North Korea and the Major Powers

Abstract

THE COMMUNIST VICTORY in Indochina has now turned American and Japanese attention to another of the divided statesKorea. The border between North and South Korea remains one of the most heavily armed borders in the world; the North-South talks which began in 1971 have bogged down in mutual recriminations and there are signs of mounting tension. The North accuses the South and the U.S. of deliberately seeking to foment tension in order to divert attention from the mounting political crisis in the South; the South, on the other hand, accuses North Korea of increased efforts at subversion and watches warily for any signs that North Korea will attempt to exploit the American defeat in Indochina. There have been three coastal incidents involving the sinking of several North Korean ships since December 1974. In this article, we want to focus on some of the factors which have determined North Korean policy in recent years and to try to make some assessment of the future options open to the North. We focus on North Korean policy not because it is the sole determinant of what will happen in the Korean peninsula during the next five to ten years-obviously the policy of South Korea and of the great powers will also affect the outcome-but simply because North Korea remains something of an enigma. While there is general agreement that North Korea pursues an independent course of action, there is much less agreement on the factors that shape its policy and even on the content of that policy itself. While some observers consider that North Korea is poised like a cat to pounce on South Korea at the earliest opportunity, others argue that South Korea is as much to blame for the lack of progress in the talks. Some observers consider North Korea to be led by inflexible, fanatical ideologues impervious to recent changes in the international environ-