When the Korean war ended in 1953, it ended in an armistice. The Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the North, and the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the South never actually signed a peace treaty, and the DPRK is still formally at war with the United States (US). After the war, the DPRK, a Communist country, allied itself firmly with the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Because of the nature of the Cold War, this meant that the DPRK was almost completely isolated from the West, specifically the ROK and the US. The end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union have changed the situation, however. No longer able to rely on the Soviet Union for massive economic assistance, and faced with a PRC that has begun to increase its ties with the ROK, the DPRK has been forced to reevaluate its situation. The DPRK has brought the situation to the forefront, with repeatedly hostile actions. Now each side is attempting to change the situation on the peninsula, ease tensions, and move towards peace. But there is still conflict about how to reach these goals. This paper seeks to answer the question: Why did the DPRK both violate the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and refuse inspections of its suspect nuclear facilities in the last year? While these may initially appear to be hostile and irrational actions, they may actually be an act of brinkmanship aimed at peace on the Korean peninsula on DPRK terms. THEORETICAL ORIENTATION DETERRENCE When a state wants to make a significant change in the status quo, it is usually incapable of doing so unilaterally. Even a large nation will be challenged if others find the change significantly disagreeable. Even more often, what a state wants depends not only on its own actions, but on the actions of others as well. As a result, the state must find some way to elicit compliance. Normally, the defender is the actor that deterrence theory focuses on. It is usually the characteristics of this actor that determines the success or failure of deterrence. Because of the special circumstances of North Korea, however, I will refer to the challenger in most cases, rather than the defender, in discussing deterrence. There are several ways for one state to convince another to go along with it. If possible, it could attempt to show the other state that the given action is actually in its best interest. Unfortunately, this is often not the case, and persuasion does not always change states behaviors. Therefore, it is usually necessary to convince a state to take an action for reasons outside the action itself. It can either promise a reward, or it can threaten punishment. These are the general cases in deterrence theory. Deterrence theory is much more complex than simple threats and promises, however. In order for these to be effective, they must have several qualities. First, the state making the threat or punishment must have the capabilities to carry them through. The promise of economic aid from an impoverished nation is not credible. Second, the state must prove its willingness and resolve to carry through the threat or reward. This is much more abstract, and has a lot to do with the magnitude of the threat or promise, and the history of the state making it. It also has a lot to do with the costs suffered by the challenger. For example, someone with a bomb strapped to his chest would have a much more difficult time convincing someone that he will kill them than someone with a gun, because he has to convince them of much more resolve if he expects them to believe he will give his own life for the cause. Both threats and promises must also be communicated effectively. Misperception and miscommunication are serious problems, especially when there is a lack of trust on both sides. The problem occurs when the challenger assumes the defender understands the threat and its conditions, even though it doesn't. A state may have the capabilities and resolve to carry through with a threat, but that does not necessarily mean that its adversary will perceive it as such. Even if the threat is made clear, it is not always the case that the defender understands the conditions needed to meet the threat. If the defender does not know what it should do to prevent the threat or gain the reward, it will not be able to. These problems of misperception and miscommunication are often due to the motivated and unmotivated biases of actors. Unmotivated biases lead actors to see the world the way the expect to see it. According to Robert Jervis, most actors are theory-driven, and that perceptions are strongly colored by our beliefs about how the world works and what patterns it is likely to present us with . As a result, actors are likely to see evidence of threats where they expect them, and are likely to ignore evidence of threats where they aren't expected. Motivated bias, on the other hand, causes decision-makers to view the world in the way they would like to see it. Actors are influenced by their need to see the world in a certain way. So, for political or personal reasons, decision makers will subconciously skew the information to conform to their preconceived notions of reality. BACKGROUND From the end of the Korean war through the 1980s, the DPRK had been able to maintain a steady economy, growing at about 2-3% a year. Much of this was due to economic ties to its Communist allies, China and the Soviet Union. During the 1980s, it received about $1.4 billion a year in economic aid. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, however, the DPRK has lost almost all foreign economic and technological assistance, and its economy has stagnated. According to ROK central bank estimates, the North Korean economy has shrunk by 25% in real terms. The DPRK is also producing insufficient amounts of food to feed its population, even when the nation isn't hit by harsh weather. Furthermore, the DPRK does not have the natural resources to satisfy its own energy needs, and even imports and alternative sources have failed to meet demands. In fact, critical shortages of energy in the industrial sector has been one of the primary causes of the stagnation of the North Korean economy. In the past few years, the US has uncovered a secret North Korean nuclear weapons program. In 1989, the DPRK began using its Soviet-style nuclear reactors to reprocess spent fuel into weapons-grade plutonium, a violation of the NPT it signed in 1985. In 1992, the DPRK refused to disclose the amount of reprocessed plutonium it had, and prohibited International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials from inspecting several of the reactors suspected in the nuclear weapons program, further violations of the NPT. Currently, the US estimates that the DPRK has at least enough plutonium for one weapon, and possibly two. On October 21, 1994, after a visit to North Korea by former US president Carter in June, the DPRK and the US signed an Agreed Framework aimed at ending the DPRK's nuclear program in exchange for economic and technological assistance. Under the Agreed Framework, the DPRK is supposed to shut down and eventually dismantle its nuclear program. In return, the US and its allies will supply heavy fuel oil to replace lost energy from the closed reactors, and two proliferation-resistant light water reactors. Recently, the DPRK has begun to repeatedly violate the armistice agreement that ended the Korean war. Several times in the past few months, North Korean troops have entered the demilitarized zone which separates the North from the South. There have also been several violations of South Korean water by DPRK military patrol boats. While these have not been large-scale military maneuvers, they have been large enough to make a point. The DPRK has said that, it would take final steps to prove that the armistice was ineffective and needed to be replaced by a permanent treaty. The DPRK has not, however, suggested that it is planning an invasion of the South. LOGICAL ORIENTATION WHAT THE DPRK WANTS It is almost impossible to know exactly what the DPRK wants. Because of its isolation and closed nature, very little is known about the DPRK. Of course, to some extent this is true of any state, and it is never entirely clear what the specific goal of a policy is, even when its drafters attempt to deliniate it. Thus, while it may be impossible to deliniate exactly what DPRK policy towards the US and the ROK is, it is possible to make some assumptions about what their general strategy may be. The isolation of the DPRK is due mostly to its own design, and its belief in self-reliance is probably very important. However, it is unlikely that the sole policy of the DPRK is self-reliance, and more than likely it sees a vital stake in its future, both economically and politically. This is evidenced in the DPRK's past relations with the former Soviet Union, its current relations with the Peoples Republic of China, and the vast economic assistance it once received from them. Although there is a big difference in aid from an ally and aid from a long-time enemy, it is not unreasonable to assume that, given the dire economic situation in the DPRK, it would be willing to receive, and probably even desire Western aid and increased relations with the West. In fact, the DPRK has recently shown its desire for increased Western aid. Because of current food shortages caused by severe flooding, the DPRK has so far received 200,000 tons of food aid. Additionally, the DPRK is asking for a total of $43.6 million in aid from the United Nations. The US and Japan have already pledged about $6 million each, and the ROK has promised $3 million. The DPRK is also calling for an end to the technical state of war it still has with the US. The DPRK has specifically been pursuing a peace treaty with the US to replace the armistice that ended the Korean War. Currently, the main barrier to the DPRK's goals has been the ROK. While even the ROK has assisted the DPRK in their food crisis, they have consistently made clear their opposition to increased DPRK-US relations, and especially the prospect of a separate peace treaty between the two nations. ROK officials have repeatedly articulated their fears that a US-DPRK treaty would be to their strategical disadvantage, and they have used their ties with the US to prevent negotiations so far. The US has also presented a significant impediment to DPRK-US negotiations. While the US has actively pursued a policy of peace on the peninsula, it has made every attempt to include the ROK in any process, and has tried to avoid direct negotiations with the DPRK. In April, the US proposed four-way talks with the DPRK, ROK, and PRC for the second time in 5 years. But, it has rejected direct negotiations with the North, which it believes would put the ROK in a secondary role. THREATS THE DPRK CAN USE In order for the DPRK to successfully pursue its goals, it must present them as the best possible option to the US and the ROK. Because attempts to persuade the US into peace talks have not been effective, the DPRK has been forced to use strategy. This means that it must first either come up with a worthwhile reward or a harsh punishment that will convince the US and the ROK to agree to its terms. Because the DPRK has its own economic problems, and rewards are tough to come by in other forms, its best choice is to resort to threats. One threat that the DPRK is capable of is conventional military. Estimates place the number of North Korean troops on the border of the DMZ at about 1.5 million. The likelihood that the South could repel an invasion of that size is very slim, with only 633,000 South Korean troops and 35,000 Americans.10 Certainly, there is no doubt that the DPRK has a large military and that, if used, it could devastate the ROK. In theoretical terms, then, the DPRK has the strategic capabilities to make a military threat against the US and the ROK. Capabilities themselves aren't enough, however. If the DPRK wants the threat to be credible, it has to convince the US and the ROK that it will carry through with the threat if there isn't compliance. This is incredibly difficult, given the nature of the situation. While the DPRK posesses a large military capacity, it is unlikely that it could challenge the US in a war, and it would almost certainly have to if it invaded the ROK. The 35,000 American troops along the southern border of the DMZ would probably be very ineffective if an invasion occurred, but they almost guarantee that the US would commit itself to defending the South, and most analysts believe that full US involvement would be enough to win a war in Korea fairly handily. While the DPRK might not have the capabilities to invade, conquer, and retain control of the ROK, however, an invasion by the North would be very costly to all involved. Doug Bandow of the CATO Institute predicts that, if there were another Korean War, A few weeks or months into such a conflict, American soldiers would probably occupy Pyongyang, but Seoul, too, might lie in ruins, and tens of thousands of Koreans--and hundreds or thousands of Americans--would probably have died. So, while an invasion would probably be, in the end, even more ruinous for the DPRK, the US, and especially the ROK, would pay heavy costs as well. The challenge for the DPRK, then, is to make the threat a credible one. Although they have the capabilities, it is not so easy for one state to convince another of its willingness to risk its own lives and autonomy in order to carry out a threat. There are a couple of options. Either the DPRK could try to convince the US and the ROK that it is irrational, close to a basement of fear, and at some point may unwisely decide to do the irrational thing, and invade. Or, it could attempt to convince them that certain circumstances may arise, such as further domestic problems or a fear of a Southern invasion, so that invading the South may at some point become the best possible option. This has been done with repeated border violations by the DPRK. The North must demonstrate its willingness to take belligerant and hostile actions. Simply by violating the DMZ, the DPRK is proving to the US and the ROK that it is willing to take risks. Additionally, the action may help to reinforce the bias in the minds of decision-makers that the DPRK has been a hostile nation, and efforts should be made to reduce tensions in order to avoid a possible catastrophe. By making the threat real, the DPRK must also convince its adversaries that the threat is unique. In other words, it is entirely contingent on compliance. If the ROK and the US are convinced about the DPRK's resolve to invade the South, they may also be convinced that such an event is unavoidable. If this happens, the DPRK will lose all bargaining potential, because the threat will no longer be perceived as under its control. If it wants to use the threat as a bargaining tool, then it must demonstrate its control over the situation. It is not only the capability and resolve to go through with the threat, but also the capability and resolve to restrain the threat once the demands have been met. Another challenge for the DPRK is to successfully convey the threat and the conditions for compliance to the other side. If the ROK and the US do not understand the threat or the DPRK's willingness to follow through with it, then it becomes useless. Similarly, if the intentions of the threat, the specific goals the DPRK wants to achieve, aren't understood, then compliance may be impossible. This can be a particular problem when the goal to be achieved is increased communications and the challenger is not trusted. Thus, in this case, the problems of miscommunication and misperception are magnified. The other threat that the DPRK has is its potential for nuclear weapons. According to US intelligence, the DPRK does not have a nuclear weapon yet. But, in this case, there may still be capabilities behind the threat. Because the DPRK does have enough weapons material to produce one or two bombs, the fact that they do not have one yet may be fairly irrelevant, and perhaps even to their advantage. In fact, simply having a nuclear program may be enough of a threat to US interests. The US has long pursued a policy of non-proliferation, and it has especially emphasized this policy in East Asia. Therefore, the threat of nuclear development by the DPRK, even apart from the threat of use, may be enough of an incentive for the US to offer concessions to the DPRK. The DPRK does not have to convince the US and the ROK of its resolve to pursue the development of nuclear weapons in the same way that it must show its resolve to invade militarily. Rather, because its adversaries are already convinced that it is pursuing such a policy, it merely needs to convince them of its resolve to continue unless an agreeable settlement is reached. In fact, the DPRK does not even have to actively pursue their nuclear weapons program, nor do they even have to want them. The DPRK simply has to convince the US and the ROK that it is continuing the program, and will eventually reach fruition, unless concessions are made. This is why the DPRK decision to prevent international inspections of its nuclear plants was so important. If the US were able to know definitively the capabilities of the DPRK, the threat would no longer exist. Instead, the DPRK must keep up a veil of secrecy, not to complete development, but to present a threat. The DPRK still has the same problems with miscommunication and misperception, however. In this case, it is specifically the willingness to end the program that may be in question. For example, it may well be the case that the DPRK would be willing to end their nuclear program in exchange for some concession on the part of the US and the ROK. It may also be the case that, given this understanding, they would be willing to negotiate with the DPRK. However, the US may not understand the conditions of the threat, and believe instead that the DPRK is simply delaying inspections of its facilities to give it more time to complete its project. This is certainly not an unreasonable assumption, and many believe it to be true. The result may be that the US, feeling that deterrent strategies had failed, might use air strikes or some other means to destroy suspect nuclear sites. Apart from any ramifications this may have, at least from the North Korean standpoint, the threat would have failed. RECCOMENDATIONS Recent DPRK actions have been successful in both demonstrating its willingness to go through with threats, and also to restrain them. While the Agreed Framework helped to bring the DPRK, the ROK, and the US closer to peace negotiations, the continued refusal of the DPRK to allow international inspections of its nuclear facilities have affirmed that the threat of a nuclear North Korea is still alive. And while the DPRK has made gestures aimed at showing its inclination towards peace and its terms, repeated border violations have served as a reminder that the North would be willing to resort to war to solve its problems. However, some problems still remain in the DPRK policy. The DPRK must work harder to communicate its military threat more clearly. That is to say, the problem has not been so much convincing the ROK and the US that it could attack, but that it wont attack. This is evidenced by the number of major policy-makers in the United States, like Sen. Phil Gramm and former Sen. Bob Dole, who are calling for pre-emptive strikes and increased sanctions for what they perceive to be a prelude to war. Of course, there are always some hawkish elements to any government, and the Clinton administration, which has primarily dealt with the situation, has not taken such a harsh stance. Still, the DPRK has to be careful that it does not send the wrong message. Border violations show intentions, and not restraint. Therefore, it would be in the best interest of the DPRK to stop further DMZ violations. While these actions have served a purpose, repeating them further will likely only give rise to the elements in both the ROK and US that see the DPRK as hostile, and not a state they should negotiate with. The DPRK should also use caution with its nuclear program. Any major back-tracking will hurt the DPRK's credibility to live through with its end of the bargain. The DPRK should instead pursue further negotiations, leading finally to the abandonment of its nuclear program in exchange for fair concessions on the other side. By resolving the nuclear issue first, it will probably be much easier to develop better relations necessary to make peace with the US, and eventually the ROK. CONCLUSION While the DPRK policy has been fairly successful so far, it must be extremely cautious. If fortuitous, the DPRK policy will allow it to negotiate with the US and the ROK more on its own terms. If the policy fails, however, tensions could become much worse, and there is certainly the potential for war. The DPRK must be aware that it is, in the end, negotiating for a much more peaceful situation. So while the DPRK makes threats and shows its resolve, it must also be prepared for cooperation. ENDNOTES 1 Jervis, Robert Psychology and Deterrence 1985, p 18 2 ibid, p 24 3 CIA World Factbook, via Internet 4 North Koreas Economy Slides For Sixth Year Reuters, June 17, 1996 via Clarinet 5 CIA World Factbook, via Internet 6 Strategic Forum March 1995 via Internet 7 Deutch, John, Director of Central Intelligence, Worldwide Threat Assessment Brief to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, via Internet 8 Strategic Forum March 1995, via Internet 9 Miller, Reid, North Korea Tries to Prove a Point, Dangerously AP, April 8, 1996, via Internet 10 North Korean Patrol Boats Intrude Into South Korea June 14, 1996, via Clarinet 11 Miller, Reid, North Korea Tries to Prove a Point, Dangerously AP, April 8, 1996, via Internet 12 North Korea Calls for Western Aid Ahead of G-7 Summit Reuters, June 18, 1996, via Clarinet 13 A North Korean Perspective on the 4-Way Talks Proposal North East Asian Peace and Security Network Daily Report, May 15, 1996, via Internet 14 ibid 15 US, South Korea Ask North, China to Talk Combined News Services, April, 1996, via Internet 16 ibid 17 Bandow, Doug, CATO Institute, North Korea and the Risks of Coercive Nonproliferation Foreign Policy Briefing, May 4, 1993, via Internet 18 Buhler, Jeremy and Jorge Kamine, Rice University, Fact Sheet, via Internet 19 Bandow, Doug, CATO Institute, North Korea and the Risks of Coercive Nonproliferation Foreign Policy Breifing, May 4, 1993, via Internet 20 Is the Republic Party Against Peace in Korea? author unknown, via Internet at http://catalog.com/kimsoft/korea/bobdole.htm