Give North Korea a Safe Way to Back Down

Patrick M. Cronin

Security, Asia

Pyongyang needs a face-saving way to walk back provocations.

A cardinal principle of strategy holds that if you do not wish to precipitate a conflict, then you should leave adversaries a face-saving way to back down from provocations. This is especially true of nuclear-armed family tyrants like Kim Jong-un.

This is why Seoul needs to reflect further on its announced resumption of propaganda broadcasts into North Korea. Piping loud music up to twelve miles into North Korea helped achieve the desired political objective of walking Pyongyang back from the brink in the aftermath of the maiming of two ROK soldiers on patrol last August. But the fourth nuclear test offers a different context from last August’s land mine incident.

Land mines offered plausible deniability, and when pressed, Kim Jong-un could make the concession of returning to talks without a personal loss of face. But there is no way for the young general to climb down from his regime’s hyperbolic “H-bomb of justice” claim. That means that the Blue House has no governing principle for allowing broadcasts, once resumed, to stop without President Park Geun-hye to suffer a political setback. Moreover, if the broadcasts persist over time, both domestic and international voices will gradually redirect their ire on Seoul rather than the nuclear culprit in Pyongyang.

In order to avert an unnecessary crisis, Seoul needs to move smartly on further reflection to articulate a multi-layered strategic response to the growing dangers posed by North Korea’s mounting unconventional forces, especially nuclear weapons, missiles and cyber warfare. While Kim has promised these as relatively cheaper means than maintaining a vast and ready conventional military (something that undoubtedly rankles some North Korean military officers), he is heading to a rare party congress later this year to bolster the elite political institution known as the Korean Workers’ Party. His use of this congress is no doubt in order to have a second institution, for use as a counterweight against the all-powerful military. By playing one off the other, he can hope to gain maximum leverage to consolidate and perpetuate the Kim family dynasty, with Kim Jong-un at the center.

South Korea can respond in the short, medium and long terms with a multifaceted strategic plan that includes the following elements.