• Strategy21
• /
• s.39
• /
• pp.5-46
• /
• 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.'

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
• /
• v.22 no.6
• /
• pp.563-573
• /
• 2019

The North Korean government conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and more recently the sixth nuclear test on September 3, 2017. In order to identify how North Korea's nuclear tests have affected the environment, a scientific approach is required. Although North Korea's nuclear tests and their environmental destruction are not a severe threat to the environment of the Korean Peninsula at this time, identifying environmental damage and taking countermeasures in advance are essential to minimize their potential threats to the environments. The purpose of this study is to study the environmental impact of North Korea's nuclear tests using Google Earth image analysis. As a method of the study, we compare Google Earth images taken before and after each nuclear test was conducted in North Korea. To overcome limitations of the suggested comparison method, we cross-checked our results with those of previous scientific research. After the 1st-3rd nuclear tests, green spaces were found to be considerably reduced. In particular, when comparing the Google Earth images before and after the second nuclear test, some ground subsidences were observed. Such subsidences can cause tunnels on the mountainsides and cracks in rocks around the mountains, leading to the release of radioactive materials and contaminating groundwater. Besides, after the 4th-6th nuclear tests, decay and deforestation were observed not in the nuclear test sites, but in their surrounding areas. Especially after the 5th and 6th nuclear tests, the topography and the forests of the surrounding areas were severely damaged. In relation to North Korea's nuclear tests and their impact on the natural environment, we need to prepare various policy measures to reduce North Korea's environmental pollution and natural environment destruction. Those policy measures include the establishment of various cooperative governance between the Korean government, the private sector, the academia, NGOs, and international organizations.

• Korea and Global Affairs
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.69-92
• /
• 2018

North Korea conducted a total of six nuclear tests from the 1st test of 2006 to September, 2017. North Korea developed an armed forces security strategy at the level of regime protection and defense to respond to U.S. hostile policy. However, it is certain that strategic goals of North Korea's nuclear test were to overcome a crisis in North Korea's regime through US-North Korea negotiation and complete nuclear armed forces for socialist unification on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea's continuous nuclear test is a direct factor in threatening peace on the Korean Peninsula and an indirect factor in security dynamics of Northeast Asia. The U.N. Security Council has enforced sanctions against North Korea through six resolutions against North Korea's reckless nuclear test for the past 10 years. However, Kim Jong-Un's regime is in a position to stick to simultaneous pursuit of nuclear and economic development in spite of anti-North sanction of international society including U.N. and U.S.A. It is understood that North Korea was stimulated to conduct intense nuclear test as U.N. and U.S.A's anti-North sanction was not effective on North Korea. Full-scale and local wars are expected as military options, one of anti-North sanctions of the Trump administration. The Trump administration has attempted diplomatic pressure strategy as a secondary boycott unlike previous administrations. Nevertheless, North Korea has stood against U.N. and U.S.A's anti-North sanction with brinkmanship tactics, announcing full-scale military confrontation against U.S. It is judged that North Korea will pursue simultaneous nuclear weapons and economic development in terms of regime survival. North Korea will have less strategic choices in that its regime may collapse because of realistic national strategy between U.S.A. and China.

• Strategy21
• /
• s.39
• /
• pp.47-81
• /
• 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.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.463-473
• /
• 2022

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the North Korea's net export to China and Liaoning on the North Korean economic growth. Design/methodology/approach - This study collects the data on the net export of North Korea to China and Liaoing from General Administration of Customs, People's Republic of China. Vector Autoregression(VAR) is also employed for the analysis. Findings - First, North Korea's net export to all of China and Liaoning gives the positive effect on North Korean economic growth. Second, the nuclear test of North Korea gives the negative effect on the North Korean economic growth. Third, the net export to China and Liaoning granger causes the North Korean economic growth. Lastly, the nuclear test of North Korea also granger causes the North Korean economic growth. Research implications or Originality - The estimation results show the net export of North Korea to China as well as Liaoning is important to the economic growth. Therefore, we need to examine North Korea's trades with specific region as well as all of China in order to enhance the North Korean economic growth.

• Journal of the Korean Professional Engineers Association
• /
• v.42 no.3
• /
• pp.35-40
• /
• 2009

After the yield of North Korea conducted underground the first nuclear test in 2006, which was less than a kiloton, it launched a vehicle on this April 9 again, which is believed to be a Taepo-dong 2 missile, defying international warnings that the move would violate U.N. resolutions, from Musudan-ni, North Korea. Its development and proliferation of ballistic missile and nuclear bomb technology pose a threat to the northeast Asian region and to international peace and security. In the other launching the missile, a newspaper reported that "While the launch was dubbed a failure by the U.S., it was an improvement over the North Koreans' July 2006 test of the Taepodong-2, said Green of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It was definitely better than last time, but it's still not an operational system," Green said.

• Journal of International Area Studies (JIAS)
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.3-22
• /
• 2010

The objective of this paper is to analyze why China's policy toward North Korea after the second North Korean nuclear crisis have plunged into the dilemma between pressure and inducement. This paper stress that dilemma between China's two aims toward North, that is, stability in Korean peninsula and North East Asia, and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula that can explain China's inconsistent policies on North Korea. As North Korea publicly revealed the intention of nuclear development and China has played the mediator role for protecting its security, China's two aims toward North have faced the situation of a dilemma. Because China's two aims are directly related with stability in the neighbor that pursuit to perform 'economic development' since 1978, China's two aims toward North would not be changed easily. Therefore, as long as North Korea would not make an effort on denuclearization and China continually would maintain two aims on North, it will be continued a dilemma between China's policies toward North.

• Strategy21
• /
• s.39
• /
• pp.82-113
• /
• 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.

• Korean journal of communication and information
• /
• v.56
• /
• pp.175-193
• /
• 2011

This study explored how South Korean newspapers covered North Korea's second nuclear test in May of 2009. Findings show that South Korean newspapers mostly reported North Korea's nuclear experiment in relatively negative tones. Their coverage mainly focused on the influences of nuclear threat from the North on the military, political and economic areas in South Korea. However, the media's agenda settings and frames were not similar in terms of each paper's political and ideological inclination. Whereas the progressive papers, such as the Hankyoreh and the Kyunghyang Shinmun, recognized that the current nuclear issue in Korean peninsula is getting worse because of South Korea's rigorous pressure on North Korea, the conservative papers, such as the Chosun Ilbo and the Donga Ilbo, see that the deadlock between North and South mainly comes from the system malfunction of North Korea. To prevent the current impasse, the left-side papers emphasized to develop the six-party talk in dealing with North Korean issue, while the right-wing papers paid attentions to the West's sanctions on North Korea and ensuring national security.

• Convergence Security Journal
• /
• v.16 no.3_2
• /
• pp.13-23
• /
• 2016

North Korea had recently conducted the fourth nuclear test and ICBM tests, dared nuclear provocation targeting the Korea and the international community. It is determined based on experiments of nuclear and missile in progress in North Korea that the technical level of nuclear force reached the completion stage of standardization, lightweight, and variation. It is expected to become reality that North Korea executes the nuclear provocation targeting the Korea and the international community in the near future. Nuclear bomb is an absolute weapon that the logic of counterattack after allowing the first strike of the other party cannot be applied due to its tremendous destructive power. Therefore, as the opponent to North Korea that it decided to hold the nuclear, the exercise of anticipatory self-defense in order to guarantee a minimum of right to life is not a choice, but the only essential correspondence concept. At the moment that the North Korean nuclear provocation is expected in the near future, it shall be provided with competence to strike the origin region of provocation by forming a national consensus of preemptive strike enforcement. Also, in preparation for the fifth nuclear test of North Korea, which is anticipated, the national competence must be mobilize to be able to ensure the 'Nuclear Option' from the international community.