Asymmetric Arms Race: North Korea’s Strategy for Dominance

Earlier this year, military movements by North Korea were continuously detected, leading to an evacuation order for residents near Yeonpyeong Island. Actual measures such as entering a state of emergency alert were taken, causing shock.

The live evacuation broadcast was heard not only by residents of Yeonpyeong Island but also by South Korean citizens and the world through broadcast media, intensifying the tension as scenes of civilians evacuating unfolded.

War experts reportedly agree that a rapid response plan to North Korea’s military provocations needs to be developed and gradually improved.

So why is Kim Jong Un persistently carrying out these military provocations and pouring resources into the development of missiles and nuclear weapons?

According to sources, Kim Jong Un focuses on asymmetric military power. Asymmetric warfare refers to a style of warfare where one fights with different means, methods, and dimensions than the opponent, to prevent effective response.

Asymmetric warfare became one of the key military strategies through Andrew J.R. Mack’s 1975 paper “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars” published in World Politics. The term asymmetric in the paper seemed to denote the military disparity between the conflicting parties.

The paper, which started from the question of why the U.S. failed to win the war against the militarily weaker Vietnam, did not attract much attention at the time of its publication but was re-highlighted after the end of the Cold War in the 1990s as a key paper on asymmetric power.

The asymmetric power that Kim Jong Un is focusing on refers to the power used in symmetric warfare and provocations. It refers to the power to maximize effects by avoiding the enemy’s strengths and attacking their weaknesses as much as possible.

South Korea began to pay attention to North Korea’s asymmetric power after the sinking of the Cheonan warship due to a North Korean submarine attack in 2010. At that time, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, nuclear weapons of mass destruction, and tunnels were identified as threats to South Korean security.

Compared to 15 years ago, Kim Jong Un’s will for war and provocation is believed to have strengthened. Furthermore, there is no internal mechanism to sanction Kim Jong Un in North Korea, making Kim Jong Un’s existence itself a threat.

Over his tenure, Kim Jong Un has purged traditional party members like Jang Song Thaek and eliminated internal challenges like Kim Jong Nam, thereby strengthening his absolute power.

However, unlike Kim Jong Un, South Korea’s military commander-in-chief, the president, is known to face many constraints in making military decisions, not being free from the constitution, public opinion, and international politics.

Therefore, it is presumed that Kim Jong Un’s perception contains a contemptuous disregard for the South Korean military and security. This contemptuous perception of the South Korean military is suitable for forming asymmetric power that the South Korean military commander-in-chief cannot possess.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons are currently believed to have advanced capabilities. Although the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not recognize nuclear weapons developed after 1968, North Korea is essentially believed to possess nuclear weapons.

At the South Korea-US summit in 2023, the Washington Declaration stated that if North Korea uses nuclear weapons, the regime will be destroyed, based on the premise of North Korea’s actual possession of nuclear weapons. The premise of this declaration was based on North Korea’s actual nuclear possession. With North Korea announcing a doctrine that it can use nuclear weapons at any time last year, the view that North Korea’s nuclear weapons have advanced and North Korea has emerged as a nuclear powerhouse is dominant.

On the other hand, the threat capability related to North Korean tunnels is difficult to quantify. This is because the South Korean military cannot estimate the increase or decrease, and North Korea is also keeping the matter of tunnels a strict military secret and treating it as a special management target.

The asymmetric power Kim Jong Un is developing can exploit vulnerabilities in South Korean society to inflict massive damage on South Korea in one go.

South Korea’s severe political and social division is cited as a factor that makes it impossible for South Korea to counter North Korea’s asymmetric power.

Another problem is that South Korean society’s entire operating system is becoming addicted to electronic infrastructure, and it is speculated that North Korea is enhancing the electronic warfare capability that can paralyze such electronic infrastructure.

For these reasons, North Korea’s asymmetric power always remains a problem that South Korean military power cannot solve. What’s even more serious is that all of this comes from the mind of North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Un.

If North Korea provokes, it seems that all the premises of the provocation are based on Kim Jong Un’s choice. The previous artillery firing near Yeonpyeong Island is also judged to be a result chosen by Kim Jong Un to amplify anxiety through fear.

Meanwhile, as concerns over North Korea’s asymmetric power deepen, military experts say that it is a priority for our military to build public consensus rather than just a military response.

Kim Jong Un appears to be planning to cause massive damage by creating a means of provocation that makes it difficult to identify the provocateur in the short term through such asymmetric power. In addition, there is a high possibility of bringing about large-scale confusion due to local provocations, such as specifying the range of retaliation with cyber provocations or nuclear weapons.

Due to the nature of asymmetric power, it is suggested that alleviating citizens’ anxiety about strategies against the South should take precedence over increasing offensive capabilities by possessing visible lethal weapons like tanks and missiles.

Furthermore, excessive interpretation of North Korea’s threatening statements should also be restrained.