Contain and Transcend: A Strategy for Regime Change in North Korea
Also, as part of any plan to prevent aggressive action by the DPRK, it is necessary to go beyond the capabilities of conventional military deterrence and deploy a missile defense shield. Recent actions taken by the DPRK, most notably the test-launch of seven ballistic missiles on July 4th of this year, make a defensive shield all the more necessary. Although many have remained skeptical of the missile defense program ever since its initial undertaking in 1983, the Bush administration’s financial commitments over the last five years have helped push this technology forward (this year alone the Defense Department committed $7.4 million to the project).[ii] Recent missile defense tests have been encouraging: last month a US sea-based missile defense test successfully destroyed its target.[iii]
Transcend: Towards Long-Term Regime Change
The issue of state-sponsored regime change is highly controversial topic; specifically in lieu of the events of the past five years and the Bush Doctrine’s assertion of the right to preemptive defense. As a strategic approach however, regime change has been used throughout history and can come about in a variety of different ways. During the second half of the twentieth century “regime change” has come to mean several different things. First, there is forceful regime change. This is when a nation uses its armed forces to either launch a “decapitation strike” against the leadership of another country (this occurred in both Iraq (2003) and Grenada (1983)) or to conquer the entire region and its people during “total war” (Germany and Japan (WWII)). Second, regime change can be incited from within a country with varying degrees of aid from an external state. Since the early 1980s, this has come to be known as “democracy promotion”. Such democracy promoting assistance can come in many forms: moral encouragement to the citizens who desire change, political pressure on governments to reform or hold elections, and financial contributions to fund programs working to undermine the illiberal regime.[1] Some examples where democracy promotion has helped to successfully bring down an autocratic government include thePhilippines (1986) and Chile (1988).
In the case of North Korea, neither forceful regime change nor democracy promotion can or should be carried out. It is understood that a military strike against the DPRK would mean heavy casualty on both sides, and also the near-complete destruction of the South Korean capitol, Seoul. Such an undertaking should only be considered in the direst of situations. As for democracy promotion, the state of concern has to be somewhat transparent to the globalized world, for this tactic to work. The DPRK, unfortunately, has prided itself on maintaining almost total seclusion from any outside influences. Its government maintains control over all forms of media and knowledge filtered into the country and throughout the society. Consequently, a different approach is necessary.
It is important to recognize that within the DPRK, regime change cannot be “forced” or “produced” by following any particular set of steps. Instead, the necessary conditions for such a change can be fostered through the continued application of a strict set of principles. The time frame in which regime change will occur, depends upon the commitment to the continued application of these principles as well as the autocratic governments ability to counter and adapt to them.
Any strategy seeking to change the regime in Pyongyang must recognize that the security problems created by the DPRK are the result of its totalitarian nature. Therefore, our strategy must be centered on an understanding that regime change is the ultimate goal through which all policies should be geared towards. In order to generate effective policies to this end, we must first look at how the regime maintains the strength that allows it to consolidate its control over the state. This is done mainly throughPyongyang’s strategy of isolation. By cutting off itself and its citizens from the rest of the world, the state has been able to monopolize its control over all “inputs” and “outputs”.
These inputs serve as the main financial backing for the regime. They come in the form of international aid and assistance, counterfeiting programs, and the sale of arms. These programs, specifically international aid, are linked to the DPRK’s military power. The DPRK’s sizable conventional forces, and in the last decade their nuclear program (or perceived nuclear program), serve as the means through which the government maintains a continued threat. By utilizing this threat, the regime has been able to extract financial assistance.
