Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament

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From Deterrence to Cooperative Security on the

Korean Peninsula

Toby Dalton

To cite this article: Toby Dalton (2020): From Deterrence to Cooperative Security on the Korean
Peninsula, Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, DOI: 10.1080/25751654.2020.1747907

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/25751654.2020.1747907

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Published online: 09 Apr 2020.

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JOURNAL FOR PEACE AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
https://doi.org/10.1080/25751654.2020.1747907

From Deterrence to Cooperative Security on the Korean

Peninsula
Toby Dalton
Nuclear Policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The 2018 US-DPRK Singapore Summit introduced a new model to Received 10 December 2019
guide resolution of long-standing disputes on the Korean Accepted 13 March 2020
Peninsula: a “lasting and stable peace regime” could be created KEYWORDS
simultaneously with the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Korea; security; nuclear;
Peninsula”. This model established a continuum of objectives and military; deterrence;
milestone that extends as far as creation of a nuclear-weapon-free unification
zone in the region. An overlooked but critical obstacle to progress
toward those objectives is the need to diminish the role of deter-
rence in inter-Korean affairs. Cooperative security, both as process
and destination, is a useful concept for guiding the shift away from
deterrence. Developing cooperative security necessitates deeper
efforts than assumed in a peace regime to reduce aggregated
offensive military capability. Beyond facilitation by the United
States and China, the two Koreas have considerable agency to
implement steps that alter their conventional military force balance
and postures. Cooperative security can also help reduce the sal-
ience of nuclear deterrence on the Korean Peninsula by creating
a conflict escalation firebreak, which can mitigate the risk that
small-scale DPRK “tactical provocations” lead to major war, or
even use of nuclear weapons. Inter-Korean initiatives are a critical
complement to multiparty work on denuclearization and a peace
regime, yet face several constraints from big power interests.
Furthermore, pursuit of cooperative security is in basic tension
with unification as the dominant framework for inter-Korean rela-
tions, such that continued emphasis on unification, especially in
South Korean politics, is a likely impediment to progress.

Introduction
Efforts to convince the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea)
to abandon its nuclear-weapon aspirations and programs have been stuck in a wash-rinse
-repeat cycle going on three decades. Carefully negotiated incremental steps and expert-
led processes failed to survive the inevitable political hurdles, technical setbacks, and
mutual recriminations that beset the 1994 Agreed Framework, the 2005–2008 Six Party
Talks, and even the short-lived 2012 “Leap Day Deal”. Six DPRK nuclear explosive tests
and multiple launches of long-range ballistic missiles are proof positive that a new
method, based on a different logic, is needed to achieve denuclearization of the Korean

CONTACT Toby Dalton [email protected] Nuclear Policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
Washington, DC, USA
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group on behalf of the Nagasaki University.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
2 T. DALTON

Peninsula and, beyond that creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Northeast Asia

(NEANWFZ).
The remarkable June 2018 Singapore Summit between Chairman Kim Jong Un and
President Donald Trump seemed to herald just such a needed new approach. The
summit affirmed the prospect that direct, leader-to-leader negotiation between the
DPRK and the United States could break apart the centripetal forces binding the cycle
of failed nuclear diplomacy. The two leaders agreed, in essence, to subvert the old logic,
which cast peace as a function of North Korea’s nuclear dismantlement. The Singapore
Summit changed the math: the creation of a “lasting and stable peace regime” could be
solved simultaneously with the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”.1
This shift to focus on peace and normalization of relations among the combatants of the
70 years past Korean War implicitly recognizes that DPRK leaders are unlikely to
relinquish nuclear weapons unless and until they achieve regime security.
Lamentably, in the months following the Singapore summit, despite additional high-
level summitry, Washington and Pyongyang struggled to translate this new logic into
sustained concrete action. As such, it is yet to be demonstrated that the new, “simulta-
neous equations” model can be more successful in moving the Korean Peninsula toward
denuclearization than past approaches. Even so, pending diplomatic progress, it is worth
examining in more detail the constituent security transformations that would be required
to make the new approach workable.
Most scholarship on the future of the Korean Peninsula, especially by Western experts,
focuses narrowly on steps to redress the DPRK nuclear program (Dalton, Levite, and
Perkovich 2018). Recently, scholars and analysts began to work more on the process and
elements of a peace regime, including plausible options and pathways that would lead
from the present armistice to a new, institutionalized peace treaty, anchored by normal-
ized US-DPRK relations (Aum et al. 2020). Over the long term, some experts even posit
the development of a “security partnership” between Washington and Pyongyang
(Halperin et al. 2018). Such ideas necessarily involve creating structures that remove or
at least mitigate the perceived threat posed by the United States to North Korea’s leaders
as a prerequisite to denuclearization.
Arguably, the transformation of relations between the two Koreas is an equally
important milestone on the path to a new security order in East Asia. Aside from US-
DPRK diplomacy, how and in what capacity can inter-Korean initiatives contribute to
the implementation of the “simultaneous equations” model? And how should such
initiatives be conceived so as to facilitate progress beyond denuclearization toward an
NWFZ in the region?
Although the United States poses a threat to North Korea’s leaders (a threat that seems
often inflated in Pyongyang’s domestic propaganda), the threat from South Korea is in
many ways more complicated to address, for it is not just a military threat, but also
a societal one that conceivably could motivate internal regime change in the DPRK. For
its part, South Korea is justifiably concerned about the DPRK’s burgeoning nuclear and
precision conventional strike capabilities, which prompt calls by some in South Korea for

1
Joint Statement of President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the Singapore Summit, 12 June 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-
statements/joint-statement-president-donald-j-trump-united-states-america-chairman-kim-jong-un-democratic-
peoples-republic-korea-singapore-summit/.
 JOURNAL FOR PEACE AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT 3

a countervailing nuclear weapons program. Diminishing perceived threats between the

two Koreas will require, among other measures, profound efforts to transform their
conventional military capabilities and postures and build cooperative security.

From Deterrence to Cooperative Security

One of the hurdles seemingly preventing progress toward implementing the Singapore
Summit objectives is a lack of agreement between the DPRK and US leaders on how to
define the “end state” to be achieved through creation of a peace regime and
denuclearization2 There are a number of vexing issues involved, including the role and
mission of US military forces stationed in South Korea, the status of US extended
deterrence to South Korea and Japan, the disposition of the DPRK’s suspected chemical
and biological weapons programs and ballistic missile inventory, and other North
Korean behavior that contravenes international norms and standards. China’s interests
and history on the Korean Peninsula will also come into play. On top of these issues are
other complex inter-Korean challenges, including disputed sea boundaries and conven-
tional military threats. Without an agreed end state covering these issues, so the argu-
ment goes, it is difficult to know how to align and sequence the steps on the roadmap to
reach it.
A common negotiating tactic when agreement on a desired end proves illusive, which
could be applied to this situation, is to expand the issue set in order to subsume narrower
problems. Thus, rather than haggling exactly over how to define denuclearization, for
instance, US and DPRK negotiators – with affirmation from South Korean and Chinese
counterparts – could stipulate an even more ambitious destination, namely
a NEANWFZ. In this way, the parties would essentially agree on the existence of
a continuum of objective: peace regime and denuclearization to new security order to
nuclear-weapon-free zone3 This could remove some of the near-term sequencing and
definition issues by re-framing them in terms of a larger and longer-term objective.
One of the critical trajectories along this continuum is the diminished salience of
nuclear weapons to the national security policies of the states in the region. From
a nuclear freeze to denuclearization and adjustments to US extended deterrence, if the
parties reach an NWFZ the role of nuclear weapons would be heavily circumscribed. Yet,
since nuclear weapons provide regime security to DPRK leaders, in addition to other
perceived benefits, progress along this continuum must necessarily address other per-
ceived regime threats. Put another way, North Korea’s weapons are just one part of the
larger deterrence construct, which also includes US extended nuclear deterrence and US-
ROK combined conventional military capabilities. Kim Jong Un would also be justified in
a concern about future US and ROK efforts to foment internal regime change once he
gives up nuclear weapons. This is an unfortunate lesson of the “Libya model” touted by
former US National Security Advisor John Bolton, among others, and roundly rejected
by DPRK officials (Specia and Sanger 2018).
2
Remarks by Special Representative Stephen Biegun at the 2019 Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference,
11 March 2019, https://s3.amazonaws.com/ceipfiles/pdf/NPC19-SpecialRepresentativeBiegun.pdf..
3
* For the purposes of this analysis, we must assume that North Korean leaders believe that it is possible to reconcile such
major changes in North Korea’s security environment with the continuity of the Kim regime, which presumably remains
the paramount objective of the North Korean state..
4 T. DALTON

The bulk of policy analysis on the milestones in this continuum, especially in the
United States, focuses narrowly on constructing a denuclearization roadmap. This
emphasis makes sense since nuclear weapons are the most important issue for
Washington. US planning clearly assumes that Washington will lead efforts to verifiably
dispose of DPRK nuclear programs. South Korea and other parties would presumably
play a support role on denuclearization, at least early in an NWFZ process. There has
been less analysis and planning in Washington on how to change the broader deterrence
framework, which is ultimately a necessary condition for progress along the continuum
from peace regime to denuclearization and beyond. Most scholarship on this issue tends
to gloss over this critical step. For instance, the comprehensive security approach
identified by Halperin et al. seems to assume that the evolution of deterrence occurs
implicitly through the normalization of relations in their six-step plan:

(1) Three-party process to replace the Korean Armistice agreement

(2) Declarations of non-hostility and normalization of relations
(3) Sanctions relaxation
(4) Financial, energy, and humanitarian assistance to DPRK
(5) Northeast Asia Security Council
(6) Nuclear-weapon-free zone

Yet, the deterrence transformation step in the lengthy process of reaching an NWFZ
deserves specific attention. Deterrence is unlikely to simply evolve automatically or
organically, at least in ways that align with longer-term objectives. If deterrence is to be
replaced, it must be replaced with some other concept that is consistent with the
“simultaneous equations” logic, and which builds a solid foundation for an NWFZ.
Cooperative security, both as process and destination, is probably the most useful
concept for guiding the shift away from deterrence. In the abstract, cooperative security
“is a strategic principle that seeks to accomplish its purposes through institutionalized
consent rather than through threats of material or physical coercion . . . [It] seeks to
establish collaborative rather than confrontational relationships among national military
establishments” (Nolan 1994, 4–5). Defining cooperative security as the desired alter-
native to conventional and extended nuclear deterrence is useful for several reasons.
First, it focuses clearly on the conventional military balance and its coercive potential as
a distinct unit of analysis. Second, it prescribes institutionalized procedures for managing
relations between militaries, which over time can temper the inclination toward the kinds
of tactical “provocations” that periodically drive the two Koreas to the brink of militar-
ized crisis. And third, more broadly, it implicitly recognizes the existence and security
interests of both Koreas, as separate states. Such framing subordinates unification as the
predominant objective of inter-Korean relations, which could otherwise be perceived as
threatening by the Kim regime.
Development of cooperative security on the Korean Peninsula is not a new idea. Along
with changes in the global order in the early 1990s, scholars began to look at how military
and nuclear tensions on the Korean Peninsula could be transformed using cooperative
security. At that time, Western scholars tended to argue that, though cooperative security
could complement constraints on North Korea’s nuclear activity, ultimately the “key to
resolving the dispute on the Korean Peninsula involves . . . significant economic reform in
 JOURNAL FOR PEACE AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT 5

North Korea and some preliminary liberalization of its political system” (Harding 1994,
431). This formulation implicitly prescribes soft regime change in North Korea, however,
which would understandably be difficult for DPRK leaders to accept.
South Korean scholarship on cooperative security grew from the late 1990 s, especially
during the era of President Kim Dae Jung’s “Sunshine Policy” toward the North. Like
their western counterparts, Korean scholars explored ways in which cooperative security
could underpin new inter-Korean relations, though focused more on complementing
economic ties rather than changing the DPRK political system (Lee 2002). The freeze in
US-DPRK and inter-Korean relations from 2008 resulted in a decline in scholarly work
on cooperative security, even as new leadership in North Korea and its consolidation of
a nuclear weapons capability changed the parameters of peace and security on the
Peninsula. In 2018, when South Korea’s “peace Olympics” winter games initiated
a new cycle of inter-Korean diplomacy, cooperative security again became a focus of
scholarship. Now, with the looming shadow of North Korean nuclear weapons, Korean
scholars tend to see cooperative security less as an alternative approach to internal
political and economic transformation of North Korea than as a broader framework
for arms control and military confidence building (Lee 2018).

Building a Cooperative Security Foundation

Even if it is narrowly confined to conventional military measures, in parallel to work on
denuclearization and a peace regime, transforming deterrence to cooperative security will
be a lengthy process. It will require creation of multiple types of structures and institu-
tions, at various levels of governance and involving multiple different actors (principally
the two Koreas, but also the United States and China, consistent with their roles in
a peace regime). It must be sustained by unilateral, security-building steps – what are
often termed “costly signals” in international security literature – that demonstrate
changed intentions and reduced military threats (Fearon 1997). Trust is obviously in
short supply on the Korean Peninsula, meaning that leaders in Seoul and Pyongyang
must employ new methods and take greater risks to overcome the significant hurdles.
One such method could be a persistent investment in building inter-personal bonds,
which can change how individual leaders and elites see each other and develop empathy
among them (Wheeler 2018). The highly personalized efforts to cultivate leader-to-leader
chemistry in the 2018 inter-Korean, US-DPRK, and Sino-DPRK summits laid an initial
foundation for such trust building.
A peace regime could entail some of the initial steps to transform deterrence. For
instance, Aum et al. stipulate that the peace regime must involve security guarantees to
the DPRK, military confidence-building measures including conventional force reduc-
tions, and establishing a regional security architecture, all of which would modify the way
in which deterrence is practiced (Aum et al. 2020). However, a peace regime by itself does
not mean the end of deterrence, which is and will remain the dominant security
paradigm on the Korean Peninsula for the foreseeable future. Nor is it a sufficient
condition for cooperative security, which necessitates deeper efforts to reduce aggregated
offensive military capability.
If and when North Korea completely disarms its WMD in the context of a peace
regime, conventional military capabilities will still exist and therefore deterrence would
6 T. DALTON

still play some role in inter-Korean relations. It is unlikely that inter-Korean deterrence
will become obsolete until there is some sort of confederations of the two states. Yet,
diminishing the coercive potential of each military’s capabilities on and around the
Korean Peninsula is an important step toward the broader objective an NWFZ. The
point here is that the timelines and milestones involved in reaching a NEANWFZ suggest
that deterrence would remain a part of the picture until close to the achievement of the
zone, but also that transforming deterrence is so critical to reaching the end that it must
be a focus from the very beginning.
During the transition from deterrence to cooperative security, it is imperative that
military-related steps mutually reinforce denuclearization objectives. Put another way,
the goal is to re-shape deterrence during denuclearization to make not only nuclear
weapons but also other WMD and excessive conventional military capabilities unattrac-
tive and unnecessary for Kim Jong Un to retain. Sequencing is critical. Too much focus
on reducing conventional military capabilities early in the process, for instance, may have
the unintended consequence of extending the denuclearization timeline if North Korea
sees nuclear weapons as a useful offset for relatively weaker conventional arms.
In conceptualizing and setting parameters for cooperative security objectives, it is
useful to borrow extensively from foundational work by Nolan. She argues that a fully
developed cooperative security framework would

set and enforce appropriate standards for the size, concentration, technical configuration,
and operational practices of deployed forces. Reassurance would be the principal objective,
as distinct from deterrence and containment . . .. At the practical level cooperative security
seeks to devise agreed-upon measures to prevent war and to do so primarily by preventing
the means for successful aggression from being assembled . . . . Thus cooperative security
replaces preparations to counter threats with the prevention of such threats in the first place
and replaces the deterring of aggression with actions to make preparation for it more
difficult. In the process the potential destructiveness of military conflict – especially incen-
tives for the use of weapons of mass destruction – would also be reduced (Nolan 1994, 5).

There are a number of elements that need to be considered in planning for the transition
from deterrence to cooperative security. A notional but not exhaustive list includes:

● Legal and political frameworks (including how to treat North-South relations)

● Conventional military force posture, capability, and readiness
● Political/deterrence signaling
● Military incidents and accidents and preventing escalation
● Inter-Korean and 2 + 2 (US/China) military and political processes
● Resilience against political sabotage
● Transparency and other reassurance measures

As the parties negotiate agreements that address these elements, an inevitable challenge
will be overcoming differing threat perceptions and asymmetric capabilities. For
instance, the DPRK may prioritize constraints on the ROK’s so-called Kill Chain pro-
gram, which is intended for precision counterforce targeting of North Korean nuclear
assets, but which is also rumored to provide a leadership decapitation capability. For its
part, the ROK might insist on deep reductions or changes to the multiple rocket launch
systems and heavy artillery arrayed just north of the Demilitarized Zone that threaten to
 JOURNAL FOR PEACE AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT 7

decimate Seoul. It will be difficult in the first instance for the parties to agree on precise
means for implementing and monitoring offensive force limitations; thus, general prin-
ciples covering these various elements would be a useful starting point for discussion. In
this regard, and especially in light of the specific history of military tensions sparked by
DPRK “provocations,” it will be crucial for the parties to reorient their military capabil-
ities for solely defensive purposes, and to affirm that military deployments and force
postures will adhere to a principle of nonprovocation (Nolan 1994, 10).

Role and Importance of Inter-Korean Initiatives

Many of the items on the list above are specific to inter-Korean conventional military
deterrence. Of course, the presence of US military personnel and assets in South Korea,
and broader American security interest in East Asia, bind the US-ROK alliance to this
equation, albeit in a subsidiary way. However, unlike with nuclear issues which inevitably
engage other powers and global regimes at a level that suppresses inter-Korean initiative,
in the conventional military arena, Seoul and Pyongyang have more agency to re-make
their relationship. Just as they decided in the 2018 Pyongyang Summit, the two Koreas
can implement a range of discrete steps that alter conventional military relations. This
agency – that Seoul and Pyongyang can take some command over the process – makes
a focus on conventional military deterrence significant for inter-Korean efforts.
The extent of an inter-Korean agency may be contested, as discussed further below,
but the transformation of deterrence and building of cooperative security cannot be
managed or directed by other powers. The national military policies and postures of the
two Koreas, and their perceptions of each other, must be altered by the two states in ways
that build confidence and momentum toward larger objectives. Such steps will require
political leadership, but more than this, the development of a shared will among their
political elites to sustain progress. In some basic way, they must act together on their
mutual desire to take greater ownership of the future of the Korean Peninsula, to
minimize the role of external powers. Thus, rather than ceding too much of this issue
to Washington or Beijing, Seoul and Pyongyang must lead in this process and convince
others that steps they agree are the best approach.
Apart from the space available for inter-Korean initiatives in this realm, a more
practical reason for prioritizing changes to conventional deterrence is the necessity of
building a conflict escalation firebreak. A long-standing concern about conflict on the
Korean Peninsula is that small-scale DPRK “tactical provocations” could get out of hand
and lead to major war, or even use of nuclear weapons. Following two such deadly attacks
in 2010, South Korea overhauled its defense approach to a “pro-active deterrence”
concept that actively invites escalation through disproportionate retaliation for DPRK
tactical provocations as a means of bolstering deterrence by punishment (Denmark
2011). Though understandable as a product of frustration over years of DPRK provoca-
tions, South Korea’s proactive deterrence is running head-on into the consolidation of
North Korea’s nuclear capability in ways that compound escalation dangers. Research on
state behavior in the years immediately after the acquisition of nuclear weapons suggests
that leaders may be emboldened to attempt coercion or engage in risk taking during
crises (Bell 2015). Thus, should there be a reprise of the 2010 incidents – a major shelling
of South Korean territory or sinking of an ROK Navy vessel – active conflict might
8 T. DALTON

quickly erupt. Therefore, identifying and implementing measures that make conflict
escalation less likely are key to making nuclear weapons less valuable both as instruments
of deterrence and coercion, and ultimately to transforming deterrence.
Simplistically, the DPRK and ROK operationalize deterrence at three levels: tactical
(counter-provocations, pro-active deterrence); operational/conventional (large conven-
tional military forces, US-ROK alliance); and strategic (nuclear, US extended deterrence).
One way to change the deterrence environment is to create a break in the escalation
ladder that could exist between these three levels, to close conflict pathways that bring
nuclear weapons into play. Practically, that necessitates a break at the operational/
conventional level of conflict. In other words, the two Koreas need to diminish the
likelihood of provocations – intentional or accidental – as well as their propensity to
escalate.
The 2018 Pyongyang Summit produced a Comprehensive Military Agreement that
makes a modest start in this direction4 Most of the initiatives contained in this agreement
modify military practice, such as establishing no-fly zones and covering artillery batteries.
A few also began to address infrastructure, like destroying guard posts. These steps are
useful building blocks, and good for atmospherics. But to succeed in making a clear
firebreak, bigger steps are needed to close off escalation pathways from the tactical level.
In particular, both sides could signal willingness to invest security in the hands of the
other party by creating vulnerabilities and demonstrating trust that the adversary will not
exploit them. Destruction of guard posts along the DMZ was a symbolic step that leans in
this direction, but the two sides could go further with force redeployments or dismantling
of other infrastructure close to the border. Additional types of reciprocal steps that would
change the fundamentals of conventional deterrence could include:

● Cooperative border management including installation of sensors and joint

monitoring
● Asymmetric, parallel reductions or proscriptions in certain force concentrations
● Fewer military exercises, with changed scope to diminish perceived offensive
elements
● Reduced readiness and related politico-military signaling

Each of these types of measures could start with agreements in principle, followed by an
implementation period, and ultimately measures for persistent or periodic monitoring.
It is necessary to recognize the importance both of transparency as a general principle,
and the problematic asymmetry in capabilities between the two Koreas in the area of
remote monitoring. Both Koreas will benefit from greater transparency as they seek to
develop trust while they drop their guard and re-orient military capabilities toward
defense. South Korea possesses satellite monitoring capabilities as well as manned and
unmanned aerial reconnaissance platforms that it can use for monitoring purposes. The
DPRK lacks equivalent capabilities, creating an information deficit in which trust build-
ing is inherently more difficult. Furthermore, in establishing no fly zones, the Pyongyang

4
Agreement on the Implementation of the Historic Panmunjom Declaration in the Military Domain, 19 September 2018,
https://www.ncnk.org/resources/publications/agreement-implementation-historic-panmunjom-declaration-military-
domain.pdf..
 JOURNAL FOR PEACE AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT 9

agreement also created unintended monitoring blindspots that make compliance verifi-
cation more difficult. An obvious option that would help resolve this tension and at the
same time serve as a confidence-building measure would be cooperative monitoring
channeled through a standing center (such as the Joint Military Committee called for
under the Pyongyang agreement). This could include the use of commercial satellite
imagery or cooperative aerial overflights of agreed locations (Dalton 2018).

Constraints and Impediments

It stands as an immense challenge to translate this vision into a sequence of reciprocal
actions such that cooperative security building suffuses through the denuclearization and
peace regime tracks. Opposing interests, historical animosities and strongly held images
of the adversary, as well as different forms of government among the parties, complicate
the diplomacy required. Two such obstacles stand out. First, big power interests are likely
to be a critical constraint on how far inter-Korean initiatives can progress. And second,
the political construct of unification is in basic tension with the pursuit of cooperative
security, such that continued emphasis on unification, especially in South Korean
politics, could be an impediment.
Notwithstanding the argument above about the agency that the two Koreas can
exercise in transforming their conventional military relations, the looming presence of
big power interests, and those of the United States and China, in particular, is
a manifest constraint. How far the inter-Korean process could adapt conventional
deterrence without the US and Chinese input is a matter of debate. This issue goes
beyond the presence of US Forces Korea and the UN Combined Forces Command
during and after the establishment of a peace regime. The longer-term question is: how
do Beijing and Washington view the Korean Peninsula in their growing power
competition?
In 2017, following DPRK nuclear and long-range ballistic missile tests, China tigh-
tened the implementation of sanctions on Pyongyang to an unprecedented extent.
According to some in China, tightening sanctions were not merely a signal to
Pyongyang to cool its behavior, but an outward manifestation of a debate about whether
a nuclearizing North Korea was more a liability to China than an asset (Li 2017). When
diplomacy resumed in 2018, that debate in China effectively concluded in favor of those
perceiving North Korea as a future asset. Not wanting to be sidelined during US-DPRK
diplomacy, and to protect against a future US-DPRK alignment, China abruptly switched
tracks from pressure to diplomacy. Over a 15-month period starting in March 2018,
Chinese President Xi Jinping met five times with Kim Jong Un. Whereas the United
States is concerned primarily with denuclearization, as a neighbor of North Korea
China’s interests are far more complex.
Chinese preferences in the construction of a peace regime and changes in inter-
Korean deterrence could play out in different ways. For instance, China might pressure
North Korea not to accept US and ROK military capabilities that are directed at Beijing.
It could also encourage North Korea to retain some types of medium-range missile
capabilities that threaten US bases in the periphery of the Korean Peninsula as a means of
deterring US theater operations. China might also exert greater coercive pressure on
South Korea, as it did after Seoul opted for US deployment of the THAAD missile defense
10 T. DALTON

system in 2016. Chinese pressure through any of these vectors will constrain inter-
Korean flexibility.
Just as China debated whether North Korea would be an asset or liability, some
western analysts also question whether North Korea could in the future be a US security
partner or ally in the region (Halperin et al. 2018). DPRK leaders may seek such an
alignment with Washington precisely to protect against future Chinese coercion as
Beijing’s assertiveness grows in its near abroad. That said, it seems doubtful that US
officials could convince themselves that the benefits of a security partnership with North
Korea would outweigh all of the negatives, such as Pyongyang’s horrific human rights
abuses, autocratic governance, and illicit economic activity, not to mention the potential
damage to the US alliance with South Korea.
Even if US-DPRK alignment seems far-fetched at this remove, US analysts may begin
to see the future of the US-ROK alliance increasingly through the lens of power
competition with China. As noted above, China expressed great concern in 2016 about
US-ROK missile defense cooperation and is vehement in its opposition to a US-ROK-
Japan regionally networked missile defense architecture. As the United States seeks
means to challenge China’s growing power projection capabilities in East Asia, it may
ask its alliance partners to develop capabilities, and/or agree to deploy US systems that
are oriented toward China. It is possible, for example, that Washington might seek to
base intermediate-range ground-launched ballistic missiles in South Korea as a way to
balance China’s regional missile threat. Thus, to the extent that Washington attempts to
focus the US-ROK alliance on containing Beijing, that could impose limits on South
Korean flexibility in adapting conventional deterrence with North Korea.
Whereas external, big power interests might narrow space for inter-Korean efforts to
develop cooperative security, adherence to the principle of unification in the national
policies of the two Koreas may pose a different kind of impediment. It might seem
impolitic to state it so baldly, given the emotion and trauma associated with perpetuation
of the division of the Korean people, but unification looks an increasingly remote
prospect. North Korea’s nuclear weapons give Kim Jong Un added insurance against
external regime change. Kim’s consolidation of power after what appeared to be
a tenuous leadership transition in 2011 following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il,
suggests regime collapse is also unlikely. Even partial unification – such as
a confederation of separate states – is out of reach. Moreover, the two states retain fairly
mutually exclusive visions about which political system would rule a unified Korea. In
this sense, continuing to pursue unification as the primary objective of inter-Korean
relations is logically inconsistent with a process to develop cooperative security, and
probably retards the potential for cooperative security to undergird denuclearization and
build a peace regime.
Probably, neither state could publicly renounce the objective of unification.
Particularly in South Korea, the political costs would be immense. Yet the burden is
greater for South Korea to reduce its emphasis on unification, at least insofar as the idea
of a unified Korea under Seoul’s leadership is perceived as a threat in the North that
justifies continued possession of nuclear weapons. If cooperative security is to be part of
the long-term path toward peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, it must be
approached on the basis of preserving separate states (and by extension the Kim regime),
rather than trying to unify them.
 JOURNAL FOR PEACE AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT 11

Unification is written into the South Korea constitution, article 4 of which declares,
“The Republic of Korea shall seek unification and shall formulate and carry out a policy
of peaceful unification based on the principles of freedom and democracy”. In 1969, then
South Korean Park Chung-Hee formed a National Unification Board, which President
Kim Dae Jung elevated in 1998 to become the Ministry of Unification charged with
implementing his Sunshine Policy. The roughly equivalent DPRK entity is the United
Front Department, which in addition to managing inter-Korean diplomacy has intelli-
gence and propaganda functions. Subsequent conservative governments in Seoul con-
sidered disbanding or downgrading the Ministry, apparently for more political than
strategic reasons (Voice of America News 2009). Setting politics aside, however, altering
the Ministry’s status or function to better support long-term cooperative security objec-
tives, and to reduce the prominence given unification in South Korean policy, would
better align with geopolitical realities.
The trajectory of public opinion in South Korea may favor a shift toward cooperative
security instead of unification. One 2018 survey by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies
shows that younger South Koreans are increasingly likely to see North Koreans as
strangers, rather than as having a shared ethnicity, which helps explain lower interest
among younger cohorts in unification (Kim, Kildong, and Chungku 2018). A 2019
opinion poll by the government-affiliated Korea Institute for National Unification indi-
cates that among all age groups there appears to be growing, albeit still relatively small at
20%, support for peaceful coexistence instead of unification. The report concludes
“Younger generation, conservatives, supporters of [the conservative] Liberty Korea
Party, women, etc. have a clear tendency to prefer peaceful coexistence over unification”
(KINU 2019, 5). Thus, generational change in South Korea could play an important role
in broadening political support for cooperative security.
Big power interests and continued emphasis on a unification construct could pose
obstacles to inter-Korean effort to transform deterrence and build cooperative security.
Or not. With shared political will, Seoul and Pyongyang can decide to minimize the
obstacles to stable, peaceful, and cooperative relations. This interest is made clear in the
preamble to the 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, in which the leaders of the two Koreas
asserted a “firm commitment to bring a swift end to the Cold War relic of longstanding
division and confrontation, to boldly approach a new era of national reconciliation, peace
and prosperity, and to improve and cultivate inter-Korean relations in a more active
manner”.5

Conclusion
In their three inter-Korean summit meetings in 2018, President Moon Jae In and
Chairman Kim Jong Un expressed a clear, shared desire to take more ownership of the
future of the Korean Peninsula and dismantle the frozen Cold War security structures.
Diminishing the salience of nuclear weapons, transforming deterrence and establishing

5
Panmunjeom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula, 27 April 2018, https://www.
washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/04/27/the-panmmunjom-declaration-full-text-of-agreement-
between-north-korea-and-south-korea/.
12 T. DALTON

cooperative security are necessary elements of a long-term approach to peace and

security on the Korean Peninsula.
The political breakthroughs in inter-Korean and US-DPRK relations in 2018 showed
that a new path toward peace is conceivable. Unfortunately, progress along this path
stalled in 2019, and even suffered some reversals. US-DPRK discussions on implement-
ing the Singapore Summit failed to achieve concrete results, which had negative spillover
effects on inter-Korean relations. If new opportunities for progress materialize, the two
Koreas could take several steps to build confidence and develop a solid foundation for
cooperative security. For instance, they could add transparency measures to the 2018
Pyongyang Comprehensive Military Agreement. They could also define a common
vision for peace and security, with a specific articulation of cooperative security as the
basis for that vision. Necessarily, this would require the two sides to downplay unification
as the overarching construct for this future. And they could also expand the contours of
a desired end-state to specify the establishment of an NWFZ in the region.
Imagination, persistence and risk-taking by the leaders of the two Koreas are impera-
tive if they are to escape the negative cycle of failed security diplomacy gripping the
Peninsula. Reshaping mutual security by transforming conventional military deterrence
is a significant way in which inter-Korean initiatives can spur progress in implementing
denuclearization and building a peace regime, and ultimately concluding a NEANWFZ.

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This work was supported by grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John
D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Notes on Contributor
Toby Dalton is co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program and senior fellow at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. Before joining Carnegie, Dalton served in
several capacities at the US National Nuclear Security Administration, including as senior policy
advisor in the Office of Nonproliferation and International Security. He also served as
a professional staff member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and was a Luce
Fellow at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, South Korea. He holds a PhD in public
policy from George Washington University.

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