With North Korea cutting communications with South Korea, ending the armistice with the United States and threatening to attack both nations, war seems more likely than ever. Often these days, pundits claim North Korea is an irrational actor and will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons as soon as it obtains them. But while it’s easy to deem your enemy insane, this doesn’t seem to be the case. To have dominated North Korea for so many decades, the Kim family must be incredibly intelligent and strategic. Taking a closer look, one can see the current confrontation is just one part of a larger strategy that’s been in play for at least 20 years.
Since the early 1990s, North Korea has followed a somewhat predictable pattern. Every few years it provokes countries in the south and the west to secure aid it needs to support its failing economy and especially its military. In 1993 North Korea threatened to leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and received aid from several nations to encourage them not to do so. It has used this method to achieve aid several times since then.
North Korea also uses threats to gain international recognition. When it conducted a missile test in 1998, it received its first official diplomatic meeting with South Korea and diplomatic recognition from several countries in exchange for backing down.
These provocations are essential to North Korea. Without them, the country would just be a nation of about 24 million extremely poor people who live under a brutal dictatorship. By achieving recognition from the world through aid and diplomacy, North Korea appears to be a legitimate state and the Kim family appears powerful.
This provocation, like those that have come before, has very clear goals. The Korean War ended with an armistice between the United States and North Korea. An armistice is meant to act as a ceasefire until a formal peace can be signed. No formal peace was ever achieved. Thus, by declaring it is ending the armistice, North Korea is hoping to render it void and replace it with a formal peace. Ideally for North Korea, this peace would eventually bring with it diplomatic recognition from the United States. If the North is recognized as a state by the U.S., the chances for reunification with the South would become even smaller, further securing the Kim family’s’ power.
North Korea will continue to attempt to push the limits of violence to achieve aid and recognition, while always trying to avoid war. If it does accidentally trigger a full-scale war, it will be finished, as war would likely lead to the reunification of Korea or at least the complete obliteration of the North’s military. For now though, we can all sleep easy knowing North Korea won’t be launching intercontinental ballistic missiles at California.