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The genius of North Korean
strategy
By Phar Kim Beng
HONG KONG - The decision of Pyongyang to resume
its uranium-enrichment program has raised fears of a
nuclear crisis in East Asia, the first since the end of
World War II. Ripples are felt most acutely in the
epicenter of the crisis, Northeast Asia. Within
Southeast Asia, the fear is that if the crisis persists,
the very shallowness of the ASEAN Regional Forum will be
exposed.
The attendant horror in Japan is the
specter of North Korea aiming, indeed even lobbing,
nuclear-tipped missiles into Japan's major cities. South
Korea, on the other hand, is afraid of losing its
conventional military leverage against its northern
communist foe. This nuclear crisis also has another
spillover effect, in that if is allowed to drag on, it
will complicate the already difficult process of
engagement proposed by Seoul.
Although China has
often been seen as a friend of North Korea, the actions
of the latter do often complicate the strategic planning
of Beijing too. The nuclearization of the Korean
peninsula would give the United States - the principal
actor capable of containing China - added reason, if not
excuse, to speed up the ongoing theater missile plans in
the region with Japan. This is one development that
China badly wants to avoid, as it is already encircled
by the United States in all directions.
Nuclearization of the Korean peninsula would
further strengthen the relationship of Japan and the
United States, pitching the two against China. An
imbalance of power would obviously obtain, causing China
to be at the receiving end of a triangular relationship
that is only beginning to develop. Pyongyang's actions,
in other words, have serious ramifications for the
entire Asian-Pacific theater; as indeed Pyongyang is no
doubt aware, thus its mischievous antics.
So
far, most analysis has followed a basic script, with
Pyongyang being touted as the classic "nuclear
blackmailer". Invariably, if Kim Jong-il's bluff is not
called - in this case, by the Bush administration, since
the overall design of Pyongyang is to force the United
States back to the negotiating table - Pyongyang will
stand to gain huge payoffs, most likely in aid and other
concessions short of an outright reward for North
Korea's behavior. Indeed, with the Bush administration
focused on Iraq, there is every likelihood that
Pyongyang's nuclear gambit will succeed.
It will
compel the United States - once again - to put greater
premium on diplomacy; exactly what North Korea wants, to
get the ball rolling (on going item after item into what
North Korea needs). President George W Bush himself
admitted just as much recently when he affirmed that the
nuclear crisis was a "diplomatic standoff". Read: The US
is willing to negotiate.
The issue is, why does
North Korea want the United States to return to
negotiation? To be sure, this has been the strategy of
Pyongyang since the end of Cold War. If North Korea
needs anything, why does it not challenge South Korea or
Japan directly? That is to say, why did Pyongyang choose
the United States, especially given the asymmetrical
relationship of North Korea with what is currently the
most powerful country in the world?
Officially,
it appears that North Korea wants the United States to
sign a "non-aggression pact" to nullify the 1953
Armistice that technically puts North Korea at war with
the United States. Since the end of the Korean War, the
two Koreas have faced each other across the
Demilitarized Zone, engaged most of the time in
unremitting, unregenerate hostility, punctuated by
occasional, brief thaws and increasing exchanges between
Pyongyang and Seoul. Huge armies still are poised to
fight at a moment's notice, though the strength of Seoul
is predominantly gained from the United States. But
beneath the public rhetoric of the importance of a
"non-aggression pact", the goal of Pyongyang is a larger
one.
That is to keep North Korea on the policy
radar of the United States so that South Korea, Japan
and China can all remain beholden to Pyongyang in some
form. This is the brilliance of the strategy. It is not
so much about "blackmailing" as it is a ploy to force
great powers to take the survival of the North Korean
regime more seriously. This is because the strategy of
initiating a nuclear faceoff with the United States
draws with it many gains, all of which can prolong the
lifespan of the regime.
First of all, other than
the (marginal) risk of the United States invading North
Korea's nuclear plants - a decision not unlike Israel's
preemptive attack on Iraq's Irkusk plants in 1981 -
North Korea gains immediate attention. Attention that
could be rendered into economic aid and assistance, all
of which can then be channeled in various ways, to the
military and party hierarchies, to keep the regime
alive.
Second, since the risk of a US invasion
is almost negligible, as North Korea is aware that the
United States is currently preoccupied with Iraq, the
incentives for this approach increase proportionately.
After all, Pyongyang is aware that Washington exerts
enormous weight on the policy dynamic of Japan and South
Korea. By squeezing the United States, it creates the
"multiplier effect" of pressuring Tokyo and Seoul too. A
strategy of killing three birds with one stone.
Third, granted that the United States wields
considerable influence over the multilateral trade
agencies, such as the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund, Asian Development Bank and various
offshoots of Import-Export Banks in both Korea and
Japan, a simple ploy of confronting the United States is
calculated to gain attention of the larger international
and financial community.
Therefore, the current
North Korean "diplomacy of confrontation" simplifies, in
an overwhelming manner, what Pyongyang has tried to
achieve in the post Cold War order: to engage with the
larger world, even if it has to be done negatively
(through threats).
By confronting the United
States, North Korea also generates immediate and huge
nationalistic benefits to the leadership. Hence, the
regime that has hitherto not been able to deliver on any
economic gains, not even in Ranjin Sonbon, an area
modeled on China's Shenzhen economic zone, will earn the
respect of the people for going for the jugular of the
United States. Ideological, performance and leadership
legitimacy of North Korea will all be kept intact.
While historically North Korea's actions have
often been atavistic - marked not least by attempts at
political assassinations, kidnappings, flagrant border
incursions and pugnacious rhetoric - its strategic
profile is highly rational: to force the world to take
North Korea's position seriously, fangs and all.
What the world should be concerned with,
however, is that as North Korea continues to assume
aggressive postures, at some point Pyongyang could
invariably become habituated or conditioned into
accepting this stratagem as a replacement of proper
policy. If repeated with some regularity, the threshold
of brinkmanship would have to be raised ever higher,
making it difficult for North Korea to climb down.
The solution for preventing North Korea from
institutionalizing this wild streak is to remove the
multiplier effect first. Therein lies the problem. Since
the United States, due to its military preponderance,
continues to exert effective influence on its allies'
North Korea policy, Pyongyang's incentive to squeeze the
United States will remain attractive. As gains continue
to outweigh the costs, North Korea's confrontational
postures, in other words, will not disappear any time
soon.
For what it is worth, the world should
accept that years of North Korea's self-induced
isolation - coupled with the world's parallel isolation
of this regime throughout the post-Cold War era - have
produced a volatile situation where North Korea is now
bent on using aggressive means to achieve simple
political ends.
The strategy to change the
behavioral dynamic of North Korea is there. It is one
where the outside world tries to engage with North Korea
first, thereby allowing it to enjoy more benefits of
engagement. But if and when North Korea misbehaves, the
same benefits can then be threatened with withdrawal - a
simple carrot-and-stick policy.
Nevertheless,
whether the United States is willing to employ this
strategy involves accepting North Korea as a normal,
rather than, a rogue regime. The perceptual gap is now
difficult to bridge, as the United States does not see
the need to adjust its lens at all because of its huge
military supremacy over North Korea.
(©2003 Asia
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