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April 9, 2013 | 0900
GMT
Stratfor
Editor's Note: George Friedman originally wrote this Geopolitical Weekly on
North Korea's nuclear strategy on Jan. 29. More than two months later,
the geopolitical contours of the still-evolving crisis have become more
clear, so we believe it important to once again share with readers the
fundamentals outlined in this earlier forecast.
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.
North Korea, of course, has been doing
this for years and doing it successfully, so what appears absurd on the
surface quite obviously isn't. On the contrary, it has proved to be a
very effective maneuver. North Korea is estimated to have a gross
domestic product of about $28 billion, about the same as Latvia or
Turkmenistan. Yet it has maneuvered itself into a situation where the
United States, Japan, China, Russia and South Korea have sat down with it at the negotiating table
in a bid to persuade it not to build weapons. Sometimes, the great powers
give North Korea money and food to persuade it not to develop weapons. It
sometimes agrees to a halt, but then resumes its nuclear activities. It never
completes a weapon, but it frequently threatens to test one. And when it
carries out such tests, it claims its tests are directed at the United
States and South Korea, as if the test itself were a threat.
There is brilliance in North Korea's
strategy. When the Soviet Union collapsed, North Korea was left in dire
economic straits. There were reasonable expectations that its government
would soon collapse, leading to the unification of the Korean Peninsula.
Naturally, the goal of the North Korean government was regime survival,
so it was terrified that outside powers would invade or support an
uprising against it. It needed a strategy that would dissuade anyone from
trying that. Being weak in every sense, this wasn't going to be easy, but
the North Koreans developed a strategy that we described more than 10 years ago as ferocious,
weak and crazy. North Korea has pursued this course since the
1990s, and the latest manifestation of this strategy was on display last
week. The strategy has worked marvelously and is still working.
A Three-Part
Strategy
First, the North Koreans positioned
themselves as ferocious by appearing to have, or to be on the verge of
having, devastating power. Second, they positioned themselves as being
weak such that no matter how ferocious they are, there would be no point
in pushing them because they are going to collapse anyway. And third,
they positioned themselves as crazy, meaning pushing them would be
dangerous since they were liable to engage in the greatest risks
imaginable at the slightest provocation.
In the beginning, Pyongyang's ability to
appear ferocious was limited to the North Korean army's power to shell Seoul.
It had massed artillery along the border and could theoretically
devastate the southern capital, assuming the North had enough ammunition,
its artillery worked and air power didn't lay waste to its massed
artillery. The point was not that it was going to level Seoul but that it
had the ability to do so. There were benefits to outsiders in
destabilizing the northern regime, but Pyongyang's ferocity -- uncertain
though its capabilities were -- was enough to dissuade South Korea and
its allies from trying to undermine the regime. Its later move to develop
missiles and nuclear weapons followed from the strategy of ferocity --
since nothing was worth a nuclear war, enraging the regime by trying to
undermine it wasn't worth the risk.
Many nations have tried to play the
ferocity game, but the North Koreans added a brilliant and subtle twist
to it: being weak. The North Koreans advertised the weakness of their
economy, particularly its food insecurity, by various means.
This was not done overtly, but by allowing glimpses of its weakness.
Given the weakness of its economy and the difficulty of life in North
Korea, there was no need to risk trying to undermine the North. It would
collapse from its own defects.
This was a double inoculation. The North
Koreans' ferocity with weapons whose effectiveness might be questionable,
but still pose an unquantifiable threat, caused its enemies to tread
carefully. Why risk unleashing its ferocity when its weakness would bring
it down? Indeed, a constant debate among Western analysts over the
North's power versus its weakness combines to paralyze policymakers.
The North Koreans added a third layer to
perfect all of this. They portrayed themselves as crazy, working to
appear unpredictable, given to extravagant threats and seeming to welcome
a war. Sometimes, they reaffirmed they were crazy via steps like sinking
South Korean ships for no apparent reason. As in poker, so with the
North: You can play against many sorts of players, from those who truly understand
the odds to those who are just playing for fun, but never, ever play
poker against a nut. He is totally unpredictable, can't be gamed,
and if you play with his head you don't know what will
happen.
So long as the North Koreans remained
ferocious, weak and crazy, the best thing to do was not irritate them too
much and not to worry what kind of government they had. But being weak and
crazy was the easy part for the North; maintaining its appearance of
ferocity was more challenging. Not only did the North Koreans have to
keep increasing their ferocity, they had to avoid increasing it so much
that it overpowered the deterrent effect of their weakness and craziness.
A Cautious
Nuclear Program
Hence, we have North Korea's eternal
nuclear program. It never quite produces a weapon, but no one can be sure
whether a weapon might be produced. Due to widespread perceptions that
the North Koreans are crazy, it is widely believed they might rush to complete
their weapon and go to war at the slightest provocation. The result is
the United States, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea holding meetings
with North Korea to try to persuade it not to do something crazy.
Interestingly, North Korea never does
anything significant and dangerous, or at least not dangerous enough to
break the pattern. Since the Korean War, North Korea has carefully
calculated its actions, timing them to avoid any move that could force a
major reaction. We see this caution built into its nuclear program. After
more than a decade of very public ferocity, the North Koreans have not
come close to a deliverable weapon. But since if you upset them, they
just might, the best bet has been to tread lightly and see if you can
gently persuade them not to do something insane.
The North's positioning is superb:
Minimal risky action sufficient to lend credibility to its ferocity and
craziness plus endless rhetorical threats maneuvers North Korea into
being a major global threat in the eyes of the great powers. Having won
themselves this position, the North Koreans are not about to risk it,
even if a 20-something leader is hurling threats.
The China
Angle and the Iranian Pupil
There is, however, a somewhat more
interesting dimension emerging. Over the years, the United States, Japan
and South Korea have looked to the Chinese to intercede and persuade the
North Koreans not to do anything rash. This diplomatic pattern has
established itself so firmly that we wonder what the actual Chinese role
is in all this. China is currently engaged in territorial disputes with
U.S. allies in the South and East China seas. Whether anyone would or
could go to war over islands in these waters is dubious, but the
situation is still worth noting.
The Chinese and the Japanese have been particularly
hostile toward one another in recent weeks in terms of
rhetoric and moving their ships around. A crisis in North Korea,
particularly one in which the North tested a nuclear weapon, would
inevitably initiate the diplomatic dance whereby the Americans and
Japanese ask the Chinese to intercede with the North Koreans.
The Chinese would oblige. This is not a great effort for them, since
having detonated a nuclear device, the North isn't interested in doing
much more. In fact, Pyongyang will be drawing on the test's proverbial
fallout for some time. The Chinese are calling in no chits with the North
Koreans, and the Americans and Japanese -- terribly afraid of what the
ferocious, weak, crazy North Koreans will do next -- will be grateful to
China for defusing the "crisis." And who could be so churlish
as to raise issues on trade or minor islands when China has used its
power to force North Korea to step down?
It is impossible for us to know what the
Chinese are thinking, and we have no overt basis for assuming the Chinese
and North Koreans are collaborating, but we do note that China has taken
an increasing interest in stabilizing North Korea. For its part, North
Korea has tended to stage these crises -- and their subsequent Chinese
interventions -- at quite useful times for Beijing.
It should also be noted that other
countries have learned the ferocious, weak, crazy maneuver from North
Korea. Iran is the best pupil. It has convincingly portrayed itself as
ferocious via its nuclear program, endlessly and quite publicly pursuing
its program without ever quite succeeding. It is also persistently seen
as weak, perpetually facing economic crises and wrathful mobs
of iPod-wielding youths. Whether Iran can play the weakness card as
skillfully as North Korea remains unclear -- Iran just doesn't have the
famines North Korea has.
Additionally, Iran's rhetoric at times
can certainly be considered crazy: Tehran has carefully cultivated
perceptions that it would wage nuclear war even if this meant the death
of all Iranians. Like North Korea, Iran also has managed to retain its
form of government and its national sovereignty. Endless predictions of
the fall of the Islamic republic to a rising generation have proved
false.
I do not mean to appear to be
criticizing the "ferocious, weak and crazy" strategy. When you
are playing a weak hand, such a strategy can yield demonstrable benefits.
It preserves regimes, centers one as a major international player and can
wring concessions out of major powers. It can be pushed too far, however,
when the fear of ferocity and craziness undermines the solace your
opponents find in your weakness.
Diplomacy is the art of nations
achieving their ends without resorting to war. It is particularly
important for small, isolated nations to survive without going to war. As
in many things, the paradox of appearing willing to go to war in spite of
all rational calculations can be the foundation for avoiding war. It is a
sound strategy, and for North Korea and Iran, for the time being at
least, it has worked.
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