The Danger of War on the Korean Peninsula

By Ambassador Joseph DeTrani

Ambassador Joseph DeTrani served as the U.S. Representative to the Korea Energy Development Organization (KEDO), as well as former CIA director of East Asia Operations. He also served as Associate Director of National Intelligence and Mission Manager for North Korea, was the Special Envoy for the Six-Party Talks with North Korea, and served as the Director of the National Counter Proliferation Center, ODNI.  He currently serves on the Board of Managers at Sandia National Laboratories.

OPINION — North Korea’s enhanced allied relationship with Russia, and leader Kim Jong Un’s decision to send troops to aid Russia in its war of aggression in Ukraine, could be the prelude to war on the Korean Peninsula. When North Korea was closely allied with the Soviet Union, from 1950 to 1991, the regime in Pyongyang was reckless; when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and North Korea could no longer rely on Moscow for financial and military support, the regime in Pyongyang changed tack and behaved more responsibly. Now, North Korea is allied with a revanchist Russian Federation and will likely revert to provoking South Korea and inciting war on the Korean Peninsula.

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gave North Korea’s Kim il Sung permission to invade South Korea in June 1950.  After the armistice in July 1953 – and the significant North Korean, South Korean, Chinese and U.S. casualties that the war had brought – the Soviet Union and North Korea signed the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in 1961. In 1963, the Soviets provided North Korea with a research reactor at the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center and significant missile technology assistance – and the promise of a Light Water Reactor — until the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991.

North Korea’s allied relationship with the Soviet Union emboldened North Korea’s Kim il Sung – the current leader’s grandfather – resulting in a myriad of terrorist acts: the January 1968 North Korean commando raid and attempted assassination of South Korean President Park Chung-Hee at his residence in the Blue House in Seoul; the October 1983 North Korean commando squad sent to Rangoon, Burma to assassinate South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan and his delegation, resulting in the death of 26 South Korean officials, and injuries to 46 others. Mr. Chun himself was fortunate; he had mechanical problems, arriving late to the massacre. And in November 1987, Korean Airlines Flight 858 exploded in mid-air; two North Korean agents had planted a bomb in the overhead bin in the passenger cabin. All 115 passengers and crew were killed.


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With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the North Koreans lost an ally and supporter and were forced to rely solely on China, with whom they had a 1961 Mutual Aid, Cooperation and Friendship Treaty. That treaty, which commits China to provide military assistance if North Korea is attacked, has been renewed every twenty years – in 1981, 2001 and 2021. But China also normalized relations with South Korea in 1992, and in the years that followed was focused on economic development and stability in the region. Leaders including Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao no doubt made it clear to Mr. Kim that the North’s past reckless behavior was not in China’s interest. Indeed, in 1992 North Korea and South Korea signed a denuclearization agreement, committing both to refrain from testing, manufacturing, producing, receiving, possessing, storing, deploying or using nuclear weapons. Nuclear energy would be used exclusively for peaceful purposes.

North Korea in the 1990s and 2000s sought better, normalized relationships – primarily with the U.S., but also with South Korea and Japan. With the death of Kim il Sung, his son Kim Jong il took over and moved forward with the Agreed Framework with the U.S., and then the Six-Party Talks hosted by China. Both agreements committed North Korea to complete and verifiable denuclearization, in return for economic development assistance and a path to normal relations with the U.S.

When the Six-Party Talks ended in 2009, due to North Korea’s efforts to deny nuclear monitors access to suspect Highly Enriched Uranium sites, things deteriorated quickly. In March 2010, North Korea used a miniature submarine to sink a South Korean corvette, the Cheonan, killing 46 sailors. And in November 2010, North Korea shelled South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island, at the Northern Limit Line established by the United Nations Command separating South and North Korea in the West Sea.


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There is a pattern with North Korea: when developments are in their favor, they behave reasonably. When developments are not in their favor, they are hostile.  Currently, North Korea is threatening to preemptively use nuclear weapons if there is a perceived threat to the leadership or command and control. And the North has declared that South Korea and the U.S. are its principal enemies, and that peaceful reunification is no longer North Korea’s goal. The country has destroyed all rail and roads connecting North and South Korea – all the while building more nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons of mass destruction.

North Korea’s new allied relationship with Russia, and their mutual defense treaty, commits each to come to the defense of the other if attacked. North Korea is now sending troops to aid Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, in addition to providing artillery shells and ballistic missiles.  This is a clear statement from the regime in Pyongyang that it has given up on South Korea and the U.S., and is now fully in Russia’s camp.

The only country that could convince Mr. Kim to stop this escalation is China. So far, China has refrained from helping with the North Korea issue, given Beijing’s tense relationship with the U.S. But it is also in China’s interest to convince Mr. Kim that war on the Korean Peninsula must be prevented. This is something former Chinese leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao did, responding to President George W. Bush’s requests for assistance with North Korea. The question now is whether President Xi Jinping will intercede with North Korea to prevent the possibility of war on the Korean Peninsula.

This column by Cipher Brief Expert Ambassador Joseph DeTrani was first published in The Washington Times

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