Katchi Kapshida: How to Deter North Korea, Together

This article is a follow-up to a previous article, located here.

Introduction

As discussed in my previous article, the complexity of tensions on the Korean Peninsula renders the region one of the most volatile in the world, with the North Korean nuclear program and gray-zone activities posing a persistent threat to stability. In that analysis, I outline how the Kim regime’s motives for pursuing nuclear weapons extend beyond security concerns, encompassing coercive diplomacy, economic concerns, domestic political control, and ideological imperatives. The US-ROK alliance, anchored by the Combined Forces Command, has proven indispensable in deterring aggression and maintaining stability in the region. However, deterrence alone is not sufficient to address the growing threats presented by the DPRK and PRC in Northeast Asia. The evolving nature of the strategic environment, especially in the gray-zone below the threshold of war, requires a proactive and adaptive approach best accomplished by combined efforts between the United States and ROK. To achieve long-term stability and resilience, the United States and South Korea must strengthen their alliance, improve burden sharing, and develop capabilities to counter sub-threshold competition effectively. This article outlines a comprehensive policy framework to achieve these goals, focusing on three major lines of effort: enhancing alliance strength, optimizing burden sharing, and leading a gray-zone competition campaign. By addressing these priorities, the US-ROK alliance can not only deter North Korea, but also position themselves to counter broader regional challenges and secure their shared strategic interests.

A Campaign Plan for Deterrence and Victory

The goal of any US policy towards Korea must achieve stability and deterrence while simultaneously managing risks of escalation and unnecessary proliferation. To accomplish this, an effective whole-of-government approach seeks four major end states: reduced crisis volatility, stronger allied assurance, decreased DPRK coercive leverage, and improved resilience below the threshold of war. To pursue these ends, I propose three major lines of effort (LOEs) which provide substantial benefit and offset costs to the American taxpayer. This involves strategic advantage, strengthening the ability of the US and ROK to secure shared interests together, and empowering both governments to compete in the gray-zone while avoiding unnecessary escalation.

LOE 1: Strengthen the US-ROK Alliance

The risks of DPRK escalation and miscalculation are ever-present, regardless of the presence of US forces or South Korean nukes. As such, both the US and ROK must present a tight-knit alliance posture, including continued exercise participation, interoperability efforts, information sharing, and increased economic and diplomatic ties if they hope to deter conflict-inducing actions by the North. A strong alliance posture both reassures the ROK that America intends to stand by its treaty commitments, promoting increased cooperation, while messaging a credible deterrent to the North. Such a posture demonstrates the will that is crucial to deterrence; moreover, it reduces ambiguity through clear messaging and reduces the risk of miscalculation by Pyongyang, who might seek to take advantage of perceived weaknesses in the alliance. Increased alliance strength also provides the benefit of improved interoperability, which is crucial in responding to regional contingencies. Finally, maintaining a presence on the peninsula bolsters the ability of both governments to work together seamlessly in the case of crisis, ensuring the ability to prevent accidents or miscalculations that would hinder de-escalation efforts. However, alliance strength is not free; it must be both funded and politically stable, requiring both burden sharing and strategy optimization.

LOE 2: Improve Burden Sharing and Capabilities

To build on the strong alliance developed in LOE 1, the ROK and US must leverage improvements in interoperability to empower the ROK to better resource themselves and apply newfound capabilities effectively in a combined environment. In accordance with the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, we must pursue policies that enable allies and partners to take a greater stake in their own defense. However, this cannot be interpreted as a mere economic policy, demanding greater monetary investment on the part of our allies while seeking to cut costs by pulling our troops from a crucial theater. Instead, the US must build on existing relationships and alliance strengths to translate greater monetary investments into improved capabilities, not abandoning our partners to their own devices. As such, any investments made must do so in light of a combined, not unilateral, approach to defense. Yes, South Korea should consider investing in its own military capabilities to include missile defense systems and modernization efforts. So too should the United States invest in a military posture that creates opportunities to build interoperability within the scope of the South’s improved capabilities. Indeed, interoperability should be the major return-on-investment metric, not dollars saved. If attempts at burden sharing undermine the ability of the ROK-US alliance to effectively deter threats and posture for crisis response, the financial benefit will quickly be outweighed by the strategic costs. That said, even conventional capabilities fail to address the dominant form of competition on the Korean Peninsula and throughout Northeast Asia: gray-zone warfare.

LOE 3: A US-led Gray-Zone Competition Campaign

Given the prevalence of Chinese and DPRK destabilization and coercion activities against the ROK, US, and our allies in Northeast Asia, the bulk of effort seeking to counterbalance and prevail in sub-threshold competition must address activities in the gray zone. We must deny any opportunities by adversarial actors to gain strategic advantages while simultaneously imposing costs in response. This campaign should consist of three major lines of operations (LOOs). The first is hardening US and allied defenses against coercive activities by the PRC and DPRK and reducing adversary leverage. The second is disrupting ongoing gray-zone activities. Finally, the third is investing in and developing our own and allied political warfare capabilities to secure our own strategic advantages. Any activities in the gray zone must adhere to international law, be led by, or at a minimum be coordinated closely with, our allies in the ROK, and seek carefully to manage risks of escalation with adversarial actors. Moreover, despite historical challenges, gray-zone successes are measurable. Fewer cybercrimes, heightened interdiction of sanctions-evading activities, and reduced effects of negative adversary narratives are all observable measures of effectiveness that demonstrate the value of sub-threshold investments.

LOO 1: Defensive and Proactive Information Resilience

Both the PRC and DPRK are known to leverage disinformation to cause socio-political strife and, in the case of Korea, create wedges between the US-ROK alliance to reduce the ability of our two nations to respond to threats effectively. Therefore, it is crucial to highlight these narratives to the Korean and American publics, illuminate disruptive effects on public well-being, and counter-message to demonstrate the strength and resolve of the alliance. This must be a combined, whole-of-society effort in which both public and private sectors are equipped and empowered to identify and publicize themes that benefit the alliance and in which the populace can identify attempts at disinformation by adversarial actors. This can be accomplished by building private-public relationships, promoting information sharing, and by pre-planning themes and messages to counter adversary narratives quickly.

LOO 2: Counter-Gray-Zone Operations

In addition to a robust defense, the ROK-US alliance must seek to limit the advantages our adversaries can gain through their coercive activities. This means allocating resources to the direct countering of illicit activities rather than allowing them to continue unchecked. On the international stage, the US and ROK must be increasingly vocal about sanctions enforcement on the DPRK, especially to China, whose cross-border financial support enables the North’s economy to remain afloat despite UN sanctions. Moreover, the US, ROK, Japan, and the rest of the international community must disrupt the global proliferation, illegal trade, and cybercrime activities conducted by the Kim regime, which provide hard currency and fund its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. Failing to do so allows Kim Jong-Un and his government to continue destabilizing the region entirely unchecked. Furthermore, it empowers him to engage in brinkmanship to extract political and economic concessions from the rest of the world. Notably, building joint and combined task forces to address sanction evasion activities and disrupting cybercrime enables the alliance to strike the Kim regime in its highest-payoff vulnerabilities. Attacking the regime’s hard-currency lifelines makes brinkmanship and rule-breaking less profitable, forcing Pyongyang to reassess its strategy and increasing the likelihood of favorable negotiation outcomes.

LOO 3: Information Warfare

In his article, Capt. Sean Kim asserts that despite South Korea’s overmatch of the North in every facet of the diplomacy, information, military, and economic (DIME) instruments of national power, the ROK has had minimal success in pressuring the Kim regime to denuclearize. However, he fails to realize that overmatch does not automatically translate into political change unless those instruments are effectively leveraged. To this end, the ROK-US alliance has failed to maximize their use of the information instrument of national power with respect to the North, and recent developments have even seen reductions in crucial tools like Voice of America or loudspeakers on the DMZ. These tools are perhaps some of the most important in dealing with the North, as Kim’s ultimate goal, regime stability, can only be achieved if he can maintain control over the internal information environment of the DPRK. While he may be able to deter intervention by the South or the US with his nukes, it is nearly impossible for him to maintain a grip on power if his populace gains access to information about the rest of the world and the crimes against humanity perpetuated by the regime. It has been said that Kim fears his own people more than the US; we must capitalize on this vulnerability through a robust information campaign which provides the people of North Korea with factual, uncensored information and opens their eyes to the repression they experience. This too must be a whole-of-society effort. While attempts have been made by civil society to improve information access in the North, the sheer amount of information required to threaten the regime will demand resources that only a combined governmental approach can provide. As such, the ROK and US governments should not shy away from continuing information activities like VOA or DMZ loudspeaker options. They should undertake even more robust public diplomacy campaigns, and cross training across intelligence, diplomacy, and military institutions to build the capabilities required to affect this threat (while also increasing effective burden sharing, as mentioned above). In sum, information warfare is likely the most useful, and most underutilized, tool in the ROK-US alliance’s arsenal against the DPRK threat, and it could weigh more heavily on the Kim regime’s decision making than the South possessing a nuclear capability.

Conclusion

The “Korea Question” is one of the most complicated problem sets in contemporary politics and international strategy, but that does not mean that the United States should abandon the ROK to manage it themselves. Instead, the repeated denuclearization failures of the past indicate that a new approach is needed: one which accurately assesses the motives of the Kim regime, responds to its strategies in the gray-zone, and counters according to what will most affect the decision makers in Pyongyang. Through the effective use of information, the alliance can impose costs and create dilemmas for Kim; through investing in presence and capabilities, the US can improve South Korea’s capabilities and reduce the risks and costs of poor interoperability. Finally, by keeping strong our alliance, with US Forces Korea and the Combined Forces Command as the centerpiece, we message to Kim and the rest of the region that America will stand by those who align with our interests and stand against those who reject the rules-based international order. USFK’s withdrawal and South Korean proliferation would only serve to heighten tensions and raise crisis instability; both a strengthened alliance posture and a robust gray-zone warfare campaign reduce the DPRK’s coercive leverage and the risks of escalation.

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