Why Nuclear? Explaining North Korea’s Strategic Choice of Going Nuclear and Its Implications for East Asian Security

Abstract

This article seeks to provide a theoretically compelling account for North Korea’s strategic choice to go nuclear and explores its implications for East Asian security. Its main research question is as follows: despite the obvious risks of going nuclear, what makes North Korea so desperate in its pursuit of nuclear capabilities? Contrary to the extant accounts that only emphasize either nonsecurity variables or an “external security” factor, this article conceptualizes North Korea’s security considerations as “regime survival” and explains its strategic choice from it. The central thesis of this article is that North Korea’s decision to go nuclear is a strategic choice, of which the purpose is to achieve its goals of safeguarding independence from external powers as well as ensuring regime security. North Korea pursues nuclear weapons because they not only protect Pyongyang’s regime from foreign aggressions but also help to consolidate Kim Jong-un’s domestic power. North Korea also seeks nuclear weapons in order to safeguard its independence and autonomy from China because the removal of China’s influence is critical to ensuring its regime survival in the long run. North Korea’s strategic choice to go nuclear and its emergence as a de facto nuclear power have significant implications for East Asian security.

Keywords

Autonomy denuclearization North Korea legitimacy regime security

Soon after the Trump administration took office, tensions in Northeast Asia increased dramatically. While there were many reasons, North Korea’s continuous provocations and US reactions to them were a central cause for the rise in tensions. In an effort to complete its nuclear capabilities, North Korea hastened and repeatedly conducted nuclear and ballistic missile tests, despite strong international warnings such as the threats of US military strikes, UN sanctions on Pyongyang, and China’s explicit opposition to those tests. Indeed, Pyongyang’s decision to become a nuclear power as soon as possible had appeared, until the end of 2017 at least, ironclad and never-wavering.

All of a sudden, however, North Korea came to the negotiating table in 2018. With the pledge of denuclearization as well as the announcement of a policy change from Byungjin (i.e., a simultaneous push where North Korea sought to achieve nuclear weapons development and economic development at the same time) to prioritize economic development, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un actively engaged in diplomacy over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. Between March 2018 and February 2020, for example, Kim Jong-un had multiple summits with world leaders, i.e., twice (but met three times) with US President Donald Trump, five times with Chinese President Xi Jinping, once with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and four times with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Despite all of these summits and the subsequent working-level talks between the United States and North Korea, North Korea’s nuclear weapons program remains stronger than ever before.

What is important to note is that going nuclear is risky for a state like North Korea, which is economically and diplomatically isolated. To begin with, acquiring nuclear capabilities takes a long time and requires a lot of resource investment. Given North Korea’s fragile economy, which heavily depends on a bilateral trade with China and China’s economic aid, sustaining a viable nuclear program poses significant challenges. Also, recent research shows that states pursuing nuclear weapons against the will of major powers face more international armed conflicts, such as preventive attacks from their adversaries (Narang, 2016/17: 116). Moreover, the past proliferators have largely failed in acquiring nuclear weapons and many of them ended up with their regime collapse. Nevertheless, Pyongyang did not seem to care about these risks and rather advanced its process of nuclear development even after the initiation of US-North Korea nuclear talks in 2018. How should we understand the behavior of North Korea? In other words, what explains Pyongyang’s firm decision to become a nuclear power under any circumstances?

The main goal of this article is to explain North Korea’s strategic choice to go nuclear. Explaining North Korea’s firm decision to become a nuclear power is important in the following sense. First, it provides us with a proper way of handling the longstanding problem of North Korea’s nuclear program. In the past, international society in general and the United States in particular made strenuous efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions, but they failed miserably. While there were many reasons for the failure, the lack of adequate understanding of North Korea’s intentions to acquire nuclear weapons was certainly an important reason. Second, offering a theoretically sound account for North Korea’s strategic choice to go nuclear may help us to answer several critical questions on nuclear proliferation in the post-Cold War era. Why does a state pursue nuclear weapons even if its allies, let alone its adversaries, strongly oppose it? Does a regime type matter in a state’s decision to go nuclear? What does nuclear power status mean for a state like North Korea?

The central thesis of this article is that North Korea’s decision to go nuclear is a strategic choice, of which the purpose is to achieve its goals of safeguarding independence from external powers as well as ensuring regime security. North Korea pursues nuclear weapons because they not only protect Pyongyang’s regime from foreign aggressions but also help to consolidate Kim Jong-un’s domestic power. North Korea also seeks nuclear weapons in order to safeguard its independence and autonomy from China because the removal of China’s influence is critical to ensuring its regime survival in the long run.

The structure of the article is as follows. The first section provides the literature review on the root cause of North Korea’s nuclear quest. The second section presents an alternative account for North Korea’s strategic choice to go nuclear. The third section goes over the implications of North Korea’s strategic choice for East Asian security. The conclusion section addresses the policy implications of this research.

Literature review

Previous studies on the underlying motives for North Korea’s quest for nuclear weapons generally emphasize four things, i.e., an international positioning issue, North Korean leaders’ psychological factor, the characteristics of Pyongyang’s ruling elites, and North Korea’s desire to strengthen its national security. Out of them, the first three have to do with nonsecurity variables. For example, both Cha and David (2003) argue that North Korea pursues nuclear weapons to improve its international position. For North Korea, who has lost its primary patron (i.e., the Soviet Union) and many communist allies in the aftermath of the Cold War, nuclear weapons provide it with the most effective way to counterbalance its weak position in the post-Cold War world. On the other hand, Hymans (2008) contends that the psychological makeup of North Korea’s political leaders and their national identity conceptions are key to understanding the underpinning motive for Pyongyang’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. That is, North Korea’s quest for nuclear weapons is “a product of its leadership’s oppositional nationalist identity conception” (Hymans, 2008: 278), which likely “set nuclear weapons acquisition as a fixed strategic goal, unresponsive to the normal menu of diplomatic carrots and sticks” (Hymans, 2008: 265). Meanwhile, Etel Solingen (2007) focuses on the domestic sources of North Korea’s international behavior and explains its pursuit of a nuclear arsenal by the political and economic preferences of the ruling elites. According to her, outward-looking elites, who favor economic growth through integration, tend to avoid nuclear development, whereas inward-looking elites observed in North Korea, who prefer militarized autarchic developmental models, tend to seek nuclear weapons.

All of these accounts offer valuable insights into the primary motives for North Korea’s nuclear pursuit. As such, they should not be easily dismissed simply by offering counter examples. That being said, by stressing only nonsecurity variables and ruling out security considerations that underlie North Korea’s threat perception, these accounts are incomplete and thus are not compelling. For instance, by viewing North Korea’s nuclear weapons essentially as a tool to strengthen its weakened international position, Cha and Kang’s accounts have limitations in explaining Pyongyang’s persistent pursuit of nuclear weapons regardless of its improved position in the international system (e.g., the replacement of the Soviet Union by China as North Korea’s main patron, and South Korea’s pledge to help North Korea’s economic development at inter-Korean summits). Hymans’ account of North Korea’s quest for nuclear weapons would be convincing if only we were to know where national identity conceptions come from, since a leader’s threat assessment has much to do with the strategic circumstances the state faces (Debs and Monteiro, 2017: 335). Likewise, Solingen’s (2007) account cannot satisfactorily explain why North Korea’s inward-looking elites facing external threats insist on acquiring nuclear weapons while many other countries that have similar characteristics (i.e., inward-looking elites) to North Korea (e.g., Cuba) do not.

Contrary to these accounts, there are a number of studies that stress North Korea’s desire to safeguard its national security in order to explain Pyongyang’s unyielding quest for nuclear weapons (see, among others, Litwak, 2008; Park and Lee, 2008; Shen, 2009; Waltz, 2012). However, most of these studies, while taking into account security considerations,¹ only emphasize an “external security” factor (i.e., North Korea seeks nuclear weapons to defend itself from its adversaries’ attacks). Hence, they cannot explain why North Korea wants to go nuclear even though the United States (or China, for that matter) is willing to provide security assurances in a credible way. This article builds on these studies but conceptualizes North Korea’s security considerations as “regime survival” rather than “national security” (i.e., external security). Specifically, it argues that ensuring internal and external regime security and enhancing autonomy and independence from China, all of which have much to do with Pyongyang’s regime survival, are the principal determinants of North Korea’s decision to acquire nuclear weapons under any circumstances. In the following section, the relationship between North Korea’s regime survival goal and its pursuit of nuclear weapons will be addressed in detail.

Ensuring regime security

By and large, there are two dimensions (i.e., internal and external) of ensuring regime security. The first dimension is to strengthen the regime’s internal security. This involves methods to strengthen the ruler’s domestic power and heighten the regime’s legitimacy. The second dimension has to do with safeguarding the regime from foreign aggressions. The goal here is to enhance the regime’s external security in the anarchic international system.

Strengthening internal regime security

North Korea seeks nuclear weapons as a means of enhancing domestic regime security. Large benefits that nuclear weapons provide to Pyongyang’s leadership include the increase in the military’s support by justifying high military spending, the strengthening of the regime’s internal cohesion against international pressures (e.g., economic sanctions), the heightening of the regime’s legitimacy by bolstering the pride and prestige of North Korean citizens, raising Pyongyang’s bargaining power for nuclear extortions, and the consolidation of the young and inexperienced leader’s (Kim Jong-un’s) power.

First, seeking nuclear weapons cultivates the military’s support, which is critical to maintaining an authoritarian regime like North Korea. It justifies high military spending that is required for such activities as nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The nuclear program also heightens the morale of North Korean soldiers who have long experienced economic shortage, since they believe that their adversaries would not dare to attack them once they are armed with nuclear weapons. In other words, North Korean soldiers think that they do not have to worry about their inferior conventional military forces, as the nuclear weapons they possess are the great equalizer of military power. To be sure, compared to the Kim Jong-il era when he pursued the so-called songun (“military-first”) policy, the military’s political influence vis-à-vis that of the party has decreased in Kim Jong-un’s regime. Nevertheless, given that the military is still arguably the strongest party that is capable of regime change in North Korea, ensuring the military’s support is crucial to protecting Pyongyang’s regime from the coups d’état.

Second, Pyongyang is well aware of the implications of its acquisition of nuclear weapons for world politics. Among others, North Korea’s nuclear program raises international concerns because of its domino effect. Specifically, North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is likely to trigger nuclear proliferation in South Korea and Japan. These countries are under direct threat from North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles attacks, and in the long run would not feel secure with the provision of a US nuclear umbrella once North Korea becomes a full-fledged nuclear power. Taiwan, which has a major concern about an increasingly assertive China, would also be encouraged to go nuclear in order to ensure its security and independence from the mainland. Several countries in Southeast Asia, most of which have lost their sovereignty in their modern history, are now worried about China’s growing power and may try to acquire nuclear weapons as well for their security.² Moreover, a nuclear-armed North Korea may increase the possibility for other rogue regimes and terrorists to access nuclear material and technology. Given the existence of compelling evidence on North Korea-Pakistan ties for Pyongyang’s nuclear technology, this is not an unreasonable concern. As such, the United States and its allies, not to mention other existing nuclear powers, are pressuring North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions. However, this pressure from international society (e.g., economic sanctions) has an unintended consequence: the higher the pressure, the stronger the domestic cohesion in North Korea. For an authoritarian state like North Korea that quite effectively controls outside information, international pressures such as economic sanctions strengthen national cohesion by mainly hurting ordinary citizens while permitting the targeted regimes to avoid the costs of coercion (Cortright and Lopez, 1995; Weiss, 1999) and thereby increase the regime’s solidarity.

Third, by bolstering the pride and prestige of North Korean citizens, North Korea’s nuclear weapons also contribute to the strengthening of the legitimacy of Pyongyang’s regime. North Korea has long strived to incorporate nuclear weapons into its national identity (Hill, 2013: 9). Accordingly, North Korea’s nuclear weapons are a symbol of “the nation’s unlimited potential” and its “scientific, technical, and organizational prowess” (Hymans, 2008: 263). They are also “a shortcut to its aspirations for world power status” as well as “a symbol of a unique development strategy” (Hill, 2013: 9). Indeed, for Pyongyang, which still competes for status with Seoul, North Korea’s nuclear weapons are a great selling point for its citizens. Although South Korea is far richer and economically more advanced than North Korea, it does not have nuclear weapons and relies on the US nuclear umbrella for its security (Byman and Lind, 2010: 63). Pyongyang emphasizes this point when it shows off the superiority of its regime to North Korean citizens, who are suffering from hunger and economic insufficiency. After all, given South Korea’s much bigger economic size and far superior conventional military forces,³ nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that North Korea has successfully developed are the only comparative advantage that Pyongyang currently possesses in its status competition with Seoul.

Fourth, the pursuit of nuclear weapons enables North Korea to obtain much-needed economic resources (e.g., economic aid such as hard currency, food, and oil) from foreign governments. For example, when the first nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula ended with the Agreed Framework in 1994, North Korea obtained two light-water reactors and heavy oil in return for just freezing its nuclear development. According to Stanton et al. (2017: 67), “Between 1991 and 2015, Seoul poured at least $7 billion into Pyongyang’s coffers. The United States contributed an additional $1.3 billion in aid, and private investment from China, South Korea, and Europe likely contributed billions more.” Byman and Lind (2010: 65) also point out that “Since the late 1990s, North Korea’s ‘nuclear extortion’ has generated more than $6 billion in aid from not only South Korea but also the United States, China, and Japan.” This means that Pyongyang often uses its nuclear program as if it were a bargaining chip because it “earns the regime billions of dollars of hard currency” (Byman and Lind, 2010: 73). Indeed, several areas of research show that states that possess nuclear weapon are more likely to win concessions when they face states that do not have nuclear weapons (Gartzke and Kroenig, 2009: 157). In other words, the nuclear power status enables North Korea to enjoy enhanced international bargaining power.

Fifth, the success of acquiring nuclear weapons contributes to the consolidation of Kim Jong-un’s domestic power. When Kim Jong-il passed away in December 2011 after a few years of recovery from stroke, Kim Jong-un inherited his father’s leadership position at the age of 29. Due to his age and inexperience, there was a lot of suspicion, both internally and externally, about the new leader’s ability to rule North Korea. Recognizing this, Kim Jong-un set becoming a nuclear power as North Korea’s primary goal and has expedited the nuclear development process. In fact, four out of six nuclear tests by North Korea were conducted under Kim Jong-un’s supervision. Kim Jong-un also guided North Korea’s ballistic missiles development, which is necessary to obtain nuclear power status. By making North Korea a de facto nuclear weapon state (i.e., a major achievement in the Kim Jong-un era), therefore, Pyongyang’s nuclear program and its successful acquisition of nuclear capabilities help to strengthen and consolidate Kim Jong-un’s domestic power.

Enhancing external regime security

Another reason for North Korea’s decision to go nuclear is to enhance its external regime security, i.e., to improve regime protection from foreign aggressors. Theoretically, at least, nuclear weapons are believed to provide states with the best form of deterrence. This belief is based on two assumptions. First, nuclear-armed states are generally free from foreign attacks because the costs of attack exceed its benefits. That is, nuclear weapon states can inflict devastating levels of damage on adversaries who attack them. Second, as long as two states possess a secure second-strike capability, which means states’ capacity to retaliate with surviving nuclear weapons after withstanding an enemy’s first strike, a war between the two nuclear powers is highly unlikely because it guarantees mutual destruction (Lieber and Press, 2017: 13). Taken together, these assumptions make nuclear weapons the powerful force for peace (Mearsheimer, 1990; Waltz, 2002). Moreover, nuclear weapons make offensive threats against nuclear powers less credible by reducing their risk of refusing to back down in disputes and raising their risk of escalation for an enemy (Bell, 2015: 98). For these reasons, nuclear weapons are regarded as a power balancer or a strategic equalizer, especially for weak powers. In addition, as Gartzke and Kroenig (2009: 159) point out, nuclear weapons not only enhance a state’s international influence but also make their owners become “more successful in the wars they choose to fight” and have less intense conflicts if those conflicts do occur. In other words, nuclear-armed states when facing nonnuclear states more frequently emerge victorious and tend to enjoy a shorter crisis (Gartzke and Kroenig, 2009: 158–159).

Given the extraordinary benefits of nuclear weapons just described, North Korea’s quest for a nuclear arsenal, albeit risky due to the possibility of preventive attacks from the United States and other adversaries, could be seen as an optimal strategy for its regime survival. For North Korea, which has strategically been isolated in the post-Cold War era with the loss of the Soviet Union (its main patron during the Cold War) and has faced the threat of regime change from the outside world, nuclear weapons provide the surest way of protection and a shield from a growing sense of vulnerability. By acquiring nuclear weapons, North Korea seeks to secure itself through nuclear deterrence. Pyongyang’s leadership believes that once it acquires secure second-strike capability, the United States would not dare to consider military options against it.

Understood this way, North Korea’s nuclear weapons are not a bargaining chip which “can, ultimately, be withdrawn at any time” (O’Neal, 2005: 321) for diplomatic rewards or security assurances, as many have argued. They are essentially a main tool for regime survival, although North Korea uses its nuclear program, whenever necessary, to earn billions of dollars of hard currency. Pyongyang believes that only nuclear weapons guarantee its regime survival in the anarchic international system. As North Korea cannot compete with the United States (North Korea’s main enemy) either economically or by traditional military means, it desperately pursues nuclear weapons. North Korea’s reliance on nuclear weapons does make sense, because, as already mentioned, nuclear weapons are believed to be a radical power balancer or “a great equalizer” (Betts, 1998: 27). It appears that Pyongyang’s leadership is a firm believer in the so-called “nuclear peace” (i.e., nuclear powers do not fight or rarely go to war with each other).

North Korea’s recent behavior indeed confirms Pyongyang’s perception of nuclear weapons as an essential survival tool. First, changing its constitution in 2012 after its second nuclear test, North Korea declared itself a nuclear-armed state (Kim, 2017: 116). Second, Pyongyang made it explicit at the party meeting in March 2013 that its nuclear weapons are “neither a political bargaining chip nor a thing for economic dealings” (Choe, 2013). Arguing that the US threat to its regime continues, Kim Jong-un at this meeting said that North Korea should increase its nuclear capability in both quantity and quality. Third, while pursuing his signature policy of Byungjin, Kim Jong-un argued that only with a nuclear deterrent would the state be secure enough to focus on economic development (Sanger and Broad, 2018). Fourth, despite multiple rounds of bilateral and multilateral sanctions that targeted the North Korean leadership, Pyongyang until recently (i.e., until the end of 2017) had shown no interest in nuclear negotiations and had rather accelerated its nuclear development by increasing the number of nuclear and ballistic missile tests. Fifth, North Korea finally declared in late 2017 (right after the success of the test of an intercontinental ballistic missile called Hwasong-15, which was believed to be able to reach the US mainland) that it had completed a nuclear deterrent.

Likewise, North Korea’s goal of becoming a nuclear weapon state and being recognized as such should be understood as Pyongyang’s efforts to safeguard its external regime security. The cases of India and Pakistan serve as good examples that North Korea hopes to follow. After a few years of India’s and Pakistan’s tests of nuclear weapons, the United States lifted sanctions imposed on them, and ultimately established normal relations with both countries. Pyongyang believes that if a nuclear North Korea behaves responsibly after it successfully acquires nuclear capabilities, the United States will take a new approach toward it and US-North Korea diplomatic normalization will eventually be agreed (Shen, 2009: 184). A nuclear North Korea, having established normal relations with the United States, would not have to worry about its security.

Strengthening independence from external powers

One of the benefits of possessing nuclear weapons is that a nuclear weapon state does not have to rely on external powers for its own security. Since nuclear weapons provide a maximum level of security, alliance as an external source of military power becomes less valuable than before the state acquired them (Bell, 2015: 96). In other words, the acquisition of nuclear weapons increases the independence of a state because it improves the state’s capacity to make decisions autonomously from its allies (Monteiro and Debs, 2014: 12). Thus, it can be said that an important motive of North Korea’s aspiration for nuclear weapons is to increase its independence and autonomy from China, North Korea’s only treaty ally and main patron in the post-Cold War world.⁴ As a matter of fact, there is ample historical evidence that North Korea rejected any sort of foreign influence, including the influence of its allies. Pyongyang feels more comfortable when it safeguards its regime security “through its own means completely, in compliance with its ‘Juche’ idea, or ‘self-reliance’” (Shen, 2009: 176). To the leadership of North Korea, only nuclear weapons, rather than alliance, are a reliable device that counterbalances its strategic isolation in the post-Cold War era and provides it with the most effective means of security in the anarchic international system.

Moreover, given that “historically, it was rare for a state to place its security so deeply in the hands of another if it could be avoided” (Gavin, 2015: 41), North Korea’s quest for nuclear weapons in order to maximize its independence from a superior alliance partner (i.e., China) does make sense. After all, an alliance which keeps shifting over time depending on strategic environments cannot be a substitute for nuclear weapons whose values are not only quite stable but also unconditional on strategic circumstances.

Furthermore, the North Korean leadership is worried about the overdependence of its economy on China. In 1990 (right after the end of the Cold War), the size of North Korea’s trade with China was a little over 10% of its total trade. Ten years later (i.e., in 2000), it had reached 24.8% of North Korea’s total trade. In the next two years (i.e., by 2002), North Korea’s trade with China constituted 32.7% of its total trade. Since the impositions of strong and elevated international sanctions against North Korea began after its withdrawal from the NPT in 2003 and its first nuclear test in 2006, North Korea’s economic dependence on China has increased more dramatically. China currently explains over 90% of North Korea’s total trade. China is also almost the only source of North Korea’s imported oil at this point. As the North Korean economy becomes excessively and almost exclusively dependent on China, however, Pyongyang’s leadership is becoming uneasy, nervous, and fearful. Above all, it goes against the principle of the Juche ideology which requires North Korea to be “‘politically independent,’ ‘militarily self-defensive,’ and ‘economically self-reliant’” (Joo, 2011: 22). In addition, Pyongyang’s leadership well understands that the price of overdependence is vulnerability and insecurity (Joo, 2011: 27).

That being said, another crucial reason for North Korea’s pursuit of security independence from a communist big brother (i.e., China) is because of its deep-seated distrust of Beijing. While North Korea’s distrust of China is an age-old problem (see, for instance, Chung and Choi, 2013; Ji, 2001), it has further deepened since North Korea accelerated its nuclear program in the 2000s. Above all, China’s shift in its policy stance on North Korea’s nuclear program (see Li and Kim, 2020) is the main cause of the deepening of Pyongyang’s distrust of Beijing. Take China’s behavior in recent years, for example. First, China has officially announced that it opposes a nuclear North Korea (NPC & CPPCC Sessions, 2005; People’s Daily Online, 2013; Perlez, 2014). Indeed, denuclearizing North Korea has consistently been China’s key policy priority since it emerged as a major counter-proliferator with the signing of the NPT in 1992 (Lee et al., 2020: 588). Second, contrary to what it did in the past (i.e., China had opposed any sanctions against North Korea before 2006), China has endorsed UN Security Council resolutions since 2006 that imposed strict sanctions on North Korea. Third, in addition to the endorsement of UN Security Council resolutions, China has imposed its own sanctions against North Korea, which include, among others, the temporary cut in crude oil shipments to Pyongyang and the termination of Chinese banks’ dealing with North Korean counterparts (Bradsher and Comming-Bruce, 2013; Joo, 2011; Nanto and Manyin, 2010). Fourth, Chinese president Xi Jinping, who took office in 2013, did not have a summit meeting until early 2018 with Kim Jong-un, who was expediting the development of North Korea’s nuclear weapons,⁵ even though Kim succeeded his father in 2011 (Kim, 2017: 110). In the meantime, Xi has had met South Korean presidents as well as US presidents at least ten times each.

To be sure, China’s actions generally fall far short of its rhetoric when it comes to sanction enforcement. Beijing quite persistently moderated UNSC resolutions against Pyongyang and neglected more often than not their strong implementation (Lee et al., 2020: 592). Nonetheless, China’s behavior has certainly deepened Pyongyang’s distrust of Beijing. It has made North Korea suspicious of China’s commitment to defend its ally if there were a war on the Korean Peninsula,⁶ since a state that is worried about its own survival is willing to nuclearize if it does not trust its ally’s long-term reliability⁷ (Monteiro and Debs, 2014: 18). North Korea’s aspirations for nuclear weapons can be understood as Pyongyang’s desperate efforts to reduce its dependence on China, which is an unreliable and distrusted ally. In particular, Pyongyang believes that Beijing currently lacks a sufficient will, if not the capabilities, to mitigate all of North Korea’s security concerns. China’s insufficient will to mitigate North Korea’s security concerns stems from Beijing’s fear of entrapment. That is, China worries that North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, if they are not controlled, may force it to become involved in an undesired war with the United States on the Korean Peninsula. Ignoring Beijing’s explicit opposition and repeated warnings against provocations, therefore, North Korea persistently conducted nuclear as well as ballistic missile tests until the end of 2017. Some of the telling examples are: when Xi Jinping was hosting the 2016 Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou, Kim Jong-un stole the spotlight by presiding over the launch of three medium-range ballistic missiles, which was seen by many observers as an act of armed protest against Xi (Rauhala and Fifield, 2018). North Korea also conducted its sixth and the most powerful nuclear test on September 3, 2017, which was the opening day of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) Summit in Xiamen. Unsurprisingly, it was interpreted by many observers as a snub to Beijing.

The deeply strained relationship between China and North Korea since Kim Jong-un took power seems to have improved after Kim’s first trip abroad to Beijing in March 2018 prior to his scheduled summits with Moon and Trump. Since then, Xi and Kim have met five times and revitalized Beijing-Pyongyang ties in the middle of the US-North Korea nuclear negotiations. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that in the face of unprecedented tougher economic sanctions imposed on North Korea, Kim has persistently emphasized the spirit of “self-reliance” or Juche, rather than alliance or economic cooperation with China, even after his announcement of the change of strategic line from the Byungjin policy to the policy of prioritizing economic development (see, for example, Denyer and Kim, 2019; Martin and Yoon, 2019). This is another indication of Pyongyang’s desire to be independent of China’s influence in the long run.

North Korea’s strategic choice to go nuclear and its implications for East Asian security

North Korea’s strategic choice to go nuclear and its emergence as a “de facto nuclear power” (Kim, 2020) has significant implications for East Asian security. First of all, it has the high potential to shake up the regional balance of power. With the advent of a nuclear North Korea, the so-called Northern Alliance (i.e., the coalition of Russia, China, and North Korea that are non-democratic and authoritarian states) becomes much stronger than before. All three members of the Northern Alliance are now nuclear-armed states. The power of its southern counterparts (i.e., the United States, Japan, and South Korea) remains the same, but appears weaker in the relative sense that the United States continues to provide a nuclear umbrella to Japan and South Korea without allowing them to become nuclear powers themselves. In order to counter the strengthened power of the Northern Alliance (i.e., to strike the balance of power between the Northern Alliance and the southern counterpart), the United States might have to change or at least modify its longstanding “strategies of inhibition” (Gavin, 2015) so that Japan and South Korea could become nuclear-armed states in the near future. Due to North Korea’s determination to maintain its nuclear capabilities, the voice of going nuclear is slowly growing in South Korea. For example, a Gallup poll conducted in 2007 when the tensions between Washington and Pyongyang were highest found that about 60% of South Koreans supported the idea of an independent nuclear deterrence (Panda, 2020: 304). If the ongoing US-North Korea nuclear negotiations fail to change Kim Jong-un’s calculations about nuclear weapons, South Koreans might not be satisfied with the US provision of an extended nuclear deterrence and would reevaluate its stated policy of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. Given North Korea’s strategic choice to go nuclear and keeping its nuclear capabilities, Japan would also feel unsafe under the US nuclear umbrella and be pressured to go nuclear as well. For Japan’s right-wing politicians who want Japan to become a normal state, North Korea’s emergence as a nuclear-armed state is a good excuse to be able to change its peace constitution.

Second, and related to the first point, North Korea’s strategic choice regarding nuclear weapons is likely to worsen the “security dilemma-driven military competition that is already taking place in East Asia” (Liff and Ikenberry, 2014: 54). Certainly, China’s rapid rise since its economic reforms in 1978 has been a blessing to most states in the region, because their economies greatly benefit from it. However, China’s increasingly assertive behavior in recent years, which is rooted in the confidence in its political and economic governance model, has been a significant threat to many states in the region. A good example is China’s building of artificial islands in the South China Sea where Beijing has installed a military base. China has also deployed surface-to-air missiles on the disputed Woody Island, which is claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam as well, in the Paracel chain of the South China Sea (Kim, 2018: 616). In response to the China threat, the United States has heightened its military preparedness in East Asia. Moreover, Washington has encouraged Japan and Taiwan to strengthen its military capabilities. Under these circumstances, a Chinese ally’s (i.e., North Korea’s) emergence as a de facto nuclear weapon state is likely to worsen an ongoing conventional arms race in East Asia. It is also likely to trigger a future nuclear arms race in the region.

Third, North Korea’s strategic choice about nuclear weapons exacerbates the hegemonic competition between the United States and China, on the one hand, and the security dilemma between China and Japan, on the other. To begin with, Sino-US hegemonic competition has intensified in recent years (Kim, 2016). China is seeking to taking over US hegemony whereas the United States is making every effort to maintain it (Kim, 2019). East Asia is the focal point for the hegemonic competition. The US strong opposition to China’s initiative to establish the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), whose stated purpose is to finance the various infrastructure projects of the countries in Asia, was due to Washington’s concerns about the shifting balance of power between the two hegemonic states (Layne, 2018: 103). US promotion of the Indo-Pacific Strategy is also to keep China from taking over US hegemony through the so-called Belt and Road Initiative or “One Belt, One Road” Initiative, which Beijing claims aims to connect Asia with Africa and Europe to facilitate economic cooperation for world peace. As for the security dilemma between China and Japan, the Sino-Japanese rivalry is an age-old problem in East Asia. However, their relationship has worsened in recent years due to the territorial dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Washington has sided with Tokyo and made it clear that it would defend the disputed islands controlled by Japan, citing the application of Article 5 of the US-Japan security treaty (Perlez, 2017). In order to reassure Tokyo, Washington has also strengthened the US-Japan alliance. North Korea’s strategic choice over nuclear capabilities in such circumstances urged the United States to build an advanced missile defense system (e.g., the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense [THAAD]) to protect its mainland as well as its allies in the region. In doing so, it not only aggravates the Sino-US hegemonic competition but also deepens the security dilemma between China and Japan.

Fourth, given North Korea’s nuclear capabilities at this point, it is reasonable to assume that the United States can no longer afford to strike North Korea first without risking substantial damage to itself. In other words, a nuclear North Korea significantly reduces the possibility of a US preemptive attack for regime change. A nuclear-armed North Korea also diminishes the possibility of a US preventive attack against it. As such, it may result in the strengthening of regional stability (Lee, 2007: 440). On the other hand, North Korea’s enhanced capabilities of nuclear deterrence could increase regional instability as well. That is to say, with the diminished threat perception of a US preemptive or preventive attack, Pyongyang may make higher demands against its adversaries (the United States, South Korea, and Japan, among others) in negotiations and may become more threatening if those demands are not met. The role of China, which is widely believed to be able to influence Pyongyang’s decisions, in the prevention of North Korea’s provocations is limited since a nuclear-armed North Korea has no need to rely on its patron ally’s pledge of defense, as described earlier. As the number of Pyongyang’s provocations increases, regional stability becomes harder to maintain.

Finally, there is also the possibility (albeit low and remote at this point) of conflict between China and North Korea. Pyongyang has thus far refused to submit to the influences of any foreign powers, including those of its allies. This stance of Pyongyang will be reinforced with the advent of a nuclear North Korea. This implies that Beijing’s influence on a nuclear-armed North Korea’s decision-making becomes more limited than before, even though the North Korean economy is excessively dependent on China. As mentioned earlier, North Korea remains deeply distrustful of China, but the common desire for a strategic partnership against the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy in the middle of US-North Korea nuclear negotiations has recently made their strategic ties stronger, and has improved their strained relationship which existed for over six years after Kim came to power. Against this backdrop, North Korea’s provocations in the future, which go against China’s core interests of maintaining regional stability for its persistent economic growth, are likely to raise tensions between the two Northern Allies. If those tensions are not brought down by diplomatic means, there is a possibility of armed conflict between China and North Korea.

Conclusion

This article has offered a theoretical account for North Korea’s strategic choice to go nuclear and addressed its implications for East Asian Security. Contrary to extant accounts that only emphasize either nonsecurity variables or an external security factor, it has explained Pyongyang’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities based on its regime survival motive, which is not only ensuring internal and external regime security but also enhancing autonomy and independence from external powers, including its allies as well as its adversaries.

What Pyongyang’s strategic motive to go nuclear illustrates is that North Korea will rarely give up its nuclear weapons. From a theoretical standpoint, Kim Jong-un’s recent pledge of denuclearization is almost nonsensical, given the huge benefits that nuclear weapons provide to the North Korean regime. As a nuclear power, North Korea could enjoy a maximum level of security and thus easily defend the status quo by reducing the costs of backing down in disputes or coercion. Also, a nuclear-armed North Korea would generally have an upper hand in its negotiations with non-nuclear states, which will try to maintain friendly relations with Pyongyang out of a recognition that they could be targets of its nuclear weapons. In addition, a nuclear-armed North Korea could focus on using its limited resources for long-delayed economic development since it is free from the worry about foreign aggression. Why would North Korea throw up the enormous benefits of having nuclear power status that it has finally achieved after so many years of sacrifice? As Bell (2015: 92) points out, “states are strategic actors that do not spend time and resources acquiring nuclear weapons only to ignore the benefits that they offer.”

Empirically as well, Kim Jong-un’s behavior since he came to power in 2011 demonstrates that he has little intention of abandoning North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. On multiple occasions, for example, he has made it crystal clear that North Korea’s nuclear weapons are not an economic leverage but “a powerful deterrent” firmly safeguarding his people’s “rights to existence” (Choe, 2018). In addition, upholding his trademark policy of Byungjin, Kim Jong-un until recently accelerated North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs and tested them, regardless of the tightened international sanctions and the strong warnings of China as well as the United States. Even when the US-North Korea summits were being held in 2018–2019, North Korea continued to upgrade its nuclear capabilities (Warrick and Denyer, 2020).

Currently, the two fundamental options for Kim Jong-un’s strategic choice are the following: he could keep his nuclear capabilities and thereby sustain his regime survival for a while. In this case, however, the North Korean economy would greatly suffer from heightened international and US sanctions. Here, China, which is engaged in a hegemonic competition with the United States, would do its best to ensure the survival of the Pyongyang regime (e.g., by providing economic aid to North Korea), although it is unhappy about Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons. Alternatively, Kim Jong-un could give up his nuclear capabilities and in return receive substantial aid and investment from international society for North Korea’s economic development. Here, the North Korean economy, like the Chinese economy, could also be integrated into the world economic system. In this case, North Korea may prosper, but Kim Jong-un’s dynastic regime may soon collapse due mainly to the loss of control of outside influence and information. Which strategic choice Kim Jong-un would make is obvious—he would keep his nuclear weapons. North Korea’s persistent emphasis on self-reliance amid the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to advance its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles since the failed Hanoi Summit demonstrate Kim’s intentions to keep Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities.

What will be Kim Jong-un’s choice in the future? In order to predict Kim’s future moves, it is essential to comprehend what nuclear capabilities mean for him and his regime. As analyzed above, nuclear weapons mean substantially enhanced security for North Korea. What this implies is that even if the United States provides security guarantees (i.e., ensuring external regime security) to North Korea in return for the dismantling of its nuclear program, Kim Jong-un would not completely give up his nuclear weapons because the nuclear power status has also become a backbone to legitimize Kim’s dynastic rule (i.e., consolidating internal regime security). Moreover, given North Korea’s longstanding distrust of China and its efforts to enhance independence and autonomy from external powers (i.e., ensuring Juche or self-reliance), Kim Jong-un would not completely abandon his nuclear capabilities even under China’s security assurances. Then, “the question is no longer how to disarm North Korea, but ‘How do we manage the consequences of a nuclear North Korea?’” (Panda, 2020: 301). In order to hammer out a practical solution for North Korea’s nuclear program, therefore, its strategic choice of going nuclear and maintaining nuclear capabilities should be taken more seriously.

Footnotes

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Min-hyung Kim

Notes

Author biography

Min-hyung Kim is Professor of political science and international relations at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, Korea (ROK). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington and taught at the University of Washington, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and Illinois Wesleyan University, where he earned tenure. His research interests include international relations theory, East Asian security, North Korea’s foreign policy, South Korea’s foreign policy, East Asian regionalism, and European integration. He has published, among others, in Journal of Strategic Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, International Political Science Review, Journal of European Integration, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Asian Survey, Asian Perspective, Pacific Focus, Asia Europe Journal, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, and International Trade, Politics and Development. He was a Jean Monnet Fellow (2009-2010) in the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy and a POSCO Visiting Fellow (2016) at the East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.

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