north korea's nuclear strategy - threats and ambiguity for security and subsistence
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The North Korean Nuclear Threat:
Threats and Ambiguity for Security and Subsistence
Michael A. ColeDepartment of Public and International Affairs
George Mason University
International Relations, GOVT 540
Dr. Ming Wan7 December 2005
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peninsula (Nahm 378). South Korean hardliners espoused this position for decades.
With the memory of its brutal war with U.N. forces, and of its war-time enemys likewise
desire to govern a united Korean peninsula, North Korea has sought security above all
from its post-war conception to the present. To this end, it has pursued conventional and
nuclear defences, both independently and through alliances.
The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (D.P.RK.) adopted traditional
socialist models by instituting a centrally controlled economy and investing heavily in the
military. It diverged from orthodox communism by pursuing Kim Il-Sungsjuche
ideology, a creative application of Marxist-Leninist thoughts based on self-
orientedness or self-reliance (Nahm 379) intended to make the Korean revolution
distinct from other communist revolutions. Economic recovery served as an early test of
the Norths new system. It was estimated that about 80 per cent of North Koreas
productive capacity was destroyed by the war (Nahm 387); its agricultural sector was
decimated; factories and hydroelectric plants were severely damaged (Nahm 388). The
centralized economy saw earlier and faster success than South Korea until the mid-1960s,
when the socialist economic model began to flounder.
Underfed and overworked, the North Korean farmers and workers were exhausted.
Free medical care and education helped the people, but the high pressure politics
combined with the slow rise in the living standard and various threats of
punishment could achieve only limited development objectives (Nahm 398).
Shortages of agricultural staples formerly supplied by southern Koreas productive
farmlands, difficulty acquiring manufacturing materials and recurring famines, have not
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been alleviated by frequently redrawn economic plans intended to reverse economic
decline.
The Kim regimes military reconstruction following the Armistice was pursued
with renewed conflict in mind, and its expressed desire has been control of the Korean
peninsula. Although threats associated with nuclear weapons have colored North Koreas
international relations for half a century, the post-war military buildup emphasized
conventional arms. Beginning in 1954,
North Korea sought and received a tremendous amount of military assistance from
the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China. Efforts led by them to rebuild
their military strength led to the rise of a large military force, well indoctrinated
with political ideology and equipped with up-to-date weapons (Nahm 385).
The U.S.-North Korea conflict has taken shape as a conventional confrontation,
but nuclear threats have always rested in the background, initially as the result of
American nuclear capability and North Korean alliances.
During the Korean War, the United States made a number of pointed threats of
nuclear use, and after the War, Washington deployed a sizeable number of tactical
nuclear weapons to Korea. The result of these U.S. policies was to present North
Korea with a real and growing nuclear threat. (Mazarr 1995).
(Indeed, it was not until the conclusion in September 2005 of the Six-Party Talks that
North Korea received formal confirmation that the U.S. had removed its nuclear weapons
from the peninsula consistent with its 1994 Framework Agreement concession and
President Bushs 1991promise, and that South Korea did not have nuclear weapons in
accordance with the 1992 joint declaration on the denuclearization of the korean
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The dramatic social and economic reforms undertaken by Russia and China in the
early 1990s, particularly the decline of socialism and their increasingly peaceful
engagement with the West, left North Korea without the security of its Cold War
alliances but in possession of a developing nuclear weapons program. The D.P.R.K.s
strategy for national security faced a turning point.
The final blow for North Korea came when its former allies Russia and China
normalized their relationships with South Korea in 1990 and 1992, respectively
When Moscow informed North Korea of its decision [to normalize relations with
South Korea], Foreign Minister Kim Young Nam warned that North Korea would
not regard the existing Moscow-Pyongyang military alliance treaty as being in force
and that North Korea had no choice but to facilitate the development of necessary
weapons. It shows how much the North Korean leadership was struck with fear for,
and a sense of crisis over, the nations survival. In addition, with the collapse and
betrayal of former allies, the North Korean leadership realized its severe
diplomatic isolation and came to perceive a grave danger to its own survival
(Mazarr).
Continued weakness and underdevelopment within, and American and South Korean
threats perceived from without, led the D.P.R.K. to consider its nuclear weapons program
as its most powerful deterrent and place it at the fore of its defensive position.
North Korean strategy, dependent on nuclear deterrence having never tested a
nuclear device, utilizes ambiguity concerning the extent to which the nuclear program has
progressed and how far the Kim regime intends to progress toward a nuclear capability.
North Korean security is maintained by nuclear threats, of violence and merely of
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acquisition contrary to international preferences and norms. Its threats are adapted to
serve the dual purpose of extracting political and material concessions, maximize
ambiguity, capitalize on opportunities to extract concessions for cooperation, and to buy
time for the nuclear programs development. North Koreas interests are efficiently
served by an ambiguous nuclearthreatalone. However, world politics has evolved to
make a security liability of progress beyond threats to device testing, therefore opening
the possibility that North Korea will come to see its interests reflected in nuclear
nonproliferation. In the interim, the strategy employs a long timeframe in which the Kim
regime will use its nuclear program and associated threats to remain in power as North
Korea moves cautiously toward its uncertain future.
At the time North Korea disengaged from Russia, the credibility of its nuclear threat
was ambiguous. Little Western consensus developed as intelligence reports were
contradictory and D.P.R.K. public statements were inconsistent. Time and intelligence
communities have since shown North Korea has made significant progress toward the
two primary technological aspects of nuclear weapon construction (nuclear material
development and delivery). The evidence in these areas moderates the possibility that
North Korea has not yet tested a nuclear device due to technical challenges, again
suggesting strategic motivations. In 1990, Russias K.G.B. reported to the Soviet Central
Committee that According to available data, development of the first nuclear device has
been completed at the nuclear research center in Yongbyon; The C.I.A. estimated
publicly in December 2002 that North Korea could produce two atomic bombs annually
through [highly enriched uranium] beginning in 2005; the aforementioned K.G.B. report
suggested the North Korean government had decided not to test the device in order to
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avoid international detection (Niksch 11). North Korea has claimed to possess nuclear
weapons (and in turn, that it does not), and the U.S. intelligence community acts upon the
assumption that the affirmative claim is credible. Whether or not the D.P.R.K. has
weaponized its nuclear material, two things are clear: North Korea possesses or may soon
possess the wherewithal to do so, as seen below by its technological achievements, and
the countrys strategic interests provide insight to its likely course of action where its is
obscured by strategic ambiguity.
Relationships with Russia, China and Pakistan have benefited the North Korean
nuclear program by providing its scientists with expertise, education and materials. The
government employs approximately three thousand scientists and personnel at Yongbyon
alone, many of whom studied nuclear technology in China and in the U.S.S.R. until its
collapse in 1991 (Niksch 9); East German and Russian nuclear and missile scientists
reportedly were in North Korea throughout the 1990s (Niksch 10). China and Pakistan
have supplied components and materials for the nuclear program. In the case of Pakistan,
either equipment or equipment designs were exchanged for North Korean missile
technology (Squassoni 6), though technology explicitly intended for North Koreas
weapons program is thought to be largely of indigenous origin (Niksch 9). The nuclear
program is highly capable, and has succeeded in key areas of development.
There is evidence of both highly enriched uranium and plutonium-based nuclear
facilities in North Korea capable of producing weapons-grade material. There was
suspicion but little evidence of the countrys interest in uranium enrichment at the time of
the 1994 Framework Agreement negotiations and its Nonproliferation Treaty obligations
did not prohibit enrichment (Squassoni 5).
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[Bush] administration officials have stated they do not know the locations of North
Koreas uranium enrichment program or whether they have assembled the
infrastructure to produce uranium-based atomic bombs; but U.S. intelligence
agencies reportedly have extensive information on North Koreas accelerated
overseas purchases of equipment and materials for the uranium enrichment program
since early 1999 (Niksch 9).
U.S. and Chinese intelligence sources indicate construction of facilities under Mt. Chun-
Ma and elsewhere that will be detected only with great difficulty (Squassoni 6).
Although it is known to possess enrichment-related equipment acquired in the 1980s
(Squassoni 4), at least one active uranium-yielding mine, and natural uranium sources
estimated at twenty-six million tons nationwide (Niksch 9), North Korea continues to
deny it administers a uranium enrichment program (Squassoni 5).
North Koreas plutonium-based program is well documented and publicly
acknowledged. In addition to research facilities at Taechon and Pyongyang, the major
nuclear compound at Yongbyon contains three installations for plutonium processing.
Yongbyons five mega-watt atomic reactor can produce enough plutonium (6kg.) for one
nuclear weapon each year (Niksch 8). Construction resumed in June 2005 of a fifty
mega-watt reactor capable of yielding material for thirty weapons annually (Niksch 8).
The D.P.R.K. possesses approximately eight thousand spent nuclear fuel rods, from
which it can extract weapons grade plutonium for up to six weapons (Niksch 1). U.S.
intelligence experts believe North Korea successfully reprocessed its stockpile of eight
thousand fuel rods and may produce a new stockpile (Niksch 8). All that remains is
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miniaturization, warhead manufacture, and attachment to missile delivery systems, an
area in which North Korea has long been successful.
North Korea has been capable of delivering warheads in an attack on Seoul since the
success of its S.C.U.D. short-range missile in the 1980s, but the North Korean leadership
reportedly aims to threaten the continental United States (Feickert 6). The No Dong
(Laborer) short to intermediate range missile improved upon the S.C.U.D. with greater
accuracy and power within the peninsular theater, and could reach Japan and other
neighbors. The Taepo Dong 1 missile employs a two-stage deployment process using an
adapted No Dong missile followed by a derivative of the widely successful S.C.U.D.
missile to project warheads as far as U.S. installations in Okinawa and Guam. The Taepo
Dong 2 missile, which remains untested, may reach up to 8,000 kilometres (to Anchorage
or Seattle). Analysts speculate the Taepo Dong 1 could function with a light warhead
(200 kg.) to reach the central United States or Washington. The assembly of a warhead
and successful joining of nuclear devices to projectile weapons is either within North
Koreas power or could be within a short time. Despite the ambiguity surrounding the
Norths specific nuclear capabilities, its successes in the two primary technical areas
necessary to produce nuclear weapons indicated its constant non-nuclear status until
September 2005, and continued restraint from announcing itself to be a nuclear power is
a subtle but integral part of its security strategy.
North Koreas opportunity to signal a shift to its post-Cold War strategy in a
public manner came as it reacted to invasive International Atomic Energy Agency
inspections which threatened to reveal more about its nuclear program than would serve
its strategic interest in ambiguity. After signing the N.P.T. in 1985 at Russias urging (in
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coordination with the U.S.), North Korea refused to permit I.A.E.A. inspectors to visit its
nuclear facilities until it received public assurances from President Bush in October 1991
that American nuclear weapons had been removed from South Korea. The North signed
an I.A.E.A. safeguards agreement in 1992 to permit inspections, but continued to limit
inspectors access and movement (Nye 1295). Inspections were controversial as a result
of the 1991 compact on Korean peninsular denuclearization, in which South Korea
sought wide-ranging powers of challenge inspection, anathema to the Norths closed
system (Mazarr 95). The 1992 I.A.E.A. announcement that it had uncovered
discrepancies in the amounts of plutonium produced and declared by North Korea
(Mazarr 95), and its demand for special inspections of locations not on its list of
disclosed nuclear facilities, led to the expulsion of I.A.E.A. officials and North Koreas
1993 announcement that it intended to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty
(Mazarr 95). Just three years after its Cold War security framework had fallen apart,
North Korea constructed a new one, this time by capitalizing on its opacity, manipulating
perceptions and agreements to ensure its physical security and gain concessions. In
addition to the withdrawal of the United States nuclear footprint on the Korean peninsula
and the reversal of a long-held American policy not to disclose the locations of nuclear
weapons, North Korea earned itself a negotiating position among large powers.
In order to stem the rhetorical escalation, in which North Korea threatened war for
the first time in decades (Nanto 12) and the United States threatened sanctions and a
blockade (Mazarr 96), both sides entered into discussions to maintain the D.P.R.K. as a
Nonproliferation Treaty sigN.A.T.O.ry. The high level, semi-official talks in 1994
between former President Jimmy Carter and President Kim Il Sung produced the
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Framework Agreement, which stood as a bilateral memorandum of understanding in
which each made commitments and concessions in exchange for North Koreas
continued participation in the N.P.T. regime. Carters visit was seen by North Korea as a
strategic victory.
The scenario that [Kim Il Sung] had worked so hard to put together was happening
at last. Faced with the most dismal economic news he had ever received and a
prospect of a worsening economy, devoid of his long-term sponsor, and desperate
for outside assistance, Kim had, by adroitly using the threat of nuclear weapons and
general war, brought a novice American government to his desk bearing gifts All
Jimmy Carter accomplished was to adroitly maneuver, cajole, and pressure Kim Il
Sung into accepting everything that the North Korean leader had hoped to receive
(Cucullu 259).
Under the Framework, the D.P.R.K. was promised light-water reactor power plants to
replace plants capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, 500,000 tons of heavy
fuel oil until their completion, and other forms of aid negotiated at later meetings. North
Korea agreed to store and dispose of its spent nuclear fuel stocks, permit I.A.E.A.
inspections, fulfill its safeguards agreement before completion of the light-water reactors,
and implement its part of the Korean Peninsula Denuclearization Declaration. Each side
committed to move toward political and economic normalization, though the terms of
each are vague. By taking key countries to the edge of war and leaning on its strategy to
utilize nuclear threats and ambiguity, North Korea successfully averted a conventional
conflict it could not win, claimed further assurances for its future security, and retreated
with material rewards.
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The Framework Agreement set in motion a years-long process of recurring threats,
talks and rewards, continuing at present as the Six Party Talks. The North has bought
itself ten years to develop its nuclear program, successfully avoiding I.A.E.A. inspections
throughout the period. During that time, it has restarted and then shut down nuclear
facilities at Yongbyon numerous times, first in December 2002 and recently in June
2005; it has suspended its participation and re-entered international talks several times,
citing its intention to aggressively develop weapons. It retains its strategic tools: threats
attached to its nuclear program and ambiguity concerning the same. The program of
concessions has remained in place since 1995, and manipulation of the program is a part
of North Koreas strategy to prolong the present situation, but it is also critical to
alleviation of its internal crisis.
A generation of North Koreans is being physically and psychologically weakened
by malnutrition. The people die silently by the thousands in their homes, in the
fields, and by the roadside. The government tells them that loyalty to Kim Jong Il
andjuche socialism is more important than life itself, and many seem to believe it.
This resort to eschatological propaganda is a clear indication of the collapse of
North Korea as a functioning political economic system (Oh, Hassig 302).
Recent natural disasters are believed to have killed five to ten per-cent of the North
Korean population. Although the military leadership appears unwilling to affect change
and peasant revolts have been easily halted, consequences of unrest and economic
deterioration to the Kim regime remain uncertain. The assistance program is a primary
source of relief from ongoing domestic crises, and its indefinite extension is presently an
objective aided by the Norths strategy.
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The size and content of aid packages change each year in response to North
Koreas actions and to reflect donors strategies and preferences concerning the conflict.
For example, China and Japan have had some short-term success in linking their food
assistance to North Korean cooperation (Manyin 30) on contentious issues, particularly
in obtaining information about and release of kidnapped Japanese nationals. Of the
bodies participating in aid programs, including the United States, China, Japan, South
Korea, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Agency (K.E.D.O.), the World Food
Program (W.F.P.) and the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), each employs a unique
calculus to determine what it will send to the North, usually in the form of energy, fuel,
food, fertilizer, and infrastructure and industry projects (Manyin 4). Whatever the calculi
produce, assistance-providing nations are now strategically bound to the aid program.
American food-aid is presently contingent upon progress in political and security-related
talks (Manyin 30), primarily with reference to nuclear nonproliferation, and policy
provides minimal unconditional aid for humanitarian reasons. As China and South Korea
depend on their assistance programs to facilitate regional stability, and would thus
increase their aid if the U.S. and others responded with cuts to the Norths nuclear
advancement, the aid is presently of limited utility to deter the nuclear program (Manyin
29). However, it remains a useful tool for the United States to maintain channels to
North Korea even through periods of strategic isolation, and acts as a vehicle to secure
support from China, South Korea, Japan and, Russia (Niksh 6) for total D.P.R.K.
disarmament. North Korea utilizes these dynamics to its advantage.
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The Six Party Talks*, begun in August 2003 to achieve a resolution of the D.P.R.K.
nuclear dilemma, concluded in September 2005 with its first formal agreement. (It is the
first agreement between North Korea and the U.S. since the Framework Agreement in
1994). The agreement marks transition from prolonged initial parrying into serious
negotiations (Huntley 1) by identifying common principles, goals and means. The
September agreement announced the six parties unanimous intention to peacefully
denuclearize the Korean peninsula and specified the dismantlement of D.P.R.K. nuclear
facilities and weapons; it is the first time North Korea has agreed to dismantle and
discontinue its weapons-oriented nuclear program, as well as the first time its assembled
nuclear weapons have been addressed with such a modicum of ambiguity. In addition,
the agreement reiterated the two Koreas commitment to their 1992 joint declaration for
peninsular denuclearization and reaffirmed neither American nor South Korean nuclear
weapons are present on the peninsula. Significant departures from the Framework
Agreement are signalled by the signatories formal acknowledgement of the Norths
sovereignty, and pledges to normalize economic and diplomatic relations as part of a
phased movement toward a permanent peace and regional security cooperation. This
apparent transition in the years long process is contrary to North Koreas interest in
extended inaction, and talks concluded in November 2005 failed to identify actionable
items to move forward from the September agreement, effectively delaying progress
toward the U.S. objective of denuclearization. However, the 2005 Agreement is the
foundation for the next round of talks. North Koreas next move will reflect little change
*Participants in the talks, including the Peoples Republic of China, North Korea, South
Korea, Russia, Japan, and the United States, also met in August 2003, February 2004,
June 2004, and July 2005 without success in reaching a resolution.
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benefits it yields. These represent only small shifts in North Koreas position. However,
its decade-long shift away from threats of war that punctuated its pre-Framework stance
has consisted entirely of small signals amid a din of threats and ideological
pronouncements.
The diminishing utility of conventionally deployed nuclear weapons carries
strategic consequences for North Koreas position. The U.S. policy of pre-emption aims
to make their acquisition a greater liability than an asset, and the world-wide spread of
anti-ballistic missile defense systems promises to both render useless the Norths nuclear
program. Former Secretary of Defense Les Aspin noted that, In the post Cold War
world the United States has unmatched conventional military power, and it is our
potential adversaries who may attain nuclear weapons (Huntington 187), but he could
not have forseen the developments that now mitigate nuclear weapons usefulness.
Whether conventionally weak states nuclear arms effectively deter outside
aggression or not remains a subject of debate, but Saddam Husseins Iraq stands as an
historical example of a conventionally weak state poorly served by a nuclear weapons
threat. Despite continuing ambiguity concerning the veracity of the threat posed by
Iraqs weapons development, the Bush Administrations policy of pre-emption accepts
the threat (verbal or apparent) as sufficient cause to attack. President Bushs inclusion of
North Korea in an axis of evil with Iran and Iraq during his 2002 State of the Union
address, and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rices identification of North Korea as one of
six outposts of tyranny, were surely causes of alarm for the Kim regime. When the
United States deposed Saddam Hussein in 2003 in a pre-emptive defence against his
pursuit of unconventional weapons, association with terrorists, and despotic governance,
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North Korea saw that nuclear weapons now serve as a liability rather than the source of
security they may once have been. Possession of nuclear weapons or the perceived threat
of nuclear proliferation, without the conventional means to defend the state and its
nuclear program, is now potentially dangerous. The policy of pre-emption as it was
employed in the invasion of Iraq also makes a security liability of the subtler threat that
North Korea will sell nuclear weapons to outside actors, such as terrorists. The
landscapes of nuclear proliferation and national security have changed dramatically, and
the Norths position is likely to change accordingly.
Those countries seeking security from a nuclear program that are undeterred by pre-
emptions threat to proliferation face quick devaluation of their investment in nuclear
weapons as a result of advancements in anti-ballistic missile (A.B.M.) defence
technology.
North Korea is reportedly spending as much as 40 per cent of its gross domestic
product (G.D.P.) on the military. In a recent interview, U.S. Forces-Korea
commander General Leon J. LaPorte reportedly stated that North Koreas
military investments are primarily in their nuclear, biological, chemical and missile
programs in order to gain an asymmetrical advantage over the U.S. and South
Korean forces (Feickert 3).
Whereas the D.P.R.K. invests in its nuclear program because it is believed to provide a
greater investment return in security and concessions than its traditional army, successful
A.B.M. defense programs will render the nuclear program ineffectual and obsolete. The
U.S. Department of Defense reports,
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The missile defense program is developing and fielding a layered defense for the
United States, our deployed forces, allies and friends against threats of all ranges
and in all phases of flight. Initially limited, these defenses will evolve to become
increasingly capable over time as technologies mature. In late 2004 the United
States fielded the initial Ballistic Missile Defense System Test Bed that can be used
for limited defense operations as the Missile Defense Agency continues to develop
and test the system (Missile Defense Agency 1).
The A.B.M.-defense program is both land-based and sea-based. Tests for the sea-based
functions are oriented to form a missile shield with U.S. Navy ships for Japans defense
against North Korea, and tests of the land-based model have used missiles placed at a
trajectory to simulate a warhead fired from North Korea. The model under development
will target inbound missiles at three points in their paths, using sensors to identify
deployed missiles immediately after launching. It employs lasers to disrupt incoming
missiles by targeting their fuel tanks, and smart weapons successfully intercepted test-
decoys in 2005.
In November 2005, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia has
successfully tested its Topol-M missile, which it claims is impervious to anti-ballistic
missile systems now under development (Felgengauer 1). That technology is a part of
the next wave, and its progress suggests North Koreas hugely expensive program of
nuclear warhead development and 1980s missiles may soon be at least two generations
behind technology used by the rest of the world. Meanwhile, Japan, India, Australia,
South Korea, Israel, Taiwan, N.A.T.O. and others are moving to acquire new or improved
missile defenses (Hackett 1). N.A.T.O. may announce its plans as early as its 2006
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conference in Riga, Latvia (Inside Missile Defense 1). North Koreas post-Cold War
system is unlikely to compete with the sophisticated technology in development to defend
against it, and the country continues to overspend on its outdated system to the detriment
of its economy and stability. North Koreas characteristic strategic acuity will not long
countenance such inefficiency and weakness.
While North Korea continues to suffer from the weakness, poverty, isolation and
fear it was left with in the wake of the Korean War, the rest of the world has moved on.
The Communist-bloc afforded temporary conditions for the Norths security and
subsistence, and the country has capitalized with legendary resourcefulness and skill on
the nuclear technology that alliance left to it. North Korea developed nuclear weapons
technology thoroughly enough to successfully use it as the foundation of its strategy to
regain the security and subsistence it enjoyed under alliances with Russia and China. The
International Institute for Strategic Studies explains, What passes for economic strategy
as well as foreign policy in North Korea remains little more than a search for outside
economic aid (Stevenson 305). Although it lingers and carries the Kim regime one year
at a time, this strategy will deteriorate as it has before; North Koreas decade of
obfuscation and delay will end, forcing it to change or experience further decline.
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