ascendancy of the loose cannon that was Syngman Rhee. Perhaps the most central individual to the preliminary shaping of South Korea was General John Reed Hodge, head of the military government for the first three turbulent years. Upon Hodge’s arrival, politicos in South Korea had already begun to factionalize and vie for legitimacy. His qualifications and preparedness aside, in the rapid pursuit of stability and a control framework, Hodge’s vigorous and hardline anti-Communism approach led him to govern without first considering the full extent of Korean circumstances.

After liberation from Japanese rule, Koreans were ready for radical reforms in the causes of democracy, expeditious independence, and unification. A glimpse of this revolutionary spirit was found in Lyuh Wun-hyung and the People’s Republic of Korea, the interim government active between Japanese surrender and the arrival of the occupational forces, who were successful in maintaining order and found popular support through the inception of People’s Committees in local communities. (Allan 74) However, the moderate liberal socialism of the PRK was fundamentally tinged with Communism in Hodge’s eyes, as all leftist organizations were, and therefore it was rebuffed without hesitation. (Allan 75) The rightists on the other hand, still forming coalitions and preliminary committees, were seen as the most likely advocates of the occupation. The main appeal of ultranationalist Syngman Rhee was that he was firstly a staunch rightist, but whose recent homecoming after decades of a political career in exile signified a lack of any pro-Japanese blemish and also sizeable political capital and public appeal. However, it wouldn’t take long for Rhee’s considerable ambitions to make the military government lament their choice of advocate. Perhaps due to his Illinois-farm boy naiveté or possibly a latent prejudice towards Asian peoples, Hodge detected nothing of Rhee’s treacherous aspirations until it was far too late to change course. (Lowe 27) Known to be at once hypocritical and obstinate, irrational and demanding, emotional and calculating, all of Rhee’s strategies were similarly geared toward the concentration of his own power, in his mind for the good of Korea but more likely the self-delusion of a megalomaniac. (Allan 105) The allies Rhee made during his extensive period abroad would allow him to undercut the occupation’s jurisdiction, and his bevy of aggressive political tactics combined with his seemingly unassailable public support loosed Rhee from American diplomatic controls. Even so, for lack of a replacement nearly half as popular, Hodge and his advisors were committed their support of Rhee and his coalitions even while he railed against the military government and called for immediate independence without trusteeship, and even campaigned for separate elections in the South before the formal division of Korea. The strength of the M.G.’s commitment is most evident in the breakdown of negotiations of the Joint Commission in 1947 due to the rightist camp’s opposition to trusteeship and the American delegation’s obligation to concur. Political unrest heightens all over Korea as Rhee broadens his crusade against trusteeship to encompass the Joint Commission and both the American and Soviet occupations, forcing the United States, attacked by both left and right, to begin considering withdrawal from Korea and the transfer of advisement to the United Nations. (Lowe 34-5)

But why would the American administration tether itself to the nearly autonomous and unpredictable Rhee? The repudiation of moderate leftism and the military government’s conservatism in a time when comprehensive reforms were feverishly anticipated had catalyzed the radicalization of politics in South Korea. Hodge’s attempt at reconciliation by establishing the Left-Right Coalition Committee would ultimately prove ineffective, and the tenacious People’s Committees left over from the interim People’s Republic became bastions of the radical (and not so radical) leftism that would blight the country’s stability for years. Indeed British consul-general D. W. Kermode attributed the final impasse of Korea to Hodge’s extension of antagonism to the moderate left in the early occupational period. (Lowe 30) The answer also stems from one of the more glaring missteps of the military government in Korea—while it was not uncanny that the United States retained some of the Japanese officials in the bureaucracy, the lack of initiative in transitioning to suitable replacements in due course constituted a major oversight and an affront to recently liberated Koreans. (Lowe 21) The administration’s concurrent support of organizations with notorious Japanese-collaboration backgrounds cost them dearly in reputation and the widespread support of moderates and leftists. This left the right, the camp most associated with pro-Japanese inclinations, as the most viable option through which to effect their authority, and Rhee a populist vehicle with which to rehabilitate their public position. That is not to say Rhee’s regime was without the taint of pro-Japanese collaborators, which it undoubtedly was. Rhee’s constituency was made up significantly by the landowning elite left over from Japanese rule, who supported Rhee in return for the preservation of their power, which effectively disenfranchised the provincial poor. (Allan 105) Also, the main action arm of Rhee’s regime was the Korean National Police, approximately 80 percent of which were former Japanese police employees. (Tucker 797) The legacy of cruelty from the years of Japanese colonization left the police vulnerable to public wrath, and continued to be “ruthlessly brutal in suppressing disorder.” (Cumings 186, Allan 84) While for the most part autonomous from the military government, Rhee’s police state was much preferred to a revolutionary regime and in that way tacitly commissioned by the occupation. (Cumings 188-9) In effect Rhee’s KNP, together with rightist paramilitary youth groups, mainly formed after the savage uprisings in autumn 1946, and the Student National Defense Corps that extended government control to all student organizations, maintained a brutal and terroristic stranglehold on the peninsula that was both the originator and best method of stamping out disorder and resistance from radical elements. (Cumings 201) However, the high levels of class struggle still present in Korea and low levels of organized revolt suggest a continual peasant war against an oppressive system and not a coordinated guerrilla campaign, at least not till after the extremely bloody Cheju-do and subsequent Yosu-Sunch’on Rebellions. (Cumings 269, 282)

These two 1948 insurgencies, while eventually put down with unyielding force, attest to the perpetual cycle of violence and discord in pre-war South Korea, if not continuing into the post-war. On the largely ignored island of Cheju-do they harbored sentiments of separatism from the mainland as well as the continued presence of People’s Committees. (Cumings 252) Over the course of a few weeks protests against separate elections in South Korea escalated to island-wide riots and then into a full-scale guerrilla action that took over a year to fully eradicate, by the end of which time one in five islanders had been killed and over half the villages destroyed. (Cumings 253, 258) In the midst of the Cheju-do uprising, elements in the Republic of Korea’s Army stationed in Yosu rejected their imminent counterinsurgency mission on Cheju-do and rebelled against their regiment. (Cumings 260) Capturing the city of Yosu they gained momentum and spread westward into the city of Sunch’on as more people joined the apparently spontaneous mutiny. While the rebellion was crushed in about ten days, the order they imposed on captured territory during that time curiously resembled Lyuh Wun-hyung’s interim government that predated the Republic of Korea. (Cumings 262) Following these incidents, and in response to continued guerrilla activity, major terror campaigns were enacted and civil liberties suppressed. (Cumings 267) While Bruce Cumings calls Rhee’s one unqualified success the apparent defeat of Southern partisanship by the spring of 1950, the doggedness of the peasants and the guerrillas in their protracted efforts, as well as the barbaric extent of the maneuvers required to contain those efforts speaks volumes about the tension and instability within and outside of South Korea. (Cumings 285) It is also important to note that although the militant aspect of the rebellions was invariably put down, that does not as a consequence strike the contention from the mind of the people. The ultimate defeat of struggling partisans in the South also dashes North Korea’s hopes for unification by revolution, further cementing their invasion plans.

Considering the aforementioned patterns and examples I am hard-pressed to find a truly causal relationship between the actions of any one player resulting in the outbreak of the Korean War, with two exceptions. The first was the politically unavoidable yet completely ill-founded and supposedly arbitrary decision to divide Korea along the 38th parallel, and the inevitable failure to abate or contain the ensuing conflict. Due to South Korea’s chronic instability in the five-year span preceding the Korean War, the questions I am left with echo the concern of American intelligence agencies at the time: North Korea’s gross underestimate of the significance of partisan support in the unification with the South, the abandonment of the idea of unification by revolution in South Korea, and their provision to the southern partisans of little more than their blessing. (Cumings 283)

Bibliography:

Allen, Richard C. Korea’s Syngman Rhee: An Unauthorized Portrait. Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1960.

Cumings, Bruce. The Origins of the Korean War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.

Lowe, Peter. The Origins of the Korean War. New York: Longman, 1986.

Rhee, Syngman. The Spirit of Independence. Trans. Kim Han-kyo. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2001.

Encyclopedia of the Korean War: a political, social, and military history. Ed. Spencer C. Tucker. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, c2000.

Korean War Seminar Final Paper (Foreign Policy in North Korea)

INROADS:
Transforming North Korea from the Inside Out

Argument

Assuming that America’s ultimate diplomatic goal in Northeast Asia is the normalization of relations between the United States and North Korea, as well as the stability and prosperity the entire region, our highest priority must be to revamp the dilapidated status of our continued dialogue with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. We must move away from a discourse that, between spells of neglect and provocation, principally bargains the economic aid and diplomatic conditions of the United States for military concessions from North Korea, both in broad terms and in more acute circumstances, to a position that encompasses tolerance within reason and reduction of U.S. forces, setting up a framework that allows for the independent demilitarization of the Korean peninsula as well as fostering economic rehabilitation and progress in North Korea. There is a plethora of justifications for this shift, proven time and time again by frequently stalemated negotiations between the United States government and its regional allies and the People’s Republic in addition to the latter’s regular pattern of compliance followed by a sharp return to hermetic brinksmanship.

It is also my assumption that the desired outcome of the reconciliation of U.S.-D.P.R.K. diplomatic relations being pursued is not merely a vehicle for sustaining negotiations of disarmament but the realized prerequisite for normalized economic and trade relations and, ultimately, progressive change within the People’s Republic. Thinking in this mode, one can imagine the potential future of Korea like a column of dominoes ready to tumble: Once the United States lifts the immobilizing threat of its own offensive capabilities, the first domino, North Korea’s “permanent siege mentality,” will fall, taking with it the excuse for maintaining dangerous weapons programs as well as a bloated military-industrial complex. When the inherent danger of that complex, which is also the heaviest burden on North Korea’s ailing economy, is dispelled so too will be the reservations of potential outside investors. The domino of economic reform will already be pitching forward from the pressure of reformers, empowered by constructive relations with the West, by the time the benefits of foreign capital become overwhelming. Investment begets recovery, if not prosperity, and the D.P.R.K. finds itself with greater credibility and legitimacy than perhaps ever before in its history, from which point political reform, social liberalization, and even expedient reunification would be realistically within reach. By remodeling our regional presence as one addressing economic concerns while downplaying the need for deterrence by removing outside pressure the United States and its allies can slowly make inroads into the North Korean government and by legitimating those who support liberalization, and slowly transform the country from the inside out. However, the first domino has yet to fall, as the United States still hasn’t been able to release its nonproliferation-centered position. This study provides first a recapitulation of the U.S.-D.P.R.K. dialogues in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century as well as elaborates the hows and whys of shifting away from tense and often dire security-based deliberations to a more transparent relationship with a focus on improving economic ties.

U.S.-D.P.R.K. Security-based Relations

Beginning in 1958 the United States strategically deployed and positioned nuclear weapons in Korea in addition to their established ground forces. It was not until 1991 that a presidential initiative, in response to the end of the Cold War, withdrew or destroyed all remaining nuclear weapons on the peninsula. Significantly, however, South Korea still remained firmly under the U.S. “nuclear umbrella.” Having grudgingly joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1985, Pyongyang decided to withdraw from the N.P.T. when International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors demanded greater access to their nuclear facilities, sparking off what would become the most acute nuclear crisis of the 1990s. While their withdrawal was eventually suspended, the failure of verifiable inspections sent the Clinton administration and United Nations towards sanctions and wartime planning. If not for former President Carter’s intervention, preemptive strikes and another war in Korea may have been unavoidable. However, the result was successful negotiations that led to the Agreed Framework, essentially freezing North Korean nuclear and missile programs for the rest of the decade. The concessions given by the D.P.R.K. in 1994 betray the true value they place on economic, diplomatic, and security benefits from the United States rather than weapon development and sale, as well as highlight the viability of a progressive economy-based approach. (O’Hanlon 96) The alleviation of security tensions led to the easing of our nearly fifty-year old trade embargo and an upswing in North Korea’s economic and diplomatic prospects, though this would not last more than a few years. The dilatory pace of Washington in improving economic and diplomatic relations with Pyongyang and roadblocks in negotiations surrounding the construction of new, less weaponization-prone reactors led to the North Korea’s dissatisfaction with the agreement and possibly the quiet resumption of uranium enrichment. The Bush administration’s confrontation of the D.P.R.K. over an alleged secretly renewed nuclear program led to the final disintegration of the Agreed Framework and landed North Korea in President Bush’s “axis of evil.” This rhetorical status combined with the concurrent preemptive policy of first use of nuclear weapons of the United States greatly inflamed the tensions between the two countries. In 2003 the D.P.R.K. responded by once again announcing their withdrawal from the N.P.T., which this time was followed through on, and the official resumption of their nuclear program. This year was also marked by the inception of the Six Party Talks, a multilateral forum for deliberations with members from the United States, both Korean governments, Japan, China, and Russia. However, the talks’ inability to reconcile conflicting interests of the six parties meant the repeated breakdown of the talks over the course of the next four years. 2006 saw the polar reversal of U.S. foreign policy after North Korea tested a nuclear device, with the sobered administration now hasty to engage in bilateral talks and to make energy and diplomatic concessions, all of which President Bush has previously spurned. Perhaps in line with this new policy the next two years saw an agreement finally reached by the Six Party Talks and the mothballing once again of North Korea’s nuclear program, and also North Korea’s removal from the United States’ list of state sponsors of terrorism, on which they had been listed since 1988. However, to date North Korea has resumed its missile tests and nuclear aspirations as well as proclaimed the end of their participation in future nuclear talks, making the failure of both coercion and myopic engagement abundantly clear and underlining the need for a real shift in the regional paradigm. (Richter)

Defense Considerations

The crucial phase of normalizing U.S.-D.P.R.K. relations while at the same time preserving regional stability hinges on the de-emphasis of current defense postures of all the most entangled parties—namely the United States and both Korean governments, whether those programs derive from deterrence measures, extortion, or otherwise. Grounds for this reasoning are abundant, the first being that our pre-emptive and offensive strategies are fundamentally unacceptable in the projected cost of the lives of servicemen and civilians, and also in terms of the magnitude of destruction that would inevitably be inflicted on both sides of the Military Demarcation Line. While pre-emptive measures against nuclear sites may seem prescriptively justified and in all probability would be surgical compared to an invasion, they would without a doubt lead directly to a renewed Korean war, which North Korea itself has articulated. Several factors reinforce the reality that a campaign on the Korean peninsula would be much more hard-won and bloody than the relative precision of the invasion of Iraq; these include the grave destructive capabilities of North Korean forces stationed in proximity to Seoul, the subterranean nature of many North Korean defensive sites and the inherent loss of the advantage of American air superiority, and the sheer size of the North Korean force, as well as their level of indoctrination. (O. 61) Barring a D.P.R.K.-initiated war or equivalent threat to international security, the option of renewing armed conflict in Korea should be tabled indefinitely. As Bruce Cumings has said, “there never was a military solution in Korea, as we should have learned in 1953, and there certainly isn’t now.”

That being said it is chances are remote that Pyongyang will ever take deliberate action meriting an armed response from the United States, the current situation in North Korea being very different from that which preceded the Korean War in 1950. Perpetual isolation from the global economy and the stagnation of their domestic financial conditions means that while North Korea maintains inordinate martial forces, it is unable to prevent the deterioration of overall military effectiveness and capacity to sustain a lengthy or far-reaching offensive. In addition, the last decades of the twentieth century saw the erosion of the Cold War paradigms that positioned Korea in the front-guard of international Communism. The ultimate collapse of the Soviet power base and the end of Maoism, together with China and Russia’s cool opposition to the North’s nuclear program, finds these former patrons no longer willing to intervene in a war that is not explicitly precipitated by the United States. Without this guarantee, which it had proceeded with in the Korean War, the D.P.R.K. has no convincing prospects of a substantial victory in a renewed Korean conflict while a U.S.-R.O.K. security treaty is in effect. (Harrison XXI) The most ambitious outcome North Korea could hope for would be the ransoming of Seoul, vastly unlikely due to the severity with which it would deepen the rift between the two countries. (O. 116) Even if there are still hostilities between the two countries, the underlying desire for eventual reunification dictates a minimum of diplomacy and the gradual, if rocky, broadening of relations.

Since military solutions to the current standoff are unrealistic on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone, the defensive posture and aggressive diplomatic stance maintained by the United States is at best a hindrance to diplomacy, at worst a destabilizing presence for the entire peninsula. First of all, the collapse scenarios envisioned by some in Washington since the mid-nineties, which unfortunately influenced the stagnation of Agreed Framework policy, have by now lost all credibility. U.S. policies of economic strangulation and regime change are unrealistic due to the centralized nature of the D.P.R.K. and the reluctance of regional powers to cooperate with such policies. The allocation of food resources is tightly controlled, and it has become clear that the leadership in Pyongyang is willing to allow their people to starve before relinquishing power; any fracturing of the regime would follow a humanitarian crisis of terrible proportions. (H. 26) This crisis would also precipitate unrest and the influx of refugees into the entire region, and thus North Korea’s neighbors, especially China, maintain a baseline of aid to prevent this eventuality. This circumstance, along with the United States’ dearth of trade with the D.P.R.K. in the first place render further economic sanctions perfunctory and ineffective in modifying North Korea’s political attitudes. (Lankov) Perhaps the most compelling example in discrediting collapse-minded relations is the fact that North Korea has faced over a decade of economic decline, including years of severe famine, and has yet to show any sign of serious internal foundering. (O. 4)

The impolitic nature of our strategic positioning may seem counterintuitive using the rationale that the U.S. military presence acts as a deterrent for North Korean aggression, but the real result is a volatile regional dynamic that in fact legitimizes and sustains the D.P.R.K.’s swollen defense programs. Developed initially as a response to U.S. deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on the peninsula, the continuation of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs finds its primary motivation, as declared by the D.P.R.K. itself, in the substantial threat constituted by a nuclear first use policy retained by the U.S., the maintenance of significant conventional forces in South Korea and a generally aggressive foreign policy. (H. XXV) (KCNA) Another compelling reason for nuclear and missile development is the relatively light burden these programs put on the struggling North Korean economy when compared to the maintenance of a large conventional force. (H. XXV)

Formed in the tempestuous years preceding the Korean War, the D.P.R.K. naturally spawned a military power base that was prefigured on hostile neighbors in South Korea and the United States, and continues to be today. A “permanent siege mentality,” has been propagated since Kim Il Sung’s regime and is continued in Kim Jong Il’s “Military First” policy, a concept similar in design to his father’s juche, literally “self-reliance,” in espousing North Korea’s national struggle. These ideologies, in addition to the ubiquitous cult of personality surrounding Kim Il Sung, and to a lesser degree his son, effectively override traditional religious practices and demand social and economic participation. (O. 27) This network of nationalistic ideologies is what drives the military-industrial complex that dominates North Korean politics and economics, as well as substantiates the development of nuclear, missile and satellite programs. In fact, Kim Jong Il has gone as far as to say that sustaining these programs is “unavoidable, for the sake of defending our honor and sovereignty.” (H. 19) None of the ways in which the United States has conducted its relations with the D.P.R.K. have sought to diminish these powerful ideological forces in a meaningful way, and instead have mostly acted in line with or possibly even exacerbated them by following a primarily tactical, crisis-driven approach. (O. 44)

While it is both futile and hypocritical for Washington to demand disarmament while maintaining an aggressive stance towards North Korea, the hard-line negotiating tactics practiced for most of the Bush years operated almost exclusively on this notion, providing the D.P.R.K. little to no realistic incentives for demilitarization. (O. 17) We have also seen, however, the failure of concessionary deliberations under both Clinton and Bush administrations, as they increase the appeal of “extortionomics” practiced by North Korea and inadequately address the broader security schemes of Northeast Asia. (O. 13) In fact, the entire format of security-first negotiations that lack a strong economic complement has proved myopic and unsuccessful, as we find no significant qualitative difference between the current regime’s position and that of the era prior to the Agreed Framework. The crux of the arguments presented here is the fact that some North Koreans, including Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, have accepted the need for demilitarization as a prerequisite to economic recovery and progress and have actively pursued it, but that the overwhelming threat of U.S. strategic forces has countermanded this initiative in Korean politics since the end of the Korean War. (H. 139) This is well evidenced by willingness of North Korea to shut down its nuclear program in return for assurances of its security, which it has done multiple times, regardless of the eventual outcome of many deliberations. The implicit threat of the American military presence and nuclear umbrella empowers military hawks of the Old Guard in the politburo as well as furthers North Korea’s desperate isolation, indeed it is the most conspicuous obstruction to successful U.S.-D.P.R.K. relations.

Defense Considerations in Practice

The first step towards relieving U.S.-D.P.R.K. tensions, and thus the security deadlock in Korea, is putting an official end to the Korean War and replacing the broken down armistice apparatus with a regional security agreement. Selig S. Harrison outlines a succinct number of steps for achieving this long delayed reconciliation while maintaining regional relationships, which finds its shape in the North Korean concept of a trilateral mutual security commission with the United States and South Korea:

Establishment of the new trilateral body could be conditioned on the simultaneous activation of the North-South Joint Military Commission agreed upon in 1991 but never put into operation. After these two interlinked steps are completed, the United States could then conclude peace treaties with North Korea and China, replacing the armistice, promote a separate North-South peace agreement upgrading the 1991 Basic Agreement, and terminate the U.N. Command. The three peace accords could then be submitted by the governments concerned to the U.N. Security Council, which would endorse them collectively as constituting the definitive end of the Korean War. (H. 190)

Some of these measures are contentious and complex in regards to the U.S. relationship with South Korea, especially the termination of U.N. command of Allied forces in Korea, however, if the process outlined by Harrison is completed as a comprehensive package then the tensions and fears besetting regional security can be resolved simultaneously. Once the Korean War has formally ended, the stage will be set for the trilateral demilitarization of Korea, which would substantiate any security pact as well as being a universally accepted necessity for the North’s economic recuperation. Authors O’Hanlon and Mochizuki have proposed a “Conventional Forces in Korea” accord modeled after the NATO-Warsaw Pact Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, stressing parity in force reductions considering the superior numbers of Northern forces and superior quality technology and readiness of the South. (O. 6) They make a convincing argument for the benefits of large reductions and allied retainment of strategic advantage, and yet do not even address the option of U.S. force disengagement, instead counting U.S. forces against South Korean numbers in a solely Korean disarmament scheme that would surely not appeal to the North Korean military intellect. Concurrent with Korean force reductions, the U.S. must be prepared to redeploy or reduce its forces asymmetrically favoring the North and not rule out the eventual and complete disengagement of its presence in Korea, the true specter to diplomacy. While this might seem outlandish to those who favor coercion or other overbearing tactics, what must be acknowledged is the relative harmlessness of the D.P.R.K. when compared to the great threat to its existence that U.S. military presence represents and the diminutive sovereignty retained by North Korea in light of strangling economic barriers.

With that in mind, as well as the unlikelihood of either party instigating a renewed conflict, I would propose the abandonment, at least for the near future, of nuclear disarmament considerations before the normalization of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the D.P.R.K. instead of the opposite, which is currently an insurmountable hurdle for North Korean economic reform. There are many mediating factors when considering living with a nuclear North Korea, the first being the relatively modest proportions of the North Korean nuclear arsenal, thanks in part to the official dormancy of these programs between 1994 and 2003. Also it would be foolish to think that the region is at the nuclear whim of the D.P.R.K. if the U.S. does not deploy nuclear arms in Korea. Harrison asserts that a nuclear North Korea is acceptable for the present given our retaliatory capabilities, as indeed we live with China and Russia as well as a host of other nuclear powers in various shades of contention. (H. XXVII) On the other hand the Korean Central News Agency, one of the main policy and propaganda conduits in North Korea, has declared that “the DPRK will never use nuclear weapons first,” and that their “nuclear weapons will serve as reliable war deterrent.” (KCNA) Both Washington and Pyongyang citing deterrence as incentive reveals a hollow standoff with neither side losing or gaining ground but merely serving to further entrench the other in their position. The real danger of the situation is the motivation for the nuclearization of South Korea and Japan, though this is but another reason to put a timely end to the U.S.-D.P.R.K. nuclear standoff. Harrison notes that while the current strategic positions are held the balance of forces in Pyongyang “is shifting with each passing year in favor of the pro-nuclear lobby,” and that a renewed opportunity for denuclearization talks hinges largely on U.S. willingness to both disengage its conventional forces as well as retract its nuclear umbrella from the peninsula; however if D.P.R.K.’s security concerns are adequately addressed, its nuclear programs would lose their sanctity within North Korean politics and in a resulting period of burgeoning economic progress come to represent a political liability more than a military deterrent. (H XXV)

Economic Engagement

After the normalization of relations between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has commenced on the security front, the most important step in order to prevent a relapse into hostilities is to address the recovery and liberalization of North Korea’s economy. The heaviest financial burden on the North Korean economy is its inequitable defense budget, which strained North Korea’s economy even before its economic difficulties following the end of the Cold War, and rollbacks in that area precipitated by demilitarization would greatly improve their prospects for recovery. (H. 139) It was estimated in 2002 that defense spending as percentage of gross domestic product reached twenty-five percent, higher than any other country in the world. This is due undoubtedly to their military-industrial complex, but when compared to South Korea the North’s defense expenditures make up less than a third of the formers’ and their GDP totals less than two percent of that of the South, revealing the true disadvantage at which the North finds itself. (O. 64) Another major problem of defense is the sapping of domestic resources, especially industrial facilities and manpower. While heavy industry devotes much of its output to the armed forces, many factories lay dormant and abundant resources such as gold, anthracite, and possibly even petroleum go untapped owing to a lack of energy and transportation infrastructure and fuel. (H. 48) North Korea also maintains a humongous conventional force of over a million active-duty troops, earning another world record with approximately one in every twenty-two North Koreans enlisted, at the same time sequestering a major portion of its able workforce in an idle military. (O. 26) If the infrastructure of the country ran at full capacity North Korea would still be at an economic disadvantage due to its isolation from global markets and lack of outside investors. One reason for this is that North Korea has been served poorly by juche, the rallying cry of the beloved Kim Il Sung. Conceived in 1955, this ideal of self-reliance and national struggle meant that by the 1970s the isolationist D.P.R.K. had yet to merit significant international trade relations, in an ironic turn becoming heavily dependent on its communist forebears for economic exchange, as well as food and fuel subsidies. (H. 15) Another effect of this isolation was that while an industrial blitz mechanized cooperative labor and built an impressive industrial infrastructure further development was stunted by the lack of advanced technologies available only from abroad, resulting in increasingly obsolescent production sectors. (H. 28) As the Cold War ended the subsidies from China and the Soviet Union dried up, sending North Korea into a period of rapid economic decline, which was compounded by environmental disaster in the mid-1990s. It has yet to recover from this downturn, still plagued by inoperative assets, limited foreign investment, and a large foreign debt.

There is no instant remedy for an economic situation as shaky as North Korea’s, but there are precedents for the kind of transformation the North Korean economy needs to go through in order to achieve recovery and ultimately true self-reliance. However, the success stories of China and Vietnam show that reforms and entrepreneurial activity are viable even while maintaining a communist government. (O. 129) These examples are particularly salient due to the reluctance of many D.P.R.K. official to activate economic reforms for fear of inadvertently eroding the Party’s legitimacy by deviating from the stark socialist path of the previous sixty years. However, the tribulations of the past two decades surely must have deteriorated that legitimacy in the minds of North Koreans as much as any failed economic reforms possibly could have. In fact, the D.P.R.K. has implemented reforms in the past, if halfheartedly, with moderate levels of success.

By the late seventies, cognizant of the discrepancies beginning to form between the economies of North and South Korea, pragmatic bureaucrats and Worker’s Party members, as well as North Koreans who had spent time abroad, began to exert pressure for partial liberalization from within the D.P.R.K. political arena. This culminated in the invitation of the United Nations Development Program to open a Pyongyang office in 1979. (H. 28) Although this nascent movement was curtailed by fears of a snowballing liberal trend, the idea of reform-minded overtures would not be entirely forgotten. Both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il would visit China in the early eighties, followed by the signing of a new joint venture law that sought increased foreign investment. 1991 saw the opening of the first Special Economic Zone in the Rajin-Songbong area, of which there are now numerous examples, complete with their own regulations designed to authorize free trade and entice joint ventures, especially from the South. Investment in these new zones has been lukewarm and growth slow, due in part to sanctions barring the export of manufactured goods to the U.S. as well as investment from American firms. (H. 33) The United States has also blocked North Korea from joining international financial institutions, such as the Asian Development Bank, in line with a policy of economic strangulation. (H. 35) While these obstacles to international investment are still in place, the last decade has seen the explosion of small, quasi-legal private markets, embarked on by farmers during the food crisis of the mid-nineties. By choosing to look the other way, Kim Jong Il aligned himself with North Korean reformers and perhaps inadvertently spearheaded a grassroots movement towards economic liberalization. (H. 25) While bolstering military authority and reinforcing the role of the state in the economy, Kim Jong Il’s 1998 revamped constitution omitted mention of “independent development,” authorized private farmer’s markets, and left room for further economic reforms, both domestic and relating to foreign policy. (H. 37) Though an unofficial market economy continues to expand gradually the deterioration of relations between the D.P.R.K. and the U.S. in the early 2000s saw the reversal of many of the fruits of formal economic progress and as of 2008 a central, strictly controlled command economy is back in place. (Petrov)

However, an important avenue of change is still open to Western influence. Since the early nineties there has been a steadily growing contingent of reformers inside the D.P.R.K. and a resultant clash between those reformers and members of the Old Guard, one that will ultimately decide the direction of the country. (H. 25) The former, comprised primarily of technocrats and pragmatic economic advisors and officials, have had some major victories (and losses) in the creation of Special Economic Zones, admittance of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, and sporadic reforms and diplomatic concessions contributing to a gradual influx of foreign investment. They have also been the primary internal proponents of denuclearization and demilitarization. However, the political power of the military elite and hawkish strategists who oppose force cuts allows them to overturn progressive policies when they have the slightest bit of political capital, which is generated frequently by the tenuous U.S.-D.P.R.K. relationship. Harrison maintains that while Pyongyang seeks improved diplomatic relations with Washington a fierce debate rages behind the scenes, “with the shifting course of the North Korean policy struggle directly attuned to the evolving U.S. posture towards Pyongyang.” (H. 34) The persistence of collapse scenarios in U.S. foreign policy thinking and the pursuance of denuclearization and demilitarization as diplomatic objectives without economic headway strengthens the position of hawks and neo-cons against opening North Korea economically, and the habit of the U.S. of reneging on or the slow implementation of diplomatic and economic promises seriously corrodes the leverage of the liberal group in Pyongyang. (Petrov) Both of these outcomes serve to deepen the economic isolation of North Korea, and endanger the likelihood of disarmament talks even as negotiations progress. One of the possible ways of circumventing the staunch position of the Old Guard is through the “second economy,” created by Kim Jong Il. By sidestepping the official economic bureaucracy and setting up an extensive network of trade firms headed by powerful military leaders loyal to Kim, the recognition of the need for economic revival among North Korean leadership, as well as the opportunity for personal profit, has garnered significant military support for progressive foreign economic policy. (H. 38)

So far the pragmatists in Pyongyang have been able to grasp the benefits of economic liberalization and a place in the global economy but what reforms have been implemented have principally found their genesis within North Korea with little encouragement from abroad, which along with the trade barriers still applied by the U.S. prevents North Korea from truly enjoying these benefits. Facilitation by the United States in terms of funding and cooperation is paramount in ensuring the continuation of North Korea’s economic reforms, both domestic and international. For the U.S. to place an economic stake and offer its guidance in the recovery of North Korea, it would dash the contentions of the bureaucratic Old Guard and empower pragmatists and reformers by virtually eliminating fears of failure. Also, once the U.S. government is involved in North Korea and the risk of doing business there is abated the floodgates will be open for private American investment, and in turn private capital from all over the globe would increase exponentially. American business is well known for being driven by developing markets and while North Korea cannot be expected to lose its basis in a command economy, the opportunity to get in on the “ground floor” of a rapidly expanding market in North Korea would be too lucrative of a possible investment for many entrepreneurs to pass up, and indeed a small group of Westerners have already taken the risks of doing business there. (McDonald)

The patent benefits of foreign investment are numerous, which would prove the potential of liberalization to D.P.R.K. leadership, as well as stimulate North Korea’s economic recovery. Successful progressive policies would have other far-reaching and not strictly economic by-products, not the least of which a great improvement in the standard of living of ordinary North Koreans, as well as providing a new source of national pride for North Korea and helping to disentangle the notion of honor and sovereignty being directly tied to the military and associated weapons programs. New industries would be able to form and North Korea could likely find itself on the road to prosperity in a similar manner as that of South Korea; the simultaneous opening up to South Korea’s allies in the United States and Japan would reflect the South’s Nordpolitik of the late eighties, a Südpolitik if you will, in encouraging normalization between the two countries. While cultural import would obviously be kept in check by the D.P.R.K. the end of economic isolation will naturally allow for a greater amount of foreign ideas and products to flow into North Korea, possibly counteracting some of the effects of indoctrination so heavily emphasized by the regime. Maintaining its control will certainly be one of the highest priorities of the D.P.R.K. while economic reform is in motion but the success of these programs will lend a legitimacy and credibility to the government that it has yet to accumulate through other means, helping to dispell North Korean fears of disintegration. A renovation of their international stature and increased channels of legitimate revenue will devalue North Korea’s reliance on weapons sales, involvement in illicit trade, “extortionomics” and associated nuclear and missile programs, which underlines the fact that a transformation originating within North Korea would nonetheless fulfill our security concerns.

Economic Engagement in Practice

The second arm of a new overarching diplomatic policy, along with U.S. demilitarization, would be based on adopting a broad and flexible format of engagement through which to initiate North Korea’s economic recovery and promote its reform. The idea requires a fundamental change in our relationship with North Korea, our foreign policy methodology, and our priorities on the peninsula. First and foremost, the normalization of relations between Washington and Pyongyang is necessary before anything further can be accomplished and the methods below operate on the assumption that they would be conducted simultaneously with, or following the relaxation of military tensions in Korea. Like South Korea we must forge a narrative of peace with the North and gain their trust, which would begin by replacing the ceasefire machinery with a peace agreement. The United States must offer full and continual diplomacy to North Korea, not as a bargaining chip and especially not only after North Korea provides international provocation that threatens regional security. In our deliberations with North Korea we must find a balance between demands and incentives that is realistic, not arrogant. Engagement is not merely a channel through which to make our demands of the D.P.R.K.; effective and mutually beneficial engagement is not an end, but a gateway. In order to make this kind of engagement work the U.S. will need to alter its role on the Korean peninsula, or at least in the way that it is perceived. In its current state the D.P.R.K. sees the United States, South Korea, and Japan primarily as a menacing anti-North Korean conglomerate. U.S. diplomats must make a concerted effort to show our goodwill and our commitment to mediating regional tensions, by no means becoming anti-South or excessively pro-North, but to move towards the middle. Part of this perspective on North Korea’s part comes from the close relationship between American and South Korean armed forces, which will probably not change until our redeployment or disengagement from the peninsula, as well as the transference of U.N. (essentially U.S.) command of forces back to South Korea. It will also be important to get regional powers all working towards North Korean recovery if the D.P.R.K. is to be fully integrated into the economy of Northeast Asia.

The close relationship between U.S.-D.P.R.K. relations and the internal political struggle in North Korea is something Washington needs to recognize and harness as well. The best way to engage with and empower reform-minded officials within Pyongyang would be to release North Korea from heavy sanctions and trade barriers, prepare a new aid package with a focus on improving infrastructure, and fashion as many official economic ties as possible. The U.S. would be served well in this endeavor by the presence of numerous natural resources found in North Korea and the relative ease with which they could be mobilized provided that the industrial and transportation infrastructure is upgraded. The high probability of large untapped oil reserves is a potential windfall for North Korea, not only for the foreign earnings they would gain but also due to the near constant fuel shortage they have suffered since the end of the Cold War. (H. 52) We should continue the trend set by Kim Jong Il in the 1998 constitution of deemphasizing “independent development,” stressing international ties and allowing juche to evolve into a concept more akin to Japan’s kokutai, or “national essence,” with which it already shares certain themes, or its historical meaning of “body of the monarch.” (H. 16) All of these measures would help to lower the trouble and risk associated with doing business in North Korea and help to attract foreign capital. (McDonald) It is also important, however, to leave room for additional incentives for cooperation from the D.P.R.K. As O’Hanlon and Mochizuki attest, “the right incentives are not bribes; they are catalysts to reform.” (O. 16) Continued engagement is important in both fortifying pragmatists in Pyongyang in their struggle against military hard-liners and allowing reform to gain momentum and more popular support. (Harrison) If our facilitation is able to tip the scales in favor of the pragmatists and reformers in North Korea, our currently dwindling diplomatic options may become a host of new opportunities, and a peaceful and prosperous Northeast Asia more assured.

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McDonald, Joe. “North Korea Is ‘Hungry for Business’,” ABC News International from Associated Press, Beijing, 5 November 2006.

O’Hanlon, Michael and Mike Mochizuki. Crisis on the Korean Peninsula: How to Deal with a Nuclear North Korea. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.

Petrov, Leonid. “Neo-Cons in Pyongyang.” Policy Forum Online. November 18th, 2008. Nautilus Institute. 3 May 2009.
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Richter, Paul and John M. Glionna. “North Korea says 'never again' to nuclear talks.” Los Angeles Times. April 15th, 2009. 3 May 2009.