North Korea’s Strategic Culture and Threat Perception: Implications for Regional Security Cooperation

This article examines why Pyongyang has identified the U.S. as its main adversary and has carried out brinkmanship tactics against it. This study also discusses how the countries concerned should deal with Pyongyang’s behavior. For this purpose, the article uses the concept of “strategic culture” to argue that such elements as geopolitical settings, history, and political culture collectively constitute a strategic culture that persists over time and influences the formation and execution of strategy. North Korea’s geopolitical location surrounded by major powers, Juche ideology, and its historical consciousness of foreign domination have played important roles in the formation of its threat perception. This has been reflected with particular clarity in the manners in which North Korea has conceived of the dangers of U.S. military threats. Thus, Pyongyang will not easily abandon its nuclear arsenal until it becomes satisfied with the security guarantees from surrounding countries, most especially from the United States. Thus, denuclearization, if achievable at all, will need to be a gradual and phased process. Comprehensive security appears to be a useful conceptual tool, then, for the promotion of cooperation among states in order to solve the nuclear issue and preserve peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.