• Strategy21
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• 통권39호
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• pp.5-46
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• 2016

North Korea's 4th nuclear test on Jan. 6 and following developments once again awakened the world into seriousness of the nuclear matters on the Korean peninsula. On March 2, UNSC adopted Resolution 2270 which is complemented by Seoul government's measures such as withdrawal from the Gaesung Industrial Complex (Feb. 9) and announcement of unilateral sanction (March 8). Seoul government also strongly urged the international community to strangle North Korea's 'financial resources.' The U.S., Japan, China, and other countries have issued unilateral sanctions to complement the UNSC measure. South Korea and the U.S. conducted their annual joint military drill (Resolve-Foal Eagle) in the largest-ever scale. North Korea, however, responded with demonstration of its nuclear capabilities and announcement of de facto 'nuclear-first' politics. North Korea test-fired a variety of delivery vehicles, threatened nuclear strikes against South Korea and the U.S., and declared itself as an 'invincible nuclear power armed with hydrogen bombs' at the 7th Workers 'Party Congress held in May, 2016. Considering the circumstantial evidences, the North's 4th nuclear test may have been a successful boosted fission bomb test. North Korea, and, if allowed to go on with its nuclear programs, will become a nuclear power armed with more than 50 nuclear weapons including hydrogen bombs. The North is already conducting nuclear blackmail strategy towards South Korea, and must be developing 'nuclear use' strategies. Accordingly, the most pressing challenge for the international community is to bring the North to 'real dialogue for denuclearization through powerful and consistent sanctions. Of course, China's cooperation is the key to success. In this situation, South Korea has urgent challenges on diplomacy and security fronts. A diplomatic challenge is how to lead China, which had shown dual attitudes between 'pressure and connivance' towards the North's nuclear matters pursuant to its military relations with the U.S, to participate in the sanctions consistently. A military one is how to offset the 'nuclear shadow effects' engendered by the North's nuclear blackmail and prevent its purposeful and non-purposeful use of nuclear weapons. Though South Korea's Ministry of Defense is currently spending a large portion of defense finance on preemption (kill-chain) and missile defense, they pose 'high cost and low efficiency' problems. For a 'low cost and high efficiency' of deterrence, South Korea needs to switch to a 'retaliation-centered' deterrence strategy. Though South Korea's response to the North's nuclear threat can theoretically be boiled down into dialogue, sanction and deterrence, now is the time to concentrate on strong sanction and determined deterrence since they are an inevitable mandatory course to destroy the North' nuclear-first delusion and bring it to a 'real denuclearization dialogue.'

• 안보군사학연구
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• 통권8호
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• pp.271-309
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• 2010

The main theme of this study is about North Korea's contemporary military strategy which remained a blind spot in the 21st century. Indeed, Pyongyang's contemporary military strategy is evolved from the logic of War. On the basis of this logic, this study examined North Korea's contemporary military strategy with three analytical frameworks. The first is the discovery of Clausewitz's dictums and application of the Trinitarian analysis on the Korean cases. During the course of applying Clausewitzian main dictum--War as continuation of politics, the methodological analysis on war played a important role generalizing the pattern and matrix of North Korea's strategic thinking and military strategy. In particular, Clausewitz's Trinitarian framework on war -Government (reason), Army (chance), People (passion)- was a universal framework to scrutinize the North Korean missile and nuclear strategy. The second is about the matrix of North Korea's military strategy, The study suggested the genealogical feature of Pyongyang's military strategy. In principle, the dictum of 'Military-First Politics' 1S the combination of the political philosophy, Chuch'e (self-reliance) of Kim Il Sung and Kin Jong Il reflected in the military readiness. As a result this analysis was able to equate Clausewitz's dictums to explain Pyongyang's idea of the nature of war in that North Korea's military strategy is the central instrument of delivery to achieve political objectives. The third is about the theoretical encounter of 'Clausewitz's Wonderful Trinity' and 'Remarkable Trinity on North Korea's contemporary strategy'. On the basis, three elements are connected to one of three groups in society; the people, the military, and the government. In order to apply the Clausewitz's Trinitarian analysis into Kim Jong Il's 'Military-First' strategy, two case studies (Missile and Nuclear strategy) were examined. The finding of this study is that Clausewitzian dictum in the 19th century is still valid in the 21st century as it provided plausible theoretical framework to explain the North Korean contemporary military strategy with a reminder that the nature and logic of war are fixed in the socially constructed state.

• Strategy21
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• 통권41호
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• pp.208-231
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• 2017

The balance of power in conventional forces between the two Koreas works in favor of the South Korea in the Korea peninsula. But, the balancing mechanism between the two Koreas in asymmetric forces like nuclear and missile forces works absolutely in favor of the North Korea. That's why it should be timely for the ROK military to review existing strategy and revise a new counter strategy against the threat posed by the North Korea's nuclear and missile forces. The ROK military is now developing 4D, KAMD, KILL Chain strategies as means to cope with the North Korea's nuclear and missile threats. Considering efforts and resources invested now, the strategies are expected to be in place in next five or more years. However, approaches to those strategies seem to be rather fragmentary and conceptual than comprehensive and pragmatic. The types of strategies against the North Korea's military threats need to be a deterrence in peace time and a fighting and winning in war time in the Korean theater. But, the most important element in the deterrence strategy is the credibility. This study concludes with an new strategic concept titled "ADAD(Assured Defense, Assured Destruction)" as an alternative to existing strategies to deal with the North Korea's nuclear and missile threats.

• 한국과 국제사회
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• 제1권2호
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• pp.171-208
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• 2017

본 논문은 북한 핵전략의 유형적 특징과 전망을 분석하기 위한 것이다. 이를 위해 핵전략의 개념과 유형, 북한의 핵능력과 선언적 핵전략, 북한 핵전략의 운용상의 특징과 전망을 살펴본 후 결론에서 우리의 대응을 도출해본 것이다. 최근 북한의 핵무기 배치와 핵능력 증강은 우리의 안보와 군사적 대비태세에 매우 심각한 문제를 제기하고 있다. 핵전략이란 핵무기의 구성 배치 운용을 둘러싼 군사전략을 의미한다. 북한의 핵전략에 대한 연구는 북한의 핵무장이 실체화되었다는 매우 현실적인 가정에서 출발한다. 우리 국방당국이 북핵에 대한 대응책으로 선제공격, 미사일방어, 대량응징보복 개념을 제시하고 그 도입과 전개를 서두르는 것은 북한의 핵무장을 전제로 한 조치이다. 표출된 북한의 선언적 핵전략은 (1)'핵보유국법'상의 핵억제 보복전략, (2)핵선제공격론, (3)제7차 당대회에 나타난 '핵선제 불사용원칙으로, 그리고 북한 핵전략의 저의 및 운용상의 특징은 (1)기존핵국가 관행모방을 통한 비난회피, (2)선언적 핵전략을 통한 자신의 핵전략의 호도, (3)핵전력과 핵태세간 격차로 인한 핵전략의 미정착 등으로 각각 요약해 볼 수 있다. 북한은 개정헌법(2012.7), '핵무력과 경제건설의 병진노선(2013.3),' 그리고 핵보유국법(2013.4) 등을 통해 스스로 핵보유국임을 규정 선언하고 있다. 하지만 '핵보유국(핵국가)' 지위는 오로지 NPT만 부여할 수 있는데, 이것은 이미 닫힌 시스템이다. 현실적으로 우리가 당면한 북핵위협을 억제 극복해 나가기 위해서는 튼튼한 한미동맹과 긴밀한 한미 공조하에 북한핵의 억제는 물론 비핵화 무력화를 위한 우리의 단 중 장기적인 정치 군사적 대응책의 수립 이행노력이 긴요하다.

• Strategy21
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• 통권39호
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• pp.82-113
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• 2016

This paper analyzes the contents and the effects of the UNSC 2270, and its implications to South Korea's defense strategy and navy. The UN Security Council passed strong sanctions against North Korea which punish North Korea's 4^th nuclear test. The sanctions compared to the previous ones require international society to take practical actions such as comprehensive trade bans as well as diplomatic isolation which will put significant pains on North Korea. Especially, these measures would greatly hamper economic development policy of Kim Joung-un regime. Because Kim Jung-un regime has inherent legitimacy problems which stems from the third family succession of the power, economic difficulties may play an important cause on the regime instability in the long term. In fact, the United States sees this possibility as an option to coerce North Korea in which North Korea choose denuclearization for its regime survival. Nevertheless, the prospects of the UN sanctions are not so optimistic. Considering North Korea's willingness for nuclear development and its level of nuclear technology, North Korea will try to play a gambit with the US and South Korea by exploiting its strategic advantages. North Korea's response will have three following strategies. First, it would actively pursue political and economic survival strategy by using China's support for the regime, strengthening its power grip in the name of countering US hostile policy, and enhancing peace propaganda. Second, North Korea will accelerate efforts to position its status as a nuclear de facto state. For this purpose, it could create nuclear crisis on the peninsula. Third, it would exploit local provocations as an exit strategy to get over the current situation. In order to counter North Korea's actions and punish North Korea's behavior strongly, South Korea needs following strategies and efforts. It should first make all the efforts to implement the UN sanctions. Strong and practical nuclear deterrence strategy and capability with the U.S. should be developed. Effective strategy and capabilities for the prevention and deterrence of North Korea's provocation should be prepared. For this purpose, North Korea's provocation strategy should be thoroughly reviewed. Active international cooperation is needed to punish and coerce North Korea's behavior. Finally, South Korea should prepare for the possible occurrence of North Korea's contingency and make use of the situation as an opportunity to achieve unification. All these strategies and efforts demand the more active roles and missions of South Korea's navy and thus, nullify North Korea's intention militarily.

• 안보군사학연구
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• 통권5호
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• pp.173-202
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• 2007

After successful nuclear tests Pakistan launched a more severe surprise attack toward India than before. It is highly possible that North Korea will adopt this Pakistan military strategy if it is armed with nuclear weapons. The North Korean forces armed, with nuclear bombs could make double its war capability through strengthening aggressive force structure and come into effect on blocking reinforcement of the US forces at the initial phase of war time. Therefore we may regard that Pyongyang's nuclear arming is a major one of various factors which increase possibility of waging a conventional warfare or a nuclear war. North Korea's high self-confidence after nuclear arming will heighten tension on the Korean Peninsula via aggressive military threat or terror toward South Korea, and endeavor to accomplish its political purpose via low-intensity conflicts. For instance, nuclear arming of the Pyongyang regime enforces the North Korean forces to invade the Northern Limit Line(NLL), provoke naval battles at the West Sea, and occupy one or two among the Five Islands at the West Sea. In that case, the South Korean forces will be faced with a serious dilemma. In order to recapture the islands, Seoul should be ready for escalating a war. However it is hard to imagine that South Korea fights with North Korea armed with nuclear weapons. This paper concludes that the Pyongyang regime after nuclear arming strongly tends to occupy superiority of military strategy and wage military provocations on the Korean Peninsula.

• Strategy21
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• 통권39호
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• pp.47-81
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• 2016

This paper has attempted to examine the political and operational contexts within which North Korea's latest acts of nuclear blackmail, its test-firing of an SLBM on April 23rd 2016 and its fourth nuclear test on January 6^th 2016, should be understood. Analysis of the KN-11 SLBM and the Sinpo-class SSB is based on official South Korean, US and others sources, especially the ROK MND, as well as other resources from South Korea, US and others. Unfortunately, the results of this exploration are inconclusive: there is simply not enough evidence available at present to either confirm or refute the existence of a functional North Korean SLBM and SSB. Nevertheless, the North Korean determination to possess such assets should not be taken lightly. But even accepting North Korea's claims about its SLBMs at face value, which is undermined by news of apparently unsuccessful follow-up test-firings in November, and probably December 2015, there is little proof that North Korea has yet succeeded in miniaturizing its nuclear warhead, so the most extravagant fears are not yet justified. Taken together with North Korea's latest announcement of a supposed successful SLBM ejection-test, on March 23^th 2016, the KN-11 SLBM claims should probably be seen as primarily about proving North Korea's status as a nuclear power, both to exert external political pressure and to bolster internal political support for Kim Jong-un's rule. In conclusion, this paper recommends formulating a preemptive anti-access strategy for the ROKN, proposes acquiring an ASW CV and SSNs to implement submarine strategic deterrent patrols, and urges extending the existing limited AORs to facilitate the preemptive anti-access strategy. Other deterrence options may be suggested, but it is surely significant that the ROKN has recently publically referred to the deployment of an ASW CV and SSNs for the first time.

• Strategy21
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• 통권37호
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• pp.32-64
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• 2015

This paper examines the types and trends of North Korea's military provocations and regional maritime threats against South Korea, and is focusing on the Republic of Korea's naval development and modernizations by the Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN) on future actions, what directions of the ROKN has taken thus far in response, as well as an examination of how the ROKN might respond to vulnerabilities identified throughout modern history. Importantly, this paper does not consider the domestic, bilateral, multilateral, regional and global political dimensions of the situation on the Korean Peninsula; nor does it consider the North Korea's transitional power politics, but including North Korea's nuclear program and submarine-launched ballistic missile developments, as a caveat, this paper is based on open sources in Korean and English language, and thus information concerning provocations is indicative only.

• Strategy21
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• 통권31호
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• pp.57-84
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• 2013

North Korea's continuous threats and provocative behaviors have aggravated tension on the Korean peninsula particularly with the recent nuclear weapons test. South Korea's best way to cope with this situation is to maintain the balance among three policy directions: dialogue, sanctions, and deterrence. Among the three, I argue that deterrence should be prioritized. There are different sources of deterrence such as military power, economic power, and diplomatic clouts. States can build deterrence capability independently. Alternatively, they may do so through relations with other states including alliances, bilateral relations, or multilateral relations in the international community. What South Korea needs most urgently is to maintain deterrence against North Korea's local provocations through the enhancement of independent military capability particularly by addressing the asymmetric vulnerability between militaries of the South and the North. Most of all, the South Korean government should recognize the seriousness of the negative consequences that North Korea's 'Nuclear shadow strategy' would bring about for the inter-Korea relations and security situations in Northeast Asia. Based on this understanding, it should develop an 'assertive deterrence strategy' that emphasizes 'multi-purpose, multi-stage, and tailored deterrence whose main idea lies in punitive retaliation.' This deterrence strategy requires a flexible targeting policy and a variety of retaliatory measures capable of taking out all targets in North Korea. At the same time, the force structures of the army, the air force, and the navy should be improved in a way that maximizes their deterrence capability. For example, the army should work on expanding the guided missile command and the special forces command and reforming the reserve forces. The navy and the air force should increase striking capabilities including air-to-ground, ship-to-ground, and submarine-to-ground strikes to a great extent. The marine corps can enhance its deterrence capability by changing the force structure from the stationary defense-oriented one that would have to suffer some degree of troop attrition at the early stage of hostilities to the one that focuses on 'counteroffensive landing operations.' The government should continue efforts for defense reform in order to obtain these capabilities while building the 'Korean-style triad system' that consists of advanced air, ground, and surface/ subsurface weapon systems. Besides these measures, South Korea should start to acquire a minimum level of nuclear potential within the legal boundary that the international law defines. For this, South Korea should withdraw from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Moreover, it should obtain the right to process and enrich uranium through changing the U.S.-South Korea nuclear cooperation treaty. Whether or not we should be armed with nuclear weapons should not be understood in terms of "all or nothing." We should consider an 'in-between' option as the Japanese case proves. With regard to the wartime OPCON transition, we need to re-consider the timing of the transition as an effort to demonstrate the costliness of North Korea's provocative behaviors. If impossible, South Korea should take measures to make the Strategic Alliance 2015 serve as a persisting deterrence system against North Korea. As the last point, all the following governments of South Korea should keep in mind that continuing reconciliatory efforts should always be pursued along with other security policies toward North Korea.

• Strategy21
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• 통권31호
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• pp.5-26
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• 2013

The South Korean society has experienced many changes since the sinking of ROKS Cheonan. The government reviewed its defense posture and adopted the 5·24 Measure in its relations with North Korea. As a result, the people of South Korea became more conscious of security situations on the Korean peninsula while North Korea's economy suffered badly. Meanwhile, the South Korean government has taken a flexible stance toward North Korea in terms of exchange and cooperation since September 2011. The flexible stance was to manage inter-Korea relations in a stable manner and relieve the hardships of the North Korean people while preserving the spirits and purposes of the 5·24 Measure. The UN Security Council adopted twenty-six resolutions and statements on North Korea since June 25, 1950. They include thirteen U.N. Security Council resolutions including those concerning nuclear weapons or missile programs, nine Presidential statements, and four press statements. Resolution 82, the first U.N. resolution on North Korea, came when the Korean War broke out. Resolution 825, the first one related to nuclear or missile programs, was adopted in response to North Korea's withdrawal from the NPT. Apart from these U.N. resolutions, the United States has imposed separate sanctions against North Korea. North Korea's nuclear weapons program can be considered in comparison with that of Iran in terms of the consequences they create for the regional security. The Security Council has adopted six resolutions on Iran so far. One should note that the resolutions on Iran have had much stronger sanctions compared to those imposed on North Korea. That is, while the North Korea case may be viewed as a more serious threat to international security from the perspective of nuclear weapons development or proliferation, tougher sanctions have been placed on Iran. There are two approaches that South Korea should take in addressing the related issues. First, we should aim to reduce the gap between sanctions imposed on Iran and North Korea. It is difficult to understand that a country with more serious problems is rewarded with lighter sanctions. We should take measures through the Security Council Sanctions Committee to make individuals and groups in North Korea that play a central role in developing nuclear weapons and missiles subject to additional sanctions. Second, we have to change. Other countries in the international community have become tired of North Korea's nuclear issue and now they look to South Korea for initiative. We should correctly understand this current situation and play a leading role within our capacity. Knowingly and unknowingly, the notion that the North Korean nuclear issue may be left to South Korea has been spread around the international community. Although the situation is grave, we should try to open a new horizon in ushering in the unification era by taking the initiative with confidence that there is a looming hope ahead of us. For these tasks, we should stop thinking in the old way that has been ossified for the last two decades. We should not be pushed around by neighboring great powers in dealing with North Korea related issues anymore; we should take the initiative with resolution that we will play our role at the center of four great powers and with confidence that we can do it. Based on the confidence that the Republic of Korea has become a country with enough capacity to take the initiative, we should establish a 'National Grand Strategy' representing South Korea's strategic vision that the unification is the ultimate solution to the problems related to North Korea's nuclear weapons program.