Effects, Targets, and Tools: 

A Primer for US Strategy and an 

Application Examining the Security 

Dynamics of Northeast Asia 

Thomas A. Drohan 

INSS Occasional Paper 50 

June 2003 

USAF Institute for National Security Studies 

USAF Academy, Colorado 
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The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not 

necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of 

the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the US Government. The 

paper is approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. 

******* 

Comments pertaining to this paper are invited; please forward to: 

 Director, USAF Institute for National Security Studies 

 HQ USAFA/DFES 

 2354 Fairchild Drive, Suite 5L27 

 USAF Academy, CO 80840 

 phone: 719-333-2717 

 fax: 719-333-2716 

 email: inss@usafa.af.mil 

Visit the Institute for National Security Studies home page at 

http://www.usafa.af.mil/inss
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Foreword vii 

Executive Summary ix 

Introduction 1 

Theoretical Foundation 3 

 Defining Our Terms 3 

 Making Strategy 6 

Regional Background 9 

 Actors and Characteristics 9 

 Security Structures 19 

Strategic Issues 21 

 Nuclear Korea 21 

 Independent Taiwan 25 

 Modernizing China 27 

 Remilitarized Japan 29 

 Russian Recovery 31 

Interests, Priorities, and Threats 32 

 China 33 

 Taiwan 36 

 The Koreas 38 

 Japan 40 

 Russia 45 

Cases of Deterrence and Defense 48 

 1993 North Korea Nuclear Crisis 48 

 1998 North Korea Missile Launch 51 

 Current North Korea Nuclear Crisis 52 

Conclusion 56 

 Regional Forecast 57 

 Recommendations for Strategy 60 

Notes 64 

Attachment 1: Abstract of Vital Interests, Strategic 

 Priorities, and Threats 75 

Attachment 2: Effects—Targets—Tools 77 
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FOREWORD 

We are pleased to publish this milestone fiftieth volume in the 

Occasional Paper series of the United States Air Force Institute for 

National Security Studies (INSS). For this milestone volume, it is 

fitting that this paper represents all three pillars of the INSS mission 

statement. As indicated in the full statement below, the three pillars 

are quality research, development of a strategic perspective 

(particularly within the uniformed military), and furtherance of 

informed discourse on policy issues. Tom Drohan centers his paper 

on the second pillar, suggesting and developing a framework for 

use in both teaching and analysis of strategic issues. As the head of 

the Military Strategic Studies department of the USAFA faculty, 

Col Drohan does great service to that second pillar, defining a tool 

for his students and others to use in both teaching and seeking that 

strategist development objective. The paper also fulfills the other 

two pillars by presenting the framework through its application to 

the analysis of a critical region’s security situation and a timely set 

of security challenges to that region and to the United States. The 

regional security assessment of Northeast Asia is comprehensive, 

and the development of the Korean nuclear challenge within that 

regional security context allows both broader and deeper 

understanding of this dangerous situation. INSS applauds both the 

research and analysis of the region and its challenges, and 

particularly the effort to further strategy analysis and strategist 

development. 

About the Institute

INSS is primarily sponsored by the National Security Policy 

Division, Nuclear and Counterproliferation Directorate, 

Headquarters US Air Force (HQ USAF/XONP) and the Dean of the 

Faculty, USAF Academy. Other sponsors include the Secretary of 

Defense’s Office of Net Assessment (OSD/NA); the Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency; the Air Staff’s Intelligence, Surveillance, and 

Reconnaissance Directorate (XOI) and the Air Force's 39th and 

23rd Information Operations Squadrons; the Army Environmental 

Policy Institute; and the Air Force Long-Range Plans Directorate 

(XPXP). The research leading to the papers in this volume was 

sponsored by OSD/NA, DTRA, and XONP. The mission of the 

Institute is “to promote national security research for the 

Department of Defense within the military academic community, to 

foster the development of strategic perspective within the United 
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States Armed Forces, and to support national security discourse 

through outreach and education.” Its research focuses on the areas 

of greatest interest to our organizational sponsors: arms control and 

strategic security; counterproliferation, force protection, and 

homeland security; air and space issues and planning; information 

operations and information warfare; and regional and emerging 

national security issues. 

INSS coordinates and focuses outside thinking in various 

disciplines and across the military services to develop new ideas for 

defense policy making. To that end, the Institute develops topics, 

selects researchers from within the military academic community, 

and administers sponsored research. It also hosts conferences and 

workshops and facilitates the dissemination of information to a 

wide range of private and government organizations. INSS 

provides valuable, cost-effective research to meet the needs of our 

sponsors. We appreciate your continued interest in INSS and our 

research products. 

JAMES M. SMITH 

 Director 
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

This study develops and applies an effects-based model for US 

security strategy in Northeast Asia. International security theories 

and broad military strategies shape policy, but strategists need more 

specific tools. To address this analytical problem, effects-based 

concepts from military doctrine are blended with general theoretical 

distinctions to yield an Effects, Targets, and Tools (ETT) operating 

framework for strategy. 

To use the ETT framework, a strategist locates desired effects along 

two spectra defined in terms of preventing or causing behavior. 

Desired effects toward adversaries are presented as a spectrum of 

deterrence-compellence, or defense-coercion, depending on the 

tools used to achieve those effects. Desired effects toward partners 

are similarly presented as dissuasion-persuasion, or securityinducement. Targets to achieve such effects are chosen to affect an 

adversary’s or partner’s will or capabilities. Tools used to influence 

targets are defined as psychological, which support the effects of 

deterrence-compellence (adversary) or dissuasion-persuasion 

(partner), or physical in nature, which support the effects of 

defense-coercion (adversary) or security-inducement (partner). 

Primary Northeast Asia regional actors are China, the Koreas, 

Japan, and Taiwan, states that are undergoing profound changes as 

Asia becomes the epicenter of world economic growth. A primary, 

region-wide external actor with security implications is Russia. 

Asian economic recovery is supporting greater military capabilities 

while multilateralism remains relatively weak. Major strategic 

issues are a nuclear Korea, remilitarized Japan, modernizing China, 

and Russian recovery. The specter of a nuclear Korea stokes 

Japanese remilitarization and pressures China to accelerate its 

assumption of a regional role. In the short term, Japan’s closer ties 

with the United States boost defensive capabilities and threaten 

China. A remilitarized Japan encourages a more independent role 

that casts Japan as a recrudescent predator, at least through the eyes 

of previous victims. China’s rise depends upon a stable regional 

environment and controllable pace of domestic reforms. Taiwan 

faces diminishing prospects of independence and the likelihood of 

unification or uneasy interdependence with a China certain to 

dominate the region in the long run. Like China, Russia’s recovery 

from its post-Soviet disintegration depends on liberalizing its 
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political system to stay competitive in the global economy while 

maintaining internal stability. 

Against this backdrop, each state pursues common vital interests of 

political survival, national sovereignty, economic development, and 

military capability, in various orders of priority, from perceived 

threats. Attributing differences of strategic intent is a necessary yet 

risky step in the strategy-making process. The results of this task 

are found in an abstract of each major actor’s primary interests, 

priorities, and threats (Attachment 1), providing a foundation for 

applying the ETT model to three specific cases: the 1993 North 

Korean nuclear crisis, the 1998 North Korea multi-stage missile 

launch over Japan, and the current North Korean nuclear crisis 

triggered in 2002. 

The study’s conclusions are offered as a regional forecast based on 

major actors’ enduring interests, on strategies based on reasonable 

intentions, and as recommendations for strategy. 

The regional outlook is one of intense competition. Chinese leaders 

plan to achieve stable great power status by managing market 

reforms to enhance growth and seeking external stability. Taiwan’s 

primary interest is to maintain its reputation for democratic 

capitalist resilience in order to attract critical investment flows. 

North Korean leaders seek to retain independence and will continue 

to use arms sales and nuclear threats to extract normalization and 

encourage peninsular unification. South Korea seeks a regional 

role as balancer among Russia, Japan, and China while seeing 

reunification with the North as both an opportunity and a threat. 

Japan increasingly desires to possess international respect 

commensurate with its economic status, despite a decade of 

economic decline and regional distrust of its military capabilities. 

The sheer scope of Russian reforms designed to regain Soviet-era 

dominance leads to most serious challenges being portrayed as 

threats to the state. 

The need for cooperation and security in this competitive 

environment highlights the importance of executable policy and the 

strategist’s vital role in achieving desired effects. Lessons learned 

from strategic interactions in these crises include the importance of 

integrating regional expertise into the operational planning process; 
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scrutinizing intelligence and assumptions about strategic intent; 

considering alternative sequences of actions, reactions, and 

outcomes based on desired effects, targets, and tools; choosing a 

proper fit of tools to influence targets; modeling the effect of 

different tools on the scope of desired behavior; and looking 

beyond commonalities to identify potential exchanges of interests 

and security priorities. 

By focusing on how strategy operates in a diverse region, the ETT 

model is intended as a primer on how to make strategy operate in 

support of desired ends. Further exploration might test the 

framework’s utility for other regions and issues. 
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EFFECTS, TARGETS, AND TOOLS: 

A Primer for US Strategy and an Application 

Examining the Security Dynamics of Northeast Asia 

THOMAS A. DROHAN 

INTRODUCTION 

Much of the recent theoretical literature about security 

strategy is concerned with broad questions about the global 

system. What are the organizing principles that govern relations 

among states? What is the emerging distribution of power? When 

do shifts in power and influence among the major units occur and 

what are the consequences of such changes? Regional studies of 

security have tended to ask these same questions in an effort to 

explain subsystem dynamics. 

While these exercises are important to understanding the 

nature and dynamics of the international system, security 

practitioners wrestle with problems of how to pursue security. 

How should national or international security be defined in terms 

of executable goals? What are the best strategies under various 

constraints and conditions? What tools are most appropriate in a 

given situation? These are the types of pragmatic problems that 

confront policy makers and challenge strategists. Clearly such 

daily concerns are shaped, sometimes knowingly and sometimes 

not, by theoretical assumptions about the nature of the global 

system. While theoretical terms tend to shape their thinking, 

decision makers are less interested in parsimonious explanation 

than feasible options that might work in the real world. From 

theories, decision makers need a relevant operating primer to help 

plan and execute strategy. 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

2 

Where should we look to find such frameworks? Theories 

drawn from broad approaches to international security such as 

liberalism, realism, and their neo-namesakes may be compelling 

to the theorist, but tend to be too general to help practitioners 

make decisions. Regional analyses tend to be more discerning 

with respect to local characteristics and conditions, but true 

comparative studies that reflect different perspectives and 

priorities are rare.1

 US military doctrine, a body of literature 

neglected by theorists, does contain useful principles and 

procedures derived from historical experience and changes in 

warfare. By blending theoretical concepts with military doctrine, 

we can construct an operating framework for strategy. 

In particular, by focusing on the question of how military 

strategy operates among Northeast Asian states as they pursue 

international security, this paper develops and applies an operating 

primer incorporating key concepts of deterrence and defense 

useful to policy makers and strategists. 

This exploration of how US strategy might operate in 

Northeast Asia can be used for any region or actors. The exercise 

begins with a brief discussion of relevant international relations 

theory, military strategy, and military doctrine for the purpose of 

introducing a framework useful to policy makers and strategists as 

they pursue security. This theoretical review concludes with the 

construction of the Effects, Targets, and Tools (ETT) operating 

framework of strategy. Next, the context of strategy in a region, 

in this case Northeast Asia, is described in terms of the major 

actors and key features of the security environment. Then major 

strategic issues2

 are identified and discussed, chosen for their 

potential to tip the regional balance of power. Against this 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

3 

background, the vital interests and security priorities of the major 

actors are extracted and related to perceptions of threat. Using the 

ETT framework, this information is applied to cases involving 

major issues to illustrate how actors pursue deterrence and 

defense. The conclusion provides a forecast for Northeast Asia 

and recommendations for policy makers and strategists. While the 

latter are drawn from Northeast Asian cases, the ETT process of 

making strategy in support of security goals is intended to be 

applicable to any region. 

THEORETICAL FOUNDATION 

Defining Our Terms 

Theorists and practitioners often talk past one another because 

they have different views of what constitutes interesting or useful 

theory, strategy, and doctrine. Let’s begin with the dominant 

theories of international security—liberalism, realism, and neoliberalism and neo-realism. 

Liberalism is a rather optimistic worldview that values 

interdependence among states and other international actors, open 

market economics with minimal governmental intervention, and 

democratic governance. States should cooperate with one another 

on the basis of universal liberal principles to include the above 

values and individual human rights. Realism is a relatively 

pessimistic worldview that values independent sovereign states, 

self-help rather than relying on cooperative agreements, open 

market economics except where the state chooses to exercise 

control, and effective governance. Neo-liberalism and neorealism simply extend liberal and realist values to the international 

level of analysis. While neo-liberalism values the regulation of 

international cooperation and competition through institutional 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

4 

agreements and rules, neo-realism values the right and power of 

sovereign states to cooperate or compete according to their 

relative power status in the system. 

Liberal and realist security theorists tend to ask the same 

central questions—what is the structure of the international system 

and why is it so? What is the nature of power, influence, and 

wealth and why are there different preferences among states? 

Why does conflict reoccur? Due to different values or analytical 

assumptions, the answers differ. Liberals see a system of benign 

interdependence and globalization that confounds state power and 

influence, therefore begging the construction of regimes (norms 

and rules) to bring justice and order to the system.3

 Realists see a 

system of self-seeking states pursuing interests constrained by 

countervailing interests, and they regard relative changes in the 

balance of power (rising and declining states) as the chief cause of 

large conflict.4

 The role of theory in the international security 

literature has been to develop alternative explanations to these 

fundamental questions of structure, power, and conflict. 

Policy makers and strategists may be interested in these big 

questions, but they routinely confront dilemmas of how, rather 

than why, to pursue state and shared interests. How can 

deterrence and defense be achieved? What constitutes credible 

and stable deterrence, and from an ally’s perspective, extended 

deterrence? Under what conditions do compellence and coercion 

work? What force structures and deployments afford such flexible 

strategic options? Some theorists have been drawn to some of 

these questions of strategic choice.5

 However, when the questions 

shift to less generalizeable questions of deployment and 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

5 

employment decisions in particular situations, theoretical attention 

tends to fade. But this is the world in which the strategist lives. 

The strategist might turn to military theory instead, but such 

theory is difficult to distinguish from military doctrine because 

both have strong historical traditions. Classic military theory 

basically consists of broad approaches to strategy, best represented 

by the works of Sun Tzu and Carl von Clausewitz.6

 The maxims 

and insights of these theorists are about as useful to the strategist 

as doctrine. Like doctrine, military theory offers many alternative 

precepts and guidelines that need to be applied critically to various 

security situations. 

Functional similarities between theory and doctrine suggest 

that these traditions can be usefully compared. Just as the essence 

of theory consists of propositions, doctrine is comprised of beliefs 

and principles used to guide the conduct of military operations.7

 

Similarly, international security and military theories involve 

various levels of analysis, and doctrine is designed to be useful at 

the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of conflict. However, 

doctrine is written by operators less concerned with elegant 

theories of power and more concerned with identifying lessons 

learned from military operations. This academic-professional gap 

in analytic attention is understandable, but needs to be bridged to 

develop a useful framework for strategy. 

In order to understand how strategy can operate in various 

conditions to promote security, I adopt a two-part definition of 

security and an operational definition of strategy. First, security is 

“an ambiguous symbol”8

 used to justify and promote state 

responsibilities. From this perspective, security is an ideal goal—

the absence of threats to values such as social stability and group 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

6 

identity. This is important in Northeast Asia due to the variety of 

societal values throughout this region arising from cultural, 

economic, political, and historical factors. But it is also true that 

each state pursues its own priorities among common vital 

interests, namely, political survival, national sovereignty, 

economic development, and military capability. These practical 

interests may reinforce or weaken societal values. Security, then, 

is also a competitive process of pursuing relative advantage over 

threats to vital interests. Strategy is how a state employs concepts 

and resources to achieve relative advantage.9

 These working 

definitions of security and strategy recognize value differences 

among societies while allowing us to focus on threats to vital 

interests as a way to understand how strategy operates in a diverse 

environment. 

Making Strategy 

Shaped by the vocabulary of academic and military theory, 

we may assume that strategists generate plans to achieve 

objectives as they attempt to coordinate various instruments of 

power to pursue vital state interests. But how does such grand 

strategy get implemented to address important issues? The 

following Effects, Targets, and Tools (ETT) process is intended to 

be a primer that models how effective strategy might work. The 

heart of the ETT framework consists of two spectra of desired 

effects: deterrence–compellence, which involves the use of 

psychological tools; and defense–coercion, where physical tools 

are employed. The framework enables us to model strategic 

interactions as three-step iterations: (1) setting objectives 

consisting of desired effects; (2) selecting targets to help realize 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

7 

those effects; and (3) choosing appropriate tools to operate on the 

targets. 

ETT: Adversary [Partner] 

Step one considers a spectrum of desired effects to achieve on 

an actor’s will or capability by using either psychological tools or 

the physical application of force. Actors may be individuals, 

groups, networks, or systems. The objective may be to prevent or 

cause certain behavior. Deterrence is the prevention of future 

behavior, and compellence the causation of desired behavior, both 

through psychological means. Deterrence itself may be the basis 

to dissuade, and compellence may be used to persuade,

 10

distinctions of diplomatic significance but also operationally 

important to planning. Defense is the halting of ongoing behavior 

and coercion the causation of desired behavior, both through 

EFFECT: TARGET: TOOL:

PPPsss

yyyccchhhoool

llooogggiiicccaaalll

Will Intimidate 

[Assure] DeterrenceCompellence 

[DissuasionPersuasion] 

Capability Neutralize 

[Enhance] 

PPPhhhyyysssiiicccaaalll

Will Punish 

[Demonstrate] Defense-Coercion 

[SecurityInducement] 

Capability Deny [Exercise] 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

8 

physical means. Security and inducement may be substituted for 

defense and coercion to emphasize non-adversarial or complex 

relationships. Again, these diplomatic distinctions are important 

to the planner and operator charged with crafting and executing 

strategy. The key question in step one is, what are the desired 

effects on an adversary or partner? 

Step two involves choosing an aspect of an actor to target to 

bring about the desired effect. Such targeting seeks to affect 

behavior by focusing on adversary will and/or capability. 

Preventing or halting undesirable behavior by removing capability 

to act is often not possible, so methods to affect will are often 

planned. Yet, causing desirable behavior to occur by affecting 

will requires precise intelligence about values and often depends 

on complex relationships among capabilities and intent. The key 

question in step two is, what are the vulnerabilities and strengths 

of will and capability? 

Step three requires selecting appropriate tools to affect an 

actor’s will or capability, depending on the level and type of 

influence needed to achieve the desired effect. Tools which are 

used psychologically to intimidate or assure will, and neutralize

or enhance capability, are designed to deter or compel. Tools 

used physically to punish or demonstrate will, and deny or 

exercise capability, are designed to defend or coerce. In nonadversarial interactions, the described effects are to secure or 

induce. Toward an adversary one would intimidate will and 

neutralize capability, while toward a partner one typically would 

attempt to assure will and enhance capability. The key question 

in step three is, what political issues, economic levers, or military 

assets are best suited to influence will or capability? 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

9 

Tools that influence an adversary’s will can work by 

threatening what the adversary values. Intimidation seeks to deter 

or compel an adversary’s behavior by presenting the prospect of 

unacceptable consequences. Assuring a partner of a commitment 

could counter an adversary’s capability to deter or compel if it 

sufficiently bolsters the partner’s will. Typical tools involve the 

deployment of offensive strike forces tailored to intimidate or 

assure the target. 

What about the desired effects of defense and coercion? 

Physical tools that influence an adversary’s will to defend or 

coerce work by punishing what the adversary values. Toward a 

partner, a physical demonstration of power or protection may 

increase will. Tools that influence an adversary’s capability to 

defend or coerce deny the adversary’s ability to behave in a certain 

way. Both defensive and offensive forces are needed to provide 

credible tools to defend or coerce. 

REGIONAL BACKGROUND 

Actors and Characteristics 

The key security actors of Northeast Asia are nation-states—

China, Taiwan, Japan, the Koreas, and Russia. Non-state actors 

are not yet known to be significant in and around the Northeast 

Asian states, states which by international standards have 

relatively strong secular government institutions. All of these 

societies are undergoing profound demographic, economic, and 

political change. Asia is aging, urbanizing, and democratizing its 

way to becoming the world’s principal engine of economic 

development. 

Japan currently accounts for over half of Asia’s Gross 

Domestic Product (GDP), although the effects of a rapidly aging 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

10 

population, low fertility rate, and chronic recession are eroding 

this status. The retired elderly currently comprise one-fifth of its 

population and will reach 30 percent by 2021, a proportion two 

times that of any neighbor.11 The ability of the conservative 

Liberal Democratic Party to resolve these challenges is 

weakening, as the 1993 splintering of its political dynasty led to 

shallow coalitions more sensitive to short-term pressures. 

China’s rural poor are flocking to the cities with high 

expectations, doubling urban population to 60 percent by 202012

and challenging the state to provide housing, jobs, and 

infrastructure. With the world’s most dynamic large economy,13

China’s rapid economic growth has expanded goods and jobs but 

postponed needed social services. Limited elections have begun 

at the village council level, and communist party elites are 

debating a fundamental shift from a revolutionary workers’ party 

to a broader ruling party.14 

In Taiwan, political rule by descendants of the Kuomintang 

(KMT) Party who fled Mao’s China ended in 2000 with the 

election of “indigenous”15 Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian. 

A product of Taiwan’s democratization after 40 years of KMT 

martial law, Chen and his Democratic Progressive Party 

periodically test Beijing’s patience by advocating Taiwan’s 

independence from China. 

South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, abducted by his own 

government in 1973 and subsequently sentenced to death, was 

elected in 1997 to a single five-year term. Since the inauguration 

of democracy in 1987, pressures of urbanization, economic 

development, and privatization have released periodic labor unrest 

leading to the election of human rights and labor activist Roh 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

11 

Moo-hyun. Despite Roh’s known conciliatory stance toward 

Pyongyang, his inauguration gift from the North was the testfiring of two anti-ship missiles. North Korea’s “Dear Leader” 

Kim Jong-Il continues his paternal predecessor’s (the “Great 

Leader” Kim-Il Sung) systematic suppression of dissent over a 

population half as large as the South. Heavily dependent on 

international food aid, North Korea has recorded negative or 

minimal population growth for 10 straight years. One-half of preschool children are malnourished. 16 Tentative plans to open a 

capitalist zone in Sinuiju near the Chinese border follow failed 

attempts in the remote northwest Tumen River Basin.17

Russia’s post-Soviet contraction has required balancing 

diverse interests and implementing broad reforms. Finance and 

tax reforms are uneven and corruption is a major challenge, but 

foreign direct investment is on the rise. If legal and market 

reforms progress, more transparent credit could spur integration 

with the global economy. But poor health has produced a 

shocking shrinkage of population that threatens economic 

competitiveness. Recently announced military reforms designed 

to produce a smaller, more modern military compete for 

government funds needed for health care and the environment. 

Economic Crisis and Recovery. Most East Asian economies 

soared prior to 1997. Japan’s annual economic growth rates 

averaged four percent through the 1980’s and into the 1990’s; 

China achieved double digit annual expansion; South Korea, nine 

percent. Russia and North Korea were the exceptions, the latter in 

economic freefall after the breakup of the Soviet bloc and 

subsequent cutoff of aid. Accompanying the region’s overall 

vigor was the world’s fastest arms race.18 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

12 

In 1997, the collapse of the Thai baht triggered an economic 

downturn across East Asia, from which most Northeast Asian 

states have rebounded. 

South Korea was severely affected by the sharp decline in 

regional trade, seeing a shrinking GDP in 1997 and 1998. By 

1999 after pushing through a series of financial reforms, South 

Korean leaders managed to return to five percent GDP growth, a 

current account surplus, and previous levels of foreign direct 

investment.19 The Korean Stock Price Index jumped 32 percent in 

2001, indicating long-term financial strength.20 Despite concerns 

over the titanic cost of potential reunification with the North, 

confidence in the South Korean economy is rather high. In North 

Korea, some two million people out of a population of 22 million 

appear to have starved to death.21 

The Japanese economy has been stuck in recession for more 

than 12 years. Government debt is 140 percent of GDP, at least 

four times that of South Korea and seven times that of China.22 

Japan’s consensus-ridden elite has failed to sufficiently deregulate 

inefficient industrial and financial sectors. Absent serious 

domestic reform, Japan is unlikely in the near-term to revive its 

comatose growth rate.23 The fall of 2002 saw the Nikkei stock 

index follow plummeting bank stocks to its lowest level in 19 

years. Japan’s extended malaise is the longest of any advanced 

economy since the Great Depression.24 

China’s fixed exchange rate-based economy was not 

significantly affected by the regional downturn and has registered 

7-8 percent annual growth. With an annual foreign direct 

investment rate of $50 billion in 2001, China will soon surpass the 

United States as the world's largest recipient of foreign direct 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

13 

investment25 as ideologues and reformers debate the role of highly 

inefficient state-owned enterprises. China’s finance sector has 

tremendous potential but suffers from state over-control.26

Taiwan bounced back from the 1997 economic crisis with 5-6 

percent growth in 1999 and 2000, although 2001 brought the firstever post-1949 recession (negative 1.9 percent growth) due to a 

decrease in global demand for information technology.27 As in 

Japan, real financial sector reform is needed to eliminate nonperforming loans. Budget deficits remain high, but rising levels of 

trade with China ($78 million in 1979, $11.5 billion in 2000) and 

a current account surplus are fast integrating Taiwan’s economic 

future to that of China. 

Asia’s economic downturn initially threatened Russia’s plans 

to bring in badly needed outside investment for economic renewal. 

Russian GDP had fallen by one-third since 1991, threatening the 

development of a critical regional transportation network to the 

east. By 1998, devaluation of the ruble, some restructuring and 

reforms were followed by higher world prices for energy and a 

surge in commodity exports. As a result, the Russian Federation 

has experienced three consecutive years of six percent GDP 

growth. 

Military Capabilities. As Asian economies resume economic 

growth, military modernization and arms proliferation are 

reviving. 

Japan’s military expenditures have steadily increased even 

during its prolonged recession and in the face of a reduced 

government budget. Still the second largest economy in the 

world, Japan’s $44 billion defense budget in 2000 was the fourth 

largest after the United States, Russia, and China.28 Though 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

14 

domestic policies currently prohibit the development, use, or 

presence of nuclear weapons, Japan has 53 nuclear power plants.29 

According to one report, Japan could produce operational nuclear 

weapons within a year of deciding to become a nuclear power.30 

The Japan Constitution flatly prohibits “land, sea and air 

forces, as well as other war potential,”31 and Japan still spends 

only one percent of its GDP on the Japan Self-Defense Forces. 

Nevertheless, Japan’s sophisticated conventional forces include 

some 1000 main battle tanks, 800 armored personnel carriers and 

assault vehicles, 680 heavy artillery pieces, 110 multiple launch 

rocket system units, 42 destroyers and 12 frigates, 16 submarines, 

300 combat aircraft, and four Boeing 767 airborne warning and 

control aircraft.32 Most equipment is first-rate, but logistics 

support for extended operations is uncertain. The pursuit of an air 

refueling capability, reconnaissance satellites, missile defense 

research, and cyber-attack defense portend new capabilities and 

concerns. 

Chinese military expenditures are routinely underreported by 

the government, so China’s $42 billion defense budget may be 

closer to $60-70 billion. Ideologically speaking, military 

transformation was to be the last priority of China’s “four 

modernizations,”33 but 20 years of sustained economic expansion 

have financed incremental upgrades to selected portions of 

China’s vast military. China’s nuclear forces are substantial and 

include 120 H-6/Tu-16 bombers capable of carrying nuclear 

weapons.

34 China’s roughly 400 nuclear warheads are distributed 

across 20 nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (13,000 km 

range)35 with three-stage versions under development, one nuclear 

submarine with 12 nuclear long-range ballistic missiles, over 100 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

15 

intermediate-range nuclear ballistic missiles (some with multiple 

reentry vehicles), 40 fighter aircraft, and several hundred shortrange missiles.36 The next generation submarine-launched 

ballistic missile will be capable of targeting the United States from 

Chinese waters.37 

China’s conventional forces exhibit the many tradeoffs of 

modernizing the world’s largest armed force: 10,000 vintage 

main battle tanks and several hundred modern tanks;38 3000 well 

worn combat aircraft and 100 advanced fighter/attack aircraft;39 10 

airborne tankers converted from prop-driven bombers; 69 

submarines of which six are nuclear powered; 41 frigates and 21 

destroyers, two of which are modern Russian-built warships, and 

50 small and slow amphibious assault ships.40 The leading edge 

of these traditional systems and the development of space assets, 

ground-based lasers, and information warfare are increasing 

China’s ability to project power, deny access to coastal waters, 

and provide nuclear deterrence. China’s commercial industry is 

considered to have significant capabilities in eight key areas: 

microelectronics, computer systems, telecommunications, nuclear 

power, biotechnology, chemical technology, aviation, and space.41 

Taiwan’s defense forces are conventional, high tech, and 

gobble up 17 percent of the GDP. Some 320 of 400 combat 

aircraft are advanced fighters which are superior to those of China. 

The 926 main battle tanks and 1125 light tanks and assault 

vehicles, and 1400 artillery pieces42 are comparable to China’s 

best. All of Taiwan’s 21 frigates are highly advanced, as are 

seven of the 11 destroyers. The navy also is equipped with four 

submarines and Asia’s largest force of marines (30,000). It is 

unclear whether Taiwan has an active missile production program, 
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but there are a limited number of short-range ballistic missiles 

(130 km) and the possibility of a 950 km range missile under 

development.43 

Concerns over Taiwan’s potential to develop nuclear weapons 

occasionally resurface due to the Taiwan Research Reactor project 

conducted in the 1970’s at the Institute of Nuclear Energy 

Research. The Canadian built heavy-water reactor is identical to 

that which India used to produce the plutonium for its first nuclear 

detonation in 1974. According to one report, the reactor is being 

domestically converted to a light water reactor with low 

enrichment uranium.44 Public denials by Taiwan leaders convey 

that the program has been abandoned.45 Taiwan relies on six 

commercial nuclear reactors for roughly one-fifth of its electricity. 

South Korea’s 6.5 percent increase in defense spending in 

2001 is the beginning of a comprehensive modernization plan that 

includes advanced fighter, attack helicopter, destroyer, and theater 

missile defense systems. Its 555 combat aircraft include 160 F-16 

fighters, precision-guided munitions, and plans for a Korean 

version of the F-15 air superiority fighter.46 Nearly half of the 

army’s 2250 main battle tanks are advanced combat systems. 

South Korea also possesses 1700 modern assault vehicles and 

nearly 800 older armored vehicles, over 4500 artillery pieces and 

140 multiple rocket launchers. There are unspecified numbers of 

short-range ballistic missiles, constrained by a bilateral agreement 

with the United States to a range of 180 km. Indigenous 

production of modernized versions and at least two types of space 

launch vehicles could be modified for ballistic missile purposes.47 

The navy’s 19 submarines, six destroyers, and nine frigates are a 

significant regional force, and the marines number 25,000 strong. 
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North Korea’s defense budget has been nearly cut in half from 

its 25% of GDP twenty years ago.48 Its million-man army is 

bolstered by a reserve force of five million.49 None of North 

Korea’s main battle tanks are advanced, but there are 3500 of 

them. Similarly, its 2500 armored vehicles and 10,400 artillery 

pieces, 2500 multiple rocket launchers, 54 surface-to-surface 

missiles and 11,000 mortars are qualitatively inferior to South 

Korean forces. Shortages of fuel are a critical problem. However 

its 36 launchers and 700 missiles constitute the largest missile 

force in the developing world.50 A fleet of 26 submarines and 66 

coastal and inshore submarines are unreliable and its three frigates 

no match for direct action against the South’s navy. But 310 

coastal combatants are tailored to infiltrate the South with 88,000 

special purpose forces for rear reconnaissance and sniper 

operations. The North Korean Air Force includes 80 lumbering 

Soviet bombers, some 540 fighter aircraft of which only 50 are 

advanced, and over 300 slow-moving transports capable of 

inserting special purpose forces. 

Pyongyang’s nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons 

programs provide a low-cost force multiplier albeit at great risk. 

The October 2002 acknowledgement by North Korean officials of 

a secret program to enrich uranium, subsequent expulsion of 

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, 

withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and 

preparations to produce weapons grade plutonium repeats a 

familiar pattern of behavior. North Korean nuclear processing 

facilities have been the object of sporadic International Atomic 

Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections since 1985, when North 

Korea signed the 1968 Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear 
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Weapons. According to estimates from US, Russian, South 

Korean, and Japanese sources, North Korea is assessed to have 

three nuclear warheads51 and is preparing to produce more for 

itself or for export. North Korea signed the 1972 Biological 

Weapons Convention in 1987, after years of biological warfare 

research and development enabled the production of toxins and 

agents.52 North Korea has yet to sign the 1993 Chemical 

Weapons Convention53 and is suspected of having substantial 

stockpiles of chemical weapons to deliver via thousands of 

artillery, multiple rocket launchers, and mortars. Of particular 

concern are the 500 or so short-range (300-700 km) SCUD, 30-

odd intermediate-range (1500 km) No-dong, and an undetermined 

number of intercontinental Taepodong missiles.54

Russian defense expenditures now are a reasonable 2.6% of 

GDP and focus on force modernization and personnel 

professionalization. Nuclear forces are formidable with 8400 

operational warheads and 10,000 others in storage while Russia 

builds down to 1700-2200 warheads in 2012 in accordance with 

the May 2002 agreement between Presidents Bush and Putin. The 

Federation’s 5000 strategic warheads are deployed on six versions 

of ICBM including 360 on the road-mobile SS-25; over 1000 

warheads are deployed on SS-N-18/20/23 SLBM; and over 850 

warheads are deployed on 63 Tu-95 and 15 Tu-160 bombers.55 

There are over 3300 nuclear warheads on shorter-range delivery 

systems: 145 Tu-22M air force and naval bombers; 280 Su-24 

fighter-bombers, and various cruise missiles, surface-to-air 

missiles and anti-submarine forces. 

Russia’s two million-man military has been nearly halved and 

will be reduced further by organizational reforms. Total quantity 
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is robust at 45 active and reserve ground divisions, over 21,000 

main battle tanks and a like number of towed artillery; 56 

submarines and 35 surface combatants; and some 1900 combat 

strike aircraft. Conventional forces have been reoriented toward 

Central Asia although campaigns in Chechnya have revealed poor 

equipment quality and training weaknesses. Proposals for a more 

mobile force include cutting 365,000 personnel from army, naval, 

and air forces by 2003, improving military pay, and creating a 

Space and Space Defense Force.56 In the Far East, 80,000 Russian 

troops speckle the world’s longest border across from two million 

Chinese soldiers.57

Security Structures 

Security organizations in Northeast Asia are immature from a 

multilateral standpoint and are dominated by robust US bilateral 

treaties with Japan (1951 Security Treaty replaced by 1960 Treaty 

of Mutual Cooperation and Security) and South Korea (1953 

Mutual Defense Treaty).58 Due to constitutional and self-imposed 

policy constraints, the US-Japan cooperation and security treaty 

obligates the United States and Japan to mutual defense within 

territories administered by Japan. US forces are granted basing 

rights in Japan not only to promote Japan’s security but also to 

maintain peace and stability in the Far East. The US-South Korea 

treaty is a traditional alliance of similar defense commitments 

involving mutual pledges of collective defense against external 

armed attack and no formal constraints on military contributions 

by either ally. Other bilateral treaties with military commitments 

noted are: the 1961 China-North Korea Friendship Treaty, which 

commits 85,000 Chinese troops to North Korea if war should 

break out;59 the 2000 Russia-North Korea Treaty of Friendship 
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and Cooperation, which replaced a 1961 mutual defense treaty and 

urges reunification of the Koreas based on mutually acceptable 

principles; and the 2001 China-Russia Good Neighbor Treaty of 

Friendship and Cooperation. 

In addition to these treaties, less formal arrangements in 

Northeast Asia address specific issues. The US-Taiwan Relations 

Act of 1979 commits the United States to a peaceful resolution of 

Taiwan’s future by providing Taiwan defensive arms and by 

maintaining a US capability to resist coercion against Taiwan. 

The Four-Party Talks among the United States, China, North 

Korea, and South Korea were established in 1996 to negotiate 

peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. In 1999, the 

Trilateral Coordination Oversight Group (the United States, Japan, 

and South Korea) was established to coordinate national policies 

toward North Korea. Although China is not a party to any formal 

alliance, China-Russia joint declarations of “strategic partnership” 

have been made in 1996 and 2000.60 

Although Northeast Asian states have not created their own 

multilateral security organization, China, Japan, the Koreas, and 

the United States are members of the Association of Southeast 

Asian Nations Regional Forum (ARF) where many security issues 

are discussed but few negotiated in open multilateral forums.61 

Additionally, periodic exchanges, visits, policy working groups, 

information programs, and conferences are conducted between 

and among the US Department of Defense and US Pacific 

Command, the Japan Defense Agency, the Republic of Korea 

Ministry of National Defense, the Russia Ministry of Defense and 

Pacific Fleet,62 and China’s Ministry of National Defense. 

Reciprocal visits by defense ministers and military leaders 
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generate policy consultations, dialogue in military affairs and 

information flows among defense industries and technologies. 

The first annual Asian Security Conference, sponsored by 

London’s International Institute of Strategic Studies, was held 

June 2002 in Singapore and brought together defense ministers 

from throughout the region. 

The broadest attempt to manage economic interdependence is 

the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 

forum among foreign ministries63 which provides convenient 

venues to discuss trade, investment, and military concerns. APEC 

also feeds informal networks among government and business 

elites where security issues are discussed. 

STRATEGIC ISSUES 

The big regional issues involve the prospects of a nuclear 

Korea and an independent Taiwan, the evolving roles of 

modernizing China and remilitarized Japan, and the impact of a 

Russian recovery. Territorial issues such as the 

Diaoyutai/Senkaku (China/Japan), Northern Territories 

(Japan/Russia), and Tok-do/Takeshima (South Korea/Japan) 

disputes are touted as strategic issues. However, they are more 

significant for domestic politics because their resolution would not 

be likely to result in new power relationships among the key 

actors. 

Nuclear Korea 

The end of the Cold War eliminated certain Soviet and 

Chinese aid and made real the economic costs of existing WMD 

projects.64 Subsequent removal of US tactical nuclear weapons in 

1991 was followed by a North-South agreement to abstain from 

acquiring nuclear weapons. North Korea acceded to inspections 
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under the Non-Proliferation Treaty it had signed in 1985 but 

delayed implementing the treaty’s Safeguards Agreement until 

1992.65 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections 

that year detected suspicious levels of plutonium used in nuclear 

reprocessing, and the IAEA called for additional inspections.66 

Other reactors were found to produce uranium taken from North 

Korean mines.67 In response, Pyongyang rejected further 

inspections and announced its intention to withdraw from the NPT 

in March of 1993. If the IAEA were to impose sanctions, North 

Korean leaders would regard this as an act of war.68 Three months 

later, following a visit by former President Carter to North Korea 

and the IAEA’s first-ever formal censure of a state, North Korea 

recanted. 

Negotiations with the United States led to an “Agreed 

Framework” in October 1994.69 North Korea promised to put into 

permanent storage its 8000 spent fuel rods that possessed enough 

plutonium for several nuclear bombs, implement the 1991 NorthSouth Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean 

Peninsula, and continue its membership in the NPT to include 

abiding by the Safeguards Agreement. In exchange, the United 

States pledged energy-related economic assistance and progress 

toward normalization of relations. The US would establish a 

consortium to supply North Korea with two light water reactor 

(LWR) nuclear power plants in exchange for North Korea’s halt 

of its graphite moderated reactors which can more easily reprocess 

plutonium for nuclear weapons. Oil would be provided as an 

interim fuel source. Both sides agreed to discuss normalization 

and a nuclear free peninsula. The following year the United 

States, Japan, and South Korea formed the Korean Peninsula 
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Energy Development Organization (KEDO) to fund two LWR 

power plants and the interim oil shipments. 

In April 1996, the US and South Korea proposed Four-Party 

Talks (US, China, North Korea, South Korea) toward a Peace 

Treaty that would end the state of war still in effect since the 

North’s invasion of the South in 1950. US economic sanctions 

stayed in force as North Korea continued to rebuff comprehensive 

IAEA inspections. 

In September 1998, North Korea launched a three-stage 

missile over Japan in a failed attempt to launch a satellite. In 

response, US Secretary of Defense Perry obtained Pyongyang’s 

agreement to halt missile testing in exchange for ending US 

economic sanctions. Non-strategic trade and investment sanctions 

were relaxed in June 1999. Kim Jong-Il’s deputy succeeded in 

getting a joint declaration of the absence of hostile intent. Kim 

Jong-Il proposed to discuss permanently halting long-range 

missile research and development and exports in exchange for 

more US aid and the launching of North Korean reconnaissance 

satellites. Facing a presidential election, President Clinton 

declined. 

The administration of President George W. Bush took a stiffer 

approach. The terror attacks of September 11th, 2001, reinforced 

fears of North Korean intent to produce nuclear weapons even 

though Pyongyang officials condemned terrorism “in all forms.” 

In January 2002, President Bush’s State of the Union address 

labeled North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as an “axis of evil” that sought 

weapons of mass destruction. The most recent Nuclear Posture 

Review reportedly considered the use of nuclear weapons against 

states believed to possess WMD. In March 2002 the United States 
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announced it would not certify North Korean compliance with the 

Agreed Framework. 

Delays in restarting US-North Korean negotiations were 

further extended after a North Korean patrol boat attacked its 

South Korean counterpart in June 2002. The US restated its 

preconditions for constructive relations, which included ending 

proliferation of weapons and long-range missiles, implementing 

confidence-building measures, and fully complying with IAEA 

safeguards outlined in the Agreed Framework.70 North Korean 

officials insisted that the US contrived the patrol boat incident, 

and continued to demand the withdrawal of all US forces from the 

Korean peninsula prior to resuming talks. 

The simmering nuclear issue appears likely to boil before it is 

resolved. Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi attempted a 

breakthrough in September 2002 by engaging Kim Jong-Il in the 

first-ever Japan-North Korea summit talks. Koizumi gained 

Kim’s admission of and apology for kidnapping Japanese citizens 

in the 1960’s and another promise to adhere to the 1994 

framework in exchange for eventual normalization of relations 

and Japan’s specification of aid.71 The following month, the US 

reopened talks in Pyongyang over the still-rejected IAEA 

verification inspections and NPT Safeguards Agreement.72 

Presented with clear evidence, North Korean officials admitted to 

having a nuclear weapons program. North Korea officials 

announced the Agreed Framework as null and void as the United 

States searched for a common approach among China, Japan, 

Russia, and South Korea.73 In November 2002, KEDO cut off the 

next planned heavy oil shipment to North Korea in accordance 

with the latter’s breach of the 1994 Framework. Pyongyang’s 
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response on state-run Yonhap radio first appeared to indicate 

North Korea had nuclear weapons, then appeared to assert that 

North Korea was entitled to have such weapons.74

After expelling IAEA inspectors, North Korea dismantled the 

surveillance equipment and then broke the plutonium rods’ 

storage seals. Subsequent activity indicates North Korea may be 

transporting the rods to begin producing nuclear warheads, which 

could take about a month apiece. Recent statements in 2003 have 

included threats to conduct a preemptive attack on US forces and 

pulling out of the 1953 armistice agreement. Under these 

circumstances, the specter of a nuclear North Korea intensifies 

regional insecurity and raises questions about how to engage or 

isolate such a regime. Taiwan faces similar policy choices 

regarding peaceful independence or unification. 

Independent Taiwan 

Taiwan’s claim to sovereignty is an argument about external 

invaders, beginning with 12th Century immigrants from China 

and 17th Century Dutch and Spanish colonizers. The Dutch 

ousted the Spanish who were driven out by Chinese imperial 

forces that claimed the island as China’s province in 1885. Ten 

years later, China was defeated by Japan in the Sino-Japanese War 

and ceded the island to Japan. Following Japan’s defeat in the 

Pacific War, the Chinese Nationalist Army (Kuomintang) led by 

Chiang Kai-shek escaped Mao Zedong’s People’s Army by 

fleeing to Taiwan in 1949, where they imposed martial law and 

claimed to be the legitimate government of all China. The United 

States attempted to disengage from the conflict, announcing 

Taiwan and Korea as outside the American perimeter of 

containment. President Truman reversed the policy when North 
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Korea invaded South Korea in 1950. Combat between US and 

Chinese forces in Korea led to US recognition of the Republic of 

China (Taiwan) rather than China. 

In 1972, President Richard Nixon acknowledged the 

geopolitical reality of China and joined Party Chairman Mao 

Zedong in issuing the Shanghai Communiqué, which stated there 

was one China and Taiwan was part of China. The United States 

stressed its commitment to a peaceful settlement, implying a 

preference for unification rather than independence. Chinese 

officials have not wavered from their conviction that Taiwan is 

part of China and will be eventually reunified with the mainland. 

In accordance with the Communiqué, the United States switched 

its recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979. The following year 

the US Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, committing the 

United States to assist in the defense of Taiwan in the event of 

Chinese aggression. 

Opposition parties in Taiwan, most notably the Democratic 

Progressive Party, developed over time as local groups challenged 

KMT rule. Martial law ended in 1987. In 1996, the first-ever free 

elections in Taiwan brought the first Taiwanese president to 

power, Lee Teng-hui (chairman of the KMT). In 1998, Chen 

Shui-bian, the second Taiwanese and first non-KMT president, 

was elected. 

President Chen has continued his predecessor’s intermittent 

advocacy of independence.75 The KMT no longer claims Taiwan 

to be the legitimate government of China but seeks unification 

after mainland China is democratized. Taiwan nationalists claim 

the right of permanent independence, based on an historical 

argument that Taiwan was never actually part of China. Public 
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opinion in Taiwan tends to favor the status quo, unless 

independence can be achieved without a Chinese military 

response.

76

Modernizing China 

China’s path to a modern state and global power challenges 

the Communist Party leadership to balance interests of political 

survival, economic growth and military capability. China’s 

humiliating international experience since the 19th Century Opium 

Wars and 20th Century’s Japanese invasion and occupation have 

born an irrepressible urge to acquire great power status. Beijing’s 

demand that world powers treat China as an equal sovereign state 

with the right to exercise authority over its territory, especially 

Taiwan, is the primary driver of Chinese foreign policy. 

Soviet and Eastern European-style collapse toward disorderly 

democracy was not the kind of political modernization China’s 

Communist Party elites had in mind when in 1989 their idealistic 

youth demonstrated for freedom in Tiananmen Square. The 

People’s Liberation Army’s massacre of hundreds of unarmed 

students led to US economic sanctions (over a presidential veto) 

and suspension of military contacts and loans. As communism 

fell throughout Eurasia, Iraq invaded Kuwait. The US-led 

coalition’s quick defeat of relatively advanced conventional Iraqi 

forces reinforced Beijing’s sense of vulnerability, particularly in 

light of China’s ongoing military modernization, territorial claims 

in the East and South China Sea, internal unrest in Tibet and 

Xinjiang provinces, and an unstable North Korean border. 

China continues to face huge development challenges such as 

pollution, urban water shortages, inefficient state-owned 

enterprises, and income disparities, all of which challenge the 
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legitimacy of the Party-controlled government. Entry into the 

World Trade Organization (WTO) means China will be forced to 

make its currency convertible and therefore more prone to the 

effects of regional economic downturns. WTO membership also 

challenges state planners to allow restructuring of inefficient state 

firms and eliminate subsidies to promote product improvements. 

As tariffs are lowered, Chinese products also will have to compete 

domestically in China’s large market. Rising unemployment is a 

real possibility, which will increase incentives for foreign 

investment to attract foreign capital, new businesses and jobs. 

China’s stated intention to join with ASEAN in the world’s largest 

free trade zone within 10 years will require China to loosen 

domestic controls and diversify its economy in order to compete 

successfully. 

Political reforms, however, are conspicuously lacking in the 

arcane leadership transition process that determines the key 

positions—General Secretary of the Communist Party, Chairman 

of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party, and 

President of China. Modernization priorities and party control 

could suffer as key personalities unfettered by public 

accountability maneuver for influence. Two previous heirs to the 

Party throne were removed when their policies displeased the 

puppeteer of power, Deng Xiaoping, who died in 1997.77 During 

the process of transition and consolidation of power from China’s 

third generational leader (Jiang Zemin) to the fourth (Hu Jintao), 

military leaders could take strong positions with no countervailing 

civilian influence. Incidents such as in the 1996 Taiwan Straits 

Crisis, 1999 United States bombing of the Chinese Embassy in 

Belgrade, and the 2001 aircraft collision between a Chinese 
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fighter and a US Navy reconnaissance aircraft have been 

contained by mutual restraint. As Party leaders wrestle with the 

complex facets of modernization, it is uncertain how China will 

reform its politics, economics, and civil-military relations to 

achieve a great power role. 

Remilitarized Japan 

Japan would be widely regarded as a great power due to its 

economic prowess and rearmament, but military policies lag its 

actual capabilities and political resolve is usually described as 

“difficult.” Tokyo’s reluctance to assume a military role 

commensurate with its political and economic stature can be 

attributed to the lasting terms of the post-war American 

Occupation (1945-1952). The Constitution, still un-amended 

today, was written by American Occupation authorities to reform 

Japan through demilitarization, economic reconstruction, and 

democratization. After political and economic reforms, US policy 

reversed course and urged Japan’s leaders to rearm. The original 

1951 US-Japan Security Treaty included the proviso that: Japan 

would increasingly assume responsibility for its own defense . . . 

always avoiding any armament which could be an offensive 

threat. Despite this promise to rearm and the fact that Japan 

possesses the world’s second largest GDP and fourth largest 

military budget, the government still prohibits its Self-Defense 

Forces (SDF) from contributing to collective defense or collective 

security. The US-Japan security treaty is the only formal defense 

tie Japan has with the outside world.

Absent a mutual defense commitment, the US-Japan security 

relationship essentially exchanges Japan’s provision of US bases 

and a promise to increasingly contribute to its own defense for US 
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assurance of Japan’s defense. Significant changes to this bilateral 

relationship have alarmed China and the Koreas over the prospect 

of an expanded Japanese military role. “First-ever” changes have 

stoked domestic and regional controversy. The new security 

treaty in 1960 was railroaded through the Diet (parliament), which 

led to the resignation of the Prime Minister. In 1981, the first 

division of military roles involved the Foreign Minister using the 

word “alliance” in public for the first time, prompting his 

resignation. In 1989, the first bilateral co-development of a major 

weapon system (the FS-X fighter, now the F-2) was established 

but increased mutual acrimony during a time of chronic trade 

disputes. Despite the political costs, the bilateral security bargain 

has provided stability for three decades of unprecedented 

economic growth that has nurtured increases in SDF capability. 

Japan’s rearmament was further institutionalized in key 

bilateral defense documents created under intense scrutiny in 

Japan. The first US-Japan Defense Guidelines, created in 1976, 

justified the National Defense Program Outline of defense 

expenditures to counter an armed attack on Japan. Since then, 

five-year defense plans have funded SDF capabilities. The second 

defense guidelines, approved in 1996, expanded Japanese defense 

responsibilities to situations in areas surrounding Japan. This 

opened the door for rear area support of US combat operations, 

which enabled Japan to support post-September 11th US and 

British counter-terror operations. In October 2001, Japan passed 

the Self-Defense Force Bill and the following month dispatched 

destroyers, supply ships and tactical airlift aircraft to the Arabian 

Sea—the first post-war overseas dispatch of Japanese combat 

capability. 
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The degree to which Japan’s neighbors see its remilitarization 

as predatory or normal will depend in part upon whether historical 

issues can be resolved. Russia, Japan’s cohort in a decade of 

decline, is such a traditional rival whose relationship with Japan is 

limited by the absence of a World War II peace treaty. 

Russian Recovery 

Whether and how Russia recovers from its precipitous socioeconomic decline of the 1990’s will impact the Northeast Asian 

balance of power. If Russia were to enter into an alliance with 

China or the United States today, or with India or Japan 

tomorrow, its nuclear capability alone would prompt surrounding 

states to reassess how they can protect or advance their vital 

interests. Russia’s geographic reach across Eurasia, its ability to 

move lots of nuclear weapons to and from the Far East, and robust 

arms sales enable Moscow to leverage or undercut existing 

regional alignments. 

Russia’s post-Soviet attempts to liberalize its politicaleconomic structures and processes have been caught in a culture 

of pessimism about power. Democratization and competitive 

markets have been slow to develop. Soviet leaders wasted billions 

of rubles on a military buildup that lost the Cold War and 

deflected resources from industrial, agricultural or services 

infrastructure. Gorbachev’s glastnost and perestroika policies 

failed to either retain the control of a command economy or move 

quickly enough to a market economy. What it did, however, was 

to subvert traditional authority and feed internal instability. 

The 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union and replacement by 

the Russian Federation and Commonwealth of Independent States 

led to enormous internal and external challenges. Russia 
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immediately lost one-half of its population and GDP. Russian 

leaders had a chance to implement serious economic reforms, but 

within a polarized political spectrum bounded by radical reformist 

and ultra-conservative coalitions. President Yeltsin’s election in 

1993 led to two three-year terms where reforms, infighting, and 

Yeltsin’s poor health weakened governmental authority. The rise 

of regional autonomy among the former Soviet republics—now 

sovereign states—challenged Russian security interests. Most of 

the administrative regions within Russia were able to extract 

concessions from ailing Moscow to the point that some observers 

talked about a return to feudalism.78

By the time of President Putin’s election in 1999, a 

combination of economic inefficiency, political corruption, and an 

embattled central government had weakened confidence in 

Moscow’s ability to solve pressing problems such as ethnic and 

religious conflict in Central Asia. Putin responded with tighter 

law enforcement and active international diplomacy in an attempt 

to reestablish Russian prestige and power. Initiatives such as the 

NATO-Russia Council, strategic partnerships with China, India, 

and the United States, and talks about a peace treaty with Japan 

are the actual bilateral components of an avowedly multi-polar 

Russian foreign policy. 

The success or failure of Russian leaders to reverse relative 

decline will, like the other strategic issues in Northeast Asia, alter 

the environment in which all regional states pursue their interests. 

INTERESTS, PRIORITIES, AND THREATS 

Northeast Asian states employ broad concepts of security that 

frame strategic issues in terms of how these issues affect their vital 

interests. All states seek to protect their political survival, national 
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sovereignty, economic development, and military capability, in 

various orders of priority, from perceived threats. 

China 

China’s post-revolutionary pursuit of the “four 

modernizations” has required balancing often competing interests. 

Given the pressures of comprehensive modernization, political 

survival and regime legitimacy are crucial. China’s grand strategy 

sets domestic and international priorities. Domestically China’s 

party elites intend to lay low, bide their time, and focus on 

sustaining economic growth.79 The plan is to preserve domestic 

stability with a single-party regime (Communist Party) while 

achieving great power status. Democracy will come later, in time. 

This in turn requires maintaining good relations with the United 

States and surrounding powers, and expanding contacts to 

promote external stability in the region.80 Internally China will 

have to enact serious market reforms to maintain long-term 

economic growth and political stability among its 1.3 billion 

people, if only to provide employment opportunities in an 

increasingly open competition. 

Economic development is the domestic priority that fuels 

military modernization and enables stable political change. Yet 

economic development also is altering the content and role of the 

revolution’s communist ideology in order to maintain regime 

legitimacy. Vapid Party slogans increasingly are less convincing 

to China’s citizens than practical methods for market success. 

Perceived threats to economic development are taken seriously. 

Initial American opposition to China’s accession to the WTO, for 

instance, was seen as an attempt to keep China down. The 

imperatives of global capitalism and the Party’s need to recruit 
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entrepreneurs into its ranks are forcing incremental reforms in 

political and economic sectors. As the Party attempts to manage 

modernization, the parameters of non-threatening domestic change 

are likely to widen as long as economic growth can be maintained. 

If China can adapt to WTO incentives and rules, to include 

intellectual property rights and telecommunications agreements, 

the creation of a middle class from an expanding services sector 

could build social stability.81 If political reforms do not occur 

quickly enough, unemployment can lead to widespread discontent 

and open opposition.82 As Chinese leaders focus on economic 

development, they tend to regard value-laden American rhetoric 

about individual freedom and democracy as attempts to stir up 

internal opposition against Beijing’s authority. 

China’s legitimacy of rule also rests on preserving national 

sovereignty due to China’s sense of historical victimization. The 

government apparatus promotes hyper-sensitivity to territorial and 

national identity threats in order to build loyalty. China is already 

surrounded by a dozen states including nuclear India and Russia, 

and faces ongoing separatist movements in Taiwan, Xinjiang, and 

Tibet. As ideology wanes, national sovereignty remains an 

uncompromised interest as articulated in the Five Principles of 

Peaceful Coexistence.83 

Unfavorable resolution of Northeast Asia’s strategic issues 

could add to China’s list of challenges a fourth nuclear border 

(Korea), a resurgent predator (Japan), an irredentist rogue 

province (Taiwan), and traditional territorial and economic 

competitor (Russia). Rival military capabilities in Asia threaten 

China the most when they increase the risks to Chinese 

sovereignty. For instance, US missile defense capability that 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

35 

could cover Taiwan, US counter-terrorism bases in Central Asia, 

and a US counter-terrorism policy that contains the right of 

“preemptive action”84 exacerbate a “siege mentality”85 perspective 

among conservative Chinese leaders. 

Chinese military modernization is oriented outward in the 

direction of Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and a contested “line of actual 

control” with India.86 China’s 300-year old border dispute with 

Russia was frozen in 1997 but remains unsettled after nine years 

of negotiations. Toward Taiwan, China’s military response to the 

threat of independence has been to develop offensive air, missile, 

and naval capabilities to deny US forces local access and display 

the will to invade, even at high cost. Japan’s world-class naval 

surface combatants and air force complete with air refueling 

capability and space-based reconnaissance spur the need for a 

Chinese blue water navy and effective air defenses. South Korean 

military improvements that shift from peninsular defense to 

regional air and naval power projection are yet another threat from 

a US security partner. Expanding Japanese and South Korean 

roles inhibit Chinese freedom of maneuver. The prospect of 

Korean nuclear weapons or significant conventional power 

projection capability counsels further development of China’s 

nuclear and conventional arsenal. India’s nuclear and 

conventional capability, while directed primarily at Chinesesupported Pakistan, threatens Chinese territory due to a border 

dispute and a Tibetan independence movement based in India.87 

China’s growing interest in securing border areas is illustrated 

by its short and medium-range ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan, 

purchase of 50-plus Russian Su-30MK fighter bombers, 

development of new fighter-bomber and air-to-air fighters, and 
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attempts to purchase advanced early warning aircraft. American 

bases in Japan and South Korea and the US presence throughout 

Northeast Asia present China with the need for an area denial 

capability to prevent forcible entry particularly in a Taiwan 

independence scenario. Any US deployable missile defense 

system for South Korea or Japan, if regarded as a useable 

umbrella for Taiwan, will threaten all of China’s vital interests and 

likely provoke increased missile production to overcome it. 

Consistent with expanding economic interests, China’s desire to 

assert national sovereignty and assure territorial integrity call for 

increased military capabilities. 

Taiwan 

Taiwan leaders’ main priority is securing its political identity 

as a democratizing state, having moved away from the pre-1991 

KMT claim of national sovereignty over all of China. As political 

parties compete for the votes of various ethnic groups, public 

opinion runs against unification if China were to remain an 

authoritarian state. If China were to become a democracy, 

Taiwanese support for unification is expected to rise. Without 

serious Chinese reforms, Taiwanese support for independence 

increases even as China’s sensitivity to separatism rises.88 

Political leaders risk a Chinese military response if independence 

were declared, but fear authoritarian China as a threat. Taiwanese 

views of China as a threat primarily depend upon democratic 

reforms in China but are also affected by economic relations. 

Taiwan’s strategy to achieve its security priorities is one of 

globalization to attract investment and create capital. However, 

Taiwan’s economy is fast becoming integrated with archadversary China. Although Taiwan formally allows only indirect 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

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trade with China, cross-strait trade has expanded 100-fold since 

1979. Taiwan has become China’s fifth-largest trading partner 

and has the highest trade surplus ($120 billion) of any country 

trading with China. In the year 2000, 5000 Taiwanese businesses 

relocated to China where labor and land costs are lower, 

portending a hollowing out of Taiwan’s economy.89 Bilateral 

trade more than doubled in the past five years.90 Taiwan sends 

one-quarter of its exports to China, its biggest export market. 

Taiwan’s capital investments in China comprise four percent of 

GDP, a high enough figure to raise concerns that Taiwan is too 

reliant on China’s economy.91 

Chinese economic dominance threatens Taiwan as long as 

China’s economic expansion is seen as predatory rather than the 

outcome of market competition. As a result, Taiwan has vital 

interests in preserving key industries and capital as it competes in 

the lengthening shadow of an already large Chinese economy. If 

Taiwan’s economy can thrive and if China narrows the gap in per 

capita income, Taiwanese sentiment for independence is likely to 

erode as business incentives for unification increase. 

Taiwan’s interest in a robust military capability is to exact 

unacceptably high costs on China in case of a Chinese attack. The 

presence of such a capability encourages independence rather than 

unification. However, Chinese intentions and capabilities are 

relentless. Besides China’s insistence that Taiwan is its province, 

China’s 1992 Law of Territorial Waters and their Contiguous 

Areas claims sovereignty over the entire South China Sea. 

China’s subsequent fortification of disputed islands and 

improvements in air and naval power projection capabilities 

intensify Taiwan’s vulnerability to intimidation. Taiwan’s 
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military interest is to gain and retain qualitative advantages over 

China’s massive forces. Since the institution of civilian control of 

the military, Taiwan’s military has become more externallyoriented. Civil-military reform was accelerated in March 2002 

with the National Defense Law and the Organization Law of the 

Ministry of National Defense, which directs the military to secure 

its territory, national lifestyle, and prevent external aggression.92 

The military’s mission now includes not only protecting Taiwan 

from physical attack, but also from intrusions upon its democratic 

capitalist identity. 

The Koreas 

North Korea’s prime interest is to prevent the collapse of its 

authoritarian and ideological political system. The requirements 

of domestic legitimacy, enshrined in the juche concept of self 

reliance, consign economic development efforts to uncompetitive 

methods. Hard currency and economic aid are must haves. Arms 

sales and in particular missiles generate hard currency. The plan 

for a Sinuiju Special Administrative Region, a capitalist enclave 

on the Chinese border and walled off from the rest of North 

Korea, may be an attempt to test capitalism outside of a 

hermetically sealed society and extract its material rewards for the 

state. Unwilling to embrace individual freedom-oriented political 

or economic reforms, North Korea’s authoritarian bureaucrats 

levy on its starving population double the percentage of any other 

East Asian state’s GDP for military expenses to extort external 

economic aid, stave off internal social unrest, and wield an 

offensive doctrine. Any United States, South Korean, or Japanese 

policies or capabilities that block North Korean food or energy 

supplies, encourage domestic instability, or neutralize North 
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Korean military capability threaten the Pyongyang regime. The 

possession of what is suspected to be a small number of nuclear 

weapons would provide minimum deterrence against the threat of 

US nuclear or high tech conventional attack. Constitutional 

changes in 1998 (after the death of Kim Il-Sung) continued the 

Kim political dynasty by placing Kim Jong-Il in charge of the 

military and the only permitted political organization, the Korean 

Worker’s Party. North Korea hopes to achieve a unified sovereign 

peninsula under its control by extracting enough foreign aid, 

domestic labor, and quarantined business wealth to maintain 

political stability and equip its million-man military. 

South Korea’s overarching interest is to build an 

economically vibrant democratic state in a unified or confederated 

peninsula capable of playing a regional role with respected 

military power. Recent economic and political reforms are being 

joined by unprecedented military reforms designed to guarantee 

national survival.93 Peninsular reunification is seen both as a goal 

and a threat. The Ministry of Unification advocates unification in 

terms of economic effectiveness, racial reunification, and a desire 

to play a role of regional “balancer” due to Korea’s geopolitical 

position.94 However public opinion is deeply divided over 

reunification. The majority desires unification in principle, but 

expresses apprehension about how to get there. Former President 

Kim Dae Jung’s “sunshine policy” of offering North Korea 

economic inducements and political accommodation in exchange 

for warmer attitudes requires patience and is controversial in light 

of the facts on the ground. More than two-thirds of North Korea’s 

military forces are forward deployed between Pyongyang and the 

Demilitarized Zone, less than 30 miles north of Seoul’s 15 million 
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inhabitants. South Koreans tend to be content with the status quo 

of a divided Korea because of the North’s economic liability, 

political backwardness, and predatory intent. 

The threat of a North-South conflict over peninsular 

sovereignty hides complementary interests in resisting Chinese 

and Japanese influence and establishing an independent Korean 

role in Northeast Asia. It is not clear that a North Korean nuclear 

weapons program would run counter to the interests of a unified 

Korea. Similarly, a confederation might enable peaceful 

coexistence as economic integration encourages political 

accommodation. The core clash of North-South interests is about 

the type of political-economic rule in a unified peninsula or the 

terms of a confederation. If an agreeable bargain can be struck, it 

is conceivable that mutual interests could produce Korean 

economic, political, and military competition against historic 

antagonists China and Japan. 

Japan 

Japan’s consistent post-World War II security goal has been 

to ensure its political survival by carving out an acceptable role 

based on diplomatic and economic power. Neighbors occupied by 

Imperial Japan still harbor uncertainty about the intent of Japan’s 

military potential, a distrust fed by Prime Ministers’ frequent 

forays to Yasukuni shrine which commemorates Pacific War 

criminals, and standardized government textbooks for school 

children that blame external events for the war. 

Japan’s contemporary quest is to become a “normal country” 

with the respect and influence expected of the world’s second 

largest economic power. However the tangibles of international 

leadership, such as gaining a permanent seat on UN Security 
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Council, are limited by failure to accept full responsibility for the 

Pacific War and by constitutional constraints on military power. 

National sovereignty is not a hot issue at the moment, 

although the Northern Territories/Kurile Islands dispute with 

Russia, the Senkaku Islands/Diaoyutai dispute with China, and the 

Tok-do/Takeshima dispute with Korea simmer among 

ultranationalists, fishermen, and groups interested in offshore 

mineral rights. The inability of Japan and Russia to resolve the 

dispute over four islands (Etorofu, Kunashiri, Habomai, and 

Shikotan) seized from Japan by Russia in 1945 still prevents a 

Japan-Russia peace treaty that would lead to deeper economic ties 

and perhaps defense cooperation. Exclusive economic zones 

declared by both Japan and China do not specify boundaries, 

leaving the Senkaku/Diaoyutai issue to future negotiations. In 

1996, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force conducted a 

landing exercise near the two islets that comprise Tokdo/Takeshima, but South Korean coastal forces continue to 

occupy them. Given the reach, lethality, and precision of modern 

military power, these territories are not as strategically important 

as they are convenience issues for domestic political gain. 

Economic development is nominally Japan’s first priority, 

represented by an official policy of comprehensive security which 

includes food, energy, other protected markets, and increasingly, 

military security. Japan’s recovery from its chronic recession 

requires serious reforms to the banking industry that politicians so 

far have proven unwilling to implement. Non-performing loans 

are being addressed by a Financial Services Agency plan more 

concerned about a safety net for businesses than in allowing bad 

debt holders to fail. Japan’s ability to maintain political stability 
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and expand its foreign policy role in a decade of economic decline 

suggests overall economic growth is less important than 

maintaining conservative domestic control. The main threat to 

Japan’s economy is the inflexibility of its collective management. 

Japanese military self-restraint has been loosened by global 

crises which have increased the priority of equipping and 

employing the Self-Defense Forces in support of national 

interests. Closer training and operations with US forces lessen the 

fear of Japan’s isolation but revive controversy about Japanese 

intentions. Despite possessing the means to become a nuclear 

power and develop the most sophisticated conventional weaponry, 

Tokyo downplays its defense capabilities as low priority 

necessities. 

A series of threats throughout the 1990’s prompted increases 

in SDF capabilities. When Japan faced the 1991 Persian Gulf War 

and contributed economically rather than militarily, officials 

wondered how the “alliance” would survive if war broke out on 

the Korean peninsula and Japan did not contribute in kind.95 

Japan responded with the UN Peacekeeping Operations and Other 

Operations Law which led to participation in several UN 

peacekeeping operations: Cambodia 1992, Mozambique 1993-

1994, Zaire 1994-1995, and Golan Heights 1996. In 1993 Japan 

again had no self-permissible military options when North Korea 

announced its withdrawal from the NPT. China’s missile firings 

near Taiwan in 1996 prompted Prime Minister Hashimoto to 

dispatch an E-2C early warning aircraft and a support ship near 

the Taiwan Straits in support of the US carrier battle group.96 In 

1997, Japan and the United States established new bilateral 
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defense guidelines to allow Japan’s selective support of US 

combat operations.

Pyongyang’s 1998 missile launch provoked Japan into more 

initiatives to improve SDF ability to respond to actual threats, 

including the right to attack missile sites in self-defense and an air 

refueling capability to actually get there.97 Confidence in the 

credibility of US extended deterrence has always been shaky, but 

the missile shot did spark interest in a US-Japan missile defense 

system. The following year a North Korean boat entered and 

escaped Japan’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone waters after 

being pursued by SDF vessels not authorized to shoot at it. In 

December 2001, improved SDF patrol boats with legal 

authorization to shoot chased another North Korean boat in 

Japan’s territorial waters for several hours and sunk it. This was 

the SDF’s first use of military force and Japan’s first since 1945. 

As a result of this stream of SDF involvement and threats, Japan’s 

priorities are changing to those of a “normal country” with 

balanced economic, political, and military power and roles. 

The terror attacks of September 11th 2001 produced another 

firm Japanese response, the dispatch of destroyers and support 

ships to the Indian Ocean in support American counter-terrorist 

operations. Enabled by the Defense Guidelines and a new antiterrorism law, this was the first overseas dispatch of the SDF to 

support combat operations. 

The year 2002 produced the first Japan-North Korea summit. 

With the foresight of knowing US officials would present 

evidence of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program the 

following week, Prime Minister Koizumi obtained an apology 
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from Kim Jong-Il for past kidnappings of Japanese citizens. Kim 

Jong-Il added his promise to abide by international agreements. 

The possibility of a strike from North Korea has increased 

with the improved range of Pyongyang’s missiles. South Korean 

military expansion that could exceed Japan’s allowable offensive 

capabilities is an intermediate concern, particularly if Japan’s 

economic recovery is not forthcoming. A reunified Korea with 

nuclear weapons is perhaps Japan’s worst nightmare, particularly 

if Korea were to tilt toward an undemocratic or revengeful China. 

The Russian Pacific Fleet based at Vladivostok, even in the 

absence of peace treaty, is not a major concern and does not 

justify the large Ground Self-Defense Force in northern Japan. 

The Cold War threat of a Soviet military presence and the 

competition to control vital sea lanes south of Japan has been 

replaced by Chinese capabilities and intrusions into Japan’s 

exclusive economic zone. 

Japan’s national priorities could change relatively quickly in 

the presence of a clear threat. The top dozen defense industrial 

firms account for almost all of the Japan Defense Agency’s 

acquisition budget and because of the government’s ban on 

weapons exports, are a small sector of their parent companies. As 

a result, incentives to research and develop leading military 

technologies with dual-use prospects are high. Military end-use 

projects such as ballistic missile defense will depend on 

technology transfer agreements and US-Japan partnerships. Given 

incrementally relaxed policy constraints and a growing arms 

market, a defense industrial surge could be in Japan’s economic 

interests as the downturn continues. The next logical stretch of 
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Japan’s self-imposed military straitjacket is to allow collective 

security and defense against a clear threat such as nuclear Korea. 

Russia 

Above other interests, Moscow elites seek to retain Russia’s 

dominant position among the Soviet Union’s former republics. 

This struggle began as an economic problem after Soviet 

implosion led to a shrinking Russian GDP for five years in a row. 

Russia’s across-the-board decline in its economic performance, 

ability to govern, military capabilities, social well-being, and 

environmental quality prevents any administration from focusing 

on one policy area. A decade of continuous population decline 

adds to the sense of urgency and strengthens the tendency to see 

challenges as threats. 

The National Security Concept of the Russian Federation 

outlines Russian interests and threats rather frankly.98 Stable 

economic development is acknowledged to be the foundational 

vital interest which enables other interests to be balanced among 

individual, societal, and state levels. Numerous national interests 

are specified and but priorities are most clear at the state level. 

State interests are separated out as domestic or international in 

nature. Domestically, maintaining the political survival of the 

constitutional regime, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and 

democratization are at the top of the list. International priorities 

are the maintenance of Russian sovereignty, great power status, 

and beneficial relations with other states. 

Military modernization is critical as a symbol of state strength 

and as a tool to assert Russian sovereignty. While nuclear 

deterrent forces are expected to shrink in accordance with the 

Bush-Putin agreement, improvements to the offensive nuclear 
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force such as the Topol-M ICBM intend to counter a growing 

Chinese nuclear capability and maintain parity with the United 

States. Russia’s deteriorated conventional forces and economic 

constraints on large-scale equipment upgrades push military 

planners to consider using nuclear weapons in war-fighting 

contingencies to protect vital interests. 

The National Security Concept’s comprehensive specification 

of threats bluntly describes an ambitious grand strategy of strength 

in all instruments of power to arrest national decline. Domestic 

economic threats are stagnant growth and investment, growing 

debt, dependence on energy and raw material exports, and reduced 

indigenous research and technological advances. Social threats 

include endemic crime, corruption, disparities in income 

distribution, declining health and social services, and terrorism. 

Solutions to domestic threats emphasize strengthening federal 

power to enforce regulations and controls. 

International threats are no less omnipresent; they are nearly 

any condition or agent that could weaken Russian political, 

economic, and military influence. NATO’s eastward enlargement 

and US counter-terrorism bases in Central Asia are seen to 

strangle Russia with western influence even as former Soviet 

republics and religious fundamentalists claim Russian territory. 

China and Japan complete the encirclement. Russia’s cooperation 

with NATO, the United States, and China against terrorist groups 

in Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus requires balancing 

common interests and diverse motives with former adversaries. 

Solutions to external threats stress the need for Russian economic 

integration and a full range of military capabilities in any 

situation. 
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This broad definition of what constitutes a matter of national 

security contains basic inconsistencies between its domestic and 

international components, most importantly in the foundational 

vital interest of stable economic development. The call for strong 

domestic economic controls and increased liberalization of 

Russian trade and finance is contradictory and indicates traditional 

Russian political values are at odds with economic integration. In 

addition, the goals of economic growth and democratization are 

incompatible with the view that the sources of Russian decline are 

simply threats to be countered. Such contradictions point to 

ambivalence about western style democracy, resistance to outside 

interference, and sensitivity about Russia’s relative decline.99 As 

a result of this strategic outlook, the tendency is to see any 

diminution of Russian influence as threatening. 

Russian leaders are seeking national recovery with a broad, 

perhaps paranoid, concept of interests and threats. As Russian 

leaders look toward Northeast Asia, they see modernizing China 

and remilitarized Japan as challenges to Russian influence. An 

independent Taiwan would create a dangerous precedent for 

Russia’s dozens of ethnic republics and provinces, especially 

separatist Chechnya and Dagestan. A nuclear Korea or unified 

conventionally armed Korea could restrict Russian freedom of 

action near critical Russian Far East ports. The multitude of 

challenges facing Russia leaders explains the broad official 

concept of security, but it is less clear how Russian leaders might 

employ their declining instruments of power against specific 

threats. 
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CASES OF DETERRENCE AND DEFENSE 

Crises and disputes drawn from strategic issues discussed in 

this study may be described in terms of the ETT framework to 

illustrate interactions along the deterrence and defense spectra. 

The three North Korea crisis episodes are chosen because they are 

high-risk scenarios. 

1993 North Korea Nuclear Crisis 

The threat of a regime-ending counterattack by US forces in 

and nearby South Korea was intended to deter North Korea from 

dominating or attacking South Korea. The combination of 

forward-deployed US forces in South Korea and provision of fuel 

oil and LWR power plants to North Korea was intended to compel 

North Korean acceptance of IAEA inspections while assuring 

South Korea of an American defense commitment. 

The IAEA inspection regime is a long-term attempt to deter 

North Korea from developing a nuclear weapons capability by 

compelling North Korea to accept full and comprehensive 

inspections. Samples and measurements from IAEA inspections 

in 1993 raised suspicions of a North Korean nuclear weapons 

program, so the IAEA declared North Korea in non-compliance 

and called for “special inspections” of additional sites. In March 

1993, Pyongyang announced it was giving three months notice in 

accordance with the NPT prior to its withdrawal from the treaty. 

It is reasonable to assume that the likely reason for this decision 

was to hide its nuclear program by deterring further inspections. 

In response, US negotiators discussed expanding economic 

sanctions. South Korea allowed the United States to deploy 

Patriot missiles to the ROK and US-South Korean forces 

conducted a command post exercise to practice the entry of US 
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combat troops. Pyongyang threatened to go to war in the event 

IAEA sanctions were imposed. This was met by strong 

statements in Congress indicating US resolve.100 The US threat 

was to deny Pyongyang its reprocessing facilities and power 

plants as well as punish North Korean leaders with the prospect of 

destruction and probable regime change. 

United States and South Korean leaders met Pyongyang’s 

threat to go to war by deploying military forces to demonstrate 

collective will and capabilities to protect likely targets and deny 

North Korea from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. United 

States and South Korean negotiators, as well as IAEA officials, 

did not engage in tit-for-tat bargaining with Pyongyang.101 This 

high-risk strategy of holding firm on the threat to use force and 

demonstrating the ability to punish and deny with force likely 

deterred Pyongyang from its stated intent to withdraw from the 

NPT. 

Pyongyang perhaps failed in its choice of tools. First was the 

attempt at intimidation by threatening to withdraw from the NPT, 

arguably designed to break the will of the South by implying 

North Korea would continue a clandestine nuclear program. If the 

South really wanted the North to stay in the NPT, then it 

presumably would have to accept Pyongyang’s rejection of the 

Safeguard Agreement inspections. But North Korea had relented 

to accepting the Safeguards Agreement only since 1992, so 

perhaps NPT withdrawal itself was not so alarming anyway. In 

addition, the dispatch of the Patriot missile battalion to South 

Korea and US war preparations exercised allied capability and 

demonstrated will. Pyongyang’s second tool was the neutralizing 

threat to go to war in the event of economic sanctions, intended to 
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deter the United States from expanding sanctions. Again the 

Patriot anti-ballistic missile deployment and movement of US 

military assets reduced the credibility of this threat. Also, the 

common ROK-US alliance position held firm and the UN Security 

Council discussion was supported by an IAEA censure, so the 

likelihood of wide support for UN sanctions was high. As a 

result, North Korea’s threats to deter both the IAEA inspections 

and the imposition of economic sanctions were countered by the 

US and South Korean leaders demonstrating the will and 

exercising a capability to defend against a North Korea attack. 

This provision of credible security for South Korea led to political 

negotiations that produced the 1994 Agreed Framework. 

The Framework, negotiated by a team led by former Secretary 

of Defense William Perry, consisted of the following bargain. 

Essentially North Korea agreed to stay in the NPT and not process 

any more plutonium at the Yongbyon reactor complex in 

exchange for the United States, South Korea, and Japan (in the 

form of the Korea Energy Development Organization) provision 

of two LWR power plants and 500,000 tons of oil each year until 

the reactors were built. North Korea would allow IAEA 

inspectors to stay at Yongbyon to watch over the 8000 spent 

plutonium fuel rods in storage. 102 Washington and Pyongyang 

agreed that North Korea would fully comply with IAEA 

inspections when “a significant portion” of the light-water reactor 

project was completed, but prior to the delivery of key nuclear 

components. US officials insisted on immediate inspections so 

compliance could occur by the time a significant portion of the 

first reactor would be built, scheduled for 2003. North Korean 

officials interpreted “a significant portion” to mean the completion 
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date of both reactors, which would prevent inspections until 

2006.103 By 1998, North Korea still was rejecting the inspection 

requirement of the NPT Safeguards Agreement, so the United 

States continued the policy of general economic sanctions to 

coerce Pyongyang into accepting the inspections. 

1998 North Korea Missile Launch 

The sudden launch of a three-stage missile over Japan on 

September 1st 1998 intended to coerce the United States into 

relaxing economic sanctions by showing North Korea would 

continue to develop offensive missiles for export. The missile 

launch also had the effect of demonstrating to Tokyo that all of 

Japan was now within range of a North Korean strike. Initial 

reports in Japan insisted the launch was a test of Taepodong-1 

two-stage missile (a weapon), disagreeing with the US assessment 

of an attempted satellite launch. US officials seemed fixated on 

coercing North Korea to accept complete IAEA inspections. They 

may have failed to anticipate the actions Pyongyang might take to 

get what it really wanted—aid, fuel for the winter, and 

normalization of ties to preserve their regime. 

With the missile launch over Japan, Pyongyang was able to 

show Tokyo it had the capability to deny Japan the capability to 

defend itself. At least one Patriot missile battery in northern Japan 

reportedly tracked the missile but was not authorized by Tokyo to 

shoot. Pyongyang appeared to have no direct, first-order effect in 

mind to coerce Tokyo to adopt a particular policy regarding the 

launch, but may have thought through the indirect effects that 

resulted from a rather predictable Japanese reaction. Tokyo 

immediately called for a halt all economic assistance to North 

Korea and threatened to pull out of KEDO to compel North Korea 
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to accept inspections. South Korean commitment to the KEDO 

process and US pressure eventually shot this idea down. North 

Korea had succeeded in driving a wedge, however small, into the 

US-Japan “alliance.” The strong Japanese reaction did not seem 

to gather support from US officials interested in inspections. 

United States and South Korean leaders remained committed to 

the KEDO and worked to salvage the 1994 Framework. North 

Korea held out the prospect of a moratorium on missile tests in 

exchange for eliminating the economic sanctions. Pyongyang’s 

coercion worked. 

In September 1999, the “Perry mission,” led by former 

Secretary of Defense William Perry and including former 

Assistant Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, traveled to 

Pyongyang and negotiated North Korea’s compliance to the NPT 

including full inspections and a moratorium on further North 

Korean missile launches (until 2003), in exchange for resumption 

of certain aid and the promise of normalization. There was no 

significant objection in South Korea, where President Kim Dae 

Jung’s Sunshine Policy was in full bloom. Besides, the United 

States and its partners had no common policy to deter the actual 

launching of a missile. In effect, North Korea had used military 

coercion to reverse a policy of US economic coercion while 

eroding the credibility of US extended military deterrence to 

America’s Northeast Asian ally, South Korea, and partner, Japan. 

Current North Korea Nuclear Crisis 

In 2002, elements of the 1994 Framework had unraveled as 

continued North Korean refusal to allow full IAEA safeguards 

inspections pressed up against LWR construction deadlines. This 

forced President George W. Bush to make a decision regarding 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

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continued oil shipments and non-strategic aid to North Korea. 

American post-September 11th sensitivity to WMD in 

undemocratic states reinforced US interests in North Korean 

compliance with the NPT even as it reinforced non-compliance in 

Pyongyang. North Korean leaders confronted a threatening triad 

in the administration’s labeling of North Korea as an “axis of evil” 

seeking weapons of mass destruction, the Nuclear Posture 

Review’s reported consideration of the use of nuclear weapons 

against WMD-capable states, and announcement of a preemptive 

strike policy against terrorist threats. These events reinforced 

Pyongyang’s desire to have at least a nuclear bargaining chip and 

perhaps a sufficient nuclear deterrent to guarantee regime survival. 

United States leaders again confronted the question of how to 

compel inspections in North Korea. Direct talks in Pyongyang 

and repeated refusals of inspections led to the United States 

presenting evidence of the North Korean nuclear program. North 

Korea officials, desiring to deter a preemptive US strike, admitted 

the existence of the program and renounced the 1994 Framework, 

charging the United States with aggressive intent. United States 

officials next halted oil shipments in accordance with the North 

Korean breach of the Framework to punish Pyongyang’s will in an 

attempt to coerce inspections. Pyongyang, consistent with 

deterring a preemptive strike now made more probable over time 

by the weakening effect of reduced oil supplies, ejected the IAEA 

inspectors, removed surveillance cameras, and unsealed the 

plutonium fuel rods which can be reprocessed to produce weapons 

grade plutonium. American officials likely interpreted these 

actions and subsequent vehicle activity at the Yongbyon nuclear 

facility as intent to produce nuclear weapons.104 Fear of a dozen 
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or so North Korean nuclear bombs and the potential to export 

them to terrorists threatens regional stability from various 

perspectives. 

Japanese fear of a North Korean nuclear capability has led to 

planned deployment of destroyers with AEGIS missile and 

tracking systems nearer the Korean peninsula, accelerated training 

of special forces and airborne units, ground self-defense force 

redeployments, and the imminent first-ever launching of military 

surveillance satellites.105 It has also fueled Japan’s resurgent 

desire to become a “normal country” with a credible military 

capability to respond to palpable threats. A deepening North 

Korean crisis may loosen Japan’s domestic sclerosis on military 

security and promote further debate over its own nuclear deterrent 

option. 

The South Korean government’s reaction has been 

understandably more cautious with one official even suggesting a 

nuclear North Korea might be preferable to a collapsed, unstable 

northern neighbor. Pyongyang’s threats to launch a preemptive 

strike of their own or withdraw from the 1953 armistice are likely 

intended to deter a US preemptive strike and further intimidate 

and isolate Seoul. United States deployment of B-2 bombers 

closer to North Korean targets intends to deter nuclear production 

by posing the risk of a crippling precision attack. These actions 

could play into South Korean fears of a devastating war which, 

even if it were to result in the collapse of the North, could derail 

Korean prosperity and an emerging regional role. 

With Seoul intimidated and ambivalent regarding a nuclear 

North Korea, US efforts to enlist Chinese assistance are also being 

met with great caution. China’s long-term goal to become a great 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

55 

power and promote stability is frustrated by the specter of another 

nuclear neighbor. It is unclear how and to what degree Beijing 

can influence Pyongyang’s brinksmanship strategy of deterrence 

and defense. The offer to host direct US-North Korean talks 

allows Beijing to play the role of cooperative broker without 

abandoning its North Korean ally in order to denuclearize it. But 

Beijing’s interests in a stable Korea are eclipsed by the threat of a 

nuclear Japan. Sino-American interests in a close US-Japan 

military embrace probably limits Chinese ability to pressure the 

United States to negotiate with North Korea. Given these multiple 

constraints and China’s priority of a stable environment to 

continue economic growth, Beijing has played a peripheral role in 

resolving the crisis. 

Recent North Korean actions have included a fighter aircraft 

incursion, perhaps a result of heightened defensive patrols, but 

perhaps designed to coerce the resumption of oil shipments and 

increased military activity. United States threats of economic 

sanctions, either unilaterally or from the UN Security Council, are 

countered by familiar threats of war from the North. United States 

consideration of a naval blockade of North Korea to enforce 

economic sanctions was met with by the test launch of anti-ship 

missiles, short-range firings that do not yet break Pyongyang’s 

moratorium promise of 1999.106 The possibility of longer range 

repeat of the 1998 missile firing to intimidate South Korean will 

against US resolve cannot be ruled out. Another missile launch or 

the reprocessing of plutonium fuel rods might succeed in 

extracting US economic aid and normalization talks, similar to the 

1994 compromise. However, in light of North Korea’s persistent 

refusal to allow full IAEA inspections, the current US 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

56 

administration may also demonstrate military capability to deter 

further action. Other options include resuming food aid, offering 

assistance to dismantle nuclear facilities and expand the LWR 

network, and relenting to North Korean insistence on bilateral 

negotiations with the United States. The “red line” appears to be 

closer than ever and dependent upon Pyongyang’s will and 

capability to produce nuclear weapons. If Washington detects 

imminent North Korean nuclear capability, it is conceivable that 

an attack on North Korean nuclear capability will be considered 

on the grounds of preemptive defense. 

CONCLUSION 

This exploration of security and strategies in Northeast Asia 

reviewed critical features of the major actors and their regional 

environment. Asia is on its way to becoming the world’s center of 

economic development and military modernization. Security 

structures, however, are dominated by bilateral interactions rather 

than multilateral institutions. Key strategic issues that hold the 

potential to alter regional security alignments are the emergence of 

a nuclear Korea, the short-term opportunity of an independent 

Taiwan, the turbulent rise of modernizing China, an active 

remilitarized Japan, and the uncertainty of a Russian recovery. 

Of these critical issues, the emergence of a nuclear North 

Korea is most explosive. South Korea’s economic absorption of 

the North may be the best peaceful prospect for overcoming North 

Korea’s siege mentality. Meanwhile the need for US forces in the 

region, specifically in Korea and Japan, is fundamental to 

maintaining stability and deterring conflict. However US military 

presence and commitment by themselves do not ensure security, 

even with good policy. We also must understand core security 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

57 

concerns and basic strategies of the actors involved in regional 

issues to inform our operating strategies. 

Regional Forecast 

The major actors of Northeast Asia will continue to pursue 

security based on practical considerations of threats to the vital 

interests of regime survival, national sovereignty, economic 

development, and military capability. 

Chinese leaders plan to achieve great power status by 

managing modernization with market reforms that enhance 

growth. Party control and social stability will be maintained by 

recruiting entrepreneurs from an expanding wealthy middle class. 

The massive migration from rural areas to urban centers will 

create serious challenges for infrastructure and test the Party’s 

legitimacy as a public policy problem solver. Competition and 

standards from first the WTO then the ASEAN Free Trade Zone 

will induce Chinese businesses to follow market incentives and 

encourage the government to expand political freedoms. 

Communist Party elites’ collective strategy will be one of 

patience, focusing on economic development as the means for 

internal stability and great power status. Externally, China will 

seek to expand diplomatic contacts and influence, maintaining 

cooperative relations with the United States and avoiding conflict 

over Taiwan unless the latter actually declares independence. Any 

sovereignty issue will be perceived as threatening, particularly if it 

involves Taiwan, Xinjiang, or Tibet. Military programs and 

expenditures will endeavor to counter emerging capabilities of the 

United States, India, Japan, and Russia. China will strongly 

support counter-terrorist cooperation as an opportunity to cripple 

radical religious fundamentalism. 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

58 

Taiwan’s primary interest is in maintaining its reputation as a 

resilient democratic capitalist icon in order to attract big 

investments for capital accumulation and growth. Competition 

with colossal China will reinforce Taiwan’s political identity as a 

symbol of freedom and globalization, but Taiwan will continue to 

crave a US defense commitment to deter intimidation from the 

mainland giant. The growth of China threatens to hollow out 

Taiwan investments and key industries and gives little time for 

opportune independence. China’s best behavior could turn sour 

after the forthcoming Beijing Olympics, after which economic 

levers and military exercises may be able to coerce Taiwan into 

accommodating Beijing-style unification policies. 

North Korea’s embattled regime orders the survival of its 

independent juche system as top priority, using arms sales to earn 

hard currency, and intimidation to extract economic aid. Its 

offensive military posture and nuclear threats are used to pursue 

normalization to end the state of war with the United States and 

access its market. North Korean threat perceptions begin with 

forced collapse of its regime through the denial of basic needs 

such as food, energy supplies, and normal trade relations. Next is 

the ideological poisoning from globalization and military attack 

from an angry America poised to preempt, rather than absorb, 

attacks by terrorists or rogue states. 

South Korea seeks a regional role as balancer among 

declining Russia and Japan and rising China. The public is deeply 

divided over whether to engage or isolate North Korea due to 

Pyongyang’s economic liability and past proven predatory intent. 

South Korean leaders will likely support the presence of US forces 

in Korea due to common distrust of Japan, but China would not 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

59 

tolerate US troops on its border. Both Koreas share an interest in 

a unified peninsula, perhaps a confederal arrangement, to counter 

China’s influence against constitutionally constrained Japan. 

Perceived threats to South Korea include a North Korean attack or 

nuclear strike, possibly provoked by incompatible United States 

and South Korean security policies or uncoordinated strategies. 

Unification is both an opportunity and a threat due to its expense 

and risk of incompatible principles with the North. 

Japan’s quest is to possess international respect and 

responsibilities commensurate with the world’s second largest 

economy, even if in relative decline. However, the Japanese 

reactive collective has proven incapable of initiating effective 

economic or political reforms for over a decade. Stability is the 

priority in Japan and instability the most commonly perceived 

threat. Nuclear North Korea is a clear threat to Japan, having testfired several missiles in its direction, kidnapped its citizens, and 

sent high-speed spy boats into Japanese waters. Chinese payback 

is a possible threat due to first-hand historical experience with an 

expanding Japanese military role and the lack of a common 

democratic capitalist culture (as opposed to growing relations with 

South Korea). Occasional Chinese PLA Navy incursions into 

Japan’s exclusive economic zone are potential triggers to 

confrontation. 

Russia has sought since its broad-scale plunge in 1991 to be 

the former Soviet Union’s dominant former republic. The Russian 

Federation’s loss of two percent of its population reflects poor 

health care, a polluted environment, and a weakly revived 

economy. Economic development is a priority in the sense that it 

is recognized as foundational to all the other stated priorities of the 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

60 

federal government. The sheer scope of Russian reforms, from 

domestic governance to military modernization and foreign 

policy, tends to promote every serious challenge being labeled a 

threat. A thinning out of the Russian Far East presence already 

favors China’s interests, but may provide an opportunity for 

Northeast Asian multilateralism. Like China’s Party elites, 

Russian leaders tend to see encirclement by threats or strong 

states. NATO expansion on Russia’s western border, China’s rise 

in the east, nuclear India to the south, and separatist radicals in 

Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus add a sense of urgency to 

Russia’s efforts to recover. 

Recommendations for Strategy 

This study highlights the importance of integrating strategy 

with regional expertise. United States strategic guidance is clear 

and coherent, but is only a foundation for building and adapting 

operational strategy to local conditions. The National Security 

Strategy contains general goals based on national values and 

interests and eight action plans, one chapter devoted to each, to 

accomplish them. The Quadrennial Defense Review contains 

policy goals and strategic tenets, and concepts such as 

capabilities-based planning to guide our thinking about translating 

policy into plans. The National Military Strategy describes the 

global strategic environment and outlines national objectives, 

force employment concepts, and capabilities. Even with these 

guiding frameworks, there are important regional nuances and a 

variety of political, cultural, historical, economic, and social 

factors at work in Northeast Asia. Greater investment in regional 

knowledge and the integration of that expertise into the planning 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

61 

process is required in the competitive business of affecting an 

actor’s will or capability. 

The ETT framework, as an illustration of how strategy 

operates, is subject to the challenges of attributing intent, 

particularly toward an adversary. Intelligence processes and 

analytic assumptions should continually be scrutinized and 

incorporate alternative perspectives for the decision maker. North 

Korea’s resumption of missile tests, for instance, may mean to 

compel Japan into normalizing relations, or it may be the prelude 

to an attack on South Korea. Experience has shown that knowing 

and affecting will is very difficult, particularly in an isolated 

authoritarian regime such as North Korea. 

The practical value of the ETT framework is in its application 

to actors reasonably assumed to have certain security priorities 

(outlined in Attachment 1). In the case of the three North Korean 

crises, all of the strategic moves of the actors (North Korea, South 

Korea, Japan, and the United States) were explicable in terms of 

the framework. Pyongyang’s behavior, for instance, intended to 

protect its number one security priority of preserving the juche 

system through a strategy of brinksmanship enabled by the actual 

or presumed possession of nuclear weapons. Given North Korea’s 

pressing need for regime legitimacy, its lack of diplomatic ties, 

and its economic distress, the domestically favored strategy is to 

threaten use of its offensive military capability to compel desired 

behavior of adversaries. This usually has been executed as a 

surprise event to seize the attention of large powers, stay 

unpredictable for better leverage, and increase the credibility of 

unknown future threats. Thinking through possible actions, 

reactions, and outcomes on the basis of reasonable security 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

62 

priorities may help develop and explore future options, as well as 

promote operationally relevant strategic thinking. 

Variation in the type of strategic interaction (adversarial or 

partnership) may enable an actor to play a new strategic role, such 

as South Korea’s shift in strategy to include assurance (“Sunshine 

Policy”) toward North Korea after the 1993-4 crisis. Or it may be 

key to resolving conflict, such as the provision of aid and fuel oil 

in the 1994 Framework to compel North Korea’s stated 

acceptance of inspections and staying in the NPT. Both South 

Korea and the United States began countering North Korea’s 

attempts to intimidate will and neutralize capability with similar 

tools in order to deter and defend, but temporarily resolved the 

crisis with tools that looked like persuasion in a diplomatic facesaving setting of negotiation. 

The fit and scope of tools is another important strategic 

choice. In 1998, adversarial tools of coercion were not effectively 

countered by partnership tools of dissuasion and assurance. 

Perhaps partnership tools do not fit certain adversarial conditions, 

as South Korean sunshine failed to prevent the 1998 missile firing 

over Japan. Japanese attempts to counter-coerce a missile 

moratorium by denying KEDO aid might have worked, but were 

blocked by a US-ROK allied reaction of assurance. By 

threatening Japan, North Korea exploited United States and South 

Korean commitment to the 1994 Framework. Pyongyang’s 

achieved its likely desired effect—United States promises of 

progress toward normalization and resumption of non-strategic 

aid. 

Using different types of tools to affect a broader scope of 

behavior may be most effective in generating options to resolve 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

63 

crises. In the first two crises, physical tools trumped 

psychological tools: 1993-4 saw US military deployments counter 

North Korean threats and 1998 saw North Korea’s military 

demonstration of denial coerce the United States into enhancing 

North Korean capability and assuring their will. But in the current 

crisis, both North Korea and the United States have employed 

psychological and physical tools to attempt to achieve desired 

effects. In contrast to the previous crises, physical tools are being 

countered by physical tools: the United States halt of oil 

shipments countered by North Korea’s ejection of IAEA 

inspectors; deployment of US offensive force countered by a 

fighter incursion; and United States consideration of an arms 

embargo countered by a missile tests. Psychological tools such as 

providing assurance and enhancement remain US strategic 

options, but the experiences of 1993-4 and 1998 indicate more aid 

and conditional progress toward normalization did not compel 

North Korean acceptance of inspections. 

Finally, interaction with allies and resolution of crises may be 

based on common or exchanged goals and priorities. For instance, 

in 1993-4 US allies shared the common goal (desired effect) of 

compelling North Korean inspection compliance. In 1998, 

Japan’s goal was to coerce a missile moratorium while United 

States and ROK priorities were to preserve the 1994 Framework. 

Aid and promises of normalization purchased all allied goals until 

it became evident that Pyongyang had cheated on the terms of the 

Framework and had developed a nuclear capability anyway. The 

current crisis contains different allied priorities. South Korea 

might accept a nuclear North over a collapsed North, in contrast to 

United States and Japan priorities of a non-nuclear North. Given 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

64 

these differences, one possible North Korean strategy is to 

intimidate South Korea away from the United States and Japan 

while encouraging Chinese ambivalence to mitigate US-China 

cooperation. 

Further exploration is needed to determine the usefulness of 

this framework and how strategy operates. Research about 

strategy should scrutinize our choices about desired effects, the 

targets selected presumably to achieve those effects, and the most 

appropriate tools to influence the targets. These are relevant 

operational questions for policy makers and strategists with 

responsibilities for deterrence and defense. 

NOTES 

 

1 For comparative approaches to security, see Douglas J. Murray and 

Paul R. Viotti, eds., Defense Policies of Nations: A Comparative 

Study (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982); 

Catherine M. Kelleher and Gale A. Mattox, eds., Evolving European 

Defense Policies (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1987); Avery 

Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century: China, 

Britain, France, and the Enduring Legacy of the Nuclear Revolution

(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000). 

2 The choice of “strategic issues” is aligned with the perspective of 

The National Security Strategy of the United States of America

(Washington, D.C.: The White House, September, 2002), 3: “We 

seek instead to create a balance of power that favors human freedom: 

conditions in which all nations and all societies can choose for 

themselves the rewards and challenges of economic and political 

liberty.” 

3 See Robert Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and 

Interdependence (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1977); Richard 

Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State: Commerce and Conquest 

in the Modern World (New York: Basic Books, 1986). 

4 See Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, 

PA: Addison-Wesley, 1979); Robert Gilpin, War and Change in 

World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 

5 See Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (London: Oxford 

University Press, 1960) and Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

65 

 

University Press, 1966); Avery Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in 

the 21st Century: China, Britain, France, and the Enduring Legacy 

of the Nuclear Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 

2000). 

6 Sun Tzu, The Art of War, ed. and trans., Samuel B. Griffith, (New 

York: Oxford University Press, 1971); Carl von Clausewitz, On War, 

ed. and trans., Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton 

University Press, 1976). For a comparison and integration of Sun 

Tzu and Clausewitz, see Michael I. Handel’s Masters of War: 

Classical Strategic Thought, 3rd ed. (London: Cass Publishers, 2002). 

7 This conception of doctrine is adapted from the US Air Force’s 

definition of air and space doctrine: “a statement of officially 

sanctioned beliefs and warfighting principles that guide the proper 

use of air and space forces in military operations.” Air Force Basic 

Doctrine, Air Force Doctrine Document 1 (HQ Air Force Doctrine 

Center, Maxwell AFB, AL: September 1997), 1. 

8 Wolfers, Arnold. “National Security as an Ambiguous Symbol,” 

Political Science Quarterly 67 (December 1952), 481-502. 

9 This operational definition of strategy is taken from Joint Pub 3-0, 

Joint Doctrine for Military Operations. Joint operational doctrine 

describes the process of developing military strategy as the 

synchronization of ways (policies and concepts) and means 

(resources, forces, and supplies) in support of certain ends 

(objectives). 

10 Dissuasion by deterrence may be defined as threatening “to punish 

the adversary in ways so terrifying he dares not initiate a challenge, 

regardless of his ability to actually achieve narrow military 

objectives.” Persuasion by compellence may be defined as convincing 

“the adversary to accede to changes in the status quo by relying on 

threats to inflict unacceptable punishment if compliance is not 

forthcoming.” Avery Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the 21st 

Century: China, Britain, France, and the Enduring Legacy of the 

Nuclear Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 28-

31. 

11 The Changing Life Cycle Profile of Asia: 2001-2021, 

http://www.asiandemographics.com, p. 2. By 2030, the unfunded 

pension liability for retirees is expected to swell to 300% of GDP. 

See Robert C. Pozen, “Arm Yourself for the Coming Battle over 

Social Security,” Harvard Business Review (November 2002): 52-

62. 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

66 

 

12 “China’s Urbanization Rate to Reach 60 Percent in 20 Years,” 

People’s Daily, 17 May 02, english.peopledaily.com.cn/200105/17/ 

eng20010517_70205.html. 

13 China’s GDP is the sixth largest, and after adjusting for 

purchasing power is the second largest with nearly 12 percent of 

global GDP. “Is the wakening giant a monster?,” The Economist, 15 

February 2003, 63-5. 

14 Remarks made by Dr Sam Zhao, “Asia in the 21st Century: Issues 

and Insights,” East Asia Conference, Colorado Council of 

International Organizations, Denver, 4 Oct 02. 

15 “Indigenous” refers to mainland Chinese who started arriving in 

Taiwan during the 18-19 centuries. Aboriginal Taiwanese comprise 

only 350,000 of the 22 million inhabitants. 

16 Millions of Hungry North Koreans Face Food Cutoff, 30 Sep 02, 

World Food Program Relief Web, www.wfp.org/index2.html. 

17 The Tumen River Economic Development Zone is part of a United 

Nations Development Project known as the Tumen River Area 

Development Project (TRADP). TRADP involves efforts by China, 

Japan, Russia, Mongolia, and the Koreas to promote a Northeast 

Asian free-trade zone. See Trade & Environment Database Case 

Studies at American University, Case 247, Tumen River Plan, 

www.american.edu/TED/TUMEN.html. 

18 See Michael Klare, “East Asia’s Militaries Muscle Up,” Bulletin 

of the Atomic Scientists 53:1 (January/February 1997): 1: Throughout 

East Asia, countries are spending more on their military forces, 

making this the only region in the world where military expenditures 

have been rising since the end of the Cold War. 

19 Charles Wolf, Jr., Asian Economic Trends and Their Security 

Implications (Santa Monica, CA: RAND MR-1143-OSD/A, 2000), 6. 

20 Asian Development Outlook 2002, Subregional Trends and 

Prospects, www.adb.org/documents/books/ADO/2002/trends/asp, 2. 

21 “The Apologetic Kidnapper,” The Economist, 7 September 2002, 

12. 

22 “Economic and Financial Indicators,” The Economist, 28 

September–4 October, 2002, 102. 

23 The lack of openness in the highly structured Japanese economy 

relative to other advanced economies is well cataloged in Charles 

Wolf, Jr., Hugh Levaux and Daochi Tong, Economic Openness: 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

67 

 

Many Facets, Many Metrics (Santa Monica, CA: RAND MR-1072-

SRF, 1999). 

24 “Japan’s Lost Decade,” The Economist, 28 September–4 October 

2002, 17. 

25 According to the Xinhua News Agency, China's rapid growth and 

entry into the World Trade Organization have attracted increasingly 

higher inflows of FDI. Situation Report, October 25, 2002, 

www.stratfor.com/sitreports.php. 

26 The Shanghai B Index, for instance, was opened to domestic 

investors in and enjoyed an initial growth until rising regulatory 

oversight and a proposal to sell shares in state-owned enterprises’ 

dampened investor enthusiasm. Asian Development Bank Outlook 

2002, 2. 

27 Asian Outlook: A Quarterly Survey of Political and Economic 

Trends, APF Canada. 

28 See Table 37 in The Military Balance 2001-2002 (London: The 

International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2001), 299-305. 

29 International Energy Outlook 2002, Report # DOE/EIA-0484, 

March 2002, www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/nuclear.html. Japan’s nuclear 

power plants produce 1/3 of Japan’s electricity requirements. 

30 Nuclear Weapons Program—Japan, Federation of American 

Scientists http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/nuke. 

31 Article 9 of the Japan Constitution, written by General 

MacArthur’s staff during the American Occupation of Japan after the 

Pacific War, says: “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace 

based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war 

as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a 

means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the 

aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as 

other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of 

belligerency of the state will not be recognized.” 

32 The Military Balance 2001-2002 (London: The International 

Institute of Strategic Studies, 2001), 194-196. 

33 China’s commitment to a modern military began in 1978 after 

Vice Premier and de facto Party leader Deng Xiaoping announced 

China’s “four modernizations”—agriculture, industry, national 

defense, and science & technology, all within the context of adhering 

to Maoist communist ideological principles. 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

68 

 

34 Frank W. Moore, China’s Military Capabilities (Cambridge, MA: 

Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, June 2000). Found at 

www.comw.org/cmp/fulltext/iddschina.html. 

35 Michael D. Swaine, “Ballistic Missiles and Missile Defense in 

Asia,” National Bureau of Asian Research 13: 3 (June 2002): 12. 

36 Frank W. Moore, China’s Military Capabilities, 1. 

37 Michael Swaine, “Ballistic Missile and Missile Defense in Asia,” 

19. Swaine points out the next generation nuclear submarine, the 

Type 094 SSBN, has been delayed for political and technological 

considerations. 

38 Author’s interpretation from People’s Liberation Army Equipment 

Inventory, Federation of American Scientists, www.fas.org/nuke/ 

guide/china/agency/pla-inventory.htm. 

39 Author’s interpretation from data in People’s Liberation Army Air 

Force Equipment Inventory, Federation of American Scientists, 

www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/agency/plaaf-equip.htm. 

40 Preceding data taken from The Military Balance 2001-2002, 188-

191. 

41 Project Air Force Annual Report 2001 (Santa Monica, CA: 

RAND Corporation, 2002); found at www.rand.org/paf. Also see 

Roger Cliff, The Military Potential of China’s Commercial 

Technology, RAND MR 1292-AF (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 

Corporation, 2001). 

42 The Military Balance 2001-2002, 208. 

43 Michael Swaine, “Ballistic Missiles and Missile Defense in Asia,” 

35-36. 

44 Taiwan Special Weapons Guide, Federation of American 

Scientists, www.fas.org/nuke/guide/taiwan/nuke/index.html. 

45 William Burr, ed., New Archival Evidence on Taiwanese “Nuclear 

Intentions,” 1966-1976, National Security Archive Electronic 

Briefing Book No. 19, 13 Oct 99, www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ 

NSAEBB/NSAEBB20/. 

46 The Military Balance 2001-2002, 197-199. 

47 Michael Swaine, “Ballistic Missiles and Missile Defense in Asia,” 

33-34. 

48 The Military Balance 2001-2002, 299-302. 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

69 

 

49 John F. Troxell, “Landmines: Why the Korea Exception Should 

Be the Rule,” Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly, (Spring 

2000), 82–101, http://carlisle-www.army.mil/parameters. 

50 Joseph S. Bermudez, A History of Ballistic Missile Development in 

the DPRK, Monitoring Proliferation Threats Occasional Paper No. 2 

(Monterey, CA: The Center for Non-Proliferation Studies, 1999), 6, 

http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/opapers/op2/op2.pdf. 

51 Nuclear Weapons Program—North Korea, Federation of 

American Scientists, www.fas.org/nuke/guide/dprk/missile. 

52 Biological Weapons Program—North Korea, Federation of 

American Scientists, www.fas.org/nuke/guide/dprk/bw. 

53 The 145 signatories to the Chemical Weapons Convention agree to 

refrain from developing, producing stockpiling, and employing 

chemical weapons and be subject to an inspection regime to ensure 

compliance with the treaty. See www.cwc.gov/treaty. 

54 Nuclear Weapons Program—North Korea, Federation of 

American Scientists, www.fas.org/nuke/guide/dprk/missile. 

55 NRDC Nuclear Notebook, Russian Nuclear Forces 2002, Bulletin 

of the Atomic Scientists (July/August 2002), www.thebulletin.org/ 

issues/nukenotes/ja02nukenote.pdf. 

56 The Military Balance 2001-2002, 107. 

57 Frank Umbach, “Dilemmas of Russian Military Modernization,” 

Transatlantic Internationale Politik, 1/2002, 26-30, 

http://www.dgap.org/texte/umbach_tip0201.pdf. 

58 Defense obligations in Southeast Asia include the US-Republic of 

the Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951 (still able to be 

implemented through a 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement although the 

Philippine Senate defeated renewal of the US basing agreement in 

1991); the Australia-New Zealand-US (ANZUS) Treaty of 1951 (in 

1986 New Zealand banned the entry of US Navy ships into their ports 

due to the US “neither confirm nor deny” policy regarding nuclear 

weapons or nuclear power and the US responded by suspending 

relations with New Zealand as a member of ANZUS); and the RuskThanat Agreement of 1962, in which the US pledged support for the 

defense of Thailand. 

59 Daily Reports PRC to Send 85,000 Troops if War Breaks Out, The 

Congressional Record, 21 June 1994, p. S7221, www.fas.org/spp/ 

starwars/congress/1994/s940621-dprk2.htm. 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

70 

 

60 As reported in the People’s Daily, Chinese President Jiang Zemin 

and Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to deepen cooperation 

to promote peace and stability as previously announced in 1996 on 

the basis of equality, mutual confidence and mutual coordination. 

Highlights include pronouncements of a multi-polar world, a just and 

fair new international order, anti-hegemonism, anti-power politics 

and non-interference in other countries' internal affairs. 

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200007/18/eng20000718_45780.ht

ml, 18 July 2000. 

61 ARF held their first meetings of foreign ministers in 1994, with 

inaugural members Australia, Brunei, Canada, China, European 

Union (President), Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, New Zealand, 

Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Russia, 

Singapore, Thailand, the United States, and Vietnam. Since then 

Cambodia (1995), India (1996), Burma (1996), Mongolia (1999) and 

North Korea (2000) have joined. 

62 For instance the ROK Ministry of National Defense regularly 

conducts national defense policy working-level conferences with the 

United States, Japan, Russia, Canada, Great Britain, France, 

Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and other neighboring countries. 

Discussions have advanced confidence-building measures, reached 

agreement on a definition of preventative diplomacy, but are far from 

negotiated resolutions to conflicts. See Republic of Korea Ministry 

of National Defense website: http://www.mnd.go.kr/mnden/ 

emainindex.html. 

63 APEC was established in 1989 to promote economic integration 

among Pacific Rim economies. Current members are Australia; 

Brunei; Canada; Chile; China; Hong Kong, Indonesia; Japan; 

Republic of Korea; Malaysia; Mexico; New Zealand; Papua New 

Guinea; Peru; Republic of the Philippines; Russia; Singapore; 

Taiwan; Thailand; USA; Vietnam. As a trading entity, APEC 

accounts for nearly one-half of global imports and exports. See 

www.apec.org website. 

64 Selig Harrison, Korean Endgame: A Strategy for Reunification 

and US Disengagement (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 

2002), 201. 

65 North Korea joined the IAEA in 1974, signed the NPT in 1985 

and refused to sign the IAEA’s Safeguards Agreement, an NPT 

obligation to be done within 18 months of signing the treaty. William 

E. Berry, Jr., North Korea’s Nuclear Program: the Clinton 

Administration’s Response, Occasional Paper 3, (USAF Academy: 

Institute for National Security Studies, 1995), 2. 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

71 

 

66 During this time period, North Korea succeeded in operating a 25-

megawatt uranium fueled "Experimental Power Reactor" at 

Yongbyon, which had the characteristics of a production reactor 

capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. North Korea also 

was in the process of building two larger reactors, a prototype of 

approximately 200 megawatts and another 800 megawatt full-scale 

version. A reprocessing plant that could extract plutonium from 

reactor waste was also built. Uranium Information Centre, Ltd., 

Canberra, Australia, www.uic.com.au/nip15.htm 

67 William E. Berry, Jr., North Korea’s Nuclear Program, 3. 

68 North Korean Nuclear Crisis February 1993-June 1994, Federation 

of American Scientists website, www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/ 

dprk_nuke.htm. 

69 Agreed Framework Between the United States of America and the 

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, October 21, 1994, 

www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/resources/koreaaf.htm. 

70 Ralph A. Cossa, “US-DPRK: Setting New Ground Rules,” PacNet 

28, Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies, 18 

July 2002. 

71 The Japan-North Korea declaration stated that after the 

normalization of relations, Japan would provide North Korea such aid 

as grants, long-term loans with favorable interest rates, humanitarian 

assistance, and credit for private enterprise. Japan-DPRK Pyongyang 

Declaration, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 

www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/n_korea/pmv0209/pyongyang.html. 

72 Judith Miller and David Sanger, “US to Report North Korea Is Not 

Meeting A-Pact Terms,” New York Times, 20 March 2002, 5. 

73 “North Korea Admits Nuclear Program,” Reuters Limited, 16 Oct 

2002, www.aol.com/aolnews. 

74 “N. Korea Report steps back from nuclear claim,” The Boston 

Globe, 19 November 2002, www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/323/nation. 

75 “Finally, in the year 2000, with the approach of the new century, 

we at long last fulfilled your wishes and accomplished the 

changeover of the ruling party and the peaceful transition of political 

power, thereby enabling Taiwan to become a completely free and 

democratic country and to stand before the whole world with this 

glorious achievement.” Text of speech given by President Chen 

Shui-bian to the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations in 

Tokyo, Japan, 3 August 2002, BBC News Front Page, 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2172970.stm. 
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72 

 

76 According to a survey conducted at National Taiwan University in 

2000 regarding Taiwan independence, 24% favored independence, 

53% favored the status quo, and 22% favored unification. In a 

subsequent survey that asked respondents to react to the question, if 

peace can be maintained, Taiwan should be an independent country, 

61% agreed, 27% disagreed, and 12% were undecided. 

http://www.duke.edu/~niou/MyPapers/public%20opinion.pdf 

77 Deng’s first choice was Hu Yaobang, removed in 1986 for failing 

to control the student pro-democracy movement. Next was Zhao 

Ziyang, ousted for the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations. 

78 Thomas E. Graham, Russia’s Decline and Uncertain Recovery

(Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 

2002), 39. 

79 Dr David Lai, “China’s Grand Strategy,” presentation at Colorado 

Council of International Organizations Conference, Denver, 4 

October 2002. Dr Lai was a career diplomat of the Chinese foreign 

ministry serving in Chicago before defecting to the United States 

after the Tiananmen Square incident of June 1989. 

80 Dr Lai, “China’s Grand Strategy” presentation, 4 October 2002. 

81 Howard M. Krawitz, “China’s Trade Opening: Implications for 

Regional Stability,” Strategic Forum No. 193 (Washington, D.C.: 

National Defense University, August 2002), 2. 

82 See David M. Lampton, Same Bed Different Dreams: Managing 

US-China Relations 1989-2000 (Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 2001), Chapter 7, “The Seamless Web,” 279-309, on the 

increasing domestic constraints on China’s Communist Party 

Chairman. 

83 The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence are: mutual respect 

for territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, noninterference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual 

benefit, and peaceful coexistence. China’s National Defense, Section 

I, the International Security Situation (Beijing: Office of the State 

Council, July 1998), english.peopledaily.com.cn/whitepaper/ 

2(1).html. 

84 In his speech at the West Point graduation exercise in June 2002, 

President George W. Bush announced: “And our security will require 

all to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive 

action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives.” 

85 See Andrew Scobell’s China and Strategic Culture (Carlisle, PA: 

US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, May 2002), an 
Drohan—Effects, Targets, and Tools 

73 

 

excellent analysis of China’s dualistic views on war and peace. 

Scobell identifies four “guiding principles” of China’s external 

security policy: Chinese just war theory, the primacy of national 

unification, a siege mentality threat perception, and the concept of 

active defense. 

86 Border agreements with India in since 1993 have formalized the 

cease-fire in existence since the 1962 border war in the Himalayas. 

The 1962 war resulted in India’s recognition of Chinese rule in Tibet. 

87 India’s substantial indigenous missile program includes 

development of the third generation Agni-3 intermediate-range 

ballistic missile capable of reaching Beijing. See Swaine, “Ballistic 

Missiles and Missile Defense in Asia,” 25. 

88 Brett Benson and Emerson Niou, “Public Opinion and the Taiwan 

Strait Conflict,” Duke University, February 2002, 8. 

89 Convergence of Cross-Straits Economic Interests and Implications 

for Singapore, Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry, Economics 

Division, www.mti.gov.sg/public/EDA/..\PDF\CMT\EDA_ 

crossstraits.pdf. 

90 Cross-straits trade rising, People’s Daily, http://english. 

peopledaily.com.cn/200009/13/eng20000913_50452.html. 

91 Hwan C. Lin, “Taiwan has overinvested in China,” Taipei Times, 

October 31st, 2002, www.taipeitimes.com. 

92 Tang Yao-ming, The 2002 National Defense Report (Taipei: 

Ministry of National Defense, July 2002), Preface, 1-2. 

www.mnd.gov.tw/report/REPORT/revised/bb/Preface.htm 

93 An excellent review of South Korean reforms is found in Jiyul 

Kim and Michael Finnegan, “The Republic of Korea Approaches the 

Future,” Joint Force Quarterly No. 30, (Spring 2002): 33-40. 

94 See the Ministry of Unification’s home page, Frequently Asked 

Questions, http://152.99.76.131/en/. 

95 Japan’s $13 billion economic contribution to the Gulf War 

coalition was the third largest behind Saudi Arabia and the United 

States, and involved a tax hike in Japan to finance it. 

96 “Lack of Decision-making Holds Security Hostage,” Daily 

Yomiuri, 7 March 1999. 

97 Thomas A. Drohan, “The US-Japan Defense Guidelines: Toward 

an Equivalent Alliance,” Policy Paper 238E, Institute for 

International Policy Studies, Tokyo, Japan, November 1999. 
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74 

 

98 National Security Concept of the Russian Federation, full English 

translation from Rossiikaya Gazeta, 18 January 2000, 

www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/doctrine/gazeta012400.htm. 

99 For example, the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed resentment 

over the tone of the newly enacted Russian Democracy Act of 2002” 

which authorizes $50 million to promote journalism and cultural 

exchanges for the purpose of democratizing Russia. “Russia assails 

‘pedantic’ tone of US Russian Democracy Act,” The Russian Journal 

Daily, 4 November 2002, www.russiajournal.com/news/ 

cnewswire.html. 

100 For instance Senator John McCain advocated specific 

preparatory steps for military operations be taken such as deploying 

attack helicopters, fighter aircraft, war stocks, radars and multiplelaunch rocket systems to South Korea and positioning a carrier battle 

group, heavy bombers and airborne tankers nearby, followed by 

stronger measures. North Korean Nuclear Crisis February 1993-June 

1994, Federation of American Scientists website, 

www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/dprk_nuke.htm. 

101 See Leon V. Sigal, Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy 

with North Korea (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999) for a 

critical perspective that United States negotiators tend to be 

intransigent and uncooperative with negotiators from aggressive 

states. 

102 This centrally located weapons-grade plutonium “could be seen 

by on-site inspectors and, if necessary, entombed by an air strike of 

precision bombs.” William J. Perry, Aston B. Carter, and John M. 

Shalikashvili, “A Scary Thought: Loose Nukes in North Korea,” The 

Wall Street Journal, 6 February 2003. 

103 Selig S. Harrison, Korean Endgame, 262-263. 

104 “Satellites Said to See Activity at North Korean Nuclear Site,” 

New York Times, 31 Jan 2003. 

105 “Threat Erodes Japan’s Pacifism Debate and Troops React to N. 

Korea,” Washington Post, 15 February 03. 

106 “Ministry confirms North’s missile test,” Joong Ang Daily, 26 

Feb 2003, joongangdaily.joins.com/200302/26.