Arm, to disarm: North Korea’s Cold War anti-nuclearism

Abstract

North Korea is a de facto nuclear weapon state, having undertaken six tests between 2006 and 2017. Throughout a series of nuclear crises, since the early 1990s, Pyongyang has not only emphasised its sovereign right to explore nuclear options as an inevitable response to a hostile United States, but has at the same time consistently embraced an anti-nuclear stance, maintaining a commitment to the ‘denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula’. This nuclear posture – ‘arm, to disarm’ – stressing the inevitability of nuclear-arming while at the same time pledging a normative anti-nuclear commitment to denuclearisation, contains seemingly irreconcilable elements. This challenges rationalist IR theories, which are unable adequately to explain the DPRK’s position, characterising it as either a tactical diversion to disguise realist motivations or a negotiation leverage to induce economic and strategic concessions. This article offers an alternative analysis, seeking to decode the DPRK’s seemingly contradictory nuclear posture by arguing that its anti-nuclear posture has deep Cold War roots aimed at hedging its security inferiority vis-à-vis nuclear-armed enemies. It focuses on the Cold War security nexus in East Asia and examines how Pyongyang’s engagement in the anti-nuclear movement evolved to shape its seemingly irreconcilable ‘arm, to disarm’ nuclearism.