A moderate scenario would also have implications for North Korea’s foreign policy. In dealing with the United States, North Korea could drop its fixation with anti-imperialism in favor of a more pragmatic and flexible approach. The North might initiate a formal proposal to exchange semi-diplomatic “liaison offices,” embark on a good faith attempt to return the remains of American MIAs, and/or be willing to participate in a possible Northeast Asian regional security dialogue. With Japan, Pyongyang could press for an early normalization of relations with Japan, even before the resolution of old pending issues. Of course, change in relations with both Washington and Tokyo will be contingent on increased efforts to resolve differences over North Korea’s nuclear program.
HARDLINE
A hardline scenario presumes that North Korea will forgo its fledgling reform program and intensify its coercive domestic and foreign policy efforts. For decades, North Korea’s domestic and foreign policy has tended to feature more hardline than moderate approaches. Its combative mind-set has not allowed much room for sustained soft approaches, which Pyongyang views as compromising and defeatist. Inured to decades of confrontation with South Korean and U.S. troops, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il could find the notion of compromise or peaceful coexistence with Washington and Seoul unsettling and repulsive. But they might find it necessary to temper–but not abandon–their old hardline stance that sometimes worked to their advantage in dealing with Washington and Seoul.
Benchmarks for a hardline scenario would include:
Open defiance of international pressure regarding inspection of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program;
Intensified ideological exhortations and loyalty checks on the populace;
A greater emphasis on an “all-people” or state ownership of the means of production rather than collective ownership;
A primacy of Marxist and nationalist ideological motivation over pecuniary incentives in production drives;
Preferential allocation of resources for heavy industry (for arms manufacturing) and the KPA;
Warlike threats against Seoul and Washington;
An uncompromising attitude toward South Korea, including increased united popular front tactics against the South Korean government; and
Dispatching saboteurs, guerrillas, and terrorists to the South; increasing anti-government, anti-U.S. propaganda and disinformation in South Korea; and provoking incidents along the DMZ.
COLLAPSE
North Korea’s problems mount to bring about its disintegration–even without external stimuli. Some analysts judge that it is not whether, but when North Korea will crumble, if Pyongyang’s isolation deepens and its economy continues its slump–especially if prosperity mounts among its Asian neighbors.
Several collapse possibilities can be constructed. First, collapse could occur in the event of a massive popular uprising precipitated bifworsening living conditions and internal repression. Some point to unconffrmed reports of 150,000 to 200,000 prisoners of conscience, in 12 North Korean concentration camps, as evidence of sufficiently widespread dissent to cause a massive uprising. But other analysts discount such a possibility, given Pyongyang’s rigid internal control.
A coup could be initiated bifmembers of the Kim Il Sung clan opposed to Kim Jong Il; or there could be a coup bifthe military, with or without support from reformist technocrats and party functionaries. An intra-family coup would be likely to succeed only with backing bifthe KPA and internal security agencies. A KPA coup, initiated bifjunior- to mid-level officers, could rally around Kim P,yong Il, half-brother to Kim Jong Il. Observers say that these officers will be concerned not so much about overhauling the North Korean system as about improving its economic performance.
A collapse in the next several years could result if the North’s economic performance continues to slide, particularly if food and energy shortages worsen. If Pyongyang’s ambiguity on its nuclear program continues, resulting economic sanctions could hasten this crisis.
U.S. POLICY APPROACHES
Current U.S. policy is designed to firmly deter North Korea’s military adventurism, while exploring contacts with Pyongyang to reach a negotiated settlement of the impasse over its refusal to allow nuclear inspections. Some U.S. officials believe that current U.S. policy toward the North ought to facilitate an end to Pyongyang’s isolation and help promote a stable unification acceptable to both sides of the DMZ. But there remains substantial U.S. and South Korean suspicion about North Korea’s motives in the current situation.
To underscore its concern for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, the United States maintains 37,000 troops in the South, an unresolved legacy of the Korean War. Although the United States has never formally recognized the DPRK, many analysts argue that an isolated and brooding North Korea may increase the risks of instability for the Korean Peninsula. It is not in U.S. interests to promote the rapid collapse of North Korea, according to a finding in a recent Washington roundtable, as the shock of a precipitous disintegration could severely affect South Korea’s fragile democracy.26 Differences exist over how to draw Pyongyang out of isolation, but that U.S. policy approaches can take the form of engagement, pressure, and outwaiting.
ENGAGEMENT
A policy of engagement would presumably help to sound out Pyongyang’s intentions, encourage its transparency and openness, and promote understanding for mutual confidence-building.26 This would be difficult, given Pyongyang’s ingrained, exclusivist attitude toward foreigners and Americans, residual antipathy toward North Korea’s invasion of the South and subsequent military adventurism.
U.S. diplomats since 1988 have maintained low-level contacts with North Korean counterparts in Beijing to discuss possibilities for improving U.S.-DPRK relations. Through these contacts, Washington has stressed such policy interests as progress in a North-South Korean dialogue, including the need for Pyongyang’s compliance with nuclear inspections; an end to acts of terrorism; cooperation in returning remains of American soldiers missing in action during the Korean War; respect for human rights; and a cessation of incendiary and misleading rhetoric against the United States.
In January 1992, Washington had its first high-level meeting with North Korea to urge Pyongyang to allow its suspected nuclear-related facilities at Yongbyon to be inspected by the IAEA. The same concern was again the focus of high-level talks in June 1993.27 At the end of four rounds of talks on June 11, North Korea said that it would temporarily “suspend” its decision to withdraw from the NPT,28 but it still refused to agree to international inspections of its nuclear-related facilities. 29 For its part, the United States side gave “assurances against the threat and use of force, including nuclear weapons”; and pledged to respect Pyongyang’s “sovereignty” as well as its “internal affairs.”
In time, engagement might improve U.S.-North Korean relations. One way would be by promoting more nongovernmental educational, cultural, sports, and business contacts. Other steps could include: easing the U.S. trade embargo against the North;90 conditional suspension of the Team Spirit exercise; upgrading the existing inter-governmental channel of dialogue; and resumption of the gradual U.S. troop withdrawal from the South. While pursuing these steps on the basis of reciprocity, the United States would presumably remain committed to South Korea’s security and, equally important, receive concrete assurances from Pyongyang to renounce its policy of undermining South Korea.
PRESSURE
A second U.S. policy option would be to increase pressure on Pyongyang. North Korea is steeped in a garrison-state mentality that it is surrounded by unfriendly powers. This mind-set seems to have worsened since the end of the Soviet empire in 1991, as evidenced in Pyongyang’s growing sensitivity to what it regards as intensified U.S. attempts to topple the Kim Il Sung regime. And, in fact, many analysts suggest that the North would be highly vulnerable to foreign pressure, particularly economic. 31
In these circumstances, the United States could choose to underscore, with various forms of pressure, its own concerns about Pyongyang’s policies and actions. Such pressure, which would be applied as appropriate to different circumstances, could include the suspension of dialogue with Pyongyang; strong support for international economic sanctions; resumption of the Team Spirit exercise; stepped up aerial surveillance on North Korea’s forward military deployments along the Korean DMZ; denial of visas to North Koreans wishing to visit the United States; strict enforcement of the Trading with the Enemy Act; a tougher stance against Pyongyang’s missiles sales; demand for improved human rights situations in the North; and a collective regional security stand against Pyongyang. Sale of advanced weapons to South Korea could be another form of sending a message to Pyongyang.
Advocates of greater pressure believe it may deter North Korean adventurism and give the rigid Pyongyang regime tangible negative incentives to be more cooperative with the outside world. Opponents argue that it could not only stiffen Pyongyang’s already truculent behavior, but could lead Pyongyang to renew its efforts to destabilize South Korea through terrorism, subversion, and infiltration. In this view, a beleaguered North Korea would not be receptive to economic reform and political openness.
OUTWAITING
A third U.S. policy approach, “outwaiting,” is designed to deal with Pyongyang’s penchant for mixing soft and hardline approaches–and its calculated ambiguity in policy toward Washington and Seoul. It would be an eclectic counterpoint to Pyongyang’s opportunistic stance designed to catch Washington and Seoul off guard, extract concessions from them, and outwait U.S. troop withdrawal from the South.
Outwaiting employs aspects of both engagement and pressure. Neither embracive nor hostile, it would refrain from actions that Pyongyang could perceive as provocative or threatening, while avoiding actions that would give support or legitimacy to the Kim Il Sung/Kim Jong Il regime.
Crucial to outwaiting are an informed awareness of North Korea’s past tactics in dealing with Seoul and, just as important, a U.S. policy continuity. In addition, the United States will need to consult and coordinate with Seoul and Tokyo on their respective policies toward Pyongyang so as not to allow the North to play one party off another. One potential drawback to the “outwaiting” is that without concerted international pressure, North Korea could well end up producing a nuclear weapon. In response, some argue that, left alone to chart its own “self-reliant” transition, North Korea may find that its self-preservation could be better served by collaboration than by what might be called “nuclear isolation.”
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1 For comprehensive background information on North Korea, consult the Selected Bibliography at the end of this report.
2 In a retrospective commentary on Soviet-North Korean economic relations, Soviet economist N. Bahanova reports that Soviet aid was responsible for construction of more than 70 facilities producing over one-fourth of the North Korean gross industrial output but that North Korea lost out to South Korea in economic competition. He blames both Moscow and Pyongyang for North Korea’s “problems” partly on “the administrative-edict system of economic management…developed on Korean soil at Moscow’s bidding, on Soviet lines…Its innate defects still bind [Pyongyang's] productive forces hand and foot.” Moscow Pravda, August 6, 1990, in FBIS Daily Report/Soviet Union, August 10, 1990, p.10.
4 Hahm Pyong Choon, “National Division and the Olympics,” Choson Ilbo [Seoul], October 25,1981; and Kulloja [Pyongyang], July 1986, pp.74-77.
5 For what the temporary “suspension” means, see Engagement below. The March 12 announcement was foreshadowed by Pyongyang’s argument at a February 1990 meeting of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), hinting at a possible North Korean withdrawal from the NPT rather than accepting safeguards inspection. Andrew Mack, “North Korea: The Nuclear Card,” Far Eastern Economic Review, May 31, 1990, p.24; and Lee Chang Choon, The Half-Century of South Korean Diplomacy Revisited. Seoul: Nanam, 1993, p. 179. [in Korean].
6 It is unclear whether the anti-nuclear card included a North Korea’s intention to make its own bomb and, if it did, when the North began its program in earnest. An unconfirmed report suggests that Kim Il Sung’s nuclear ambitions can be traced back to the 1950s. A Japanese specialist maintains, without offering evidence, that in 1959, Kim Il Sung wrote to Mao Tse-tung proposing a “joint nuclear development; Mao is said to have declined. Kim tried again in 1964, when China succeeded in its “nuclear development program”–this time Kim asked if China could “share” its data on “nuclear bomb development” and uranium samples with North Korea. China turned him down, with a reminder that North Korea would be covered under a Chinese “nuclear umbrella,” according to Katsuichi Tsukamoto, “Kim Jong Il’s Recklessness,” Shokun [Tokyo], May 1993, p.l88.
7 Such control includes freedom from any Soviet or Chinese meddling. A Japanese specialist maintains (citing an unidentified, Tokyo-based “East European source in September 1984) that the Soviet Union proposed (in the spring of 1984) a 5-point package of military cooperation to Pyongyang. The five points were: (1) a training in modern warfare for North Korean officers in the Soviet Union; (2) stationing in the North of a Soviet military advisory group; (3) the standardization of Soviet-North Korean ‘tactics’ and ‘weapons’; (4) Soviet naval access to Wonsan; (5) and $200 million worth of Soviet economic aid, conditioned on Pyongyang’s acceptance of the above. North Korea is reported to have accepted (1), rejected (2), said “depends on future developments” to (3) and refused Wonsan (offering instead Najin). See Akira Kuni, n,Change,in North Korea: Direction in Post-1984 Developments,” Kaigai Jijo [Tokyo], No.6, 1989, pp.29-30. [In Japanese]
8 For an in-depth analysis of Kim Jong Il’s “political entanglements” relating to the KPA, see Masayuki Suzuki, North Korea: Vying for Socialism and Tradition. Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1992, pp.111-117. [In Japanese]
9 Paul Ensor, “Pyongyang’s Military: A State of Perpetual Alert,” Far Eastern Economic Review, February 2,1984, p.26.
10 Kim Kyong-joon, “The Role of the Military in North Korea’s Foreign Relations,” Vantage Point [Seoul], April 1933, pp.10-11,
11 For an in-depth discussion on Pyongyang’s nuclear program, see Congressional Research Service. North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Program. By Larry A. Niksch. CRS Issue Brief IB91141. Continually Updated.
12 The Asia Society, The Current Situation on the Korean Peninsula. New York: The Asia Society, 1991, p.7.
13 According to reports compiled by East European and Russian diplomats in Pyongyang, the North’s GNP may have shrunk 30% in 1992. Tokyo Kyodo wire service, March 31, 1993.
14 Nicholas Eberstadt, “Can the Two Koreas be One?” Foreign Affairs. Winter 1992/93, p.154.
15 The Asia Society, op.cit., p.6.
16 Significantly, both Pyongyang and Seoul agree that relations between them are intra-Korean rather than inter-state but they do not agree on what that definition means. Whereas South Korea tends to view the definition as meaning a special relationship marked by peaceful coexistence analogous to the two Germanys prior to unification, North Korea tends to see the relationship more in a moralist than legalistic term. On Kim Il Sung’s expansive concept of “internal affairs” and its implications for Seoul, and possibly Washington as well, see Rinn-Sup Shinn, “North Korea: Squaring Reality with Orthodoxy,” pages 114-115 in Donald N. Clark (ed.), Korea Briefing, 1991. Boulder: Westview Press (Published in Cooperation with The Asia Society), 1991, pp.114-115.
17 A new policy twist in Pyongyang’s approach to Seoul is its appeal that North and South Korea take a joint nationalist stand against Washington– appeal that has become apparent since mid-1990. For an elaboration, see Kang Sok Ju, “North and South Must Cooperate with One another in the International Arena to Defend the Common Interests of the Nation,” Kulloja, December 1990, pp.81-85.
18 Independence (chajuhwa) and democratization (minjuhwa) are Pyongyang’s code-words for national liberation and pro-North Korean political restructuring, respectively. Depending on the context, minJuhwa can also mean “communization.”