5 Σεπ 2017

North Korea: A Problem from Hell

With increasing alarm, we continue to witness the escalating tension between North Korea and the United States and its regional allies. Sure enough, the rhetoric being used seems outright hostile; were it only a case of one not being afraid of barking dogs which don’t bite the issue would be little more than business as usual in the Korean peninsula. Thus the real question to be asked here is, primarily, whether this brewing crisis differs in any way from previous ones and, more importantly, what are the motives and aims of the key actors. We will begin our analysis with a brief history of the Korean peninsula and continue onwards with a presentation of the current key players. As always, I will remind the reader that the study of international relations is not fortune telling and that problems between states are always complex and multi-faceted. There is rarely if ever a simple black and white solution nor can one assume full rationality of the actors. As Robert McNamara, secretary of defense under JFK and Lyndon Johnson, very astutely observed about the Cuban missile crisis (1962): “I want to say, and this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. Rational individuals: Kennedy was rational; Khrushchev was rational; Castro was rational. Rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today.”[1]

The Korean peninsula had been inhabited since ancient times with various kingdoms rising and falling, but actually came into the global arena so to speak with the Mongol invasion of 1231. After seven major campaigns and 39 years of struggle the Koreans finally pledged their allegiance to their Mongol overlords. After the decline of the Mongols, the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries saw, through the efficient stewardship of the Joseon dynasty, the flourish of the Korean kingdom. During this golden age there was a significant advance in the arts and sciences in areas such as printing, astronomy, calendar science, ceramics, military, geography, cartography, medicine and agriculture. In some of these areas the innovations accomplished where unparalleled by develolpments in the rest of the world.

The end of the 16th century saw the invasion of Korea by Japan which in the end caused the intervention of Ming China. In the early 17th century, as the Koreans where struggling to rebuild they were again invaded, this time by the Manchu. After stabilizing its relations with China, the Korean peninsula enjoyed about two hundred years of relative peace. Despite this external respite, the Korean peninsula gradually slipped into decline and austere isolationism, earning the nickname in the early 19th century of the “hermit kingdom”. The steep decline of the Chinese dynasties during that era was followed by the meteoric rise of Japan. After the successful outcomes during the Sino-Japanese war (1894 – 1895) and the Russo-Japanese war (1904 – 1905), the Korean empire was increasingly drawn within the Japanese sphere of influence eventually leading to the outright annexation of Korea in 1910.

The Japanese rule (1910 – 1945) was an era which combined brutal repression with attempts to impose Japanese culture. Korea was, in effect, handled little differently than how the European powers of the era treated their colonial empires. As World War II was reaching its final stages in 1945, the Soviet Union, in accordance with provisions agreed in the Yalta conference[2], invaded and swiftly secured the northern part of the region. As elsewhere in the world, the rising tensions between the two superpowers quickly led to the dissolution of the inter-allied trustee council and eventually, to the formation of two separate states of which only the southern one was internationally recognized. In 1950 the northern invasion of the south quickly escalated into what is now known as the Korean War (1950 – 1953), a brutal conflict which led to over a million dead, featured the involvement of all major powers of the era (USA, USSR, China) and brought us to the brink of nuclear weapons use. The 1953 armistice put an uneasy, temporary end to the conflict. It must be pointed out that no formal peace treaty has ever been signed between the two nations which technically, are still at war with each other.

This, in effect, is a brief history of the region which gives us a useful basis upon which we can base our current analysis. We will begin by trying to paint a picture of North Korea as an actor of the international stage. Using existing tools of analysis, we will begin by stating that North Korea is governed by a personality-cult dictatorship. Communism and Marxism as ideologies have absolutely nothing to do with the God-like cult which continuously impresses the divine nature of the leading dynasty. To make a rough approximation, imagine combining the teachings of Confucius which emphasize obedience of the individual and conformity with the reign of fear, paranoia and terror that Stalin indulged. The closest analogy that we ever had in Europe would be that of Nicolae Ceausescu who tried to emulate the personality cults of Mao Zedong and Kim-Il-sung.

If we were to analyze North Korea under this perspective we would see that the leader cannot actually escape this divine image that he has inherited. He has to either play along or perish. Running a dictatorship translates in a situation where constantly the chips are all in on the table. There is no going home after an election. Fail and your head will be served on a platter. To this one might add that the North Korean elite is bound to have noticed the end that befell upon Hussein and Gadhafi, who both abolished their WMD programs only to meet their deaths by direct or indirect US intervention. Therefore, the North Korean ballistic and nuclear program should ultimately be seen as regime insurance. Or, in other words, “try to topple me and I’ll push the button”. Yes, the North Koreans have used their nuclear program in the past to bargain for food and oil but these are merely positive side-effects. The real nature of the program is to ensure the survival of the ruling dynasty. In this sense, the rhetoric being used by the regime is just for internal propaganda purposes. The leadership is not only rational but hell-bent upon its survival. Leaving aside events of chance which always play a role in history, North Korea will not be the one to attack first because they know full well that this will be the end of the regime. Instead they are signaling their capabilities as insurance. And it should be noted that the North Koreans have a redundant insurance regime in place. Should the US go forward and pre-emptively surgically strike against nuclear and other facilities the North can go ahead and obliterate Seoul, the capital of South Korea with a population of millions which happens to be within range of thousands of pieces of rocket and barrel artillery. To this we should add their intermediate-mobile based ballistic missiles which can pop a nuclear warhead in Tokyo in less than five minutes time. North Korea’s backup insurance plan is anchored upon the huge cost that it can inflict should its primary insurance plan be tampered with.

Moving along the border, we find China, North Korea’s biggest benefactor and backer. Some analysts naively believe that North Korea is merely a puppet, used by the Chinese at will as a thorn with which to prickle the USA. Historically speaking, if it wasn’t for the millions of Chinese soldiers which Mao poured in to stave off the northern collapse, the North Korean regime wouldn’t be here today. Currently, China is by far the largest trading partner of North Korea, accounting for 85% of its imports and exports and providing most (in not all) of its oil and vital hard currency reserves. Without China, North Korea would be dead in the water within weeks. The North Koreans know full well that China, as a rising contender to the US hegemony, is deeply annoyed by the presence of American military installations in South Korea and to a lesser extent Japan. They know that China is alarmed by the prospect of a unified Korea, friendly to the USA. They know that they, North Korea, are useful to the Chinese as a buffer state.

One should note however that all these facts do not mean that the Chinese are either entirely happy with the way things have proceeded with the North Korean nuclear and ballistic program or that they are fully in control as puppet masters. China would have preferred to keep things at a quieter level because North Korea can potentially become a source of major embarrassment for them. The brazen way with which North Korea has brushed aside public Chinese statements which urge for caution and restraint are a potential signal towards other actors that China is just as powerless over North Korea as they are, causing an embarrassing loss of face for the Chinese. If on the other hand they were to cut off oil supplies (through a pipeline which runs from Manchuria to North Korea) and trade relations, this might destabilize the north to a very dangerous extent. And one does not want destabilized neighbors armed with hydrogen bombs at their doorstep. At the very least, a Chinese pull of the plug would create a humanitarian crisis with potentially millions of refugees. In the end, although China is annoyed with what North Korea is doing, although they might have wanted lesser tensions in the region, they’re not necessarily losing any sleep about it for the time being. North Korea is a severe annoyance for South Korea, Japan and the USA, not for them. What could complicate matters in the near future would be a move from South Korea and Japan to secure nuclear deterrents of their own. Should this happen, this would not only be enormously destabilizing for the region but it would also be damaging for China’s aspirations towards regional hegemony.

On the other side of the Pacific Ocean we have the United States of America, currently serving as the resident regional hegemon. The United States are at the moment faced with the following dilemma. North Korea has repeatedly called Trump’s bluff and continued on with rocket launches and hydrogen bomb tests in defiance of the high end rhetoric being used. As is often the case, bombastic and populist rhetoric, while useful in temporarily boosting the leader’s approval ratings, can only cause trouble when executing state policy. As things stand now, the United States has to either use pre-emptive force to punish North Korea for its defiance or find a diplomatic pretext (for example a UN resolution) behind which it will attempt to back down. If the aggressive stance wins ground then the US is faced with a series of extremely costly options. First of all, there is no surgical strike which can guarantee the complete destruction of North Korea’s strategic assets. Should any such assets survive, it is certain that North Korea will operate on the basis of “use them or lose them”. This might mean a nuclear mushroom on a city of the west coast, an eventuality that no one would even want to contemplate in the US establishment. But even if no mushroom clouds materialize, as I’ve stated earlier, North Korea has Seoul surrounded by thousands of conventional artillery pieces and can obliterate that city within seconds. That translates into the death toll potentially rising up to staggering six figure numbers. Therefore, although the US might end up not paying any direct cost, the potential damages to its allies (South Korea and Japan) can be horrendous. The diplomatic solution will certainly mean loss of face for the administration and that’s the price that one has to pay when constricting policy options with tweets and hollow words. My personal analysis is that the USA will let the matter slide because they cannot afford the cost that a pre-emptive strike can potentially entail. My only cause for concern here is the erratic and irrational behavior of its commander in chief. As is well documented in history, major wars have erupted in the past due to chance events and leadership miscalculations. As Bismarck had once prophesized, world war one began because of a “silly thing in the Balkans”.

Moving on towards the other players in the scene, we make our first stop in Russia which happens to share a tiny part of its borders with North Korea. Russia is more than happy to watch this entertaining scuffle as it provides a source of annoyance towards the American hegemon. It must be noted that immediately after the second world war, the Soviets where the biggest patrons of the newly formed state providing extensive supplies in equipment and specialized personnel. Although nowadays Russian influence within North Korea is nowhere near where it was during the days of Stalin, the Russians are nonetheless eager to exploit this thorn in the American side. With bilateral relations with the US sliding down the drain, the Russians are more than eager to utilize such events for public relations gains. And, as with the Chinese, they have very little skin of their own in the game. North Korea is targeting Japan, South Korea and the US, not Russia.

Finally, we have South Korea and Japan. Both countries stand to face enormous costs should military options be engaged and this is especially true of South Korea. The problem that they are facing is one that no nation wishes to face. If they continue appeasing the North Koreans, they will continue to extort more and more “humanitarian” resources which everyone knows are used to prop up the military and the ruling elite. If they confront the North Koreans or if others (China, USA) do this in their steed, they are the ones who potentially face the complete destruction of their countries and economies. Right now, South Korea and Japan are betting their chips on the military alliance they have with the US. They are hoping that the North Koreans realize that if they were to be harmed, the full military might of the US would come crashing upon them. This notion is not particularly comforting for the both of them as it is well known that it is not prudent for a state to base its security and survival upon the actions of a third actor. The most destabilizing policy action that they could undertake would be to begin plans to acquire nuclear weapons of their own. This would open the Pandora’s Box of nuclear proliferation with unimaginative consequences for our world.

My belief is that North Korea will forever alter the status quo by successfully completing an ICBM rocket launch thus offering verifiable proof of their nuclear deterrent capabilities. Once that milestone has been achieved it becomes pointless for the US to undertake any pre-emptive strikes as even the slightest chance of failure on their part can translate into enormous direct costs for them. Once the news fade from the public scene everyone will be more than happy to let China handle the problem in the usual way, i.e. providing oil and supplies to prop up the regime in exchange for peace and quiet. This scenario can be destabilized by random events such as famine and crop failure in the North, or a decision to bomb their nuclear and ballistic installations by a bellicose US administration. The most dangerous situation of all would be a destabilized nuclear armed North Korean regime with warrying factions vying for power. As it is right now, it is assumed that the current Kim is keeping an iron grip upon the higher echelons of power but this is just that; an assumption. It is assumed that “the button” is held firmly within his grip but were it not to be the case things could get extremely dangerous very quickly. A war in the Korean peninsula could potentially involve all major powers (China, Russia, US) and cause untold damage and destruction.


[1] Morris Errol. The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003) - IMDb. (2003).
[2] The Yalta conference provided for a four power trusteeship over the Korean Peninsula

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