Examining Threat Credibility in the US-North Korea Rivalry AD
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THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA Reputations between Enemies: Examining Threat Credibility in the U.S.-North Korea Rivalry A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the Department of Politics School of Arts & Sciences Of The Catholic University of America In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Doctor of Philosophy By Van Allen Jackson Washington, D.C. 2014 Reputations between Enemies: Examining Threat Credibility in the U.S.-North Korea Rivalry Van Allen Jackson, PhD Director: Wallace J. Thies, PhD How do the past actions of rival states have consequences in present crises, if in fact they do? Central to this question is the concept of reputation; the idea that states take into account the past words and deeds of other states when assessing the credibility of those states’ future words and deeds. That scholars disagree about how to answer the above question, on theoretical and empirical grounds, is a problem because the answer may hold the key to explaining two puzzles in international rivalries: (1) Why do some rivalries manage not to go to war despite experiencing repeated crises, and (2) why would a weaker state in an asymmetric rivalry repeatedly challenge its stronger rival? This dissertation seeks to offer an explanation for these puzzles at the same time that it advances the academic debate about reputations in international politics. Two hypotheses reflecting the logic of reputation are tested against four episodes in U.S.- North Korea relations, an ideal-type asymmetric rivalry. The first hypothesis posits that backing down from a confrontation initiated by a rival challenger: (1) strengthens the future threat credibility of the state that backed down; (2) increases the likelihood of future rival challenges; and (3) de-escalates the crisis in which backing down occurred. The second hypothesis posits that initiating challenges against a rival—as opposed to reacting to the challenges of a rival— does not increase the future threat credibility of the challenger. In the U.S.-North Korea rivalry, I find strong but imperfect support for both hypotheses. Despite a U.S. history of backing down from North Korean challenges, North Korea found U.S. threats credible in the rare instances when the United States made them. Each time the United States backed down from North Korea, crisis conditions also abated, but additional North Korean challenges followed each instance of backing down. I also find that North Korea’s history of initiating challenges did not strengthen its reputation for resolve; U.S. officials instead attributed a reputation for bluffing to North Korea because the frequency and intensity of its threatening rhetoric surpassed its actual behavior. This dissertation by Van Allen Jackson fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in world politics approved by Wallace J. Thies, PhD, as Director, and by Andrew Yeo, PhD and Maryann Cusimano Love, PhD as Readers. __________________________________ Wallace J. Thies, PhD, Director __________________________________ Andrew Yeo, PhD, Reader __________________________________ Maryann Cusimano Love, PhD, Reader ii Table of Contents Signature Page ......................................................................................................................... ii Preliminary Materials Table of Contents ................................................................................................................. iii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ viii Chapter I: Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 The Problem .......................................................................................................................... 1 The Argument ....................................................................................................................... 2 The Way Ahead ..................................................................................................................... 5 Reputation Optimism: The Classical View ........................................................................... 6 Reputation Pessimism: Contemporary Evidence .................................................................. 9 Renewed Optimism on Reputations .................................................................................... 15 Resolve, Honesty, or Both? .............................................................................................. 17 Limits of the Reputations Literature ................................................................................... 24 Bringing Rivalries Back In .................................................................................................. 31 The Effects of Rivalry on Escalation ............................................................................... 32 Limits of the Rivalries Literature ........................................................................................ 35 What is a Rivalry? ........................................................................................................... 36 Toward a Synthesized Research Agenda ............................................................................ 41 Chapter II: Research Design and Methodology ................................................................. 43 Definitions and Assumptions .............................................................................................. 43 Hypotheses .......................................................................................................................... 48 Operationalizing Reputations .......................................................................................... 51 Competing Hypotheses on Credibility ............................................................................. 53 Observing Ideal-Type Evidence ....................................................................................... 55 Case Selection ..................................................................................................................... 61 Why the U.S.-North Korea Rivalry? ................................................................................ 61 What Makes This Case a Rivalry? ................................................................................... 65 Criteria for Event Selection ............................................................................................. 67 Analytical Method ............................................................................................................... 69 Sources of Evidence ......................................................................................................... 70 iii A Methodological Clarification ....................................................................................... 71 A Theoretical Clarification .............................................................................................. 74 Chapter III: The USS Pueblo Crisis (1968) ........................................................................ 78 Historical Context ............................................................................................................... 78 North Korea v. United States ........................................................................................... 79 Cheap Talk and Credibility, 1965-1968 .......................................................................... 84 Geopolitical Context ........................................................................................................ 88 Overview of the Incident ..................................................................................................... 92 Debating Retaliation........................................................................................................ 96 Orchestrating U.S. Actions ............................................................................................ 100 Crisis Resolution through Conciliatory Bargaining ..................................................... 110 The North Korea Perspective ........................................................................................ 115 Analysis: Explaining Decisions and Outcomes ................................................................ 124 Explanatory Power of Reputations for Honesty ............................................................ 125 Explanatory Power of Reputations for Resolve ............................................................. 133 Alternative Explanations about Credibility ................................................................... 138 Assessing Hypothesis Performance ............................................................................... 143 Chapter IV: The EC-121 Shoot Down (1969)................................................................... 147 Historical Context ............................................................................................................. 148 North Korea v. United States ......................................................................................... 148 Cheap Talk and Credibility before the Shoot Down ...................................................... 152 Geopolitical Context .....................................................................................................