International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology

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Nuclear Weapons Deployment and Diplomatic Bargaining Leverage: The Case of the January 2018 Hawaiian Ballistic Missile Attack False Alarm

  • Benedict E. DeDominicis (Department of International Studies, Catholic University of Korea)
  • Received : 2023.02.17
  • Accepted : 2023.03.13
  • Published : 2023.03.31
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Abstract

North Korea's development and deployment of nuclear weapons increases Pyongyang's diplomatic bargaining leverage. It is a strategic response to counteract the great expansion in US leverage with the collapse of the USSR. Post-Cold War American influence and hegemony is justified partly by claiming victory in successfully containing an allegedly imperialist Soviet Union. The US created and led formal and informal international institutions as part of its decades-long containment grand strategy against the USSR. The US now exploits these institutions to expedite US unilateral global preeminence. Third World regimes perceived as remnants of the Cold War era that resist accommodating to American demands are stereotyped as rogue states. Rogue regimes are criminal offenders who should be brought to justice, i.e. regime change is required. The initiation of summit diplomacy between US President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un occurred following the January 2018 Hawaiian ballistic missile false alarm. This event and its political consequences illustrate the efficacy of nuclear weapons as bargaining leverage for so-called rogue actors. North Korea is highly unlikely to surrender those weapons that were the instigation for the subsequent summit diplomacy that occurred. A broader, critical trend-focused strategic analysis is necessary to adopt a longer-term view of the on-going Korean nuclear crisis. The aim would be to conceptualize long-term policies that increase the probability that nuclear weapons capability becomes a largely irrelevant issue in interaction between Pyongyang, Seoul, Beijing and Washington.

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Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank two anonymous peer reviewers as well as the journal editors for their thoughtful critiques and comments. The author would also like to thank the Virtual Open Research Laboratory program in the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for digital access to library resources. Any errors and omissions are solely the responsibility of the author.

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