The North Korean Crisis

The North Korean Crisis: A Modern Security Dilemma

Jake Madsen, The Eurasia Center July 2017

Introduction

The modern world has seen a sharp reduction in conflict since the start of the 21st century, with some calling this era one of the most peaceful times in history. However, not all states are determined to allow the decline in global conflict to continue. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, more commonly known as North Korea was established in 1948, by Kim Il-Sung, after World War II due to Korea being divided among the 38th parallel post-occupation. The DPRK, unlike its southern neighbor, is also well known for its unique flavor of nationalist and communist ideology named Juche, and for being closed off from society. Kim Il-Sung’s consolidation of power, combined with Soviet and Chinese backing, transformed the Northern part of Korea in the post-World War II world into a rogue state that invaded US backed South Korea causing the Korean War, the first proxy war of the Cold war, that resulted in 2.5 million civilians being killed. In the 21 st century the DPRK is led by Kim Jong-un and is again at odds with the both the United States and the international community over its quest for nuclear weapons.

A Tale of Two Koreas

Modern day North Korea struggles greatly with their vision of “self-reliance” under which a projected 500,000 people have died from starvation alone between 1993 and 2000.1 Widespread food shortages due to the inflexibility of the DPRK’s centralized planned economy has made economic growth slow in the region. While it is no surprise that improper economic systems are in place it is worth noting that the DPRK’s people also suffer from their government’s desire to allocate more than a fifth of it’s GDP to its rampant military budget. These factors coupled with the DPRK’s pariah status on the international stage have cause it to lag behind its southern neighbor across all sectors. (Figure 1)

Perhaps it can be said that where the two Koreas diverge the most would be there stance on foreign policy. As Figure 1 shows North Korea allocates roughly one fifth of its GDP to Defense spending while South Korea spends about 2.8%. An astonishing statistic considering that the DPRK is lagging behind in both life expectancy and infant mortality rate. Additionally, the top three defense spenders are the United States, China, and Russia spend 3.3%, 1.9%, and 5.3% of their GDP respectively.2 While these nations spend significantly more on defense in terms of raw dollar amounts than the DPRK the percent of their GDP spent pales in comparison to that of North Korea. The Nuclear Question

The United States is no stranger to dealing with hostile rogue states. However, American security policy to this particular state is not solely dictated by its hostile conventional actions but rather is potential nuclear ones. The DPRK signed, alongside a vast majority of the international community, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty in 1968 thereby forfeiting their claim to nuclear proliferation (Figure 2). That same government shattered the legitimacy of the NPT by withdrawing from it in 2003 and beginning to pursue Nuclear weapons. Despite widespread protest North Korea went on to test their first nuclear weapon in 2006. With so many nations states who do not pursue nuclear proliferation in the international community it begs the question of why is North Korea willing to accept such economic and political setbacks to further their nuclear program?

The truth about Nuclear weapons is that they provide a level of security that no other tool can accomplish. It is exceptionally difficult to destroy a state that has achieved Nuclear weapons due the nature of mutually assured destruction. The theory of mutually assured destruction has stood the test of time with the most prominent example being the failure on the part of either the USSR or the US during the Cold war to conduct any decisive blow to one another from fear of nuclear retaliation should conventional fighting burn too bright. However, a more comparable example to the Nuclear dilemma in North Korea brings us to the Yom Kippur war in 1973. During the Yom Kippur war Israel was initially losing substantial ground to the Arab states. However, total defeat of Israel was not possible due to the fact that the Israeli military possesses nuclear weapons. The United States became alerted to the fact that Israel prepared nuclear weapons to be utilized in the case of total defeat and soon after responded with by airlifting supplies to aid Israel. While there is much debate over whether the threat of nuclear war prompted the United States to act, at the very least it can be said that a state obtaining nuclear weapons heavily deterred regime change. While some people would consider North Korea a dysfunctional state a vast majority of analyst would argue that the leadership and security policy of the famed Hermit Kingdom are both intelligent and show levels of sophistication. Evidence of this being that to further strengthen his hand Kim Jong-un had a North Korean hit squad assassinate his half-brother by tricking people in a mall into poisoning him under the rouse they were participating in a game show. But why go to such extreme lengths? The root of these seemingly ridiculous actions is Kim’s paranoia that the United States has the intentions of decapitating the North Korean leadership or worse regime change. With the elimination of his half-brother Kim has insured that there is no natural western backed alternative to succeeded him. Further evidence of DPRK paranoia is shown by the fact that after American Otto Warmbier’s death there are a plethora of reports of Kim and other DPRK leadership taking extreme measures to travel incognito in country in order to avoid a western decapitation team.3 However, Kim’s paranoia may not be entirely unjustified as the United States goal to stamp him out before he becomes a larger problem dwindles as every day passes and North Koreas nuclear technology improves. Kim is aware that a nuclear DPRK is a secure DPRK in the same sense that the West realizes that nuclear DPRK will be harder to deal with as it takes regime change virtually off the table. The American Response

With a ticking time bomb across the pacific the United States is faced with a security dilemma that is getting more volatile and complex every day that it does not act. President Obama preached the policy of “Strategic Patience” in the region and went into office claiming that diplomacy was the option when it came to dealing with North Korea. President Obama’s security policy towards the Hermit Kingdom achieved mixed results as he was effective navigating through the various incidents but ultimately his policy was a complete failure when it came to dealing with the problem in a manner that would actually solve it. Critics of Obama would argue that American inaction was a hallmark of the Obama administration’s foreign policy citing situations such as this one, while also pointing to his failure to achieve anything meaningful in either Syria or Ukraine. The Obama administration did recognize the decaying nature of the situation and responded by making use of the THAAD anti-missile system in the region. While its questionably whether THAAD would actually be able to intercept and successful thwart North Korean it’s a step towards a plan that could one insure that nuclear weapons do not do not threaten American hegemony. However, President Trump appears to have taken a much more hands on approach in comparison to his predecessor. The Trump administration has made it clear that it is will solve this problem at all costs stating that the “era of strategic patience if over”.4 This statement echos previous claims by the Trump administration that inaction is not a solution. Various news outlets have been reporting that the various military options are being prepped and presented to President Trump as potential solutions. Earlier in the year negotiations broke down between the Chinese and US governments over the North Korea crisis. The unique problem of the North Korean crisis is that the Chinese are incentivized to not solve it because of two large factors. Primarily, the Chinese fear a western backed Unified Korea on their doorstep. The secondary problem is that any US military action or regime change would likely result in a flood of North Korean refugees over their border. The United States is now in a precarious situation as further inaction will result in long term damage however action will result in knowingly inflicting damage on South Korea due to the fact that the capital city, Seoul, is only 35 miles from the border and within DPRK artillery range.5 Overall, a decision by the United States will need to be made about what is better in the long term for collective security.

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1 Goodkind, Daniel, Loraine West, and Peter Johnson. A Reassessment of Mortality in North Korea, 1993-2008. Report. Population Division U.S. Census Bureau, Princeton University.

2 "Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2016". Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Retrieved 24 April 2017.

3 Micklethwaite, Jamie. "Kim Jong-un ‘living in fear of US decapitation team’ after prisoner’s death." Dailystar.co.uk. June 19, 2017. Accessed June 30, 2017. http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/623583/Otto-Warmbier-North-Korea-United- States-Donald-Trump-Kim-Jong-un-assassination-kill.

4 Watson, Kathryn. "Trump: Patience with North Korea is over." CBS News. June 30, 2017. Accessed June 30, 2017. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-south-korean-president- give-statements-from-white-house-rose-garden/.

5 Talmadge, Eric. "A Look At North Korea's Artillery Shows Why No One Wants War." Business Insider. April 07, 2013. Accessed June 30, 2017. http://www.businessinsider.com/why-no-one-in-korea-wants-war-2013-4.