Last updated on August 16, 2024
The recent North Korean crisis came in like a lion and went out like a lamb, to paraphrase the famous saying about the month of March.
A sudden burst of vitriolic rhetoric caused tensions on the Korean Peninsula to rise to their highest level since 1993. Things began to quiet down the weekend of the bombings in Boston, and have remained fairly quiet since. All of this leads to the question that few have been able to answer: What does North Korea want?
A number of elegant theories have been offered in attempts to answer this question. One of the most popular is the domestic consumption theory. This holds that North Korean outbursts are designed mainly for domestic consumption. The powerful military needs vilification, and raising tensions does so by elevating the importance of the military. A related part of this theory argues that the leaders use tensions to rally the people behind them.
Another common theory is the concessions theory. This theory claims that North Korea uses tensions to extract concessions from South Korea and other interested parties, such as China, Japan and the United States. North Korea pushes tensions to the point where it is offered aid and support in exchange for reduced tension. This is followed by a period of quiet and then another storm that leads to new concessions.
And then there is the regime survival theory. This theory claims that tensions come from a focus on regime survival. Development of a nuclear capability is the main thrust of regime survival efforts because it gives the regime the ultimate bargaining chip. Tensions, in this theory, are structural, but worsen when North Korea is pressed to give up its nuclear development.
Each of these theories has merit. Taken together, they lead to the conclusion that North Korea should be ignored. To the domestic consumption and concessions theories, responding aggressively to North Korean rhetoric only give North Korea the attention it needs to achieve its goals. To the survival theory, ignoring North Korea encourages it to reduce tension because it does not feel pressed by the outside.
The problem with ignoring North Korea is that it recognizes the structural insecurity of a state of war on the Korean Peninsula. Ultimately, it is the easy way out but it leaves the potential for periodic crises that unnerve the world. The result is a grinding insecurity that creates, in the terminology of finance, “the Korea discount.” Required military service is a drag on the economies of both Koreas, and that cost will only grow as the population ages.
One obvious way to solve the structural insecurity, of course, is a peace treaty among the three Korean War combatants ― the United Nations Command (UNC), the North Korean People’s Army and the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army. For North Korea, a peace treaty would open up the possibility of diplomatic and trade relations with the U.S. and Japan. For South Korea, it would help establish a firmer structure for relations with North Korea, which over time would help reduce the hidden costs of the “the Korea discount.”
Another way is to reactivate the Sunshine Policy of the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations. This policy focused on various forms of official and unofficial engagement in the hope of opening up North Korea. The recently closed factories in Gaesong are a product of those efforts.
A peace treaty and the Sunshine Policy are built around the premise that engagement will cause a positive change in behavior in North Korea. History has shown that this is not necessarily true. Opponents of engagement argue correctly that North Korea only uses aid and other benefits of engagement to support the military. Indeed, North Korea continued the development of its nuclear capability in secret while the Sunshine Policy was in effect.
In psychological terms, ignoring and engaging North Korea is similar because they are both behaviorist approaches. North Korean behavior is judge as “good” or “bad” and then rewarded or punished. Ignoring North Korea punishes it for trying to stir up tension for domestic use or for extracting concessions. Engaging North Korea, by contrast, rewards it for reducing tension and opening up.
To date, the behaviorist approaches have not worked well because North Korea’s ideology of self-reliance prevents it from playing games according to someone else’s rules. This suggests turning toward a cognitive approach in which North Korea is involved in making the rules through a process in which all parties are learners.