Beyond Brinkmanship:
Geographical Constraints and
North Korea’s Evolving Tactics
Rodger Baker
Biographical Statement
Rodger Baker is a senior analyst for Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting; http://www.
stratfor.com), based in Austin, Texas, where he has covered East and Southeast Asian
security, politics and economics for the past decade. In his work, Baker travels frequently to East Asia, including China, South Korea, North Korea, Mongolia and
Japan. The views expressed are those of the author.
Abstract
North Korea’s behavior from the 1950s through today is part of a continuum
shaped by geography and position. But it is not unique, and reflects the survival
imperatives placed on Koguryo, a North Korean state stretching from the Hamgyong range past the Taedong River. While the specific tactics employed by succeeding
North Korean states may differ over time, the strategic imperatives faced by each
remain largely unchanged. North Korea today is undergoing another of those shifts
in tactics, moving from the survival phase to the sustainability phase.
Introduction
Korean history has seen the rise and fall of numerous kingdoms and states on
the peninsula, competing against each other and battling external threats. In many
Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting) 700 Lavaca, Suite 900, Austin, TX 78701; Tel:
512–744 –4312, Fax: 512–744 –4334; Email: [email protected]
North Korean Review / DOI: 10.3172/NKR.4.2.83 / Volume 4, Number 2 / Fall 2008 / pp. 83–92 /
ISSN 1551-2789 (Print) / ISSN 1941-2886 (Online) / © 2008 McFarland & Company, Inc.
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ways, North Korea today faces similar challenges to the preceding kingdoms in the
northern half of the peninsula, challenges shaped in large part by geography and
locations. In looking at these deeper structural elements, and the way various Korean
states adapted to the geographical constraints, North Korean behavior appears less
erratic and less dogmatic. The recent shift in North Korean behavior at the negotiating table, then, becomes one predicated on how far along Pyongyang is in meeting
its strategic imperatives.
These imperatives are less choice than necessities for survival, and in the case
of North Korea, or any other preceding or succeeding Korean state in the northern
half of the peninsula, they can be summed up in just a few short points:
1. Maintain strong internal cohesion of the population.
2. Reduce or eliminate the threat to the weak southern border, where there are
few defensible geographical boundaries.
3. Reduce or remove the threat to the weak points of the northern border, particularly near the western border with China.
4. Use larger external powers to balance each other in order to deal with the
dual security threats from maritime and land-based neighbors.
How North Korea or any other Korean state deals with these issues is a matter
of choice, though not all choices work equally well. That North Korea must contend
with its geographical and spatial vulnerabilities, however, is not a choice if the regime
and state has any plan to survive.
For North Korea in the modern world, the key to nearly all its core challenges
is the United States. If North Korea eventually succeeds in reshaping relations with
the United States, it will have significantly reduced, if not removed, the threat from
the south. It will also be able to call on the United States to act as a buffer between
Korea’s more immediate historical threats; Japan and China. Finally, breaking free
from the constraints of the current relationship with the United States could give
Pyongyang greater access to international economic, development and technology
resources, which, if used effectively, could both maintain internal social cohesion and
strengthen the state.
Geography and Place: Constraints and Challenges
The Korean Peninsula is a narrow, mountainous appendix on Northeast Asia,
stretching out from the Chinese-Russian border into the sea, aimed at Japan. In the
North is a high plateau and mountains, with two rivers stretching to the east and
west coasts (the Tumen and Yalu respectively) providing definition to the border.
Figure 1 shows that in the east, a series of mountain ranges, most notably the Taebaek Range, stretches not far inland along the coast, providing a natural barrier to
forces invading by sea. In the south, numerous islands guard the access to the weaker
lowlands of the southwest. And along the west coast stretch the more fertile plains
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Mountain Ranges
Plateau/Valleys
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Imjin-Han river valley
Kwangju mountain range
Taebaeck mountain range
Hamgyong range
Sobaek range
Kaema plateau
Rivers
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Yalu river
Tumen river
Naktong river
Taedong river
Imjin river
Han river
Figure 1: The map of the Korean Peninsula
of Korea, though high tidal fluctuation have served as a hindrance to maritime invasion (though not a foolproof hindrance, as shown by the U.S. forces landing at
Incheon in 1950).
North Korea, like preceding northern–Korean states, faces a more immediate
challenge from the south. Rather than having a clearly defined, if somewhat vulnerable, coastline as its border, North Korea’s southern border sits along ill-defined
Beyond Brinkmanship
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geographical barriers. There is no defensible high mountain range like in the north or
east, just the relatively low rolling hills and plains that stretch from the Taedong River
in Pyongyang down through the Imjin River to the Han River flowing through Seoul.
In the north, the primary vulnerability is near the mouth of the Yalu River, which
creates a gap in the mountainous barriers to the North and opens a historically trod
pathway to the peninsula from China and Manchuria. (This Yalu Delta gap leaves
Pyongyang just as concerned with China as it is with the U.S. presence in the south.)
These borders are much the same as those of the ancient Koguryo Kingdom (37
BC–668 AD), to which Pyongyang now points as a direct ancestor state to modern
North Korea. North Korean media and internal propaganda raises Koguryo as a standard for the nation to follow today — a powerful state with its capital in Pyongyang,
occupying not only the Korean Peninsula, but also reaching deep into Manchuria.
But Koguryo’s history is one of nearly constant warfare, as it battled from a weak
geographic position and faced off against a series of shifting threats. And this same
geography to a great degree defines North Korea’s present borders and the strategic
problems the modern state seeks to overcome.
While the borders of Koguryo changed over time, the state occupied an area generally analogous to that of modern-day North Korea. Arising as a tribal alliance in
Manchuria and the northern Korean Peninsula, Koguryo’s geography and the seemingly endless stream of conflicting armies in what is now northern China shaped its
actions and options. As a mountainous state, Koguryo developed into a warring
nation, evolving from hunters occupying the sparse hills, rather than the more sedentary cultures in southern Korean Peninsula. And Koguryo clashed frequently, sitting
as it did at the crossroads of the Mongol domains and the Chinese states, all the while
dealing with competing southern Korean states.
Given its basic geography, Koguryo— and, again, its successor states, including
the DPRK —constantly feared a two-front conflict coming from the northwest and
the south. Once either border is breached, little stands in the way of an invading
force from moving swiftly in either direction along the Sinuiju–Pyongyang–Kaesong
line. Koguryo faced two forces from the south — Paekche in the southwest and Silla
in the southeast and later along most of the southern border. In the north, Koguryo
faced a constant set of changing competitors or allies, comprising the Chinese, Mongols, Jurchen and Turks.
Common Solutions
Koguryo’s solutions were alternately setting up and breaking alliances and pressing its borders further outward to create a strategic buffer hindering access to the
vulnerable soft spots. Koguryo’s borders expanded and contracted as it sought a
strategic buffer in the north to protect the Yalu River gap and to keep opposing forces
from establishing power in the mountains. In the south, Koguryo fought a series of
conflicts with the southern powers, battling for control of the Imjin and Han river
valleys and seeking a more reliable barrier to southern pressures.
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As the Koguryo borders were pushed back closer to the present-day North
Korean borders, Koguryo built defensive walls below the Yalu gap to slow any invasion force from the north. The state also created alternating alliances with various
powers competing for Manchuria, seeking support from whichever power was not
currently focused on expanding into the Korean highlands. In the seventh century,
a weakening Koguryo was defeated following a series of clashes with the Tang forces
from the north and Silla forces from the south — a two-front land and naval war that
lasted off and on for several decades and brought Koguryo’s greatest fears to reality.
While there were certainly many contributing factors to the collapse of Koguryo,
a critical aspect was the inability of the state to defend its borders against simultaneous threats. This same concern continues to shape North Korean behavior. The
establishment of North Korea in the wake of World War II saw Pyongyang ally with
the Soviet Union and China, and though the USSR in particular was a sponsor state
helping to establish the DPRK, Pyongyang’s continued alliance with its northern
neighbors had less to do with ideology than with protecting one border so that the
nascent state could focus its efforts on securing the more vulnerable southern flank.
Geography and the Korean War
Thus, in 1950, North Korea launched an invasion of the south, seeking to drive
the U.S. forces off of the Korean Peninsula and to unify Korea — something its
blitzkrieg nearly achieved and might have had the northern forces not paused long
enough for the U.S. and South Korean forces to regroup behind the Naktong River,
far beyond the last defensible mountain barrier offered by the Sobaek range. The
speed at which the two opposing forces in 1950 moved up and down the peninsula
emphasize the strategic weakness of Korea once the far northern and southern borders are breached: there is little between the South Sea and the mouth of the Yalu
River to slow an invasion force.
Pyongyang’s actions in 1950 match those of Koryo (935–1392), which emerged
in the northern half of the Korean Peninsula in the tenth century. Koryo made use
of the opportunity offered by its relatively stable northern border to face south, unifying the peninsula and removing the greater weakness of its southern border. Once
this was secured, Koryo focused on its northern borders, and through a series of
clashes, alliances and wall building, Koryo secured its northern borders for two centuries. The early DPRK sought a similar course, removing the threat from the less
easily protected southern border in order to focus on the northern border and independence of action.
But just as Koguryo and Koryo had to contend with the potential for a two-front
war, so did North Korea. Pyongyang addressed this by defending its northern flank
through alliances with China and Russia and then by striking south to defend the
sea approaches to the peninsula. Had North Korea overrun the south, one can only
speculate if eventually it would have sought a more secure buffer in northeastern
China or southeastern Russia, perhaps annexing border areas with large Korean
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populations. (Perhaps to prevent just this possibility, Stalin transported Russia’s ethnic Koreans to Central Asia during his ethnic restructuring of the Soviet Union.)
Unlike Koryo, however, the DPRK failed in its unification attempt. But the
Armistice Agreement of 1953 and the Cold War balance brought an uneasy stability
to the Korean front lines. Traditionally, when a Korean state has gained some sense
of geographic security, it turns to a two-tier strategy to maintain that security. First,
this has meant fending off foreign influence and intervention through isolationism
and a strong deterrent, be it geographic barriers, walls, a strong military or just a
generally prickly attitude toward outsiders. Second, when the outside powers have
grown too strong, it has meant trying to play the outside powers off one other.
Internally, this historically has involved establishing a rigid social hierarchy to
promote unity and reduce the regionalism inherent in a nation built from various
prior civilizations. The basis for this cohesion has come through a strong military
role (Koguryo, Koryo, North Korea, and initially, South Korea), through enforced
and pervasive ideology (Confucianism in the Choson Dynasty (1392–1910), the doctrine of Juche in North Korea, anticommunism in the emerging South Korea), or just
strong nationalism (South Korea in the 1990s and 2000s, and increasingly, North
Korea today).
Externally, Korea has long played its neighbors off one another. While ideology
has masked this game, the core drive for survival generally has played the bigger role.
Facing a large and hostile U.S. force in the south at the end of the Korean War,
Pyongyang once again fell back to its alliance partners to its north to guarantee its
security and balance the U.S. power. At the same time, North Korea set up a strong,
hardened defensive line along the temporary border, and prepared its military for a
massive surge southward should conflict break out again. But Pyongyang was not
content simply to be a vassal of Moscow and Beijing, and as with prior northern
Korean states, began to play the competing northern powers off one another.
Pyongyang has gained a certain amount of independent rule by never allowing itself
to be completely dependent upon either sponsor state.
After the Cold War
As the Cold War neared an end, North Korea saw its ability to rely on the Soviet
Union and China slipping. The north no longer could play its own sponsors, China
and Russia, off one another as Moscow lost interest and Beijing lost patience with
their former client. With the northern border no longer entirely secure, the southern border began to look more threatening. Kim Il Sung sought to remedy this by
reaching out to South Korea, but he died before his planned 1994 inter–Korean summit. Pyongyang also began seeking to redefine its relation with the United States, albeit
on Pyongyang’s terms. The north’s move to cultivate relations with the United States
looks less surprising in this light, particularly considering that Korea’s traditional
rivals, Japan and China, both look to be on the ascendant.
But even before this tentative step to secure the southern flank, Kim initiated
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the north’s nuclear program. Kim sought security through the bomb, but not necessarily from a direct military standpoint. After all, North Korea’s population and
infrastructure is rather vulnerable, providing a relatively small target when compared to, say, China or the United States, two much larger powers with far larger
nuclear arsenals. While the nuclear bomb changed the political calculus, it did not
really change the north’s security calculus. But the nuclear program did provide a
replacement for the need to rely on China and Russia as a deterrent to the United
States and Japan.
Pyongyang tried to set in motion a gradual softening of hostilities with the south
and the first baby steps toward reunification. It simultaneously cultivated an image
of strength and perhaps unpredictability that would allow it to enter into a dialogue
with the United States— its more immediate security threat — as an equal, or at least
not as a dependent of China. But North Korea, and increasingly South Korea, saw a
new threat emerging over the horizon: the simultaneous rise of China and Japan. Both
powers being strong in the past always meant a clash of interests, if not armed forces—
and that meant Korea was in the unenviable geographic position of being the traditional invasion route between Japan and China, the minnow between two fighting
whales.
It is this future threat that has both Koreas moving now on the path toward
reunification that two decades ago seemed so distant. And it is this that has both
Koreas, cautiously, looking to the United States to play the role of mediator or buffer
between China and Japan, meaning a continued relation with the United States even
after reunification. For both Koreas, though, ideological differences aside,
reunification has become a strategic imperative. Certainly, the reunification process
will be challenging. Kim Il Sung’s death undoubtedly delayed the process as his son
Kim Jong-il consolidated power, keeping the country in a state of lockdown for four
years.
The extreme isolation that followed the succession was broken with a show of
strength, a nuclear crisis, and a 1998 Taepodong missile launch over Japan (an attempt
at a satellite launch that was to have shown technical prowess as well). This display
demonstrated North Korea’s domestic unity, necessary to fund and complete such a
project in a short time (even if the missile launch only partially succeeded). It was
followed by negotiations, the inter–Korean summit originally envisioned by Kim Il
Sung, and a North Korean diplomatic offensive bringing normalization with Australia, Canada, the Philippines and various European states, all traditionally allied
with the United States.
The bid to play Europe off the United States foundered, however, when Europe
proved much weaker than anticipated. The North subsequently realized that the
answer lay with reshaping relations with the United States directly. The North made
such a bid in late 2000 (sent off track by the U.S. presidential election) and again
with the 2003 nuclear crisis, which the North thought would be concluded much more
quickly, failing to take into account the changed environment in the United States
after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, DC.
For North Korea, the periodic crises are intentional attempts to draw attention,
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demonstrate strength, and create a basis for discussion with the United States (and
its allies), to break North Korea out of its security box, defined largely by its relationship with the United States. The ultimate goal was normalization of relations with
the United States, even if Pyongyang went about it in a circuitous and often counterproductive way. But for Pyongyang, normalization was no use if North Korea had
to give up its independence of policy in return.
Negotiating from an off-balance, unpredictable, but still quite lethal position
served to set in motion crises that could be resolved on North Korean terms. And
Pyongyang has skillfully played its hand for much of the time, gaining diplomatic
ties near and far, and shaping the actions of the world’s largest powers— the United
States, China, Russia and Japan.
The Fading Nuclear Tool
Nuclear weapons were an effective tool in this strategy for more than a decade,
but they are losing their efficacy post 9/11. Such nuclear brinksmanship has a major
weakness: disinterest. The Bush administration has pursued a policy of antagonistic
neglect, taunting North Korea, but failing to give in to Pyongyang’s desire for appeasement. North Korea kept upping the ante, but brinksmanship assumes the opponent
gives in before the final card is played. North Korea did not expect to have to play
its final card — a nuclear test — to get the United States back to the table and giving
in to North Korean demands. But Washington waited, and Pyongyang in frustration
took its final chance, testing a nuclear device in October 2006.
Only when North Korea had no more cards to play did Washington reengage.
For North Korea, the ability to up the ante is gone; Pyongyang can no longer rely on
setting up a global crisis management model to ensure its own interests are addressed
and its demands met. North Korea must now employ new tactics to achieve the same
strategic goal of security, all in the face of a steadily rising China and Japan — something that appears like a closing window or lowering guillotine to North Korea. South
Korea sees the looming challenge as well, and is shifting its own defense procurement to naval protection, eyeing Japan while speeding the pace of inter–Korean cooperation.
Beyond Brinkmanship
But if brinkmanship can no longer serve North Korea, what next? Within a week,
and just shy of the one-year anniversary of North Korea’s nuclear test, Pyongyang
agreed in the six-party framework to the next stage of its own nuclear disarmament,
and, in the second inter–Korean summit, to a broad-based agreement with South
Korea emphasizing reductions in tensions, economic cooperation and transportation linkages. Both meetings and agreements saw several delays before finally coming to fruition, and the timing for North Korea was no coincidence: the two meetings
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are intimately linked.
Pyongyang wants to enter the international community of nations rather than
remaining isolated, while at the same time ensuring its regime is not threatened as
it begins to engage the rest of the world, particularly South Korea and the United
States. For North Korea, survival was largely ensured through the decade and a half
of periodic nuclear crises interspersed with surges of diplomatic activity. The government is now turning to a new phase: sustainability.
The 2007 round of nuclear talks with North Korea has resulted in a series
of documents replete with working groups and bulleted lists of steps and procedures to carry out. The interaction between North Korea and the United States
and other Northeast Asian neighbors is becoming one of a series of discrete working groups with regular schedules and small-scale individual objectives. As a result,
relations are moving out of the realm of major politics and into the hands of the
bureaucrats— and the bureaucrats stay the same regardless of changes in the top leadership.
The ability to create a sense of crisis is fading; just look at the almost blasé reaction to the North Korean nuclear test. In return for losing its ability to readily stoke
the fire, Pyongyang has gained a more stabilized and entrenched engagement process.
This may create a stable platform upon which the North Korean government can
experiment with various small-scale economic or social adjustments with minimal
fear of sudden exploitation by a hostile power.
The February 13, 2007, agreement at the six-party talks institutionalized the
denuclearization process; the new inter–Korean agreement institutionalizes interactions between Seoul and Pyongyang. There are hints that North Korea and the United
States may be headed toward a similar arrangement. This does not negate the potential for delays, stresses and reversals, but it does seem to signal that for now at least,
the days of a crazy, threatening North Korea unpredictable in action and thinking,
may be fading into the past.
Looking Back, Looking Ahead
North Korea is shifting from being the center of sporadic crises to the continued focus of bureaucratic negotiations. Pyongyang can always return to its old ways,
but the rest of the world is becoming inured to North Korea’s saber rattling. Even
Pyongyang has come to realize that it needs a new tack. It now seems evident that
North Korea has found its new course.
In the end, the objective remains the same: the security of its borders and the
independence of policy from neighboring powers. Pyongyang wants to spend some
time addressing its own internal problems, to strengthen its economy and infrastructure, and to ease the way toward reunification or at least significantly reduce the
sense of hostilities with the south. There is no reduction in the longer-term desire
for the resurgence of a strong, unified Korea that can stand and compete with its
neighbors. But neither Pyongyang nor Seoul sees this as a possibility in the immediBeyond Brinkmanship
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ate future, and with the rivalry between China and Japan growing on pace with
China’s economic rise and Japan’s military revival, the Koreas are looking toward the
United States to keep the neighbors apart.
Stepping back, the problems Pyongyang is dealing with are little different than
those of Koguryo or Koryo or Choson, even if nuclear weapons are now in play. And
the path Pyongyang is choosing, while perhaps tactically different, follows the same
operational paths of previous Korean powers— ensure internal cohesion, secure the
weaker southern border, strengthen defense of the northern border, and play the outside larger powers off one another.
The focus now is on the United States, and Pyongyang, by choice or consequence, is now moving beyond brinksmanship. Institutionalization of interaction is
replacing self-inflicted crisis management. The stresses of survival are being replaced
by the complications of sustainability. The strategic imperatives are clear, the operational plan has evolved. It is now a matter of whether desires and plans can be turned
into realities and achievements.
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