Why North Korea Wants the Bomb

image by Dom Duong: https://domduong.com/

Hours ago, at the time of writing, North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test, claiming it was their first true hydrogen bomb. Current reports estimate the yield to have been ten times more powerful than the most recent test in September last year; up to 100 kilotons. By comparison, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 was ‘only’ 15 kilotons. Coupled with the revelation last month by US intelligence agencies that North Korea appears to worked out how to miniaturise warheads to fit on missiles, the regime appears to be very close to becoming a fully-fledged nuclear power.

President Trump, in response to the events in August, stated;

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen... he has been very threatening beyond a normal state”

North Korea, for its part retorted, threatening to launch missiles targeted within 30-40km of the US Pacific territory of Guam, adding, for good measure, that the President was clearly senile. Trump, not one to back down from a shouting contest, responded again. A markedly different approach from his recent predecessors.

Whilst Clinton, Bush, and Obama were unequivocal in their condemnation of North Korea’ s behaviour, they nonetheless couched their responses in more diplomatic language and matched this with negotiations and sanctions at various times. Yet two decades of this approach have witnessed the isolated nation inch its way to acquiring a nuclear arsenal that can strike at its hated American foe. If it felt it needed to

North Korean Missile test (photo: ABC News)

 Fortunately, the consensus amongst experts though, is that North Korea would start neither a nuclear nor conventional conflict, at least not intentionally. The regime understands that doing so would result in utter defeat. Kim Jong-Un, his father and grandfather may regularly be subjects of satire and ridicule, but they have never been insane, and the young leader has every intention of staying in power. A tyrant does not purge opposition for the purpose of ending one’s own rule and neither do they try to strengthen their hand internationally if they wish to call time on their tenure. He is rational, regardless of the comforting illusion of madness the west likes to conjure up.

But to understand North Korea’s bellicose words and actions, one must examine the history of North Korea and the ideology which ungirds it, of which history itself forms an integral aspect. For over a thousand years, ‘North’ and ‘South’ Korea were not even conceived in the current sense as Korea was a unified and independent state. By 1910, however, it had been annexed by the Empire of Japan, and it was not until 1945 that this rule was to end.

The defeat of Japan would not be the end to Korea’s hardship, however. Whereas Germany had received extensive post-war planning prior to its surrender, Korea was considered an afterthought, an “obscure Japanese colony.”  Days before the war ended, The US and the Soviet Union agreed to impromptu occupation zones, divided between the 38^th parallel. The Northern, portion was delegated to Soviet control, the Southern half would fall under US authority. The Korean populace gave no consent for this whatsoever.

This ‘solution’ was intended to be temporary, however, a series of events coupled with hardening Cold War tensions would entrench the division to the point that it was irreconcilable. First, thinly veiled soviet approved riots and strikes by leftist groups in summer and autumn of 1946 drove public in the South rightwards and decidedly anti-communist. Second, the failure of the US and Soviet Union to reach an agreed solution to Korea led to the US to defer the issue to the UN, who would schedule and oversee elections for a national assembly in May 1948. The Soviets refused to participate, believing these elections would not be impartial, and polling day was only held in the Southern zone. Third, in 1948, South Korea and North Korea were established, officially titled The Republic of Korea and The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea respectively. In the South the leader was Sygnman Rhee, in the North Kim Il-Sung, with both men claiming sole authority over all Korean territory. War was only a matter of time.

Above: Kim Il-Sung. Below: Syngman Rhee

In 1950, and with reluctant Soviet approval, North Korea, under its leader Kim Il-Sung, invaded South Korea, plunging the nation into a brutal, fratricidal war. In the initial weeks and months, North Korea pushed back the poorly trained and under-equipped South Korean and US forces to a small South-East corner of Korea, known as the Pusan Perimeter. By winter of that same year, North Korea itself was on the back foot, facing the might of a US led UN-backed coalition. Fearing an American invasion of China, hundreds of thousands of soldiers from Mao Tse-tung’s newly founded People’s Republic poured into North Korea forcing the Western and South Korean forces into panicked retreat. The next two-and-a-half years would bog down into stalemate, culminating in an armistice signed in summer 1953, and the fighting ceasing almost where it had first begun. Korea remained divided and continues to do so today.

The widespread anguish and anger these series of events engendered were exploited by the fledgling country’s leader Kim Il-Sung in the years following the war. Channelling these emotions, and blending it with communist thought and ancient Korean customs he began the process of crafting an ideology would eventually underpin practically all aspects of North Korean society, culture, and governance. This worldview would come to be known as Juche, which roughly translates as “self-reliance”.

North Korea would look out for itself and any foreign involvement was essentially defiling both the state and its people. A crucial facet of this was Anti-Americanism which had flourished as a consequence of US bombing campaigns during the war. A recent Newsweek report stated that over 600,000 tonnes of ordinance fell on northern Korea from American warplanes. Considerably more than was used on Japanese forces in World War II. Napalm was also deployed. The outcome of this assault was the deaths of 20% of North Korea’s population, and the destruction of every major industrial and governmental power centre. This history is ingrained into the North Korean psyche and Kim willingly used these events as part of his strategy.

But conceiving Juche did not rely solely on xenophobia. A second defining characteristic was the successful creation of a personality cult, in which there was a fundamentalist devotion to Kim Il-Sung. The first efforts towards this were made shortly before he invaded South Korea, but began in earnest following the ceasefire. Through purges of many former comrades and the use of propaganda, a picture would emerge of him as a god like figure, complete with mythical past of impossible heroic achievements. Crucially, he was able to establish himself as the embodiment of the anti-imperialist aspect of Juche. Kim Il-Sung was the father of the nation. The people, his children. And like any father, he would act as a protector against those who would do his kin harm. In time, this would be ingrained into the population and reinforced as new generations were born and came of age.

The Father of North Korea

Thus, the claimed causes of the outbreak of hostilities are a foundational aspect of this worldview; From the North Korean perspective, the United States alone without the Korean peoples’ consent, divided their land and their people among arbitrary lines. This division was to many Koreans a gross violation of their sovereignty. In splitting the country in two, they, the US, were the aggressor through this act. (In spite of it being a joint US-Soviet affair) Furthermore, the South Korean regime at the time was a dictatorship itself, effectively a client state of US and was responsible for a series of atrocities against communists. The war in many North Korean minds was simply a righteous effort to reclaim Korea as a sovereign and united nation that had existed before imperialists had carved it up to suit their agendas.

Donald Trump’s rhetoric directly validates this narrative which only succeeds in driving North Korea on its trajectory of possessing nuclear missiles. The president’s bluster confirms their worst fears; that America is reckless and aggressive, and the notion of these weapons as a defence-mechanism is, for them, justified. In turn having a fully-fledged nuclear arsenal also fulfils the self-reliance facet of Juche; it is a point of national pride, and indicates to the North Koreans the inherent ingeniousness of the Korean people as an ethno-national group. Fundamentally, though, it ensures the regime’s survival on the international stage, it having taken the fall of Iraq in 2003 as an abject demonstration of what the Americans do to regimes without any capacity to deter external forces. Following Saddam Hussein’s deposing, then leader Kim Jong-Il was purportedly said that his regime was next. He reasoned that if the nuclear weapons programme was abandoned, then his dynasty would meet the same fate as the Iraqi dictator. This hasn’t happened, at least not yet, instead Bush and Obama as discussed have both tried to get the regime to give up its weapons, and manifestly failed.  

But the risk of being struck by a nuclear weapon in retaliation is likely to make America pause for thought. A mutual exchange between the two with nuclear weapons would mean victory for the US, but it would probably be a pyrrhic one at that. The US has a missile defence infrastructure in place, to guard both itself and South Korea, but there is no guarantee of it succeeding in destroying every incoming projectile. If nuclear warheads strike US cities on the Eastern Seaboard, hundreds of thousands if not millions will be killed, great expanses of land made inhabitable for decades, and an economic calamity unheard of would invariably follow. Would the US be willing to pay such a price to defeat North Korea? And even if it succeeds in utterly crippling the regime, there is a significant chance that China would be brought into the conflict too. Third, if the North is not rendered utterly inert, South Korea and its allies face Pyongyang’s wrath. That thousands of artillery pieces are perpetually pointed at Seoul, the South Korean capital, already provides a significant deterrent to any first strike against the north. This state of affairs in terms of conventional military force has been able to maintain the current balance of power, albeit a relatively peaceful one. If Kim Jong-Un genuinely wanted war, it is reasonable to conclude he would have launched an invasion across the 38^th parallel by now. But he knows he would meet the full fury of American and South Korean forces, who are far better trained, equipped and technologically advanced, and would soon depose him, the exact opposite of what he actually wants.

Kim Jong-Un Supreme Leader of North Korea

References

Jager, S (2013) Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea, New York: WW Norton and Co.

O’Connor, T. (2017) ‘What war with North Korea looked like in the 1950s and why it matters now’ in Newsweek 5^th April available at: http://www.newsweek.com/us-forget-korean-war-led-crisis-north-592630