The Kim Dynasty and North-East Asian
security: breaking the cycle of crises.
Virginie Grzelczyk (Aston University)
This paper was compiled for the IKSU launch conference at the
University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), 15-17 October 2014
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF KOREAN STUDIES (IKSU) – KOREA SECURITY CONFERENCE, 15-17 OCTOBER 2014
The Kim Dynasty and North-East Asian security: Breaking the cycle of crises?
Dr Virginie Grzelczyk, Aston University, Birmingham, B4 7ET, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 121 204 3600 [email protected]
Working paper for the Korea Security Conference, International Institute of
Korean Studies (IKSU), University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), 15-17
October 2014
Biographical statement: Dr. Virginie Grzelczyk is a lecturer in international
relations at Aston University, specializing in analyzing security relationships and
negotiation patterns over East Asia, and especially over the Korean Peninsula.
Previous publications have, amongst others, considered the Six-Party Talks process,
North Korea’s energy Security Dilemma as well as Korean identity in the context of
reunification.
Abstract: This article considers North Korea and the notion of crisis, by linking
historical development over the Korean peninsula to the conflict resolution literature,
and investigates why despite a large number of destabilising events, a war involving
Pyongyang has yet to erupt. The paper considers historical data and uses a framework
developed by Aggarwal et al. in order to highlight patterns of interaction between
states such as the United States, North Korea and South Korea, organisatios such as
the United Nations, as well as processes such as the Six-Party Talk and the Agreed
Framework. The paper then develops a crisis framework based on conflict resolution
and negotiation literature, and applies it to three North Korean administrations.
Findings suggests that an elastic understanding of time (for all parties involved on the
1
peninsula) leads to an impossibility to reach a threshold where full-scale war would
be triggered, thus leaving parties in a stable state of crisis for which escalating moves
and de-escalating techniques might become irrelevant.
Keywords: North Korea, Korean peninsula, conflict resolution, crisis
Introduction
A little more than three years after the death of Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s
supreme leader, little has changed over the Korean peninsula. While Kim Jong Il’s
youngest son Kim Jong Un has taken his father’s place without much visible
opposition either from his entourage, the military, the North Korean people or the rest
of the world, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has not stopped from
teetering between engagement and alienating moves. On the one hand, a number of
meetings between Washington and Pyongyang as well as North Korea’s agreement in
February 2012 that it would halt some of its nuclear testing raised hopes that the Six
Party Talks, which have been a standstill for the entirety of Barack Obama’s
administration, could be reignited. On the other end, Pyongyang’s apparent
commitment to strengthen its satellite development programs and nuclear weapons
has led to a spate of criticism from the international community when North Korea
launched several missiles in 2013 and 2014, and tested another nuclear device in
2013. Perhaps the Kim Jon Un reign is ‘business as usual’ when one considers the
intense tension and danger that have surrounded the Korean peninsula over the better
part of the past sixty years. Such instability has often been labelled by the media,
politicians, and researchers alike as being a state of crisis. Hence, we have seen over
2
the past two or three decades an abundance of studies concentrating on the ‘Korean
peninsula’ crisis.
Historically, the Korean War and the subsequent Armistice have left the
country divided with the two Koreas in a constant state of tension. 1 This ‘mother
crisis’ has led to a number of problems between the two Koreas, but also involves
other regional powers such as China and Japan, as well as the United States and the
United Nations. As a result, some speak of an economic crisis precipitated by North
Korea’s domestic choices under both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, 2 some are
concerned by a North Korean humanitarian crisis ignited food and energy
mismanagement 3 while many focus on a security crisis related to North Korea
pursuing weapons of mass destruction 4 and especially North Korea’s non-compliance
with international regimes. 5 Ultimately, all these create a “multidimensional Korean
security crisis that is at the heart of short-, medium- and long-term regional
stability.” 6 Instabilities and insecurities have addressed at great length through many
lenses, with some focusing on how to engage North Korea through negotiation, 7
whether sanctions and constraints have utility, 8 how new opportunities can be created
through multilateral processes 9, how change might be brought from within North
Korea through NGOs 10 or the crisis could be terminated by eliminating the North
Korea’s regime altogether. 11
Given the plethora of academic interest as well as the diversity of rhetorical
and policy engagements that have been attempted on the Korean peninsula, it may
appear surprising that a crisis might still be taking place. So one might just suggest
that the Korean peninsula’s state of normalcy is one of crisis, and which would be
3
characterized by a perpetual amount of tension that people, states and organizations
should just accept. Such an argument would be deeply negating, however, as it would
suggest that no form of engagement, no political constraint, or no sheer amount of
will and change would ever bring about peace over the Korean peninsula. Hence, this
paper aims to answer a number of questions regarding the current state of the Korean
peninsula, by returning to the roots of conflict resolution and considering North Korea
paper proceeds in four stages: (1) it gives an overview of the tensions affecting the
Korean peninsula by considering major conciliatory and inflammatory action from the
1960s up to present days, (2) it considers the conflict resolution literature to define
what constitutes a crisis, how crises are studied and how crises are dealt with, (3) it
applies a conflict resolution framework to the peninsula. Essentially, the paper
suggests that the amount of inflammatory actions should have amounted to a state of
extreme crisis that would, under other circumstances, prompt crisis resolution actions
to be taken. In the case of the Korean peninsula, time has been understood as elastic
and thus non-finite, leading parties to a lingering state of heightened hostilities that
oscillates toward war, but that is controlled-enough not to reach it.
A Korean crisis?
The Korean peninsula has hardly been free from tensions ever since the end
of World War Two and which saw Korea being divided into two zones of influence to
remove Japanese colonial structures. Over the years though, the two Koreas as well as
other actors such as the United States have clashed over a number of events, the first
of which is the obvious Korean War During the 1960s and 1970s, the two Koreas had
almost no contact, and the large American military presence over the Demilitarized
4
zone along with a lack of resources for both South and North Korea meant that the
opportunities for armed clashes were little, yet a number of grave incidents still
occurred: for example, the seizing by North Korean forces in 1968 of the US
intelligence gathering vessel USS Pueblo and the year-long tensions that ensued as
the United States was trying to negotiate the release of the 82 crew held captive in
North Korea created one of the most serious incidents that happened during the Cold
War. The subsequent 1976 Hatchet incident that saw two U.S military personnel
being killed by North Korean soldiers while trimming trees in the Joint Security Area
could have led to full-scale war but Kim Il Sung’s appeasement strategy (sending a
letter to the United Nations Command that was neither apologetic nor remorseful but
that stressed that both sides had to refrain from starting hostilities) led to deescalation. During the 1980s, a number of incidents threatened once again to bring the
Koreas and their allies to war. The 1983 Rangoon Bombing was an attempt by North
Korea to assassinate South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan, and the downing of
Korean Air flight 858 by two North Korean agents led to Pyongyang being more
alienated within the international system as it was also harshly sanctioned by the
international community: the United States listed North Korea as a state sponsoring
terrorism, and this blacklisting led to many trading restrictions and sanctions that
undeniably weakened an already dysfunctional North Korean economy.
The 1990s were marked by an increased amount of tensions that all more or
less centred on Pyongyang’s will to develop nuclear energy one the one hand, as well
as a weapons delivery system on the other hand. North Korea had jointed the NonProliferation Treaty in 1985 but by 1994, the United Nations Security Council had
already asked North Korea several times to stop the refueling of one of its nuclear
5
reactors and had requested permission for United Nations’ monitoring teams to
perform inspections. 12 The signing of the Agreed Framework on October 21, 1994
should have paved the way for a gradual elimination of conventional nuclear energy
in North Korea in exchange for oil shipments and the building of light-water reactors
by a United States-led consortium. While cooperation started out relatively well as the
IAEA inspectors were effectively allowed to visit North Korea’s main nuclear
complex, the December 17 shooting of a U.S. army helicopter that had wandered into
North Korean air space almost derailed the process and IAEA eventually managed to
complete its assessment of North Korea’s progress towards the suspension of its
nuclear operations. 13 In parallel to developing its nuclear program in spite of
internationally-agreed targets, North Korea continued to develop its missile
technology and was sanctioned a number of times in retaliation for transferring
missile technology to Iran. 14 A number of other additional events increased tensions,
such as when a North Korean submarine going aground off the coast of South Korea
led to confrontation between the South and North Korean militaries, claiming about
twenty lives on both sides. 15 By August 1998, however, North Korea had successfully
launched its Taepodong missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean. 16 During the
second half of the 1990s, North Korea also suffered from tragic climactic conditions
in 1995 that led to a food shortage. Subsequent food deals and food donations
occurred in early 1998 but the North Korean and South Korean navies clashed in the
Yellow Sea.
The year 2000 showed, however, increased steps toward cooperation. Kim
Jong Il met with Kim Dae-Jung of South Korea, and agreed to try to satisfy the
Korean people’s joint desire for reconciliation. However, despite its condemnation of
6
the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, North Korea was singled out by the Bush
administration in the infamous Axis of Evil speech of January 2002. Subsequent
deadly clashes between Pyongyang and Seoul’s navies as well as North Korea’s
admittance of having a secret nuclear weapons program ended all U.S. oil shipments
to Pyongyang. 17 In December, North Korea began reactivating the Yongbyon nuclear
reactor, and international inspectors were thrown out of the country. 18 In early
January, North Korea decided to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty. 19 During the spring of 2003, following the invasion of Iraq, North Korea
declared several times that it would increase its military power in order to fight a
potentially aggressive United States. This period marks the beginning of what is
currently referred to as the ‘Korean nuclear crisis.’
In February 2005, North Korea officially acknowledged for the first time that
it had developed nuclear weapons and announced it would no longer take part in any
multi-party talks regarding its armaments. 20 Nonetheless, during the summer of 2005,
rounds of negotiations started again within the Six-Party Talks framework. The openended negotiation format led to North Korea’s agreement on September 19, 2005 to
give up its nuclear weapons. However, only a day after signing the statement, North
Korea claimed that the United States had failed to fulfill its promise to build the lightwater reactors, and thus demanded that this issue be solved before it would take any
further moves toward the dismantling of its own nuclear weapons program. 21 The
agreement fallout was a death sentence for KEDO and North Korea was rather vocal
in condemning the end of the efforts to build the light-water reactors. 22 From then on,
there seemed to be no prospect for a return to talks, as Pyongyang tested nuclear
devices in 2006 and defended its actions at the Non-Aligned Movement conference in
7
Havana that year while at the same time a UN Council resolution condemning North
Korea was largely supported by the United States but also by Russia. Following North
Korea’s fall 2006 nuclear missile test, the United States pursued the sanction debate
to the United Nations but failed to secure China’s approval to undertake action under
Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. 23 With North Korea’s April 2009 rocket launch, the
United Nations voted to condemn the action and to impose tougher economic
sanctions, prompting North Korea to officially withdraw from the Six-Party Talks. 24
The situation continued to deteriorate in 2010 with several deadly clashes such as
North Korea’s torpedoing of the South Korean Cheonan in the spring, and the shelling
of Yeonpyeong island in the fall, leading to one of the most unstable and violent years
since the Korean partition. With the passing of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il, further
instabilities were expected as Kim’s son Kim Jong Un was installed as North Korea’s
new strongman. Since Kim Jong Un’s accession to power, North Korea has launched
a number of satellites, thus violating U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1718 and
1874 25 and has tested a nuclear weapon in the spring of 2013.
In order to consider the extent of what is usually termed the ‘Korean peninsula
crisis,’ it appears essential to consider the various processes that have occurred over
the peninsula in over time, but also in relation to one another. To achieve this task,
Aggarwal’s work on economic and security institution building in Northeast Asia
provides a sound background and a starting point to organise events that could be
seen either as inflating a potential crisis, or providing potential avenues for deescalation and cooperation. 26 As such, Aggarwal et al. have surveyed economic and
security processes in Asia and have categorised them along three lines: unilateral
processes, bilateral processes (which include geographically-concentrated initiatives
8
such as joint military exercises and geographically-dispersed ones such as the South
Korea-US Free Trade Agreement), mini-lateral processes (geographicallyconcentrated such as the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement initiative and
geographically-dispersed such as the Asian Regional Forum) and finally multilateral
processes such as the International Monetary Fund or the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The following tables provide a summary of the most significant events labelled as
potentially conciliatory (black ink on white) and potentially inflammatory (white ink
on black) to have occurred in the context of North Korea and its security, per year and
with the month indicated in parenthesis.
Type
Actor
Bilateral
Dispersed
NK
Bilateral
Concentrated
NK
Type
Actor
1965
(Apr) US
recon plane
attacked
1968
1969
(Jan) US
Pueblo intel
boat seized
(Apr) US
recon plane
shot
(Sept) 4 US
soldiers shot
in DMZ
1970
1981
1983
1976
(Aug) 2 US
killed with
axes at DMZ
(Jun) Seizes
SK broadcast
vessel
1980
1974
1985
(Feb) Sinks 2
SK fishing
boats
1987
1991
(Sept) NK and
SK join UN
UN
Multilateral
(Dec) NK
join
NPT
Bilateral
Dispersed
(Aug)
Rangoon
Bombing
NK
NK
Bilateral
Concentrated
SK
(Mar) 3 NK
killed
crossing Han
River
(Nov) KAL
858 Bombing
(Dec) Sign
North South
declaration for
denuclearization
of peninsula
(Jul) 3 NK
killed
crossing Han
River
9
Type
Actor
Multilateral
UN
Minilateral
Dispersed
AF
Bilateral
Dispesed
US
1992
1994
1995
(Mar)
Sanctions on
NK for
missile
proliferation
activities
(Dec) US
army copter
down
(May) Kill 3
SK on fishing
boat
Actor
Multilateral
NPT
Minilateral
Dispersed
6PT
Bilateral
Dispersed
(Jul) NK
killed in
Cheolwon
(May)
Sanctions on
NK for
missile
technologyrelated
transfers
(Aug)
Sanctions on
NK for
missile
proliferation
activities
(Sept)
Submarine
runs aground
in SK
(Jun) 3 boats
cross into SK
waters
(Apr)
Sanctions on
NK for
missile
technologyrelated
transfers
(Jun)
Captures NK
submarine in
waters
(Nov)
Panmunjon
closed
(Aug) Rocket
over Japan
NK
Type
1998
(Oct) Agreed
Framework
signed
Bilateral
Concentrated
Unilateral
1997
(Jan) Food
aid for
famine in NK
NK
SK
1996
2000
2001
2002
2003
2005
(Jan) NK
withdraws
from NPT
(Sept) NK
agrees to give
up weapons
for aid
(Apr)
Sanctions
(missile
technology)
(Jan)
Sanctions
(missile
technology)
(Jun) Partial
lifting of
economic
sanctions
(Jun)
Sanctions
(missile
technology)
US
(Aug)
Sanctions
(missile
technology)
(Dec) Oil
shipments to
NK halted
10
(Mar)
Sanctions
(missile
technology)
2006
NK
Bilateral
Concentrated
Unilateral
SK
(Jun) Naval
clash
(Jul) Halting
of food and
fertilizer aid
NK
Actor
2007
Minilateral
Dispersed
NPT
6PT
(Feb) NK
agrees to
close nuclear
reactor for
fuel aid
(Oct)
Commitment
to halt
nuclear
development
2009
(Feb) NY
Orchestra in
Pyongyang
(Jun) Lifting
of sanctions
imposed after
2006 nuclear
test
(Oct) NK off
Terrorist list
Bilateral
Dispersed
US
(Nov) Prime
ministers'
meeting
(Dec)
Bosworth to
Pyongyang
NK
2011
(Jul) SK
woman shot
on Mt
Kumkang
(Oct) Shortrange missile
test
(Jul)
Sanctions on
NK for
Cheonan
(Mar)
Sinking of
SK Cheonan
(May) Hot
line in
Panmunjon
closed
(Nov)
Yeonpyeong
island
shelling
SK
Unilateral
2010
(Jun)
Sentencing of
2 US
journalists
NK
Bilateral
Concentrated
(Oct) Nuclear
test
(Jun)
Sanctions on
NK (Res
1874)
(Jun) IAEA
inspectors
verify
Yongbyon
shutdown
NK
(Dec)
Inspectors
kicked out
2008
UN
Multilateral
(Jul)
Taepodong-2
launch
(Jan) Axis of
evil speech
US
Type
(Feb)
Yongbyon
reactor
reactivated
(Apr) Rocket
launch
(May)
Nuclear Test
11
(Jan) Hot line
in Panmunjon
reopened
Type
Actor
Multilateral
UN
Bilateral
Concentrated
Unilateral
2012
2013
2014
(Jan) Sanctions on
NK (Res 2087)
(Mar) Sanctions on
NK (Res 2094)
(Apr) Kaesong shut
down
NK
(Sept) Kaesong
restart
NK
(Apr) Rocket test
(Dec) Rocket
launch, satellite into
orbit
(Feb) nuclear test
(Apr) Yongbyon
restart
(May) 4 short-range
missile test
(Mar) Two Nodong
Ballistic missile
tests
From the tables above, it is clear that many more negative steps have been
taken than positive ones. But despite a perceived instability in the past decades and
especially in recent years with the breakdown of the Six-Party Talks and the evidence
that North Korea is a nuclear weapons state, the sum of all these instabilities have
failed to produce a full-out war. What causes can be attributed to this ironically lucky
paradox?
Crisis: Definitions and Implications
Many of the events described earlier have been labelled at one point or another
as being part of a ‘North Korean crisis,’ ‘nuclear crisis,’ ‘food crisis’ or more
generally the ‘Korean peninsula’ crisis. In a 2003 forum held at the Brookings
Institution, former U.S. Secretary of Defence William J. Perry clearly stated that
despite evidence in the literature as well as in policy circles of “some disagreement on
thematic,” he strongly believed that the Korean peninsula was experiencing a serious
crisis. 27 While Perry appeared to dismiss discussions regarding whether there is
indeed a crisis taking place on the Korean peninsula, one cannot disregard the
ontological and epistemological implications such a labelling has. Indeed, if a
situation is labelled ‘crisis,’ proper crisis management solutions have to be applied.
12
Conversely, labelling every variation in the level of interactions and perceived
hostility that occurs between two or more parties can lead to over-analysis and
especially over-readiness to apply some more drastic policy options such as sanctions,
interventions and even regime change. Hence, it appears elemental to revisit, what a
crisis is and what it is not in order to proceed to policy prescriptions as tensions over
the Korean peninsula have kept on erupting since Perry’s speech. According to
Hermann, a crisis must contains elements of threat along with a degree of surprise,
and must allow actors only a short window of time in order to make a decision on
how to react. 28 This definition has provided a basis for a number of studies that have
refined the concept in a number of ways:
(1) Azar’s work on understanding how a specific situation escalates to the point of
being called a crisis suggests that there exist a ‘critical threshold’ above which
hostile interactions between a specific dyad is maintained for a significant
amount of time and which is a crisis situation. 29
(2) Gurr attempts to delineate how ‘crisis’ differs from ‘conflict’ by suggesting
that a conflict is composed of “overt, coercive interactions of contending
collectivities.” 30 As such, a crisis is to be differentiated from a war, but has the
propensity to lead to hostilities and military action.
(3) Brecher and Wilkenfeld concentrate on defining foreign policy crises by
accepting both Hermann and Gurr’s definitions, but by suggesting that a crisis
needs not be a surprising event, must be understood within a finite time-frame
as opposed to a more open-ended framework that would allow for decisionmaking to take place in a short, but ultimately open period, and has a “higherthan-normal probability of involvement in military hostilities.” 31
13
(4) McClelland’s work on acute crisis supports the idea that the absence of a crisis
does not mean that parties do not sustain a degree of regular and conflicting
relationship, as he shows that actors will tend to have a large increase in
interactions in the lead-up to a crisis situation as opposed to the pre-crisis
period. 32
(5) How a crisis can de-escalate to a situation that is judged acceptable by the
parties involved appears to be linked to belligerent actors clarifying their
intentions and moving away from the classic International Relations concept
of the security dilemma, for example. 33
While crisis definitions have evolved to demarcate themselves from one
another on such variables as time scale and level of hostility, they all share the central
assumption that a crisis erupts because of the relationship that is entertained by
specific protagonists, and in the case of foreign policy crises, those tend to be
exclusively the remit of “governments of two or more sovereign states.” 34 While
crises motivated by historical accidents and incidents including ideological battles
between Communism, Fascism or Democratic endeavours such as the cases of the
Korean War or the Spanish Civil War, 35 most crises can be framed according to the
concept of rivalries which has been developed at length by Colaresi and Thompson. 36
Rivalries take time to develop, encompass historical encounters, and are closely
aligned with how parties perceive – or misinterpret- each other, hence leaving little
room for anything short of a potential crisis, as “if rivals offer concessions, why
should such offers be viewed as anything but attempts at deception?”37 Rivalries can
therefore lead to crisis because of how parties define their interests in relation to one
another, and essentially as parties feel their values or their power being threatened,
14
but with the caveat in a number of instances that “while one actor in the crisis
perceives itself to be in crisis by virtue of a verbal or physical act by an adversary,
that adversary does not perceived itself to be in a crisis move,” which Hewitt and
Wilkenfeld label ‘one-sided crises.’ 38 As such, crisis-triggering rivalries can occur
because of imagined or accurately-perceived power imbalances, the inability for
parties to decrease tensions and hence to return to an equilibrium state 39 or one’s
national interest being in jeopardy. 40
Crisis management is the logical step that follows crisis development and
escalation, providing that the parties at hand, regional actors, or even the international
community have enough of a stake to want to assuage instabilities in order to prevent
a militarized conflict. There is a disjuncture within the literature, however, when it
comes to considering measures taken by crisis insiders on the one hand (i.e. the rivals
involved in a crisis) and outsiders on the other hand (i.e. parties that may be affected
by a specific crisis, but that are not direct crisis protagonists) with Brecher and James
highlighting “mechanisms that states employ to cope with stress” on the one hand,
and “behaviour of intermediaries [...] to prevent crisis escalation and/or hasten crisis
abatement among states” on the other hand. 41 While Kintner and Schwarz focus on
the rational utopian and perhaps misplaced idea of how parties can win a crisis 42 since
a crisis can either lead to full-scale war or de-escalate to a tolerable situation, the
general agreement within the literature is that accurate prescriptions and predictions
are hard to come by. Hence, there is limited generalizability and “universal
applicability” of various models and conflict resolution structures. 43 A number of
propositions have nevertheless been made in the crisis management and resolution
literature: those include the calling of a mediator, third-party or outside adjudicator or
15
broker as a factor likely to facilitate de-escalation, 44 the realization that a leader who
fears to be removed because of domestic tensions within their country will generally
tend to “take more adventurous foreign policies that they would not otherwise
attempt,” 45 and the idea that parties are sensible to the costs engendered by hostilities,
and will lead in some cases to one party backing down because of the strain,
regardless of its rivals’ actions. 46 As noted by McClelland, however, one should not
assume that is it in fact possible to solve every potential conflict or problem by using
means that will only remedy the visible wounds between the parties. 47 In the case of
North Korea, it might be futile to focus only on crisis management and on attempting
at any cost to find “the optimum mix or trade-off between coercion and
accommodation” 48 given the many decades of rising instabilities over the peninsula.
A North Korean crisis? Investigation
Though the Korean peninsula has witnessed many tensions with Pyongyang
testing missiles in the 1990s as well as nuclear weapons in the 2000s, North and
South Koreas’ naval clashes at sea, the expelling of many non-governmental
organizations from the northern soil or the even more recent shelling of South Korea’s
Yeonpyeong islands, one cannot describe the sum of theses instabilities as being a
conflict since we do not see open periods of warfare. The multiplicity of issues that
have created tensions between the two Koreas, or between North Korea and the
United States and Japan for example cannot be considered a protracted conflict either,
since a protracted conflict would be composed of “hostile interactions extending over
long periods of time” along with “sporadic outbreaks of open warfare fluctuating in
frequency and intensity.” 49 Hence, the relationships that one sees over the Korean
16
peninsula are more akin to rivalries than conflict, and are derived from very drawnout processes such as the failure of the Armistice to provide settlement and closures to
the parties involved in the Korean War, the resentment felt by many South Korean
citizens regarding Pyongyang-led terrorist acts in the 1980s, or North Korea’s
frustration and need to secure itself when faced with a strong American army around
its borders. This fits Diehl and Goertz’ definition of rivalry as a sort of military
competition that persists between specific states 50 as well as Colaresi and Thomson’s
findings regarding how rivals have “longitudinal relationships” as well as competitive
ones. 51 But the Korean case is also a complicated one, as military, economic,
ideological as well as cognitive relationships create a web of causalities that is
difficult to extricate. This is mainly the reason why no sets of rule, no organization,
and no state have been able to create and enforce a coherent mechanism that would
deal with such complexity as argued by Snyder more than fifteen years ago. 52
Despite the creation of the Trilateral Talks, the Four Party Talks, the Six Party Talks
and the prolonged International Atomic Energy Agency’s work on the Korean
peninsula, many in the literature still consider that a Korean peninsula crisis exists
and is a destabilizing variable in regional and global security.
Hence, it might be useful to consider events on the Korean peninsula as oscillating on
a continuum as follows:
Hostility Level
WAR
(3)
CRISIS
Upper
Threshold
NORMALITY
17
(1)
Lower
Threshold
COOPERATION
(2)
ALLIANCE
This continuum is composed of three broad zones of interaction: a central zone
labelled ‘Normality’, a zone above an upper threshold divided into ‘Crisis’ and ‘War’,
and a zone below a lower threshold divided into ‘Cooperation’ and ‘Alliance.’ The
five areas therefore create a scale that ranges from no hostilities in the ‘Alliance’
phase all the way to full-blown hostilities represented by the ‘War’ phase.
(1) Normality zone: interactions involving North Korea on one hand with other
actors on the other hand will fall within this zone and can also integrate minor
tensions as well as misunderstandings, hence adhering to McClelland’s
suggestions that when considering an existing relationship, regular interactions
that incorporate minor conflicts are not uncommon. 53 This argument provides
the underpinning for the Normality zone presented here, which in the case of
North Korea is not necessarily a peaceful and fully-cooperative environment,
but which is conversely not characterized by outright conflicting and
downright dangerous relationships either: for example, while there has been a
consistent worry in the international community regarding North Korea’s
nuclear weapons development, the international community has interacted
with North Korea since, and cooperation has occurred. As such, the period of
Normality or ‘non-crisis’ which has been described by Corson as presenting
usually less interaction opportunities and occurrences than a crisis period 54 is
what Azar calls “Normal Relations Range” or NRR, and is “bound by two
18
critical thresholds – an upper and a lower threshold [...] which tends to
incorporate most of the signals exchanged.” 55 Azar’s concept of threshold is
central to the development of the Korean peninsula model here, but needs to
be sub-divided. In the case of North Korea, full-scale war has yet to be seen
since 1951, and full-scare compliance with international norms as well as with
negotiated bilateral and multilateral agreements is far from being consistent as
well.
(2) Lower threshold: for relationships involving North Korea to move below a
specific lower threshold means to engage in meaningful cooperation for a
given time. Such cooperation can be of a bilateral or multilateral nature, and
can involve parties respecting agreed target, for example North Korea
agreeing to furnish the IAEA with documents regarding the decommissioning
of the Yongbyon reactor in 2007, or the United States removing North Korea
from its list of states sponsoring terrorism. Beyond cooperation lies alliance,
an unchartered territory when it comes to North Korea creating such a
meaningful partnership with any states, including China. The nature of
alliance would involve military, economic and to some extent ideological
commitments towards similar goals in a closed partnership with one or more
allies.
(3) Higher threshold: according to Hewitt and Wilkenfeld, in order for a party to
perceive itself as being part of a crisis, “it must estimate a heightened
probability for military hostilities.” 56 Crossing the higher threshold therefore
means that the Korean peninsula enters into a situation of crisis which can
19
itself be described as being a step closer to a full-out military conflict. In this
sense, situations that involve nuclear weapons, missile launches and troops
movements are thus more likely to be considered as potentially leading to
cross the threshold and create a situation of crisis. Full escalation to war has
not happened yet, as stated before.
Over the part sixty years, the Korean peninsula has witnessed a large number
of seemingly hostile actions, and only a few conciliatory gestures that were aimed at
decreasing tensions. Under Kim Il Sung, most of the escalating acts were committed
within the context of the partition of the Koreas and the subsequent Korean War. Acts
largely involved bilateral military processes with North Korea pitted against South
Korea on one hand, in light of their competition for supremacy over their land, and
the relationship between Pyongyang and Washington on the other hand. Because most
of the altercations involved military processes, this period is more akin to a crisis
situation that would have had the potential to escalate to war given the prior
Armistice. The outbursts were usually short with a finite resolution. Under Kim Jong
Il, a number of new relationships developed, especially via multilateral processes.
There were a few very successful years (such as 2000 with summit meetings and
family reunion, or 2007 with progresses within the Six-Party Talks), but most of these
were more than counterbalanced by very tenses years reflecting North Korea’s missile
development programs. This is most likely where the Korean peninsula settled into a
pattern of normalcy characterised by generally tense relationships, with outburst of
crises that were of a short nature (naval clashes for example) but that went on being
unresolved. Under Kim Jong Un, one can witness a very aggressive stance in the first
few years since Kim Jong Il’s passing, and this reflects a commitment to missile and
20
nuclear weapons testing that has left no room for cooperation, and that has reinforced
United Nations and United States’ roles as sanction-setters, thus leaving no room to
de-escalate to a collaborative state.
1965
1968
1969
1970
1974
1976
1980
1981
1983
1985
1987
1991
1992
1994
Multilateral
UN
☐
NPT
Minilateral
Dispersed
☐
AF
6PT
Bilateral
Dispersed

NK


US


Bilateral
Concentrated

NK





☐

SK


☐
Table 1. Kim Il Sung Era – Conciliatory (☐) and Inflammatory () Acts
(☐=5 =15 N=20 over 41 years)
1995
1996
1997
1998
2000
2001
2002
2003
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Multilateral

☐
UN

NPT
☐
Minilateral
Dispersed
☐
AF
☐
6PT
☐☐
Bilateral
Dispersed
NK
US





☐



☐

☐☐
☐

Bilateral
Concentrated
NK

☐☐
☐

21
☐



SK

☐☐
☐
Unilateral
NK


US




Table 2. Kim Jong Il Era – Conciliatory (☐) and Inflammatory () Acts
(☐=17 =31 N=47 over 16 years)
2012
2013
2014
Multilateral

UN
NPT
Bilateral
Concentrated
☐
NK
SK
Unilateral
NK



US
Table 3. Kim Jong Un Era – Conciliatory (☐) and Inflammatory () Acts
(☐=1 =9 N=10 over 3 years)
When looking only at the number and patterns of conciliatory (☐) and
Inflammatory () actions over time, there are several instances where one party
committed an inflammatory act which was followed by potentially more escalating
events. This is the case when North Korea tested missiles and was further sanctions
by the United States or the international community. There are very few cases
whereby escalation was followed by a dedicated de-escalating action: the Panmunjon
hotline was closed and then reopened a number of times, and access to Kaesong was
restrained and reinstated. These cases have been known as signalling devices, and it is
also clearly understood in the literature and policy community that Kaesong has been
used by North Korea as a tool to express its displeasure at specific actions by closing
its access to South Korean workers, but needing to reopen the site eventually (and
22
appearing conciliatory) as North Korea derives a substantial income from the business
venture and needs it to run.
Thus, apart from these cases, we are left with a very large number of
potentially inflammatory actions that have been committed by various actors over the
peninsula, and in a variety of contexts. So far, the sum of these actions has failed to
produce either an all-out war, or a clear pattern for conflict resolution studies to
understand and for de-escalation and eventually cooperation to take place. If the
added negative elements are not counteracted by positive ones, it might mean that the
negativity elements deflate over time (or are forgotten, which is less likely). Most
plausibly, the normalcy and crisis phases are deeply distended, to the point that no
situation will ever come to war because there is no time-limit set to solve a specific
situation, despite usually harsh rhetorical statements coming from Washington and
Pyongyang alike. Hence, even though the shadow of the future (the threat of war)
looms ahead and has been for the past sixty years, it might still remain unattainable
despite a hoist of conflictual situations (troop movements, instability due to famine,
North Korean regime change, nuclear testing, accidental shooting and killings of
citizens, deliberate sabotaging of military facilities and personnel).
Conclusion: numbers that do not add up
Contemporary Korean relations tells the story of an unstable environment, and
it appears never fully possible to forecast whether full cooperation could take place at
a given time, or whether an event might suddenly jeopardize months of discussions
and solid steps toward conflict resolution. At the same time, though there has been an
23
almost perpetual tense environment, parties have avoided full-blown war, mostly
because strategies have oftentimes been very calculated, and because no party really
would have an incentive to engage into military action, as delineating who the clear
‘winner’ of such actions would be is rather uncertain. Reviewing the crisis and
conflict resolution in order to find out whether a crisis or crises have been taking
place over the Korean peninsula yields unequivocal results: because of the absence of
military conflict and hostilities, situations have oscillated between normalcy and
crisis, and various mechanisms have enabled parties to return to a less confrontational
stage, mostly because parties have accepted to not governed exclusively by the
security dilemma and instead might have been willing and able to take part into a
dialogue, as suggested by Kang. 57
The construction of a model that delineate zones of interactions ranging from
full Alliance to full War brings about a clearer picture of what mechanisms are at play
when considering the Korean peninsula crisis. As the literature also shows, a degree
of conflicting relationships can be present amongst parties without necessarily
creating insurmountable difficulties. But maintaining some form of dialogue appears
to be crucial and is exemplified during both the Bush and the Obama administrations,
as progresses always emanated from engagement, which is not the case when the
United States flat-out refused to talk to North Korea.
When considering events that have occurred over the peninsula via the conflict
resolution lens, it is possible to find a number of answers when it comes to the
puzzling question of why so many negative events over the peninsula have not yet
added to a full-out war. Brecher and Wilkenfeld’s concept of crisis needing to be
24
understood within a finite time-frame is an extremely important factor when
considering the Korean case: because parties have oftentimes been unwilling or
unable to put a finite time-frame in order to curb specific actions or to consider a
specific collaborative projects (it might be feasible to conceive that the Agreed
Framework’s failure to deliver the two light water reactors has set a phobia of
deadlines over the peninsula), time becomes elastic and flexible, thus creating an
infinite zone of conflicting normalcy, or an infinite zone of crisis (this situation was
for a number of years bolstered by the belief that North Korea would be collapsing
eventually anyway). Because of this time elasticity, is it impossible to reach the
critical threshold talked about by Azar. Hence, there is no need to de-escalate, and
thus no real imperative to reach a lower threshold of de-escalation, or even a
rhetorically-coveted state of peace. Essentially, parties stick to a modus operandi
which is known and understood, and which McClelland refers to as being a state of
acute crisis, communicating by raising tensions and sometimes decreasing them, but
always concerning very practical matters (Kaesong, Panmunjon’s hot line) and not
matters that would require profound value changes (the United State accepting North
Korea as a nuclear weapons state, for example, or Pyongyang opening its borders to
inspectors and foreign influence). Eventually, de-escalation will not occur unless, as
Quester suggests, the security dilemma can be erased. Essentially, the Korean
peninsula’s problem remain that of the shadow of the future, and the unresolved
security dilemma regarding power project in Northeast Asia, if the status quo over the
region was to change, and essentially whether the price to pay to change the status
quo (either monetary or military) can ever be acceptable. Until then, time will remain
elastic and will produce a permanent state of heightened tensions - not a crisis - which
25
is the Korean peninsula’s business as usual, despite regime change, the end of the
Cold War, and North Korea’s illegal development of nuclear weapons.
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