North
Korea mired by muddle or
masterminds By Andray
Abrahamian
ULSAN, South Korea - There are
two ways to look at the rapidity with which North
Korea has put pressure on the deal it signed with
the United States for food aid barely three weeks
ago: It was either part of a plan, or it wasn't.
Into the opacity of Pyongyang's
decision-making, outsiders can now choose to
reinforce whichever of those two scenarios they
imagine is taking place: either the leadership is
solid and
continuing a long tradition of
political gamesmanship with the United States, or
it is divided and cracks are beginning to form.
On February 29, the United States and
North Korea struck a deal. North Korea was to
implement a moratorium on long-range missile
launches and nuclear tests as well as allow
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
inspections at the Yongbyon nuclear facility. In
exchange, the United States agreed to ship 240,000
tons of food aid, not including rice and grains,
which was to be distributed evenly over the course
of the year and monitored by aid groups.
On March 16, Pyongyang announced there
will be a satellite launch on or around the 100th
birthday celebrations for founding father Kim
Il-sung on April 15, which is tantamount to a
ballistic missile test in terms of technology.
North Korea loves to focus on
technological achievements for domestic propaganda
purposes. (Other countries do this too, of course,
they just harness private media experts to drum up
interest: it's called public relations.)
Computer production, CNC machine-tooling
and more traditional industrial processes have all
been highlighted in recent months, but these all
pale to the value of a missile launch. Missiles
demonstrate to a country's people that they are
part of a strong and modern nation. Packed with
symbolism, it is unsurprising that many in the
upper echelons of North Korea's leadership would
want to infuse positive associations with Kim
Il-sung in as many ways possible on such a
significant day. It also draws conceptual links
with Kim Jong-eun.
The announcement of a
satellite launch has lead to strong signals from
the United States that if the test goes ahead, it
would kill the leap-day deal. "We did warn them
that we consider that a satellite launch of this
kind would be an abrogation of that agreement,"
said US State Department spokesperson Victoria
Nuland. She also stated that such a launch made
food aid "hard to imagine.”
To be sure,
the US-North Korea relationship is riddled with
mistrust and unkept promises, but to have an
agreement fall apart so soon is unusual. So why
did Pyongyang send such a provocative signal after
such positive ones?
The first explanation
is that it was part of a plan. Such a plan could
have a few benefits, one of which would be to
challenge assertions by the United States that
food aid is purely humanitarian, not political.
North Korea will argue that they are allowed
peaceful satellite testing under the 1966 Outer
Space Treaty, which they joined in 2009. "The
peaceful development and use of space is a
universally recognized legitimate right of a
sovereign state," the Korea Central News Agency
said in response to US statements over the
weekend.
If the United States cancels the
food aid, North Korea gets to highlight the
hypocrisy of American diplomacy. Such a plan,
however, means a major diplomatic effort was
sacrificed for a PR win, which is of minimal value
to North Korea. Even if they show that US aid is
not humanitarian, but a political tool, the vast
majority of the international community will still
see North Korea as the rogue, breaking the spirit
of the agreement, if not the letter.
Domestically it is of little value.
Pyongyang already has a full litany of grievances
against the United States to keep the enemy firmly
in its citizens' minds. Indeed, this is one issue
that it wouldn't want to complain about too
vociferously: the authorities don't want to
highlight nutritional assistance as Kim Il-sung's
birthday approaches.
Perhaps, however,
Pyongyang thinks the United States might decide to
save face by sending humanitarian aid in spite of
the test. This would be a bad misunderstanding of
American political norms in general and the
current atmosphere in Washington regarding North
Korea: there is little patience for trouble in
this election year. In fact, the day before North
Korea made its announcement, five US senators
wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
accusing the administration of "embracing a policy
of appeasement” just for making the February 29th
deal.
If somehow American aid was to
continue, however, Pyongyang could feel it had
gotten its way on both fronts.
The second
explanation for the competing signals is that
there is some kind of conflict in the leadership.
If this didn't occur right at the top then perhaps
it took place in the echelon just below, but in
either case the top decision-makers failed to
manage it well, if at all.
In this
scenario, the foreign ministry might have been
unaware of the plans for the satellite test and is
now seeing its work undone by hardline forces.
This would suggest that the military or others
knew about the negotiations but allowed them to
rather farcically continue.
It may be that
negotiators had their instructions and met them.
But then after other institutions saw the details
of the deal, they began arguing that the value of
the food aid was not equal to the value of a big
symbol on the birthday of its founder.
The
value of that symbol becomes even greater if one
considers recent rumors that construction in
Pyongyang is behind schedule. The combination of
this and the drawn-out structure of the food aid
might have put new wind behind the sails of those
willing to provoke the United States.
A
final 'conflict scenario' would have the Foreign
Ministry going beyond its purview and being pulled
back into line by more conservative forces. This
would imply a pretty severe breakdown in
communication, however.
Does this mean
there are real cracks in the leadership that could
cause instability? It is possible, but this is
hardly the first time that domestic factionalism
has led to confused signal-sending in the
international arena. If this latest episode was
not a pre-planned strategy, it is more likely that
different cliques are jockeying to see how far
they can take their positions under the new
leadership structure. As much as the buck stopped
with the late Kim Jong-il's decision-making, he
too had to manage competing interests.
Muddled or masterminded, this much is
certain: the tortured dance between the United
States and North Korea continues.
Andray Abrahamian is a doctoral
candidate at the University of Ulsan, South
Korea.
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