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These grave problems might cause Beijing to embrace the third option—that is, an international peace-keeping operation in what is now North Korea. Technically such an operation could be authorized by the United Nations, but in practice the slow and unwieldy UN bureaucracy is hardly able to handle the unpredictable situation fast enough. Therefore for all practical purposes such an operation will probably be best handled by the Six-Party talks mechanism—in other words, by coordinated efforts of South Korea, China, the United States, Russia, and Japan (a UN mandate might still be a good way to make the operation sufficiently legitimate).

Such an international peacekeeping operation might be acceptable to all major players, since it will help to address the major concerns of all parties involved. China will be protected from the threat of refugee flows and WMD smuggling. The political damage will be mitigated, too: even if China is clearly in the driver’s seat, the UN mandate will largely protect it from the accusation of “neo-imperialist designs.”

For South Korea, an international peace-keeping operation might be acceptable as well. The mandate of the peacekeeping forces is likely to be explicitly restricted, so that after a certain period of time, the forces would be withdrawn. Considering current circumstances, one can be almost certain that North Koreans will overwhelmingly support unification with the South (or, at least, for some federation with the South). In other words, a UN-mandated operation will ensure that Chinese forces, in due time, would leave the peninsula.

For the United States, an international operation would also be preferable to a unilateral Chinese intervention. It would deliver both outcomes that the United States needs most in Northeast Asia: first, it will denuclearize the North; second, it will eventually lead to the emergence of a Seoul-dominated Korean state.

For both the long-term strategic interests of South Korea and the United States, as well as for the majority of the North Korean population, the emergence of a pro-Chinese satellite regime in North Korea will still be better than indefinite continuation of the status quo. Nonetheless, a unification of Korea still should be seen as the most preferable outcome. Therefore one should be ready to consider measures that will persuade China that a unified Korea is less unacceptable than an intervention.

First of all, China should be assured that a unified Korea will not become a strategic bridgehead for US military influence in continental Northeast Asia. For example, if the ROK and United States make a joint statement promising that upon unification no US forces and/or US military installations will ever be located north of the present-day DMZ area, it will help to ameliorate Chinese strategic concerns.

The United States will probably find such concessions acceptable. On balance, the United States will gain much from an ROK-led unification of the Korean peninsula. Among other things, it will solve the nuclear issue and will put to rest fears of proliferation. The emergence of a unified democratic (and nationalist) state on the Chinese border will also be conducive to US national interests. Therefore, relatively minor concessions in regard to the troops’ number and location are likely to be seen as an acceptable price to pay.

There is another problem that should be taken care of in case of a “unification crisis.” Recurrent support of irredentism in Northeastern China and semi-official claims about alleged Korean territorial rights to large chunks of Chinese territory does not escape the notice of Beijing—and strengthens the suspicions that a unified Korea would strive to seed discontent in the borderland areas of China. In case of a unification crisis, it will help if the ROK government explicitly states that earlier agreements pertaining to Sino-Korean borders will be respected by a unified Korea.

It will also be necessary to explicitly assure Beijing that the government of a unified Korea will respect and honor all Chinese concessions and mining rights that were granted by the North Korean state. Many of these deals were signed under dubious circumstances and might look redolent of the unequal treaties of the 19th century. Nonetheless, it still remains an important step towards winning Chinese support—and this support is vital in case of unification.

Alas, the widespread hope that the emergence of reformist groups in Pyongyang will finally bring about a non nuclear, non threatening, and developing North Korea seems to be wishful thinking. Such an outcome, while not completely impossible, is not particularly probable, since the hypothetical reforms are likely to make North Korean politics dangerously unstable. The current regime will survive as long as it does not change much, but in the long run it is not sustainable, so sooner or later it will go down—likely, in a dramatic and dangerous crisis. However, it seems that there are only two possible long-term outcomes of this crisis: either a unification of Korea under the auspices of Seoul or an emergence of a relatively stable China-controlled satellite regime (the latter scenario might also mean that the division of Korea will become permanent).

Let’s start from the bad news: the North Korean problem has no simple or quick solutions. Negotiations and concession will not help much, while pressure and sanctions will be even less useful. We should therefore brace ourselves for a long, winding, and, occasionally, dangerous drive.

This does not mean that the situation is beyond hope and control. The North Korean leaders are fighting a losing battle, trying to save what is, essentially, unsustainable. Sooner or later they will lose, and the outside world (well, those in the outside world who want North Korea to change) can do something to facilitate the developments and also make sure that the unavoidable changes will be less rough and violent. The useful measures are simple and cheap, but will require a great deal of long-term commitment and some touch of counterintuitive thinking. Alas, both qualities are somewhat lacking in modern-day democracies.

Throughout the two decades that have passed since the emergence of the North Korean nuclear issue, the US strategy has oscillated between two positions.

There have been soft-liners who believe that, if the Pyongyang regime is given sufficient monetary rewards, political concessions, and security guarantees, it will ultimately abandon its nuclear ambitions and, perhaps, revive its economy through Chinese-style reforms—thus becoming a “normal state.” They insist that Pyongyang should be treated gently, given
concessions and monetary rewards, and persuaded that compromise will serve its own best interests. Under the impact of the second nuclear test and other recent events, the doves’ numbers in Washington and Seoul shrank dramatically, but the soft-line option still remains on the sideline and might eventually regain popularity.

Their opponents are hard-liners, hawkish believers in the power of sanctions and pressure (these beliefs are often strengthened by the recurrent hope that the Pyongyang regime is just on the brink of collapse). They assume that pressure will eventually cause Pyongyang to denuclearize or push it to extinction (or both). They believe that economic hardship and perhaps even fear of military reprisals will make the North Korean leaders surrender their nuclear program.

Taking into consideration the nature of democratic politics, which regularly brings new (and not necessarily experienced) people to important jobs, there is little doubt that both approaches will keep competing in the foreseeable future. Consequently, US policy (and, for that matter, the policy of Seoul) will continue to oscillate between these two extremes. This is not good news since so far the experience has demonstrated that neither approach is going to work. Neither pressure nor concessions will speed up the delivery of the desired outcome—a nonnuclear and developing North Korea.

Regardless of what the hawks say, the threatened use of military force against North Korea is not credible—even if one forgets moral considerations that would clearly define such an undertaking as an act of aggression. Surgical strikes and air raids against nuclear installations (akin to the Israeli air raid on Iraq’s nuclear research center in 1981) will not work. It is too late for this now. The weapons-grade plutonium and nuclear devices have been manufactured, and now they are safely hidden in some of the underground facilities for which North Korea is so famous. It is virtually impossible to locate all of the North’s nuclear devices at the moment, and even if by some miracle reliable intelligence is obtained, it will be difficult to destroy these massive underground fortifications.

For a number of reasons, a large-scale invasion by ground forces is also a nonstarter. North Korea has a rugged, mountainous terrain and a large,
if poorly equipped, army. It has no chances to win a major war, but it is perfectly capable of making its adversaries pay a very high price for their eventual victory.

An additional—and very important—problem is the vulnerability of Greater Seoul. The so-called metropolitan area is home to nearly half of the entire ROK populations (some 24 out of 50 million), but is located merely 25–30 km away from the DMZ. To make the most of this strategic advantage, the North Korean military built heavily fortified artillery positions, with some 250–300 long-range artillery pieces that can hit targets within an entire city. In case of an open war, North Korean heavy guns and multiple rocket launchers will inflict heavy damage on the South Korean capital. A fast evacuation of the mammoth city is virtually impossible. This ensures that war, irrespective of its final outcome, is bound to be bloody and will bring a large-scale destruction to South Korea’s major city.

The North Korean strategic planners know that they are going to lose a full-scale war, and this is why they will never start it. However, they also realize that Seoul would not start such a war unless seriously provoked. In spite of the expected outbursts of rhetoric, losing a passenger airliner to a North Korean bomb or a naval warship to a torpedo attack is not seen in Seoul as a serious enough provocation.

After the 2010 attacks, the Seoul government often talks about a decisive retaliation, a powerful counter strike that would follow another North Korean attack. As political rhetoric, it sounds good and sells well with the public, but it is completely unrealistic. It is worth remembering that in the past, South Korea has ignored far more outrageous North Korean provocations. After all, in 2010 the North Koreans conducted a stealth torpedo attack against a warship in disputed waters. This is unacceptable, but much less so than bombing a passenger airliner—and such a bombing is what the North Koreans did in 1987, seemingly with impunity. There are good reasons why Seoul used to be patient in the past: it understood that retaliation would not be a good idea.

With its impressive technological superiority, the South Korean military could probably sink half the North Korean navy or wipe out a number of their artillery positions within a few hours. In most places, that sort of defeat would have serious political consequences—but not in North Korea.

The lives of North Korean soldiers and sailors are of no value to the Pyongyang decision makers: their scions do not serve in the military, they shop in Paris instead. The death of a few hundred soldiers will be seen as a sorry but fully acceptable price—and will not deter Pyongyang from planning a new round of provocations.

Some argue that such a military disaster would damage the regime’s credentials, which are connected to a “military first” policy. But Kim’s regime controls the media so completely that even the most humiliating defeat would be presented as a great victory, a spectacular triumph of North Korean arms. Only a handful of generals will know the ugly truth, and these generals understand that they would have no future without the current regime, so they are unlikely to protest.

In the worst-case scenario, the chain of retaliation and counterretaliation might escalate into a general war with disastrous consequences. Far more likely, though, is that this chain of strikes, counterstrikes, and counter-counterstrikes will remain under control. In this case, the supposed retaliation will merely help the North Korean leaders to achieve their goals. News reports about exchanges of fire are certain to increase the sense of crisis. This is exactly what the Pyongyang strategists want.

This peculiar situation is also understood by the more reasonable hard-liners in Washington and Seoul, who are thus left with sanctions alone. But the efficiency of such sanctions is doubtful. First of all, strict and comprehensive sanctions are difficult to impose, since China, and to a lesser degree Russia, will be unwilling to be party to a truly rigorous (read: efficient) sanctions regime. Neither Russia nor China wants North Korea to go nuclear, but they both have other issues on their agenda, and some of those issues are more pressing than the Korean nuclear question.

The use of financial sanctions, a ban of the activity of North Korean banks, more or less along the lines of the Banco Delta Asia (BDA) problem, is an option to which North Korea seems to be relatively vulnerable. However, the efficiency of such sanctions has never really been tested.

To make things worse, North Korean society is designed in such a way as to make even efficient sanctions politically irrelevant.

Normally, sanctions work in an indirect way. In most cases, sanctions impact the populations of target nations, making their lives less comfortable and more stressful. This leads to a growing discontent as the public begins to blame their government for their declining living standards and other associated problems. The strategy of economic sanctions is based on the assumption that dissatisfied people will press for change in the policy, or even remove their government via popular revolution (or, in the case of a more democratic and tolerant regime, at the ballot box). Alternatively, dissatisfied and/or ambitious members of the ruling elite might also use the crisis as an opportunity to overthrow the regime, peacefully or not. Once these dissatisfied elite members take power, they might make concessions to have the sanctions removed.