The US Versus the North Korean Nuclear Threat

Er-Win Tan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134464401
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Arms Control
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Although the current world order is still dominated by the US, there is increasing international concern over the possibility of regional security dilemmas arising from smaller powers' attempts to develop Weapons of Mass Destruction. A study of US-North Korean interaction using the security dilemma as a conceptual frame of analysis is thus not only hugely topical, but also particularly relevant for the 21st century on theoretical as well as empirical grounds. Is there the prospect of a security dilemma contagion if North Korea acquire nuclear weapons capability leading to an Asia Pacific wide nuclear arms race? This book examines this contentious issue in-depth and explores the difficult choices policymakers face as a result of the uncertainty in international politics.

1
The security dilemma

Three perspectives

I Introduction

There is an academic debate in the literature on the security dilemma concerning the implications of anarchy in international politics, and whether or not cooperation between states is possible under these conditions. From the perspective of offensive realism, anarchy results in an irreducible level of uncertainty in international politics, causing security-seeking states to constantly view one another as threats to their own security.¹ In contrast, from the perspective of defensive realism and constructivism, long-term cooperation between defensive states in mitigating security competition under the condition of anarchy is possible. Where defensive realism and constructivism differ, however, is in how they explain the possibilities of long-term cooperation in mitigation of the security dilemma. Although defensive realist theory shares offensive realism’s assumption that anarchy is a potential source of security competition in international politics, defensive realists also argue that, under certain conditions, it may be possible for states to reduce uncertainty by signalling their defensive intentions to one another, thus mitigating the extent of their competition for security competition.² The constructivist perspective goes further and contends that paradoxical security competition between defensive states occurs when policymakers interact based on socially constructed antagonistic images of one another. At the same time, however, constructivists argue that such socially constructed antagonistic relationships can be reinterpreted. Policymakers can reinterpret the meaning of the hostile images that they have assigned to one another and instead consider the possibility that the other side is driven by fear, rather than malice.³

This chapter outlines the theoretical foundation for an eclectic analytical approach that compares and contrasts the three theoretical perspectives – offensive realism, defensive realism and constructivism – that frame the academic debate surrounding the security dilemma. This chapter will begin by examining the logic that has framed academic discourse on the security dilemma, beginning with an examination of Rousseau’s ‘Stag Hunt’ and the Prisoner’s Dilemma game. From here, the chapter examines the academic debate over the prospects for cooperation between actors under anarchy. This is accomplished by examining, in detail, the theoretical assumptions of offensive realism, defensive realism and constructivism. Each of these three theoretical perspectives will be dealt with in three separate sub-sections, each beginning with a discussion of their respective theoretical assumptions, and their corresponding implications for the condition of anarchy in international relations.

II Rousseau’s ‘Stag Hunt’ and the Prisoner’s Dilemma

Jean-Jacques Rousseau proposed the image of a ‘Stag Hunt’ to illustrate the difficulties faced in building trust in an environment fraught with suspicion. The Stag Hunt begins with the assumption that, amongst a group of five hunters, all would eat well by cooperating to hunt a stag. Such cooperation, however, collapses when the men see a hare. Although the hunger of each of the hunters would be less satisfied by the hare than the stag, each of them fears that the others cannot be trusted to refrain from catching the hare first. Fearing such defection, one of the hunters chooses instead to catch the hare and satisfy himself. In so doing, however, he scares the stag away, depriving the others of a meal.⁴

The Prisoner’s Dilemma game is driven by a similar logic and assumes the presence of two prisoners who have the choice of either cooperating (by denying involvement in a crime) or defecting (by confessing to the crime and implicating the other), without knowing if the other person will cooperate or defect.⁵ Their choice of action has to be decided without knowing in advance what the other side will do. Both sides are aware that mutual cooperation would lead to a higher benefit than mutual defection. At the same time, however, should they choose unilateral defection against a cooperating partner, the defector would benefit at the expense of the cooperative side. The possibility of mutual cooperation is complicated by the fact that both prisoners are rational egoists, in other words, that they are actors that consider an action rational only if it maximises their own self-interest. When the relationship between the two sides is characterised by mistrust, the likelihood is that both will believe that the other will defect. Rather than risk unilateral loss, both sides will choose to defect, their preference for mutual cooperation notwithstanding.⁶

The notion that cooperation between rational egoists in an anarchic environment is impossible was, however, challenged by Robert Axelrod in The Evolution of Co-operation. Axelrod noted that, when several rounds of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game are repeated between two players, the choices that they undertake, could be used by either side to signal intent to cooperate, build trust and thus increase their mutual benefits.⁷ Labelling this strategy as ‘tit-for-tat’,⁸ Axelrod argued that when the players – even as rational egoists – value their future benefits, they stood to maximise their gains when they responded to cooperative moves by reciprocal cooperation. Conversely, the players minimised their losses by responding to defection by the other player with a defection of their own.⁹ The players in the Prisoner’s Dilemma could indicate their preferences (for cooperation or defection) and thus build a basis for cooperation even in the absence of a Hobbesian Leviathan. In other words, even when the players in a Prisoner’s Dilemma prioritised self-interest, cooperation between rival parties was still possible as they could reciprocally signal to one another an interest in mutual cooperation. Furthermore, as both sides are able to maximise their own long-term self-interest without undermining on one another, both sides realise that the rational course of action is to sustain that process of reciprocal cooperation for their own benefit.

Can such a process of cooperation and trust-building be replicated within the context of international politics? States, too, interact with one another in the absence of world government, or what may be termed ‘an anarchic setting’. In this regard, the academic literature on the security dilemma has been characterised by significant debates between offensive realism, defensive realism and critical constructivism in exploring the possibilities for trust-building and cooperation between actors in an uncertain, anarchic world.

III Defining the security dilemma

The term ‘security dilemma’ first entered the academic lexicon in 1950 with John Herz’s seminal work, ‘Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma’, in the journal World Politics, in which he referred to

a fundamental social constellation … where a plurality of otherwise interconnected groups constitute ultimate units of political life … where groups live alongside each other without being organized into a higher unity. Wherever such anarchic society has existed … there has arisen what may be called the ‘security dilemma’ … Groups or individuals living in such a constellation must be, and usually are, concerned about their security from being attacked … Striving to attain security from such attack, they are driven to acquire more and more power in order to escape the impact of the power of others. This, in turn, renders the others more insecure and compels them to prepare for the worst. Since none can feel entirely secure in such a world of competing units, power competition ensues, and the vicious circle of security and power accumulation is on.¹⁰

During the same period, Herbert Butterfield highlighted the ‘Other Minds’ problem that policymakers face in interpreting the intentions of other states. Butterfield referred to how uncertainty in anarchy formed ‘the tragic element in human conflict’. Butterfield wrote of a

Hobbesian fear – that you yourself may vividly feel the terrible fear that you have of the other party, but you cannot enter into the other man’s counter-fear, or even understand why he should be particularly nervous. For you know that you yourself mean him no harm, and that you want nothing from him save guarantees for your own safety; and it is never possible for you to realise or remember properly that since he cannot see the inside of your mind, he can never have the same assurance of your intentions that you have. As this operates on both sides … neither party sees the nature of the predicament he is in, for each only imagines that the other party is being hostile and unreasonable.¹¹

The salient features of the security dilemma identified in these works point to a number of key features that characterise the security dilemma and its implications in international relations:

1. Anarchy: The definition of anarchy as ‘a fundamental social constellation … where groups live alongside each other without being organized into a higher unity’ underlines its importance as the key political context wherein an absence of a Hobbesian Leviathan allows paradoxical security competition between defensive states to occur.
2. Hobbesian Fear: Butterfield’s identification of ‘Hobbesian fear’ is important in underlining how the ‘problem of other minds’ leads to policymakers’ difficulty in appreciating how their own actions have contributed to their mutual fears. Implicit in this assumption is the condition of uncertainty – given the condition of anarchy in international relations, policymakers can never be certain if rival states are driven by defensive or offensive intentions. Both sides thus fear that they are threatened by the other. At the same time, the ‘other minds’ problem prevents either side from looking into the mind of his prospective adversary; it is never possible for either side to realise that apparently provocative behaviour may be driven by fear, rather than hostility.
3. Self-defeating Competition for Security: The convergence of these two assumptions leads to the pattern of interaction that the majority of scholars have adopted in their understanding of the security dilemma – namely, a situation in which states, in attempting to safeguard their own security in what they believe to be a hostile world, acquire weapons to defend themselves against anticipated attack. Thus, for instance, Jervis argued that ‘in the absence of a supranational authority that can enforce binding agreements, many of the steps pursued by states to bolster their security have the effect … of making other states insecure’.¹² In a similar vein, Mearsheimer argued that ‘the measures a state takes to increase its own security usually decrease the security of other states’.¹³

Yet, more recent scholarship by Ken Booth and Nicholas Wheeler highlights a significant weakness in the third of these characteristics: ‘there is no “dilemma” in these [aforementioned] definitions’.¹⁴ Booth and Wheeler argue that these descriptions of the ‘security dilemma’ are, in fact, describing ‘security paradoxes’, as states, in attempting to increase their own security through the acquisition of armaments, arouse the security fears of others, leading to a vicious circle of arms racing that, paradoxically, undermines their own security. In contrast to this, Booth and Wheeler argue that a ‘dilemma’ implies the ‘presence of a difficult choice’, against which a decision has to be made; such decisions have to be taken without the benefit of hindsight, without knowing in advance if one’s choice of action will turn out for the best.

Booth and Wheeler adopted a definition of the security dilemma that moves away from the mainstream definition found in the academic literature. They critique the assumption that paradoxical security competition between defensive states is inevitable. As such, defining the security dilemma as paradoxical security competition between defensive states is dependent on the assumption that human beings are never capable of seeing beyond their own fear of others.¹⁵ Yet, they argue that a definition of the security dilemma has to allow for human agenc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of appendices
• Introduction
• 1 The security dilemma: Three perspectives
• 2 Mitigating the security dilemma: Three perspectives
• 3 Background to US–North Korean interaction
• 4 The 1993–1994 nuclear crisis
• 5 From the Agreed Framework to the Joint Communiqué of 2000
• 6 Confrontation and the HEU program
• 7 Nuclear coercion and nuclear diplomacy with North Korea
• 8 Conclusion
• Appendices
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index