Denuclearisation means regime change in North Korea
Denuclearisation Means regime change in North Korea
WRITTEN BY BENEDIKT CHRISTOPH STAAR
15 June 2021
The most recent approach to achieving the denuclearisation of North Korea seems to be through small steps. However, the actual impact of US President Joe Biden’s North Korea policy remains doubtful. The problem is: the regime will not accept measures that ultimately aim for a complete dismantling of its nuclear arsenal. Besides the obvious loss of the main deterrent against foreign aggression, nuclear weapons are an important ideological tool for the domestic legitimisation of the Kim Jong Un regime. Rather than demanding North Korea to give up an essential part of its security and political stability, foreign policymakers would be well advised to consider the regional actor’s interests and favour a more realistic long-term nuclear freeze option.
Refusing to engage North Korea without a commitment to denuclearisation means that Washington is deciding to wait and see how the status quo will develop. However, this may prove costly at a later stage as it will result in rising political and military instability. This, as well as the potential economic costs, will not only be borne by the states in the region. Considering its importance for global trade and politics, an unstable East Asia will also have consequences for North America and Europe.
Currently, North Korea can steadily improve its nuclear arsenal and potentially proliferate nuclear and missile technology. South Korea’s response includes strengthening conventional military capabilities, improving its own missile technology, and deploying anti-missile defence systems together with the US. This could potentially trigger a wider arms race in the region if China or Japan feel threatened. A realistic approach must recognise that North Korea is no bizarre abnormality.
North Korea’s neighbours are not too keen on denuclearisation either. Admittedly, neither China nor Russia benefits from a nuclear-armed North Korea because it causes regional insecurity at best and unforeseeable political and economic damage at worst.
It is a stable, nuclear-armed autocracy with a young leader and it has shown that it is not dependent on foreign aid and can walk away from dialogue. In this regard, North Korea is a state like any other — it responds to diplomacy when it makes sense, and it refuses to do so when it sees no advantageous outcome.
Kim Jong Un’s nuclear legitimacy
The North Korean regime has nothing to gain from denuclearising because from Pyongyang’s perspective, insisting on this is equivalent to demanding regime change. Pyongyang knows that its conventional military capabilities are not enough to win an extended war, so it depends on nuclear weapons to deter foreign aggression. Furthermore, lacking economic success, nuclear weapons have been firmly integrated into North Korea’s domestic legitimation efforts.
North Korea’s political stability depends on the legitimacy the regime generates through providing security in the form of nuclear weapons. Even in times of severe hardship, the North Korean leadership creates an image of the leader and the regime as the ultimate defender of North Korea’s sovereignty and its ideological system. This domestic legitimacy has sustained the government through famine, economic sanctions, and recent supply shortages during the Covid-19 pandemic. Indications of a crisis are anecdotal, it is most likely that North Korea is not on the brink of collapse.
In contrast, nuclear weapons and being able to portray itself as threatened by foreign aggression are elementary for North Korea’s survival and stability, because it guarantees that the North Korean populace will not revolt. The regime regularly presents nuclear weapons as the single most important safeguard against foreign aggression. Even the most ardent followers in North Korea would struggle to explain the regime agreeing to a denuclearisation deal, and even more so if there were any implications of foreign pressure, which would be seen as a sign of weakness. Therefore, it is highly unlikely for the denuclearisation of North Korea to come about through diplomatic talks.
Regional concerns
North Korea’s neighbours are not too keen on denuclearisation either. Admittedly, neither China nor Russia benefits from a nuclear-armed North Korea because it causes regional insecurity at best and unforeseeable political and economic damage at worst. However, even if they wanted to, neither Beijing nor Moscow could simply pressure North Korea into giving up its nuclear weapons, because it is more likely that the North Korean state itself would break down before any controlled dismantlement of nuclear weapons could take place.
This, in turn, would trigger a shift in the balance of power in East Asia, ranging from an enormous number of refugees in China’s north-eastern provinces over a financially overburdened South Korea to a potential unified Korea with a strong US commitment. None of these results is particularly attractive for China or Russia. Given the geostrategic competition between the US and China is likely to intensify, it is unlikely that Beijing’s approach toward North Korea will return to that of neglect. Instead, there are signs that the Chinese leadership is gearing toward using North Korea as an example of Beijing’s commitment toward its allies.
In theory, South Korea prefers a non-nuclear North Korea. Still, it remains doubtful that Seoul is willing to pay the price of dealing with a North Korean breakdown. The economic costs of reunification are high, and the security risks from a collapsing North Korean state are hard to estimate. The strength of North Korea’s ideology and leader-oriented personality cult might very well result in a substantial part of the North Korean military refusing to disarm, and nothing suggests that the nuclear forces of North Korea would behave differently. As it is with China and Russia, South Korea has much to risk and little to gain from Pyongyang suddenly losing its nuclear weapons.
Small steps need the right label
If engagement with North Korea is to succeed, there must be a break with previous strategies. While the importance of avoiding rhetorical escalation and proactively engaging several actors in thematically differentiated processes is essential, the insistence on denuclearisation must be substituted for a more realistic nuclear freeze option.
A freeze option would allow Pyongyang to retain a controlled number of nuclear weapons to guarantee both its security and political stability, while also decreasing the risk of uncontrolled proliferation of nuclear technology and material. Incorporating Pyongyang into the international community would also set the stage for a step by step reduction in the hostility directed toward Washington.
In order to achieve this, it will be critical to convince Pyongyang that the end goal will not be complete denuclearisation. Foreign actors must clearly communicate that they simply do not want to turn back the clock. This kind of wishful thinking cannot be a substitute for policy because North Korea’s nuclear arsenal will continue to grow unchecked if other options are ignored.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Benedikt Christoph Staar is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Duisburg-Essen. His research focuses on North Korean security, domestic politics, and propaganda. Image credit: Wikipedia.