![]()
1 Introduction
The foreign policy behaviour of North Korea is one of the most intriguing, captivating and sometimes frustrating aspects of global politics in general and of the international relations of East Asia in particular. A hereditary communist dictatorship, one of the largest standing armies in the world, a stagnant economy, a Confucian mentality, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and, of course, nuclear capability make it a unique country. Its location in the middle of one of the most economically successful and dynamic regions in the world, which is also home to two countries in possession of nuclear weapons, and where the only current superpower, the USA, retains a large military presence, confer North Korea with strategic importance due to its mere existence. Its involvement in the proliferation of WMD and nuclear materials, links with several Middle Eastern governments, and a continuous ability to resist diplomatic and economic pressure from the USA make North Korea relevant at the global level as a result of its behaviour. The fact that North Korea has proved to be one of the most impenetrable countries in the world for academics, journalists and intelligence officials alike has served to create a certain mystique around it.
Much has already been written about North Korea. In the 1990s one of the most prominent debates revolved around the possibility of a North Korean collapse (Eberstadt 1999: 228, 234–5; Foster-Carter 1998; Noland 1997; Oh 1999). Communist regimes were crumbling around the world, leading to an assumption by some that Pyongyang would follow suit. However, North Korea did not collapse, and Kim Jong Il replaced his father, Kim Il Sung, as supreme leader of the country in 1994, following the decease of the latter. With the younger Kim firmly in power, much of the literature from the early 2000s onwards focused on North Korea’s international relations. Some authors concentrated on describing North Korea’s relations with countries in North-East Asia as well as with the USA (Joo and Kwak 2007; Yongho Kim 2011; Kwak and Joo 2009; Rechter 2009). Others looked at US foreign policy towards North Korea. Authors tended to be divided into two different camps: those who prescribed engagement with North Korea to re-integrate the country into the international system (Cha and Kang 2003; Fuqua 2007; Wit 2007), and those who advocated putting pressure on Pyongyang to induce a change in its foreign policy or even regime change (Bechtol 2007). In contrast, some scholars tried to shed light on the inner workings of the Kim Jong Il government (Byman and Lind 2010; Kihl and Kim 2006; Sung Chull Kim 2006; Lim 2009; Paik and Cheong 2008). The only point in common among all authors who have published meticulous studies of North Korea over the past decade is the belief that it is not an irrational actor. North Korea’s behaviour can therefore be studied and, to some extent, understood.
This book will analyze North Korea’s foreign policy towards the USA from the point when Bill Clinton became the 42nd US president to the death of Kim Jong Il, which took place during the presidency of Barack Obama. Shortly after Clinton’s inauguration, the first North Korean nuclear crisis began. A second nuclear crisis took place during the presidency of George W. Bush. Meanwhile, Obama is the first US president to be forced to deal with a nuclear North Korea from the very start of his term of office. During this period, the People’s Republic of China has emerged as the second largest economy in the world and as the central player in the regional politics of East Asia. Concurrently, Japan, Russia and South Korea have all become more involved in North-East Asian international relations. Therefore, this volume examines how Pyongyang’s policy towards Washington has evolved throughout a period characterized by the administrations of three successive US presidents and the changing power dynamics in North-East Asia. The book will highlight the key drivers of Pyongyang’s policy towards Washington from the early 1990s onwards. It will also expound the main continuities and changes in this policy, explaining the tools that North Korea has been using to try to achieve its objectives. The volume will also explain how and why Pyongyang’s behaviour towards Washington has shifted in response to the USA’s changing policies, and to the actions of other countries in North-East Asia and the dynamics of the international system.
1. Weak power bargaining with great powers
The foreign policy of North Korea towards the USA can be interpreted in terms of bargaining between a weak power, North Korea, and a super-power, the USA. Certainly, the foreign policy of any particular country towards another does not occur in a vacuum. It is affected by international structures, the behaviour of other actors, and domestic considerations. Nevertheless, this does not preclude the analysis of relations between two countries as a bargaining process between actors seeking to achieve a particular objective. The issues listed above certainly affect the bargaining process, but they do not prevent the process itself from taking place.
North Korea as a weak power
Before describing the bargaining tactics that North Korea can use, as a weak power, to bargain with the USA it is necessary to answer the following questions: what is a weak power, and is North Korea one of them? With regards to the first question, there is no agreement on a definition. However, a large number of students of weak powers concur that they can be defined in relation to – or opposition to – other categories of states. Mathisen (1971), Väyrynen (1971), Barston (1973) and Handel (1990) are among numerous authors who take this approach and identify weak powers as those with smaller material capabilities than other states. Hence, in their survey of definitions of weak powers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Neumann and Gstohl (2006) concluded that weak powers are those that do not fall into the categories of super (or great) powers, middle powers or micro-states. While this is a vague analytical classification, a careful examination of the capabilities of a specific state serves to place it in one or another category.
This leads us to the second question. At first glance it is hard to argue that North Korea, a nuclear power with one of the largest standing armies in the world, is militarily weak. This is not the case in North-East Asia though, where possession of nuclear capability and a large army is not exceptional. This region is home to two nuclear powers (China and Russia) and three countries protected by the nuclear umbrella of the USA and with the ability to develop nuclear weapons in a relatively short period of time (Japan, South Korea and Taiwan). The number of active and reserve miltary personnel in China, Russia and South Korea, respectively, is greater than that of North Korea (IISS 2013), and the US army has a permanent presence in Japan and South Korea. Furthermore, Pyongyang’s military technology is outdated compared to that of its neighbours. To a large extent this is the result of North Korea’s annual estimated military budget of US $4.38 billion being much smaller than the budgets of China, Japan, Russia or South Korea (ibid. 2011a). In short, North Korea is a weak military power compared to its neighbours and could not survive a military confrontation with any of them. This weakness is further exacerbated by the hub-and-spoke system of US bilateral alliances in East Asia, which confer greater protection to Japan and South Korea. In addition, it should be noted that at the time of writing North Korea did not have the technology to mount a nuclear warhead to a ballistic missile. In contrast, China, Russia and the USA have this technology. Even if North Korea develops this technology, it will be merely catching up with these three countries.
In terms of economics North Korea is a weak power as well. As of 2012 its economy was ranked 95th globally in terms of gross domestic product, whereas the other remaining North-East Asian countries were among the 25 largest economies (CIA 2011). Moreover, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, North Korea’s economic growth has been anaemic and the differential with its neighbours has increased rapidly. North Korea is only residually engaged in regional and global trade and investment flows in spite of being situated in one of the most economically dynamic regions in the world. This accentuates its status as a weak economic power (see Table 1.1).
Table 1.1 Military and economic capabilities of selected countries (2012)
| Defence budget (US$) | Active military personnel | Reserve military personnel | GDP (US$, nominal) |
China | 102.0bn | 2,285,000 | 510,000 | 8.227bn |
Japan | 59.4bn | 247,450 | 56,400 | 5.964bn |
North Korea | 4.38bn (2009) | 1,190,000 | 600,000 | 0.28bn (2009) |
Russia | 59.9bn | 845,000 | 20,000,000 | 1.465bn |
South Korea | 29.0bn | 655,000 | 4,500,000 | 1.156bn |
United States | 676.7bn | 1,520,100 | 810,350 | 15.680bn |
Park (2010) and Smith (2007) specifically define North Korea as a weak power in terms of material capabilities. Park pinpoints that North Korea is militarily very weak in relation to the USA. Meanwhile, Smith maintains that North Korea is a weak military power owing to its relatively small military budget compared to that of its neighbours, its lack of a coherent military strategy, and the absence of any offensive intention. In fact, Smith argues that the development of nuclear capability is the means for North Korea to cheaply try to overcome its military weakness. Hence, it is possible to characterize North Korea as a weak power, given its smaller capabilities than all the other North-East Asian countries.
Weak power bargaining in International Relations
The (social) scientific study of bargaining was initially systematically developed by Thomas C. Schelling in The Strategy of Conflict, published in 1960. In this book Schelling established several features that are common to most or all bargaining processes. These features have become widely accepted by social scientists. They are as follows: (1) commitment to a goal and persuasive communication of this commitment; (2) inability to easily establish that commitment and to accurately identify the strength of the other party’s actual commitment; (3) possibility of both parties undertaking similar activities; (4) differences in the capacity of states to maintain a commitment, especially democratic governments that depend on public opinion to a certain degree; (5) and risk of stalemate or breakdown if both parties establish immovable positions (ibid.: 28). Commitment is therefore central to the bargaining process. In this book we will see that North Korea’s commitment to the goal of the normalization of bilateral diplomatic relations with the USA has been a central feature of its foreign policy dating back to the 1970s. However, this commitment seems to have weakened since North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in October 2006.
Lockhart (1979: 92) explains that the outcome of asymmetrical bargaining processes is not a linear result of each actor’s power. Instead, actors must identify and employ useful options for themselves in order to obtain favourable outcomes through bargaining processes (ibid.: 133). When talking about identifying options, Lockhart is referring to the tactics that an actor should pursue in order to maximize its chances of achieving its objective(s). Since the military, economic and diplomatic-political resources of weak powers are inferior to those of great powers, they must perfect the tactic identification process as well as the use of the identified tactics. The former will be referred to as learning and will be explained below. The latter is explored later in this section.
However, before examining the tactics employed by weak powers bargaining with great powers it is necessary to return to the issue of commitment, which is essential to all bargaining processes. According to Schelling (1960: 14), this is because committing to carry out an action that the opponent perceives as threatening will eliminate the need to complete that action, provided that the commitment is sufficiently credible. To enhance the credibility of a commitment, an actor needs to make its new position clearly visible to the opponent. This shifts the nature of the bargaining process by altering the (perceived) goal(s) that an actor wants to achieve. Hence, the opponent is presented with a new situation to consider (ibid.: 24).
Nonetheless, in the international system commitments are not infinite. States have limited resources, so they can only pledge them to a certain number of issues (Schelling 1960: 51). Therefore, commitments tend to be inter-reliant. States identify interdependent threats and commit their resources to managing them (ibid.: 55). Moreover, commitments cannot be easily broken, and certainly not at short notice. Otherwise, an actor would lose all credibility and its position would be undermined (ibid.: 65–6). This explains why commitment during a specific bargaining process tends to be asymmetrical.
A credible commitment is essential for weak powers engaged in asymmetrical conflicts with great powers. Commitment is not a tactic that weak powers may choose or not choose to use in order to enhance their bargaining prospects. Instead, it is a sine qua non element for weak powers to reduce asymmetries with greater powers. Only if commitment is present will the weak power be able to make use of the bargaining tactics that may allow it to achieve its objective(s). As such, commitment is the result and expression of a weak power’s greater relative interest in the outcome of a bargaining process.
Studies of weak power behaviour in International Relations (IR) have generally been unsystematic, relying too heavily on specific case studies. However, one element that all scholars who have studied the behaviour of weak powers have agreed upon is their commitment to a limited number of foreign policy goals (Barston 1973; Bjol 1968; Clapham 1996; Fox 1959; Keohane 1971; Walt 1987). This was already established by Fox in her groundbreaking study of weak power behaviour. As she explains, leaders of weak powers are almost exclusively concerned with the fate of their own states and therefore normally only focus their attention on issues that are of greatest concern to them. Since weak powers have little, if any, influence over systemic issues, they can afford not to worry about matters outside of their core set of interests (Fox 1959: 181–3).
Weak power bargaining: tactics
The literature on weak power bargaining suggests that the tactics available to weak powers bargaining with a greater power can be divided into three categories. Weak powers may use alignment, either by balancing against or bandwagoning with the opponent; they may engage in brinkmanship or not; and they may opt to participate in international regimes or not (see Table 1.2). A tactic from each category may be used in isolation or together with a tactic from one or the other two groups. A brief discussion of each category follows.
