Our New Nuclear Reality? The Future of North Korean Denuclearization
With President Trump’s recent announcement of his intentions to once again meet with Kim Jong Un, many observers will be casting their glances back to the last summit held by the two leaders, the Hanoi Negotiations in 2019. In doing so, an old concern is sure to reappear: the question of whether North Korea will ever denuclearize. Yet with Pyongyang now insisting that its nuclear status is "not up for debate," hopes for a denuclearization deal are very slim: the weapons that once served as a lever in negotiations have become something Kim Jong Un cannot give up without undermining the foundations of his own rule.
Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea's nuclear weapons have been transformed from a bargaining chip into an ideological pillar of the state and a source of personal legitimacy. Three mutually reinforcing dynamics drive this shift: a growing belief in Pyongyang that a multipolar order has removed the need to bargain with Washington, a reinterpretation of Juche that treats nuclear possession as self-reliance itself, and Kim's need to consolidate authority over a military that gained outsized influence under his father.
It is no secret that the North Korean nuclear programme has been largely conceived as a measure of deterrence: from the onset of its existence, the DPRK has been concerned with the threat posed from the US-ROK alliance, a threat that, in their eyes, has only continued to grow with the expansive economic growth and defence spending of the South, dwarfing DPRK military expenditure. Pyongyang has long been aware of the disparities on the peninsula, and as such, had initially adopted nuclear weaponry as a means of deterrence. This sense of threat had been heightened under Kim Jong Il, when the initial post-cold war period saw China and Russia seek to pursue increased economic ties with the West, leading to the “isolation” of Pyongyang. Within this isolation, Pyongyang had realized the necessity of going to the West for aid but recognized that doing so directly would lead to a catastrophic legitimacy crisis for the regime. Instead, Jong Il and Pyongyang employed the “bargaining chip” strategy, utilizing the regimes nuclear capacity to gain concessions from the west via partial denuclearization and thereby being able to trade with the West without going against the ideological foundations of the state. This is most evident in the 1994 Nuclear Crisis, wherein the aggression displayed by the DPRK in withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty can be directly connected to the emergence of the “Arduous March” famine and the subsequent need for economic aid, as resolved in the 1994 Agreed Framework.
However, the bargaining chip strategy was fundamentally reliant on the DPRK’s perception of the US as the sole global superpower, a perception which recent developments have undermined. Whilst the initial period under Kim Jong Un seemed to follow the “Bargaining Chip” strategy, the geopolitical shifts caused by the Russo-Ukrainian War have had a profound impact on the geopolitical outlook of the DPRK. Facing sanctions, Moscow has turned to Pyongyang for bilateral trade, fast becoming a leading trading partner and signing a mutual defence agreement in 2024. In addition, China, fearful of the expansion of US influence and seeking to maintain the DPRK as a buffer state, has continued to engage in extensive trade, hitting a record high earlier in April. Notably, neither of these states have made any demands regarding North Korea’s denuclearization: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed his support for Pyongyang’s nuclear programme in July, whilst a Pyongyang summit between Xi Jinping and Kim in June notably ommitted any mention of denuclearization. These developments have been a major catalyst, as Pyongyang now no longer sees the world as a unipolar hegemon, but as a multipolar battlefield, diminishing any external incentives it may have had for trade with the West and thus, for denuclearization.
There is another element to the narrative: even in the moments of its most significant isolation, Pyongyang never fully denuclearized, but chose to maintain it's stance. The deeper explanation lies in “Juche”, the North Korean doctrine of self-reliance which has guided foreign and domestic policy since it’s founding, alongside the psychology of Kim Jong Un himself. Although Juche is nominally “self-reliance”, the notion of what exactly is meant by “self-reliance” is determined by the Suryong, a position given to the leader of the DPRK which elevates them to a semi-divine position as an interpreter of scripture; in short, this enables the leader of North Korea to reconstruct the definition of “self-reliance” to further their own political goals. Under Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, who faced economic isolation and mass famine, emphasis was significantly placed on “Juche” as economic and military self-sufficiency, to ensure the longevity and survival of the nation by any means necessary. It was this internal thinking that also contributed to the “bargaining chip” strategy, as, to achieve the longevity of the regime, Pyongyang needed a way to gain economic aid without compromising their sovereignty. However, for the younger Kim, the concerns are no longer economic and military but are political and personal. Unlike his father, who had two decades to consolidate his authority and was largely in charge by the time of his own succession, Jong Un had no such backing, emerging into the political sphere in 2010 as the vice-chairman to a weakened Korean Worker’s Party, and facing a military establishment who had gained significant authority thanks to his father’s Songun policy. With an unstable power base, Kim’s response was to reconceptualize Juche as emphasizing “political independence”, emphasizing the sovereignty of the DPRK above all else and placing the nuclear arsenal at the heart of it all, under his command. Readopting the Byungjin policy, Kim devoted 2-3% of the national GDP solely to the development of nuclear weapons alongside internalizing the DPRK’s nuclear status via writing it into the constitution and finally passing a law which concentrated command of the nuclear arsenal in the hands of the Suryong. With all of this, the nuclear arsenal is now, for Pyongyang, a crucial definition of its identity and character. Subsequently, to now surrender the nuclear arsenal would be to surrender the ideological and personal legitimacy of the regime and Kim Jong Un, which Pyongyang is decidedly against.
If this interpretation and understanding of the situation is correct, the implications are uncomfortable for any new summit. The prospect of sanctions relief no longer holds its allure, and pressure to disarm will not be considered by the regime no matter what. As such, it may be time for other parties to consider abandoning denuclearization for now: Washington and Seoul have seemingly recognized this as well, with the former’s National Security Strategy explicitly omitting DPRK denuclearisation, whilst the latter has moved to a “peace first” approach in place of it 's historic “denuclearization first” approach.
In short, the attribution of North Korea’s refusal to denuclearise to deterrence hides an underlying shift in strategic calculation, regime ideology, and Kim Jong Un’s strategy. The developing resistance of Russia and China has created the notion of a multipolar world without a need to bargain, Juche now centralizes the nuclear arsenal as a component of state identity, and Kim himself has tied his legitimacy to the arsenal. Reinforcing one another, the three aspects emphasize that future discussions must involve a strategic shift away from denuclearization and towards a reconceptualization of regional stability.
Image courtesy of Stefan Krasowski via Wikimedia Commons, ©2013. Some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
