Shifting assumptions in Korea create a rising chance of miscalculation
A week has passed since the North Korean army shelled Yeonpyeong Island, killing two South Korean civilians, two marines, and injuring many more. The strong interest all of the actors in the region have for the status quo makes it likely that this incident will fade away without further escalation or damage. But things may be a bit different this time. North Korea has not yet achieved its objectives, which means it may feel the need to stir up another round of trouble. Simultaneously, domestic incentives inside South Korea may be changing; the political rewards to South Korean policymakers may now favor resistance to North Korean belligerency instead of acquiescence. Finally, the United States may be the one actor which would receive a large benefit from a change in the status quo. What the U.S. would gain from such a change, China would lose. The U.S. could make China’s Korea problem worse — but very likely won’t.
What will the South Korean government do after the next North Korean attack? In a speech to the nation, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak announced that his government will abandon the previous policy of not retaliating against North Korean military provocations. In spite of this public promise, the South Korean government still lacks retaliatory credibility. The only South Korean firing that has hit a target was the firing of its defense minister, done to buy time domestically until the government could sort through the political viability of its options. Seoul still has no willingness to risk a larger war and therefore dreads the embarrassment of sitting on its hands once again should another volley of artillery shells arrive from the north.
How likely is another North Korean attack? The North Korean regime wants the six-party talks to resume in order to extract another installment of blackmail payments. This procedure has succeeded in the past and the North expects it to work again. North Korea enjoys escalation dominance over the first segment of the escalation ladder; the North’s leadership knows that South Korea, having achieved a very high standard of living, is extremely averse to risking military damage to its wealth. The North, by contrast, could hardly care about military damage suffered at the lower rungs of escalation. Of course, war at the top of the escalation ladder would almost certainly be an extinction event for the North Korean regime. But the North is counting on the South never mounting the painful bottom rungs of the ladder. Assuming South Korea and the United States continue to resist making another blackmail payment, the North will likely calculate that another attack is a gamble worth taking.
Over the weekend China called for “emergency” six-party talks, essentially supporting North Korea’s policy objective. Like the two Koreas, China also strongly supports the status quo. China has supported the Kim Family Regime for decades but for reasons that have shifted over time. In the beginning, there was communist ideology. Then North Korea provided a territorial buffer, separating China’s territory from the U.S. army in the south. Today, China props up the Kim Family in order to forestall a refugee, environmental, and loose-WMD crisis that China might otherwise have to contain and clean up.
No rational leader knowingly starts a messy war; such wars begin through miscalculation. North Korea has calculated, based on past patterns of behavior, that South Korea and the United States will opt to make a payment through the six-party process rather than risk the consequences of even the most minor act of military retaliation. Miscalculation would occur when that assumption is no longer operative, perhaps due to a sudden hardening in the attitudes of South Korea’s electorate. Such a change in the political calculus in the South may now be occurring. Northern miscalculation would occur if it did not perceive this change or did not believe that an announced change in the South’s policy was credible.
What will the United States government do after the next North Korean provocation? Its standard response is to alert its forces and pledge support to its allies. Beyond that, the United States is thought to be a status quo power and thus — just like the two Koreas and China — should be in favor of maintaining the status quo on the Korean peninsula.
All true. But a regime collapse in the North could bring a large strategic benefit to the United States, especially if China ended up with the burden of cleaning up the North afterward. Should North Korea’s government and military power collapse, U.S. military forces in the region would be liberated from the Korean War scenario. China, by contrast, would not be able to resist getting sucked into a large and messy stabilization commitment in North Korea. In the abstract, South Korea wants reunification and has planned for it. But it also understands its crippling cost. With Korean reunification inevitable in the long run, South Korea would no doubt maneuver to get China to pay as much of the clean-up tab as possible. South Korea could simply watch a post-collapse North from its side of the DMZ minefield and thus force China to stabilize the North. In addition to the financial cost of such a stabilization mission, China’s competence and reputation would come under scrutiny the longer such a mission went on. A North Korean collapse would thus subtract a liability from the U.S. security balance sheet and add one to China’s.
In spite of this potential opportunity for strategic benefit, we should not expect the U.S. government to use the current situation to apply strong pressure on the North. On the other hand, with all of the other actors in mortal fear of a change in the status quo, the United States has more leverage than the other players. China is increasingly held responsible for North Korea’s behavior and will eventually have to make the largest payment to clean up the mess the Kim Family ultimately leaves behind. While it waits for this day, the United States government should use its leverage to make sure that China pays something every time North Korea acts up.
