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Admittedly, you have to be pretty far gone to see a net assessment of North Korea as juicy summer reading. But following on an earlier report on North Korea’s missile program, the IISS has produced a wide-ranging appraisal that draws on the work of a number of top analysts. The website of the new report—which is only available through purchase--also contains some useful links.
The volume has a useful political overview, discussion of non-military security challenges, Six Party diplomacy and the inevitable chapter on prospects for unification, replete with the standard scenarios. But the guts of the report are the chapters on the conventional military balance, the nuclear, missile, and biological and chemical programs, and the risks of proliferation. The report is synthetic and as a result difficult to summarize; the website struggles with the core message beyond "North Korea is a dangerous, militarized place."
But for a single, go-to introduction the report is extremely useful, and there are a number of interesting tidbits as well:
- The report is caustic about the effects of US distraction in the Middle East on the capacity to respond were a crisis to escalate, probably overly so. Nonetheless, the pointed reminder of the wear-and-tear on American ground forces and the inevitable depreciation of military hardware is sobering to read.
- The assessment notes an interesting escalation risk associated with pre-emption. If North Korea’s reconnaissance and tactical warning capabilities are taken out, Pyongyang's military leadership would be blinded and might fear that critical military assets were vulnerable. The result would be a “use ‘em or lose ‘em” situation that could make further escalation rational even if self-destructive.
- The thorough chapter on the Six Party Talks concludes with the widely-shared pessimism that the talks can generate a grand bargain.
- A highly detailed and nuanced treatment of the missile program—the richest chapter in the report--notes that North Korean capabilities may be exaggerated. It is highly unlikely that the missile program was truly self-reliant, as is frequently believed. Rather, dependence on official transfers and illicit deals during the late Soviet period were almost certainly key to currently capabilities, and those pipelines to technology are now closed. But the chapter does not rule out ongoing cooperation with the Iranians to improve and modernize existing models, including through shared flight-test data. Although the technologies are considered obsolete elsewhere they are adequate for the “range-payload envelope” North Korea—and its customers—seek.
- Chemical and biological weapons don’t typically receive the same attention as the nuclear and missile programs, but is likely that the North Korean’s have a chemical program and possible that they have some biological capabilities as well.
As with all military assessments, there is a tendency to highlight capabilities over incentives. But the events of 2010 and the recent shelling around the NLL are a reminder that there is plenty to worry about. Useful for anyone teaching a straight-up security course on the peninsula.
