Turning It Up to Eleven: Belligerent Rhetoric in North Korea's Propaganda

Abstract

ABSTRACT: After contextualizing North Korea's capacity for belligerent rhetoric directed toward the United States and its northeast Asian allies, the author examines the contention that rhetoric from Pyongyang represents a conflict escalation risk or even a casus belli. The results of statistical tests indicate a negative correlation between Pyongyang's rhetoric and international diplomatic initiatives, but no correlation between North Korea's verbal hostility and its provocations. Advances in North Korea's nuclear weapon and missile programs mark a qualitative change in the threat to the United States, South Korea, and Japan. Pyongyang's ability to fit a miniaturized nuclear warhead on a missile or rocket and deliver the payload is unproven, but many analysts argue that the capability is highly likely. (1) This capability alone represents a risk to geopolitical stability in northeast Asia as the region's powers, including the United States, will struggle to calibrate their responses to North Korea's provocations. Additionally, before, during, and after missile and nuclear tests in 2016, North Korea employed belligerent rhetoric--in English for international influence--that increased tension on the Korean peninsula particularly and in northeast Asia generally. These locutions--threats to annihilate American bases overseas, turn Seoul into a sea of fire, and execute preemptive nuclear attacks against perceived adversaries--are well-known. Bellicose rhetoric has long been part of North Korea's international communication, but the combination of menacing words and capabilities to actuate the corresponding threats is new for long-range or nuclear attacks. In this vein, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov remarked after the first set of nuclear and missile tests in 2016 that Pyongyang's bellicose rhetoric creates a legitimate casus belli for threatened states. (2) The same week, American intelligence agencies issued an assessment: Threatening rhetoric from Pyongyang... suggests North Korea is preparing for a surprise military strike. (3) This statement acknowledges a connection between North Korea's hostile rhetoric and the country's actions. These interpretations of North Korean statements may appear alarmist, but they are simply variations of analyses that Pyongyang's rhetoric could lead to miscalculation by actors on and around the Korean peninsula and consequently escalation to war. Such claims appear frequently in media reports, government declarations, and messages from the international community, especially during and after periods of North Korean provocation. These statements assume North Korea's inflammatory rhetoric means something; however, if the rhetoric fits no behavioral pattern, then other countries' populations, media, and governments should discount the insults, threats, and crisis-mongering emanating from Pyongyang. Consequently, these aggressive locutions would not function as sources for miscalculation and even less as a casus belli. In short, is North Korea's belligerent rhetoric cheap talk or a meaningful signal of tangible events affecting tension on the Korean peninsula and in northeast Asia? After examining the background of North Korea's recent progress toward capabilities threatening the United States, South Korea, and Japan, this article describes the mixed results of a study comparing Pyongyang's belligerent rhetoric to events involving North Korea and major actors in northeast Asia and discusses the policy implications of these findings. (4) North Korea's Nuclear Weapons and Missile Programs North Korea's conventional arms are inferior to those of its adversaries--the United States, South Korea, and Japan. The consensus is North Korea would rapidly lose a conventional war against any combination of these alliance partners, and consequently, the Pyongyang regime would fall quickly. Traditionally, North Korea has relied on two strategic asymmetries to reduce this gap: a garrison-state sociopolitical organization, with an armed force disproportionately large in comparison to the state population and constructed to endure major attrition and therefore dissuade attack and artillery deployed along the demilitarized zone allowing for quick, widespread, economically devastating destruction of Seoul and environs. …