Oil Sanctions Risk Pushing An Unstable North Korea Over The Edge

A new round of United Nations sanctions on North Korea has a lot of loopholes, and China is only enforcing those that hit at Pyongyang’s weapons-making capabilities. The rogue nation, that is once again making nuclear threats, is using its hostage population as a human shield in order to get Chinese oil and food.

In January, Pyongyang conducted its forth nuclear test. In February, it launched a long-range rocket. In early March, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reportedly ordered the military to deploy the country’s nuclear warheads on standby.

New Realities, Old Fears: Escalation on the Korean Peninsula

Alliance tensions over abandonment and entrapment fears come sharply into focus at times of conflict escalation or the possibility of escalation. Therefore, understanding escalation dynamics and the processes for de-escalation and the restoration of deterrence is an important aspect of U.S.-ROK alliance management. The DPRK’s recent nuclear test, SLBM ejection tests, and advancements in other asymmetric capabilities such as cyber-warfare make escalation management more complicated and difficult for the alliance.

Image Credit: The White House

Before examining escalation problems in the current context of the DPRK’s growing asymmetric threats, it is helpful to understand the historical lessons of past escalation episodes and how they affected fears of abandonment and entrapment over time.

Russia, Japan and North Korea’s Nuclear Test

On January 6, 2016, North Korea’s state media announced that the DPRK had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. North Korea’s nuclear test resulted in a predictable array of international condemnations, but Russia’s harsh response to the DPRK’s belligerent action was especially intriguing.

Image Credit: Presidential Press and Information Office, Kremlin

Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Vladimir Voronkov described North Korea’s nuclear test as a clear violation of international law and a national security threat. Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, the head of the Russian State Duma’s defense committee echoed Voronkov’s statement, calling North Korea’s nuclear test “frightening” and urging the international community to contain the DPRK’s growing nuclear potential. Following from this rhetoric, Russian diplomats have engaged with their counterparts in the United States, Japan and South Korea. Russia has also not ruled out supporting tougher international sanctions against Kim Jong-un’s regime.

China-North Korea: Reasons for Reconciliation

On the occasion of the third death anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on 17 December 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a special message to the North Korean embassy in Bejing. The Chinese President underlined the significance of their “traditional friendship.” Xi Jinping also said that that China “is ready to work with the DPRK to maintain, consolidate and develop the traditional friendship.”

It is definitely a clear departure from the recent attitude of Xi Jinping and China towards North Korea. First, the message was delivered to the North Korean embassy in Beijing by the fifth highest official in the Chinese Communist Party hierarchy, Liu Yunshan. Second, it has been the most open and straight forward statement by the Chinese President emphasising China’s old friendship with North Korea since he assumed power in early 2013.

Ferocious, Weak and Crazy: The North Korean Strategy

North Korea's state-run media reported Sunday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered the country's top security officials to take "substantial and high-profile important state measures," which has been widely interpreted to mean that North Korea is planning its third nuclear test. Kim said the orders were retaliation for the U.S.-led push to tighten U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang following North Korea's missile test in October. A few days before Kim's statement emerged, the North Koreans said future tests would target the United States, which North Korea regards as its key adversary along with Washington's tool, South Korea.

North Korea has been using the threat of tests and the tests themselves as weapons against its neighbors and the United States for years. On the surface, threatening to test weapons does not appear particularly sensible. If the test fails, you look weak. If it succeeds, you look dangerous without actually having a deliverable weapon. And the closer you come to having a weapon, the more likely someone is to attack you so you don't succeed in actually getting one. Developing a weapon in absolute secret would seem to make more sense. When the weapon is ready, you display it, and you have something solid to threaten enemies with.

N. and S. Korea agree to reopen industrial park

North and South Korea agreed Sunday to try to revive their touchstone economic cooperation project, one that the North suspended three months ago during a period of back-and-forth military threats, South Korea said after the conclusion of lengthy cross-border talks.

The agreement to reopen the jointly-operated Kaesong Industrial Complex appeared preliminary, but it offers the first clear sign of progress as the two Koreas try to repair badly frayed relations.

For those fleeing N. Korea, new problems on obscure escape route through Laos

Early last month, nine young North Korean defectors, guided by a South Korean pastor and his wife, thought they were on the last leg of a long escape.

KIM HONG-JI/REUTERS - Protesters from a human rights group hold signs during a rally against Laos' recent repatriation of nine North Korean defectors, in front of the Laotian Embassy in Seoul, on May 31, 2013.

Already, they’d traveled some 2,500 miles, sneaking from the northern tip of North Korea into China, then — in the most dangerous part of their journey — across much of eastern China. Next, they’d headed into Laos.

In North Korea, the state-run news agency is the weapon of choice

North Korea has kept this region on edge in recent weeks primarily by using its weapon of choice in times of warmongering: the state-run news agency.

The massive wire service, known as the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), serves as the primary mouthpiece for the North’s authoritarian government, lauding upticks in factory production, documenting the arrival of floral baskets for the ruling Kims and occasionally warning about possible nuclear strikes on neighbors.

The Sino-American Test In North Korea

Repeated threats from North Korea have turned the Korean Peninsula into one of the world’s most dangerous hotspots. But the situation also offers an important opportunity: a gain in strategic trust between China and the United States, the two countries with the capacity to resolve the tensions once and for all. If they manage to cooperate constructively in order to shape a peace acceptable to all sides, this would make not only Korea, but also the region and the world, a safer place.

US, Japan ready to talk if North Korea starts denuclearizing; North rejects South’s offer

The United States and Japan opened the door Sunday to new nuclear talks with North Korea if the saber-rattling country lowered tensions and honored past agreements, even as it rejected South Korea’s latest offer of dialogue as a “crafty trick.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Tokyo that North Korea would find “ready partners” in the United States if it began abandoning its nuclear program.

Out of range, out of mind: Is there a role for Europe in the Korean crisis?

From London or Brussels, the situation on the Korean Peninsula can appear – in the words of former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain – a "quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing". On one side, a mad dictator (you only have to look at his hairstyle) with nuclear weapons and long-range missiles of doubtful reliability; on the other side, the country of Gangnam Style and Samsung. The nuclear weapons cannot reach Europe. And the big global powers, the US and China, are already engaged. Europe could leave them to sort things out, at best playing the role of Greek chorus in support of US policy (as a Western ex-official described it recently).
But that would be a mistake. Seasoned Korea watchers say that the current crisis is as serious as they can recall. Against that background, as the US flies B2 bombers over South Korea and Japan deploys ships with anti-missile defences, one could ask, as Stalin did of the Pope, how many divisions the EU has. But while it may not have armies there, Europe has interests and assets in the region. It should think about how to protect the former and use the latter. 

Former top U.S. official: China getting fed up with North Korea

The Chinese government has changed its approach to North Korea and taken a tougher line out of frustration with Pyongyang, according to Kurt Campbell, the State Department's top Asia official until last month.

Ex-CIA Analyst Expects North Korea to Attack South Korea Before Tensions End

North Korean and South Korean guards face each other in the Demilitarized Zone, 2011. Photo: Michael Jesus Day/Flickr

Unless North Korea wants to be annihilated, its leadership has to find a way to climb down from its current wave of provocative rhetoric. But one of the CIA’s former top Pyongyang analysts thinks dictator Kim Jong-un will order a limited strike on South Korea — as a way to actually tamp downhostilities.

Is North Korea being more restrained than we think?

North Korea’s threats from the last week have included, among other things, launching “preemptive” nuclear strikes on South Korea and the United States. Its provocations included showing the world its “plan” for strikes against the U.S. mainland, readying rocket forces for battle, announcing that it was operating under “wartime” conditions and stating, for example, “Time has come to stage a do-or-die final battle.”

Kim Jong Un, center, accompanied by military officers, inspects air drill at an undisclosed airbase in North Korea. (AP Photo/KCNA via KNS)

Pretty scary stuff. But North Korea’s actual actions, though certainly provocative, appear to have shown much greater care, caution and restraint than their rhetoric would suggest. Here’s Stephen Haggard, a North Korean expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics:

What is Behind North Korea’s Threats

North Korea, under its untested young leader Kim Jong Un, has ratcheted up the threats toward South Korea and the United States to unprecedented levels and with greater intensity than ever before.

North Korea says it’s in ‘state of war’ with South Korea in latest belligerent threat

North Korea issued its latest belligerent threat Saturday, saying it has entered “a state of war” with South Korea a day after its young leader threatened the United States because two American B-2 bombers flew a training mission in South Korea.

Analysts say a full-scale conflict is extremely unlikely and North Korea’s threats are instead aimed at drawing Washington into talks that could result in aid and boosting leader Kim Jong Un’s image at home. But the harsh rhetoric from North Korea and rising animosity from the rivals that have followed U.N. sanctions over Pyongyang’s Feb. 12 nuclear test have raised worries of a misjudgment leading to a clash.