Calculated Adventurism: North Korea’s Military-Diplomatic Campaigns

Abstract

On January 10, 2003, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea, announced its withdrawal from the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), returning to the situation of 10 years ago. Based on a historical study of North Korea’s military-diplomatic campaigns, this paper will shed light on their patterns and characteristics, and discuss their implications on the ongoing nuclear question. It will show that North Korea has used force to achieve its political objectives (in the Clausewitzian sense), however idiosyncratic they may seem, that its behavior has been shaped and constrained primarily by military balance, and that those factors have largely determined modes and outcome of North Korean actions. Although important events and issues related to North Korea’s militarydiplomatic campaigns have been studied, the contents have been either an overview of these events;1 accounts of particular cases;2 analysis of military operations;3 military leadership;4 crisis management;5 or bargaining and negotiation on the tactical level.6 There has been no comprehensive study of North Korea’s military-diplomatic campaigns on the strategic level, or the ways in which military and diplomatic actions were used to achieve broader political objectives. This article attempts to fix the hole.