The Legacy of the Korean War Armistice Negotiations on North Korea;s Negotiating Behavior

1、The Legacy of the Korean War Armistice Negotiations on North Koreas Negotiating Behavior By Tae-Kyu LEE Major in Program in International Cooperation Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei University December 2000 2 The Legacy of the Korean War Armistice Negotiations on North Koreas Negoti

2、ating Behavior By Tae-Kyu LEE A thesis submitted to the faculty of Yonsei University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of International Studies Major in Program in International Cooperation Graduate School of International Studies Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea Dec

3、ember 2000 3 GRADUATE SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES YONSEI UNIVERSITY COMMITTEE APPROVAL of a masters thesis submitted by Tae-Kyu LEE This thesis has been read by each member of the supervisory committee and by majority vote has been found to be satisfactory. Date_ Chairman Prof. Young-Rok Cheong

4、Date_ Prof. Hyuk-Rae Kim Date_ Prof. Chung-min Lee 4 Acknowledgements I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to all the faculty, fellow students, and administration who have supported me during my studies at the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei. My experiences in Korea and m

5、y growth as a student would not have been as fruitful had it not been for their constant encouragement and advice. First of all, I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Professor Young- Rok Cheong, who has helped me for almost an entire year on the completion of my thesis. It was in part due to his

6、 judicious counseling that I decided to change my thesis topic the previous semester and pursue the current topic that was more befitting of my interests and base of knowledge. His patience and scholastic encouragement, as well as his advice on personal matters, have been a buttress to my academic e

7、ndeavours at Yonsei. I would also like to give my appreciation to my thesis committee members, Professors Chung-min Lee and Hyuk-Rae Kim, for their model of academic rigor. I would like to thank my fellow students and those outside of GSIS who have always supported me with devoted friendship in ever

8、ything I undertook. Their honest and impartial comments on academic matters during my stay in Korea have helped me to reformulate many of my views and to become a more prudent thinker. 5 Finally, I wish to extend my gratitude to the administration of Yonsei GSIS. They have always encouraged me to do

9、 my best through gracious compliments and always took interest in my personal affairs in concern for my welfare. 6 Abstract This thesis will argue that the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK hereinafter) has behaved as a rational actor in the field of international negotiation during the rec

10、ent negotiations with the Republic of Korea, the United States, and Japan. Currently, many Western scholars and negotiators claim that the seeming contradiction between North Koreas overtures for negotiation and reconciliation toward its Cold War enemies (the Republic of Korea, the United States, an

11、d Japan) on the one hand and its concurrent confrontational actions and violation of negotiating norms against them on the other are indications that North Korea is not a rational actor but an unpredictably aggressive and irrational state. This thesis will contend against these views by demonstratin

12、g that North Koreas negotiating tactics are not haphazard or irrational but are rather rooted in the important lessons learned during the Korean War armistice negotiations. By examining the course of the armistice negotiations, this paper will show that the seemingly irregular and irrational methods

13、 of negotiation that North Korea is currently exhibiting were not employed by North Korea and China alone during the war but were also extensively used by the United States/United Nations Command and the Republic of Korea. Next, the paper will argue that such negotiating tactics were not the result

14、of irrational decision making but were highly effective moves in maximizing gains and breaking deadlock in favor of the party that applied them skillfully and flexibly. 7 The thesis will then show how the negotiation strategy applied during the Korean War armistice was in turn reapplied effectively

15、by its participants through the remainder of the Cold War and will take the negotiations of 1968 as case studies. The thesis will then turn to the current round of negotiations which began with the North Korean nuclear issue in the early 1990s and demonstrate how the North Koreans were able to use t

16、he tactics and strategies of the armistice negotiations, which remained valid under new circumstances, to maximize their gains as rational actors. North Korea, under its given constraints, is maximizing benefits as a rational actor in negotiations today with its old adversaries by utilizing these ol

17、d but proven, albeit distateful, strategies carried out almost a half-century ago. In a corollary section, the thesis will also explain how some of the supposed provocations of the North Korean militaryparticularly physical infiltrationsduring the latest round of negotiations beginning in the 1990s

18、may be attributable to the low level of North Korean intelligence gathering technology and domestic-level political considerations rather than sheer, impulsive belligerence towards its negotiating counterparts. The thesis will conclude with an assessment of the continuing effectiveness of armistice-

19、era style negotiations on the post-Cold War Korean peninsula, and will assert that the Kim Dae-jung administrations Sunshine Policy has been effective in the long run in countering some of these old tactics and channeling North Koreas diplomatic efforts towards engagement. 8 Table of Contents I Intr

20、oduction .9 Recent Developments.9 Review of Recent Literature on North Korean Negotiation.15 Defining North Korean Negotiation Behavior.20 Main Thesis, Outline, and Methodology.23 II Korean War Armistice Negotiations.27 Background .27 Communist Negotiation Tactics and Strategy toward the UNC.33 Intr

21、oduction33 Negotiation Strategy in the Early Stage .37 Excessive Demands and Dilatory Tactics .45 Dilatory Tactics and Increasing Military Power .51 Conclusion57 UNC/US Negotiation Tactics and Strategy Against the Communists.60 Introduction60 Excessive Demands.61 Splitting Opponents Alliance through

22、 Conflict Escalation.62 Breaking Deadlock and Forcing Concessions through Conflict Escalation65 Attacking High Level Officials.69 Destruction of the North Korean Food Supply.71 Threats and Brinkmanship.75 ROK Negotiation Tactics Against the US.79 Results.87 III The Legacy of the Armistice Negotiatio

23、ns on Cold War Conflicts.89 Background .89 1968: The Pueblo, Guerrilla Infiltrations, and the Blue House Raid.91 IV Current Negotiations.97 Setting .97 Analyzing North Korean Negotiating Style .99 V Exogenous Factors.109 The Military and Espionage Technology Gap.109 Domestic Political Considerations

24、.111 VI Conclusion.113 Books116 Internet118 Periodicals118 9 I Introduction Recent Developments The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 evoked hopeful prospects that the world would see prosperity and peace in the final decade of historys most uncertain century. In the K

25、orean Peninsula, however, and for the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (hereinafter “DPRK” or “North Korea”) in particular, these same events marked the beginning of an uncertain decade that turned out to be North Koreas grimmest since the end of the Korean War. This introductory chapter will fi

26、rst describe the predicament North Korea faced in the beginning of the post-Cold War order. Next, North Korean attempts to engage its old Cold War enemies will be discussed. The following section will describe North Koreas paradoxical acts of aggression towards the parties it is engaging, followed b

27、y a survey on recent literature which attempts to explain this contradictory phenomena and an outlined description identifying North Korean negotiating behavior. Afterwards, North Koreas impressive gains in the diplomatic field under its given constraints will be listed in order to reveal a problem

28、in identifying North Korean negotiation style as irrational. The final part of the Introduction contains the main thesis which attempts to unravel this problem and gives an outline of the remainder of the paper. 10 The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union changed the balance o

29、f power to the detriment of North Korea. First, the DPRK lost its client status with its now-extinct patron, including the vital economic and military aid it had received, resulting in severe economic difficulties from the early 1990s. The collapse of the USSR also meant that Pyongyang could no long

30、er receive concessions from China by exploiting its rivalry with Moscow. More importantly, the security posture on the peninsula shifted in favor of the Republic of Korea (hereinafter “ROK” or “South Korea”) and its key ally, the US, when Beijing established diplomatic relations with Seoul in August

31、 of 1992 and Russia indicated that it intended to revise the 1961 defense treaty between the USSR and North Korea. Pyongyang could no longer rely on the political backing of the former Soviet Union or China and the corollary military deterrence the North had relied on since the Chinese troops first

32、crossed the Yalu fourty years prior. To make matters worse, North Korea experienced another great trauma when its unquestioned leader for fifty years, Kim Il Sung, died in 1994 while in the midst of making sensitive diplomatic maneuvers toward the South and left an uncertain course of leadership suc

33、cession for the next few years. This was followed by the worst floods in the century beginning in 1995 following a period of equally severe drought, resulting in severe dislocation, food shortage, destruction of agricultural land, and famine which killed an estimated 2 million people. North Korea ha

34、d not faced such difficult and uncertain times since the 1950s. 11 In the face of such difficulties, North Korea initiated a serious diplomatic offensive at the end of the Cold War to adjust itself to the new international environment in order to alleviate its new political and economic problems and

35、 maximize its chances for survival under its given constraints and circumstances in the new world order. However, the DPRK appeared to practice a bizzare dual track foreign policy in dealing with its old Cold War enemies: one of engagement and reconciliation and the other of unrelenting aggression,

36、obstruction, and uncooperativeness. This seemingly idiosyncratic and uncommon negotiation practice has ignited concern and attention from negotiation theorists and has given rise to the suspicion that North Korea is not a rational actor in the diplomatic field. This issue is the theme the paper will

37、 consider. This thesis will attempt to find the roots of an obtrusive current North Korean negotiation style, which is buried in the soil of the armistice talks that took place during the Korean War. In one aspect, North Korea appeared to espouse engagement and reconciliation toward its old Cold War

38、 enemies, namely South Korea and the US. Following the modest initiatives begun in the late 1980s by the ROK and the US, North Korea seemed to exploit the momentum and agreed to joint United Nations admission with South Korea in September 1991. The same month, President George Bush of the US announc

39、ed the withdrawal of all tactical nuclear weapons worldwide, including those along the DMZ.1 1 Bruce Cummings, Koreas Place in the Sun (New York: W.W. Norton at the same time, a Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was signed, calling for the creation of a nuclear-free P

40、eninsula. The landmark agreement stated that the two sides should agree in principle not to make nuclear weapons or to possess nuclear reprocessing or enrichment facilities, and should agree to mutual inspections by a Joint Nuclear Control Committee (JNCC). In January of the following year, North Ko

41、rea finally agreed to sign the International Atomic Energy Agencys (IAEA) Full Scope Safeguards Agreement, which Pyongyang had resisted from doing for several years. This agreement would allow IAEA inspections of the DPRKs primary nuclear facility at Yongbyon. As Pyongyang appeared to head towards n

42、ormalization of relations with the West along the lines of the former socialist countries, the ROK and the US began to give several concessions to North Korea. In 1992, President Roh Tae Woo and President Bush took the unprecedented step of cancelling the annual Team Spirit military exercises which

43、had been a thorn in DPRK-ROK/US relations. In February of that year, Arnold Kanter, US Department of State Undersecretary for Political Affairs, met with his North Korean counterpart, Korean Workers Party Director for International Affairs 13 Kim Young-sun, in New York. Kanter offered the prospect o

44、f normalization of relations with the US if North Korea took several conciliatory steps, including ending exports of missiles and related technology, renouncing terrorism, improvement of human rights, and concluding a credible and effective North-South nuclear inspection regime. However, the allies

45、soon suspected that North Korea appeared to be following a duplicitous methodor no method at allin its relations with the US and the ROK. Despite the agreements on the nuclear issue, North Korea appeared to be stepping up its nuclear weapons capabilities and missile development efforts. Negotiations

46、 to create the JNCC were suspended by North Korea in 1992 and it soon became apparent that the North was reprocessing plutonium in 1992. In March of 1993, Pyongyang announced that it would withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in ninety days; in 1994, North Korea suspended IAEA inspections

47、, risking international sanctions and pushing the peninsula to the brink of war. In order to diffuse the crisis, the US offered unprecedented direct negotiations with the North in June of 1993. Although the Geneva Agreed Framework in 1994 diffused tensions momentarily by the US offer of two Light Wa

48、ter Reactors (LWR) by the year 2003 and interim heavy oil in exchange for North Koreas agreement to freeze its plutonium producing graphite plants, Pyongyangs continuing uncooperative attitude and suspicious activities regarding the nuclear matter left the issue as an unresolved problem through the

49、remainder of the decade. 14 In addition, North Korea accentuated the nuclear problem by continuing to develop longer-range missiles, which may have the capability of employing nuclear devices. In 1993, it successfully tested the Rodong-1 with a 900km strike radius and launched the Taepodong I missil

50、e over Japan, a billion-dollar contributor to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), in August 31 of 1998, scarcely fifteen days after President Kim Dae Jung proposed to establish standing channels for inter-Korean dialogue and exchange special envoys with the North, and one mo

51、nth after Hyundai chairman Chung Ju-Young was allowed to go North carrying 500 heads of cattle to relieve the Norths food shortages. The continuing development of the Taepodong 2 with a +6000km range threatened parts of the United States, which for the first time came under the possibility that it m

52、ight be hit with a nuclear-tipped missile from a minor power. Upon US demands for a moratorium on the Norths missile development and exports, Pyongyang demanded a billion dollars annually several years for expected lost revenue, and claimed that the activities were its sovereign rights. In essence,

53、it appeared as if North Korea seemed intent on developing its missiles and taking hostile actions regardless of its impact on its relations with the US, Korea, and Japan, the countries it was attempting to engage. Further incidents provoked conundrum over the real intentions behind North Korean fore

54、ign policy. The North continued infiltrations of the Korean coast through submarines; a sub was caught off the west coast in 15 September of 1996; another was found in the East Sea in June of 1998; in December a submersible spy boat was sunk by ROK forces off Yosu on the southern coast while it was

55、involved in espionage operations with a South Korean underground movement. The most severe incident occurred in 15 June 1999 when North Korean naval vessels challenged the UN-imposed Norther Limit Line (NLL) and were engaged in a sea battle with the ROK navy, leaving scores wounded and killed on bot

56、h sides. Although the incident was deliberately provoked by North Korea, their delegates at Panmunjom virulently accused the South Koreans for inciting the clash. These incidents and several others, compounded with the uncooperative and hostile attitude the DPRK frequently shows during the course of

57、 negotiations and when carrying out foreign policy, has caused confusion in the West in identifying North Koreas real foreign policy objectives, goals, and negotiating strategies. Review of Recent Literature on North Korean Negotiation The perplexing course of negotiations in the 1990s between North

58、 Korea on the one hand and the US, South Korea, and Japan on the other have led to a surge of writing and renewed interest regarding North Koreas negotiating behavior, ranging from identifying North Korea as an irrational and sinister cult nation to a country which is not really serious about negoti

59、ating at all. 16 One of the popular views on recent North Korean negotiations explaining its erratic behavior is that North Korea is not a rational actor. Christopher M. Centner from the US Defense Intelligence Agency has recently written an article that ascribes US difficulties in negotiating with North Korea due to the wrong assumption Washington makes that it is dealing with a rational, calculating Pyongyang counterpart.2 Rather, he develops a theory that North Korea i