"Kim Jong Un, Uranium, and the Artillery Barrage:
How to Think Strategically about North Korea?"
By Narushige Michishita
Narushige Michishita is an associate professor of the Security and International Studies Programat the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo. A specialist in strategicand Japan/Korea studies, he is author of North Korea’s Military-Diplomatic Campaigns, 19662008 (London: Routledge, 2009). He may be reached at michi@grips.ac.jp.
Escalating Situation and North Korea’s Intentions
The North Koreans have taken important and provocative steps to escalate the situation. First, they
revealed that they had completed a uranium enrichment facility with 2,000 centrifuges and had
begun construction of a 25 to 30 megawatt-electric experimental light-water reactor in Nyongbyon.i
Then, they shelled Yeonpyeongdo - a South Korean offshore island in the Yellow Sea - causing
military and civilian casualties.ii Outrageous as they are, North Korea’s recent actions are perfectly
consistent with its past actions and its objectives. North Korea’s central objective is to force
Washington to start talks with Pyongyang with the aim of improving relations between the twocountries.
Actually, North Korea declared that it would begin enriching uranium and that it had
decided to build its own light water reactors in June 2009. In November 2010, the North Koreans
simply delivered what they had already declared they would. In any case, now that they havedemonstrated their possession of the uranium enrichment program, it is on the table to benegotiated.
Regarding the heightened tension in the Yellow Sea, in January 2009 the generalstaff of the Korean People’s Army warned that it would take measures to defend the “military
demarcation line” in the Yellow Sea, which it had unilaterally established in 1999, if South Korean
vessels continued to violate North Korea’s “territorial waters.” It also predicted that the “illegal”
Northern Limit Line-a quasi-maritime borderline to separate the North and the South-would
disappear. By May, the intensity of coastal gun fire exercises had doubled from the previous year,
and six times as many sorties of fighter aircraft had flown as in the previous year in the Yellow Sea
near two South Korean offshore islands - Baengnyeongdo and Yeonpyeongdo. Subsequently, there
was a naval clash between the North and South Korean navies in November.

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North Korea has long sought to replace the 1953 Armistice Agreement with a peaceagreement in order to legally put an end to its confrontation with the United States. WheneverNorth Korea wants to talk about the peace agreement, it always raises tensions in the Yellow Sea. It
happened in 1974, 1999, and 2009. The North Koreans will argue that the military tension on the
Korean Peninsula is rising and the danger of war is looming large. They will contend that thecurrent Armistice mechanism is not functioning, and so the situation will only escalate. North
Korea will say, in order to avoid another war, the United States must sign a peace agreement with itand establish a new mechanism to maintain peace.iii
In the days and weeks to come, North Korea may fly fighter aircraft across theNorthern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea to further raise the threat level.iv It could, at the same time,
request the convening of the General-Officers’ Talks with the U.S.-led United Nations Commandto talk about the peace agreement and even propose a new maritime borderline based on the United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to replace the Northern Limit Line.v
The North Koreans are escalating the situation in order to convince the Americans
and the South Koreans that refusing to have nuclear and peace talks with Pyongyang will be costly.
Pyongyang is trying to force Washington and Seoul to change their course and come back to thenegotiating table on terms favorable to North Korea. Policymakers in Washington and Seoul
clearly understand North Korea’s intentions. Now we will have to decide which way to go.
(*This first section was added on November 24 just after the existence of a uranium enrichment
facility in Nyongbyon was revealed and North Korea shelled a South Korean offshore island. The
author thinks that basic ideas espoused in this article remain valid even after the recent
developments. The original text follows.)
Thinking Strategically about North Korea Policy“We should not reward North Korea’s bad behavior.” “We should not buy the same horse for thethird time.” These statements have become cliché when we talk about policy toward North Korea,
particularly after a series of the country’s provocative actions such as nuclear tests, missile
launches, and the sinking of a South Korean warship. These caveats are certainly something thatpolicymakers should keep in their mind when crafting policy toward North Korea.
However, our policy options should not be dominated by those somewhat emotional
arguments. Foreign policy should be built upon sober calculations taking into account our longterm strategic objectives, assessment of the costs and benefits of different options, and judgment ofwhat is possible and what is not. Our North Korea policy should be formulated not on the basis of
the contention that we should not reward its bad behavior but on the assessment of what would best
serve our national interest and contribute to the security of the region.
Another argument supported by many observers, especially after North Korea’s nuclear
tests in 2006 and 2009, is that North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons as long as Kim
Jong Il is in power. This is a strong argument. Since North Korea declared its withdrawal from the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1993, the international community, including the United Statesand South Korea, has been tenaciously demanding North Korea to abandon its nuclear program,2

sometimes by offering assistance, other times by putting pressure on it. Nevertheless, not only has
North Korea refused to give up its nuclear development, but it has demonstrated itself to be anuclear power by twice testing its nuclear weapons. Neither the 1994 Agreed Framework signed
between the United States and North Korea nor the Joint Statement agreed in the Six-Party Talks in2005 has succeeded in stopping the North Korean nuclear program.
Those who argue that North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons unless the current
regime disappears tend to argue that there is no point in negotiating the nuclear issue with North
Korea. Seemingly persuasive, this logic is not appropriate as a basis for policy formulation,
because the argument that North Korea will never abandon its nuclear weapons, even if true, does
not lead to the conclusion that it will never freeze or reduce its nuclear arsenal.
In light of careful investigation, one can observe that North Korea’s nuclear development
has not progressed at a constant pace. According to the Institute for Science and International
Security (ISIS) based in Washington, D.C., North Korea had accumulated up to 10 kilograms ofplutonium - quantity enough for one or two bombs - by 1994. But then, production and extractionof plutonium halted upon the signing of the Agreed Framework in October 1994, and the amount of
plutonium did not increase until 2002. After the Agreed Framework became practically invalidated
in 2002, however, the amount of plutonium in North Korean hands jumped to 33-55 kilograms,
enough for 6 to 13 bombs, by 2006. In other words, the Agreed Framework successfully froze
North Korea’s plutonium-related activities for a considerable amount of time. The Agreed
Framework apparently had some flaws. For example, it could not prevent North Korea from having
a secret agreement with Pakistan in 1996, which allowed the former to acquire uranium enrichment
technology from Pakistan and begin a full-scale uranium-enrichment program in the late 1990s. In
addition, the Agreed Framework had its costs: it required South Korea, Japan, and the United States
to provide light-water reactors and heavy fuel oil to North Korea in exchange for North Korea’s
freezing and eventually dismantling its graphite-moderated reactors and related reprocessing
facilities. It cost us, by 2005, $1.6 billion to construct light-water reactors and $395 million to
supply heavy fuel oil. For these, South Korea, Japan and the United States contributed $1.5 billion,$498 million, and $405 million respectively (the total amount of cost includes expenses other thanheavy fuel oil and light-water reactors).
Security is always relative. No country is perfectly secure or completely insecure. Countries
must decide individually what level of security they would like to obtain and at what cost. Whether
one seeks high-cost/high-level security or low-cost/low-level security is a matter of policy choice.
With the Agreed Framework, which cost South Korea, Japan, and the United States $2.4 billion in
total, the three countries successfully froze North Korea’s nuclear development for eight years withthe possibility of eliminating all nuclear weapons when construction of the light-water reactors wascomplete.
Given these past experiences, the question we have to ask is not whether or not North Korea
will abandon its nuclear weapons right away, but whether we will be able to make North Korea
freeze or downsize its nuclear program on an action-for-action basis. Further, how much it might
cost and what kind of security gain we will be able to obtain from a deal with North Korea should
be considered. At the same time, we should assess the risks of North Korea cheating and how

3damaging it would cause to the regional security and the international order.
If operations at Pyongyang’s nuclear reactor resume, it would produce one nuclear weapon
every year. Assuming that it has acquired a quantity of plutonium enough for 4 to 11 nuclear
weapons (taking into account the amount used for two nuclear tests), the number of nuclear
weapons possessed by North Korea in ten years would amount to 14 to 21. This estimate would
need to be revised upward if North Korea expedited its uranium enrichment program or constructed
a new nuclear reactor. We should then seriously weigh the impact such an upgraded nuclear
program would have on our countries and the various costs we would need to pay to prevent it,such as the military cost to install a BMD system. For reference, the Ballistic Missile Defense
system for intercepting North Korean missiles is estimated to cost about 8.5 billion dollars. We
cannot simply compare this with the price we will pay in pursuing a diplomatic solution to theNorth Korean nuclear issue, since the BMD system is not only against Pyongyang’s nuclear
weapons but also its biological and chemical weapons as well.
Cost and Benefit of Benign Neglect Policy
Even if we stay away from the arguments like “we should not reward North Korea’s bad behavior,”“we should not buy the same horse for the third time,” and “North Korea will never give up its
nuclear weapon,” engagement is not the only policy alternative. Benign neglect with minimal
engagement is still an option and, in fact, we have already given it a try: the George W. Bushadministration adopted a benign neglect policy with perfunctory dialogue but no substantial
discussion from 2001 until 2006 when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test. The good news
was that this neglect policy cost us almost nothing compared to the $2.4 billion for the
implementation of the Agreed Framework. The United States and South Korea maintained robust
deterrent capabilities against North Korea. If North Korea had attacked the South, the U.S.-ROK
forces would have not only stopped the invasion north of Seoul but also conducted
counteroffensive operations to occupy Pyongyang based on U.S.-ROK Combined Operation Plan
5027. It would have resulted in the destruction of not only North Korean forces but also the regime.
This military predominance of the U.S.-ROK side continues today.
Yet, we cannot overlook the cost of the neglect policy. It caused the Agreed Framework tocollapse, and encouraged North Korea to resume its nuclear development, which eventuallyculminated in the nuclear test in 2006. In this period, plutonium in North Korea’s possession
increased from an amount enough for up to two nuclear weapons to that for six to thirteen.
Furthermore, North Korea exported nuclear facilities to Syria. When North Korea conducted its
first nuclear test in 2006, the Bush administration hastily renounced the neglect policy and started
to talk to Pyongyang. Unfortunately, Japan had just adopted a tough policy line vis-à-vis North
Korea consistent with the early U.S. policy orientation. As a result, Japan became isolated in the
Six-Party Talks and the alliance relationship was seriously strained.
North Korea and the Expanding Chinese Sphere of Influence
At the present time, the rise of China is the most important factor in the strategic environment of
East Asia. Behind the backdrop of its rapidly growing economy, China is strengthening “antiaccess and area denial” capabilities in order to defy U.S. and other foreign influence in its
neighborhood. China is developing and deploying ballistic missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles, attack

4submarines, long-range air defense systems, aircraft carriers, and anti-ship ballistic missiles.
Chinese long-distance fleet exercises are becoming increasingly active. The recent diplomaticstandoff between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi
in Vietnam in July with regard to the political order of the South China Sea has been one of theconsequences of these developments.
China has started to emphasize area denial even in the areas around the Korean Peninsula.
When the United States and South Korea decided to conduct a joint military exercise in response to
the sinking of the South Korean corvette by North Korea, China lodged an exceptionally harshprotest to the planned deployment of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea. Given the fact that
China had not made such a protest to the deployment of U.S. carriers in the Yellow Sea in the past,
it strongly suggests that China’s geostrategic interest in the vicinity of North Korea had increased.
Taking into account Beijing’s objection, the United States eventually decided to deploy its aircraft
carrier in the Sea of Japan. In any case, China’s maritime interest now expands from the South
China Sea in the south to the Yellow Sea in the north.
Seen from China, the locations of Myanmar and North Korea have the common
geostrategic characteristics of significant importance to China. While Myanmar offers an exit to theIndian Ocean, North Korea provides a way out to the Sea of Japan. China has leased the CocoIslands in the Andaman Sea from Myanmar, where China has been reportedly building a militarybase and intelligence-gathering facilities. As to North Korea, Chinese President Hu Jintao hasreportedly requested Kim Jong Il to lease a wharf at the port in Rajin in North Korea’s east coastfor 50 years. Chinese northeastern provinces such as the Jilin Province have sought to acquire theright to use North Korean ports in Rajin and Chongjin to have a direct access route to the Sea ofJapan. A Chinese company based in the Liaoning Province has announced the acquisition of theright to use a wharf at the port of Rajin for ten years. These developments are disquieting given thefact that four Chinese naval vessels sailed from the Sea of Japan out to the Western Pacific throughthe Tsugaru Strait between Hokkaido and Honshu in 2008 for the first time in history, and Hu
Jintao emphasized the importance of establishing geostrategic strongholds in China’s neighborhoodin his foreign policy speech in July 2009. We must remain attentive to China’s possible militarystrategic use of North Korea in the future.
In addition, growing economic transactions between China and North Korea seem to have
deepened the latter’s dependence on the former. The size of trade between the two countries hasgrown from $760 million in 2002 to $2.9 billion in 2008. The direct investment from China to
North Korea has increased to $1.1 million in 2003 to $41.2 million in 2008.
The international isolation of North Korea and Myanmar has made it easier for China toexercise its influence over the two countries. Both North Korea and Myanmar maintain a repressive
political system and face strong pressure from the international community. Taking advantage ofthis situation, China has provided political and economic support to these countries, and expanded
its influence over them with relative ease. Chinese President Hu Jintao met with Than Shwe,
Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council of Myanmar and head of the ruling military
junta in September 2010, and the two countries agreed to expand their cooperation in various fields
including energy. When Kim Jong Un appeared as the heir apparent to Kim Jong Il in late5

September, Hu Jintao proposed to accelerate cooperation and exchange between the two countries’
new leaders. Apparently, China is more interested in geostrategic gains than democracy in
Myanmar and North Korea.
Expansion of China’s geostrategic sphere of influence has become a new factor in ourpolicy toward North Korea, and it is happening against the backdrop of a continued economic
malaise in the United States and Japan. Taking the China factor into account, what should be ourpolicy toward North Korea?
Isolation or Engagement?
Should we continue a benign neglect policy, or should we steer toward an engagement with North
Korea? The sinking of Cheonan has temporarily stalled the process of engagement, but it seems
that the United States and South Korea are gearing up for talks with North Korea. High-ranking
officials from both Koreas reportedly held a secret meeting in August, and Jang Song Thaek, Kim
Jong Un’s guardian, might have participated in it. After that, South Korea offered humanitarianassistance to North Korea when it suffered floods. In response to this, North Korea released a South
Korean fishing boat and suggested that meetings of Separated Families and Mt. Kumgang tours be
resumed. The two Koreas are carefully but steadily taking steps for dialogue. Washington has alsosuggested its willingness to talk to Pyongyang if inter-Korean relations are improved.
Blueprint for a Renewed Engagement Policy
If we judge that it is time to restart an engagement policy, how should we implement it? The mostimportant factor is the role played by Seoul. South Korea is the primary stakeholder of North
Korea’s future and, given its victim status in the Cheonan affair, the only actor which can bringother parties back to the negotiating table.
Since Lee Myung-bak’s administration was inaugurated, Seoul has made steady progress in
its efforts to design an engagement policy toward North Korea and a long-term unification policy.
His policy called “Vision 3000” is designed to raise North Korean per capita income from thecurrent $500 to $3,000 over the course of ten years if Pyongyang shows determination to give up
its nuclear weapons. The Vision 3000 is composed of five development projects in economy,
education, finance, infrastructure and people’s lives to be implemented through cooperation withforeign countries and international organizations. Its total cost is estimated to be $40 billion, andSeoul intends to contribute several billions of dollars by introducing “unification tax” or a“unification fund.” Upon this, Seoul seems to expect Japan to bear about $10 billion and theinternational monetary institutions to take care of the rest.
South Koreans do not want to see unification for another 20-30 years. South Korean leaders
understand that the cost of abrupt unification as a result of sudden collapse of North Korean would
be much higher than step-by-step gradual unification over a long period of time. According to an
estimate by the Korea Development Institute (KDI) released in June at the request of South Korea’s
Presidential Council for Future & Vision, a consultative body for President Lee Myung-bak, abrupt
unification as a result of the sudden collapse of North Korea would cost a total of $2,140 billion
over the period of 30 years, roughly $72 billion a year, whereas a gradual unification would only
cost a total of $322 billion over 30 years, roughly $10 billion a year. This means a unification

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caused by North Korea’s disintegration would cost more than seven times that of a gradualunification. Pursuing a gradual unification is therefore the natural choice for South Korea, whichaims at per capita income of $30,000 and full membership in the “club” of rich advanced countries.
We therefore need to understand that Seoul’s policy objective will remain peaceful coexistence ofthe two Koreas in the foreseeable future.
What’s Next?
If the U.S. government is to re-adopt an engagement policy toward North Korea, the following
should be taken into consideration. First, it will take at least 10 years to completely denuclearize
North Korea. Short of regime change, it is realistic to expect Pyongyang to denuclearize itself overa long period of time in an action-for-action, step-by-step process in parallel with improvement in
its socioeconomic situation, reintegration of itself into the international community, andtransformation of its political identity to a more peace-loving one. Some might say that we cannot
wait that long. However, it has already been 17 years since North Korea embarked on its first actsof nuclear diplomacy in 1993, and eight years since the second round of nuclear crisis commenced
in 2002. A new generation of leadership in North Korea might try to change its course, andsomehow transform their country’s “military-first politics” into “economy-first politics.” Even if it
happens, however, such a reconstruction of political identities will take a long time. If North Korea
substantially shifts its policy orientation within 10 years and the Korean Peninsula is denuclearized,
it should be regarded as a great success.
Second, as I mentioned above, it is South Korea that will play the leading role in thereconstruction of the North Korean economy and society. But the United States and Japan haveroles to play, too. Recently, South Korea has become very much concerned about China’s growing
influence over North Korea, taking advantage of the stagnated inter-Korean relations. Seoul
therefore needs to cooperate with the United States and Japan to prevent China from further
expanding its geostrategic influence over North Korea. China is certainly interested in expanding
its influence over North Korea, but it does not appear to be willing to help construct infrastructures
necessary for the long-term reconstruction of the North Korean economy. In such circumstances,
South Korea, the United States, and Japan should act together to take the first steps for North
Korea’s denuclearization and reconstruction.
________________________________________________________________________
i

Nyongbyon is the North Korean transliteration of Yongbyon.
For historical background of the November 23 attack on Yeonpyeongdo, see chapter 4 “The West Sea incident, 197376,” and chapter 8 “Assaults on the Korean Armistice, 1993-2002,” in Narushige Michishita, North Korea’s MilitaryDiplomatic Campaigns, 1966-2008 (London: Routledge, 2009).
iii
For more detail, see “Playing the Same Game: North Korea’s Coercive Attempt at U.S. Reconciliation,” The
Washington Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 3 (October 2009), pp. 141-144 .
iv
For the relationship between the Northern Limit Line and the peace agreement, see Narushige Michishita, “Signing a
Peace Agreement: Issues for Consideration,” International Journal of Korean Unification Studies, vol. 19, no. 1(2010), pp. 53-59.
v
In fact, North Korea already proposed such a new maritime demarcation line in the Fourth Inter-Korean General-level
Military Talks in May 2006. For more detail, see Michishita, North Korea’s Military-Diplomatic Campaigns, pp. 158159.
ii

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