“Even an egg, when charged with
ideology, can break a rock.”
Kim Jong-Un, Aphorisms
Much of what we read or see about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) goes along these lines: it is a failed Stalinist state, unpredictable and irrational in its behavior, prone to playing nuclear roulette, fanatically anti-American—a militarized and regimented country whose actions can be viewed as deranged at best, almost psychotic at worst. North Korea scholar Andrei Lankov, a former Soviet exchange student in Pyongyang, cautions against these views:
“North Korea is not irrational, and nothing shows this better than its continuing survival against all odds…North Korea is a small country with few resources and a moribund economy. In spite of all this it has managed to survive and manipulate larger players, including an impressive number of great powers [USSR, China, U.S., Japan]. You simply cannot achieve this by being irrational. North Korea’s alleged penchant for irrational and erratic behavior is illusionary: the North Korean leaders actually know perfectly well what they are doing. They are neither madmen, nor ideological zealots, but rather remarkably efficient and cold-minded calculators, perhaps the best practitioners of Machiavellian politics that can be found in the modern world.”
These calculations have both domestic and international components, the former centered around the preservation of power, the latter on safeguarding national sovereignty.
Recently celebrating the 105th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), the founder of the DPRK, Kim Jong-Un, the present ruler, rolled out an impressive military parade, bristling with tanks, missiles, anti-aircraft weapons, and thousands of high-stepping soldiers. Pyongyang seemed like a replay of similar displays of military might from Red Square under Stalin (and beyond), or Tiananmen Square under Mao, and perhaps it is no coincidence that much of the military matériel of the North Korean army is almost half a century old; some of it is even older.
To show its resolve, North Korea fired a test missile which failed miserably, exploding in the air soon after it was launched, and it promised to test a nuclear device, which has yet to happen. The heated exchanges between North Korea and the Trump administration have been disturbing; let us hope that it remains in the realm of the verbal shots and not missiles. Besides, none of these overheated exchanges are exactly new. Recall that President Bush placed the country as part of the “Axis of Evil” (2002) and called Kim Jong-Il a pigmy (he was the shortest of the three ruling Kims at five feet three inches).
Lankov suggests that the nuclear program is part of the country’s efforts to survive and that the country’s foreign policy is mainly geared to bring in financial resources. The current regime feels it cannot revamp its economic model like either China or Vietnam, because the system would collapse. Obviously, the nuclear program is part of the Military First strategy (adopted in the 1990s) to uphold North Korea’s sovereignty and defense, but more importantly, it is used as leverage to gain financial resources, and allows the North Korean elites and military to maintain order and stability.
In the past, North Korea had other sources for financial help such as aid agencies, multilateral organizations and NGOs, but these have been severely curtailed (if not eliminated) with the imposition of sanctions as per U.N. policy. Another source of foreign currency has been the country’s program of sending workers abroad to work on infrastructural projects, particularly in Africa and Asia. Foreign governments would pay the North Korean government the money and in turn its workers received a fraction of the wages, but these projects have also been cut back or ended due to sanctions. North Korea engages in the trade of counterfeit cigarettes and pharmaceuticals, counterfeit currency, and drugs, as well as precious stones, metals, and endangered species parts. They have also engaged in money laundering, and insurance fraud. Some of these illicit efforts have also suffered because of sanctions. In addition, North Korea has an energetic military-industrial complex that exports weaponry, including Scud missiles.
Finally, two important sources of revenue are South Korea and China. The North has received significant amounts of aid from the South, especially during the famine period (1995-1999) and overall up to 2009. In addition, the South and North worked out a deal to build the Mount Kumgang Tourist Zone, established in 2002. The idea was for South Korean tourists to enjoy the natural setting of the area but they would not be allowed to travel to other parts of the country. It had limited success and drew fewer tourists than expected. More significant has been the Kaesong Industrial Zone (KIZ), where more than 120 South Korean factories have been established, employing some 47,000 North Korean workers. However, because of nuclear tests, South Korea closed down the complex in February of 2016.
China is the country’s major economic benefactor, although recently it has stopped purchasing coal from North Korea. Trade between the two amounts to almost 6 billion dollars a year, which might sound impressive, except that trade between Chile and China is five times as much. Chinese businesses are now looking at North Korea as a point of outsourcing since wages are a quarter of what they are in China. China —along with Russia— has played a key role in the development of the Rason Special Economic Zone, which is considered North Korea’s experiment with capitalism; for China it offers ports for some of its landlocked northeastern provinces. Three-quarters of all the North’s trade is with China, and this dependency worries Pyongyang. Despite having a powerful economic neighbor, the country’s GDP is a third of Cuba’s, even though the island has half the population of North Korea. When compared to South Korea it is shocking: its economy is 100 times larger with twice the population of the North. It is both the relative poverty of the country and its underperforming economy that has made its nuclear program a rather blunt instrument of diplomacy.
The North Korean situation has often been described as a Cuban Missile Crisis in slow motion, presumably because it has been going on for about a quarter of a century. It is in slow motion because North Korea has developed its own fuels, rockets, and missiles, which takes time, not to mention substantial resources. Cuba simply brought missiles with warheads that were ready to be employed, even though the ultimate decision to use them was under the control of the Soviets. The Cuban crisis, once Kennedy made the news public, however, was resolved fairly quickly, even if there were moments when it seemed like the planet might be vaporized.
North Korea clearly sees nuclear devices not only as a show of military strength and scientific prowess, but as a deterrent to regime change. It never tires pointing out that when Gaddafi gave up his nukes in 2003 to ingratiate himself with Western powers, particularly with the U.S., it opened the door for his overthrow eight years later. They make a similar argument about Saddam Hussein and the invasion of Iraq for not having “true” WMD (a nuclear arsenal). And they are right. Even before Gaddafi’s overthrow, a North Korean diplomat said the following: “You attacked Afghanistan because they do not have nukes. You attacked Iraq because it did not have nukes. You will not attack us. And you will not attack Iran.”
A recent New York Times article points to four areas to consider in terms of nuclear programs: arsenal size, bomb strength, missile technology, and ability to elude detection. In all these areas North Korea has shown improvement. North Korea now has several nuclear bombs (but fewer than ten), but has enough uranium and plutonium to make between 20 and 25 bombs, possibly even fifty by 2020. In terms of bomb strength the first nuclear devices were under 1 kiloton, the most recent about 10 kilotons. As for missile technology, North Korea currently has the Pukguksong missile with a range of 600 miles, the Nodong (800 miles), and the Musudan (2,200 miles); they are planning to add the KN-14 (6,200 miles) and the KN-08 (7,200 miles). The latter two could reach the U.S. but are still in the development stage. The problem is that Musudan so far has a failure rate of 88% so both the KN-14 and the KN-08 are not even close to being tested though most experts agree that North Korea could have ICBMs that can strike the U.S. by 2026. Finally, the North Koreans have placed missiles and warheads on vehicles and underground facilities that make them difficult to take out even with presumably surgical strikes.
When scholars and experts discuss North Korean nukes, usually three scenarios are put forth: do nothing, do too little, or do too much. The first implies exactly that, along with waiting for the North Korean regime to collapse. This approach has its advantages: you don’t have to expend much diplomatic energy or military resources, or engage in the risk of losing life and blood. Unfortunately, it is a fantasy. Despite its stagnant economy, its political rigidity, and its international isolation, North Korea is not about to implode. Many predicted, like with Cuba, that after the collapse of the USSR, North Korea would tumble. They, too, had their own “Periodo Especial,” compounded by a famine (1995-1999), and somehow managed to survive. Conditions now, while certainly not ideal, are far better than they were in the late nineties, and Kim Jong-Un’s transition into power (since 2011), though certainly more fraught with danger than his father’s (Kim Jong-Il, 1994-2011), seems to be proceeding quite smoothly, although not without incidents.
The second scenario (doing too little) is what is known as the Chinese option—that is, relying on China to impose harsher sanctions on its neighbor. This option is also flawed, for several reasons. First of all, China is not interested in regime change in Pyongyang. True, the Chinese are often upset with or embarrassed by their neighbor, but they see any political instability as problematic and likely to cause a flood of refugees across their borders. China is not interested in a unified Korea, either. North Korea functions as a key buffer vis-à-vis South Korea and Japan. China’s economic involvement with the DPRK is significant, but despite this they have very little leverage with North Korea. Moscow (when it was socialist), Washington, South Korea, and Japan have all found out over the years that substantial economic involvement —be it trade, humanitarian assistance, or aid—with North Korea does not translate into political leverage.
China, of course, could cause serious economic damage if it stopped aid and trade, perhaps causing another crisis similar to what North Korea went through in the nineties when the Soviet Union collapsed. Lankov quotes a South Korean diplomat: “China doesn’t have leverage when it comes to dealing with North Korea. What it has is not a lever, but rather a hammer. China can knock North Korea unconscious if it wishes, but it cannot really manage its behavior.” Using the hammer could cause a collapse of the regime which would eventually lead to reunification, neither outcome being palatable to them.
The third option (doing too much) would be disastrous as it would imply a military strategy of some kind. Given the proximity of Seoul, South Korea’s capital, to the DMZ (barely 35 miles), any military action would not only be devastating for North Korea but also inflict considerable damage (including civilian deaths) on South Korea. North Korea’s Scud missiles —of which they have several hundred— can easily reach Seoul, whose metropolitan area contains half the population of the country. Even the option of limited or “surgical” strikes are a dangerous option: first, it would not be able to entirely knock out the North’s nuclear capability, and second, it would invite a full retaliation by its military.
Both North and South Korea have large standing armies, although per capita North Korea’s is much higher. The North spends between 25%-30% of its budget on the military; the South, even though it spends triple the amount North does, only amounts to about 3%. The DPRK also has four and a half million (some estimate go as high as 7 million) in active reserve personnel compared to South Korea’s three million. North Korea has twice as many tanks as the South (5,025 to 2,654). And the DPRK has an impressive artillery (21,000) with the capability of firing 500,000 artillery rounds per hour. Of course, the South Korean armed forces are better equipped and trained (and also have 30,000 U.S. military personnel), but if hostilities did not go nuclear, the damage would be horrific. Commander Gary Luck told President Clinton that a Second Korean War would kill 1 million, would cost the U.S. $100 billion, and cause $1 trillion in industrial damage. Other estimates say it would imply 2 million Korean dead, and 50,000 U.S. casualties; and the U.S. costs possibly $200-300 billion.
North Korea also has chemical and biological weapons, between 2,500 and 5,000 metric tons, with the capacity to add 4,500 more tons per annum. In desperation or simply as a way to intimidate their enemies, would they use them in a direct military confrontation? Very likely.
Some observers would say that there is a fourth option that might be called “creative engagement” with North Korea, implying some financial incentives for them if they halt their program, since completely abandoning their nuclear program at this point seems unlikely. But a deal like this would likely entail the following: at least tacit acknowledgment that the DPRK can at least have a nuclear program for peaceful purposes and keep some of their nuclear weapons as well. It would also imply a partial (if not complete) lifting of sanctions, as well as some kind of statement that the DPRK is a legitimate government and that the U.S. would not seek to overthrew it. And it would probably imply some kind of reduction of U.S. troops in South Korea, as well as withdrawing the anti-missile system that is currently being installed in South Korea.
The fourth option sounds somewhat reasonable, but it is doubtful North Korea will submit to total de-nuclearization. If it is allowed to keep the nuclear weapons it has, but stop making any in the future, and if sanctions are lifted, there might be an opening for some type of negotiation. But it is unlikely that North Korea will allow U.N. inspectors to verify whether or not they are complying with terms of non-proliferation.
What about the Trump administration? The most significant challenge they face, aside from the reality and progress of North Korea’s nuclear program, is making sure that everyone is on the same page, since Tillerson, Pence, the President and McMaster have been sending out different messages. For example, President Trump, aside from “losing” an aircraft carrier that was supposed to be headed towards the Sea of Japan, said that the South Koreans had to pay for the anti-missile defense (THAAD) currently being installed. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster then reassured South Korea that the installation and cost would be assumed by the U.S. In a politically charged situation like the Korean peninsula, it is important to avoid what Victor Cha calls “spiraling miscalculations,” because they can have disastrous consequences. Hopefully, the ten-minute history lesson that Chinese President Xi Jinping gave to Trump at Mar-a-Lago will give the U.S. president some insight into the complexity of the Korean situation that involves Cold War history, superpower politics, Asian nationalism, DPRK internal politics, and the dilemmas of economic reform and trade.
North Korea has a nuclear program and devices that are already operational. The situation is not like the Agreed Framework (1994), or the Six-Party Talks in 2003. In 2006, North Korea held its first nuclear test and it has advanced quite significantly since then, as well as performing other tests as well (2009, 2013, 2016). There are no easy or good solutions. To paraphrase and modify Kim Jong-Un’s aphorism, with nuclear proliferation we are all eggs without ideology, crushed by the rock of intransigence.
Cover Image: North Korea propaganda poster. Photo taken by Tormod Sandtorv (2012).