181 Calculated Adventurism: North Korea’s Military–Diplomatic Campaigns Narushige Michishita Abstract On January 10, 2003, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea, announced its withdrawal from the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), returning to the situation of 10 years ago. Based on a historical study of North Korea’s military-diplomatic campaigns, this paper will shed light on their patterns and characteristics, and discuss their implications on the ongoing nuclear question. It will show that North Korea has used force to achieve its political objectives (in the Clausewitzian sense), however idiosyncratic they may seem, that its behavior has been shaped and constrained primarily by military balance, and that those factors have largely determined modes and outcome of North Korean actions. Although important events and issues related to North Korea’s military- diplomatic campaigns have been studied, the contents have been either an overview of these events;1 accounts of particular cases;2 analysis of military operations;3 military leadership;4 crisis management;5 or bargaining and negotiation on the tactical level.6 There has been no comprehensive study of North Korea’s military-diplomatic campaigns on the strategic level, or the ways in which military and diplomatic actions were used to achieve broader political objectives. This article attempts to fix the hole. The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Vol. XVI, No. 2, Fall 2004 182 Calculated Adventurism: North Korea’s Military–Diplomatic Campaigns Narushige Michishita 183 Introduction diplomatic campaigns, 1993-2000. Each period involves its own charac- teristic policy objectives and military actions, which will be described The history of North Korea’s military-diplomatic campaigns can be and analyzed below in the following sequence: Environmental factors; divided into four periods: (a) Genesis of military-diplomatic cam- characteristics of the use and/or threat of force; assessment of the polit- paigns, 1966-1972; (b) Diplomatic use of limited force, 1973-1982; (c) ical results; and negative consequences, if any. Rise of terrorism, 1983-1992; and (d) Elaborate and sustained military- Clarifications follow. First, environmental factors refer to the crucial factors that enabled and/or encouraged North Korea to use force. Such * This article is a summarized version of a doctoral dissertation, “Calculated Adven- factors as military balance, strategic environment, and legal setting are turism: North Korea’s Military-Diplomatic Campaigns, 1966-2000,” submitted to included in this category. the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins Uni- Second, this article will discuss characteristics of North Korea’s use versity, May 2003. The author would like to thank Eliot A. Cohen, Charles Doran, Cho Gab Je, Choi Zoo Hwal, Robert J. Einhorn, Michael J. Green, Taik-Young and/or threat of force, focusing on the four important elements: Loca- Hamm, Han Sung-joo, Bong-Geun Jun, Jung Chang-Hyun, Kang In-duk, Kim tion and timing; forces involved; intensity and targeting; and level of Kyung-Won, Ki-Tak Lee, John Merrill, Don Oberdorfer, Jin Park, Kihl-Jae Ryoo, military-diplomatic coordination. Sang-Woo Rhee, Sim Sin Bok, Stephen M. Tharp, Nathaniel B. Thayer, Aaron D. Finally, the consequences of North Korea’s military actions will be Trimble, Taeyoung Yoon, Yong-Weon Yu, Joel S. Wit, I. William Zartman, and evaluated against the identified political objectives.7 (See Table 1 for other anonymous individuals for comments and assistance. 1 Wayne A. Kirkbride, North Korea’s Undeclared War, 1953- (Seoul: Hollym, 1994). This book is comprehensive in surveying all the major incidents, but lacks the 5 Richard G. Head, Frisco W. Short, and Robert C. McFarlane, Crisis Resolution: necessary details to prove the author’s case and suffers from a shortage of Presidential Decision Making in the Mayaguez and Korean Confrontations (Boulder: analytical framework. Westview Press, 1978); Donald S. Zagoria and Janet D. Zagoria, “Crisis on the 2 Trevor Armbrister, A Matter of Accountability (New York: Coward-McCann, Korean peninsula,” in Barry M. Blechman, Stephen S. Kaplan, et al., Diplomacy 1970); Wayne A. Kirkbride, DMZ: A Story of the Panmunjom Axe Murder, Second of Power: Soviet Armed Forces as a Political Instrument (Washington, DC: Brook- Edition (Seoul: Hollym, 1984); Robert A. Liston, The Pueblo Surrender (Bantam ings Institution, 1981); and Tae-Young Yoon, “Crisis Management on the Books, 1988); Michael J. Mazarr, North Korea and the Bomb: A Case Study in Non- Korean peninsula: South Korea’s Crisis Management towards North Korea proliferation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995); Leon V. Sigal, Disarming within the Context of the South Korea-U.S. Alliance, 1968–1983,” Ph.D. Disser- Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea (Princeton: Princeton University tation, Manchester Metropolitan University, October 1997. Press, 1998); Mitchell B. Lerner, The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of 6 Chuck Downs, Over the Line: North Korea’s Negotiating Strategy (Washington, American Foreign Policy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002); and DC: AEI Press, 1999); and Scott Snyder, Negotiating on the Edge: North Korean Richard A. Mobley, Flash Point North Korea: The Pueblo and EC-121 Crises Negotiating Behavior (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2003). 1999). These books come very close to my study in that they a similar set of 3 Park Hee-do, Doraoji Anhneun Dari-e Seoda [Standing on the Bridge of No Return] subject events like the seizure of the USS Pueblo, the Axe Murder incident, and (Seoul: Saemteo, 1988); Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr., North Korean Special Forces the nuclear crisis. However, these books focus on tactical aspects of negotia- (Great Britain: Jane’s Publishing Company, 1988); Daniel P. Bolger, Scenes from tion and do not focus on the broader relationship between force and diplomacy. an Unfinished War: Low-Intensity Conflict in Korea, 1966–1969 (Washington, DC: The analysis in this article will provide a broader framework in which North U.S. Government Printing Office, 1991); and Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr., North Korea’s negotiation activities take place. Korean Special Forces, Second Edition (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1998). 7 The most important source of information in this process is the evaluations 4 Commander Lloyd M. Bucher with Mark Rascovich, Bucher: My Story (Garden made by top leaders and/or high-ranking officials of the U.S.-ROK side. In City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1970); Colonel Conrad DeLateur, “Murder particular, their evaluations made in closed settings are the most useful source at Panmunjom: The Role of the Theater Commander In Crisis Resolution,” of information since these are considered to be highly genuine. Also, I have The Senior Seminar, 29th Session, 1986–1987 (Rosslyn, VA: U.S. Department of used North Korea’s official and semi-official pronouncements when they are State Foreign Service Institute, 1987). judged to be genuine expressions of its assessment. 184 Calculated Adventurism: North Korea’s Military–Diplomatic Campaigns Narushige Michishita 185 evaluation of major cases discussed in this article.) January 1967, a South Korean naval patrol craft PCE-56 was attacked and sunk by North Korean coastal guns in the Sea of Japan. North Korea claimed that the ship was sailing inside its territorial sea, while History of North Korea s Military-Diplomatic Campaigns the United Nations Command claimed it was not.10 On January 23, 1968, North Korean naval vessels captured the U.S. Navy intelligence- Genesis of Military-Diplomatic Campaigns 1966-1972 gathering ship Pueblo and its crew in the Sea of Japan.11 In order to get the crew and the ship back, the United States agreed to hold bilateral After the Korean War ceased in July 1953, a relative calm prevailed talks with the DPRK in Panmunjeom. The crew, but not the ship, in Korea. During the 1954-1960 period, North Korea was busy with its returned to the United States in December 1968 as a result of the 11- domestic power struggles and with rehabilitation of its war-torn econo- month-long, first substantial bilateral U.S.-DPRK negotiations in history. my. It was in the 1961-1965 period that North Korea started to pay On April 15, 1969, air-to-air missiles fired by two North Korean MiG-21 attention to the revolutionary agendas vis-à-vis the Republic of Korea fighters shot down a U.S. Navy EC-121M reconnaissance aircraft in the (ROK), or South Korea, and began to invest a large amount of resources Sea of Japan.12 All the crew members aboard were killed. Finally, in on military build-up, which eventually resulted in active military and unconventional offensives against the United States and South Korea in 9 James P. Finley, The U.S. Military Experience in Korea, 1871–1982: In the Vanguard the following period. of ROK-U.S. Relations (San Francisco: Command Historians Office, HQ USFK/ EUSA, 1983), p. 114. 10 This disagreement was natural because the United Nations Command (UNC) Assaults along the Demilitarized Zone insisted on a three-nautical-mile territorial sea limit, while the Korean People’s Army claimed a twelve-nautical-mile limit, though implicitly at this point. North Korea mounted numerous armed assaults directed at U.S.- Ministry of National Defense (MND), Republic of Korea, Defense White Paper ROK forces along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in the latter half of the 1991–1992 (Seoul: Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, 1992), p. 358; and 1960s. North Korea started to use larger teams and more heavily armed James Lee, “Panmunjeom San Jeungin Jeimseu Ri Yugseong Jeung-eon (1)” [A Living Witness of Panmunjeom, Oral Testimony of James Lee] Sin Dong-A, operatives in 1966, and its emphasis shifted from intelligence collection No. 459 (December 1997), available at http://www.donga.com/docs/maga- 8 and subversion to overt “harassment.” There were also clashes in or zine/new_donga/9712/nd97120100.html, accessed on July 12, 2002.