How do you Solve a Problem like North Korea?
BY SIDDHARTH KRISHNAN
Diplomacy
It’s easy to be scared of North Korea. They’ve got the world’s fifth largest active army, a manhattanesque 1.1 million people. Take into account their reserve personnel and they’re at a whopping 8 million. They invest a quarter of their GDP on keeping their military armed and trained. And now, they’re bent on becoming a nuclear state, lending some weight to their periodic promises to wipe out South Korea and all its allies (including the United States). And as the world is well aware, when North Korea is involved, the usual rules of diplomacy are suspended; the country has no formal diplomatic relations with the United States, or indeed with any Western Country save for Switzerland. In short, it’s armed and unpredictable, but fortunately for everyone, dangerous it is not.
Put simply, North Korea is too poor to be a credible threat in any kind of extended military operation. Consider this: their GDP is around 12 billion dollars, and 40 billion adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (as you might expect, the country isn’t one to broadcast its finances). In contrast, the South has an economic output of $1.6 trillion, making it the world’s twelfth largest economy and about 400 times the size of its northern neighbor. For an area that was the same country sixty-five years ago, that is a staggering disparity. Per capita, the North’s GDP is $1800, while the South is at around $32,000. Relative to its GDP, its military spending is easily the highest in the world, but despite the vast amounts it spends on its army, it still relies heavily on help from China.
Don’t Panic!
It seems impossible, then, that the country can carry out any kind of protracted war by itself. It does, however, have nuclear capabilities. Most U.S Intelligence agencies, including the State Department, agree that the North has detonated at least one 6-kiloton bomb. The agreement ends there. In order for the country’s nuclear weapons program to truly be a threat, it needs to be able to fit a bomb atop a nuclear warhead. In order to do so, the fissionable material that is uses has to be enriched to the extent that it can actually do damage. Moreover, even if it could fit its bomb on a missile, the North has still not demonstrated that it has overcome the design challenges associated with sending a missile out of the earth’s atmosphere and having it survive the enormous heat and force associated with re-entry. These are hardly trivial issues, and as the country showed with its failed rocket launch last year, it is not renowned for its infallible engineering.
The progress of North Korea’s nuclear program, in short, is up for debate. U.S intelligence agencies cannot currently reach a consensus about how developed the North’s enrichment process is, and consequently how much of a danger it poses. On one end of the spectrum, the Pentagon is on a high alert level, while on the other the State Department dismisses the credibility of any real threat. At the time of writing, President Obama openly doubted the development of North’s nuclear program. In the absence of any real intelligence, both agencies are operating overwhelmingly on speculation.
If this doesn’t sound familiar, it should. There are differences between North Korea today and Iraq in 2003, but the similarities are scary. In both cases, the United States had speculation and unreliable intelligence. In both cases, the Pentagon was hawkish while the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency were less convinced. Then, it led to a nine-year war. Now, the consequences would be the world’s first all-out nuclear conflict. Instead of the United States taking any concrete steps based on unreliable information, the best strategy for it, and the world, is to wait and watch.
Similarities to Iraq aside, the United States and its allies in the region have the ability to thwart a North Korean nuclear threat in its current, unreliable, form. All in all, the country’s nuclear program presents little more than a headache, and not a terribly immediate one.
It Isn’t Me, It’s You
The BBC has recently been prone to wild speculation. Aside from its relatively humdrum doomsday scenarios about global virus pandemics that may destroy humanity, it recently wondered whether the world was headed towards another global war. On the one side, it said, there was the United States and its economic and military allies. On the other, there was Iran, Syria and North Korea, a slight modification to George W. Bush’s original “axis of evil” (not to be confused with the Michigan-based ska band of the same name). Most worryingly, the BBC said, China is a staunch North Korean ally, and with its enormous military and economic might, it gave the United States something to think about. In concluding, the BBC wondered if an outbreak of war between North and South Korea would have far-reaching implications.
The short answer is no. The relationship between China and North Korea is very different now than it was even two years ago. Both countries have seen changes in their leadership, with Xi Jinping succeeding Hu Jintao as the President of China, and Kim Jong-Un succeeding his father Kim Jong-Il as the North Korean Premier in 2012. While both predecessors were reputed to be close, the age discrepancy between the successors has lead to some uncomfortable situations. In November 2012, Xi reportedly sent a simple communiqué to Kim Jong-Un, instructing him not to launch a ballistic missile. Kim went ahead and did precisely that, souring a new and important relationship. Xi, a 59-year old veteran of the Communist Party, simply could not level with the brash and inexperienced North Korean leader.
Kim Jong-Un has also met with a chilly reception from the Chinese media. State run news media are openly critical of him, and poke fun at everything from his age to his rotund figure. Chinese newspaper editors have also criticized the North Korean regime for flouting United Nations resolutions prohibiting them from carrying on with their nuclear testing. North Korea’s brashness and unpredictability have alienated even its most powerful ally. In the event of a war, China has a lot more to lose from its relationship with the United States than its impoverished neighbor.
China also accounts for 67% of North Korean exports and 61% of their imports. If it were to impose sanctions, it would cripple an already ailing economy. The North may be unpredictable, but the economic catastrophe that would result from a Chinese trade sanction would be too much even for it. The North’s leadership is hardly in a position to test how far it can push its powerful neighbor.
Change from Within
Given, then, that the North does not pose an actual threat, the United States and its newest chief diplomat are in the process of figuring out how to deal with the rogue country. So far, they’ve done pretty well. John Kerry, on a recent trip to China, urged its leaders to use stronger sticks and fewer carrots, and his message was simple: the United States would not engage with bellicose threats in kind. Its policy, crudely put, is to ignore North Korea, but it needs to stop there.
Crippling economic sanctions and external pressure to reform will only go so far. The country is one of the least democratic and repressive in the world. Between 1994 and 1998, the country’s inept economic policies resulted in a famine that amounted to genocide. Any kind of external intervention will result in the kind of military quagmire that the United States is uncomfortably familiar with.
Change in North Korea, in the form of democratic reforms, needs to come from within, and there is hope. 37% of the country is below 24, and the median age is 31. This is one of the youngest countries in the world, and with youth comes vibrancy. With China distancing itself, North Korea will soon have to either open up its borders to trade or starve its people and face an internal revolution. The Kaesong industrial complex, which it opened in 2004 (but recently shut down as an act of defiance) as a symbol of trade with the South was a step in the right direction.
North Korean leaders are well aware of this. The most conceivable scenario is a slow loosening of its trade restrictions, not unlike the way China has done. Already, its trade with the South accounts for about 19% of its overall economic activity. If it opens up its borders, this will only go up, and with increased trade usually comes a warming in relations. For a country whose belligerence has traditionally been its calling card, it is only a matter of time till it puts aside its posturing. There is too much at stake for it not to.