Calculated adventurism: North Korea's military-diplomatic campaigns, 1966--2000

Is the logic of North Korea's military actions different from ours? In other words, does North Korea use force regardless of political objectives or given structural conditions? This study will show that North Korea's logic in using force is not fundamentally different from ours. North Korea has used force to achieve its political objectives, however idiosyncratic they may seem, within given and/or changing structural conditions. Moreover, there seems to have been a learning process on the part of the North Korean leaders with regard to the manner in which they used military force.; However, North Korean actions have not been always successful. Taken as a whole, the success rate of the North Korean military actions has been moderate at best. Simply put, the North Korean leaders have been highly rational and moderately successful high-risk takers with idiosyncratic political intentions.; In addition, observations will be made on North Korea's military-diplomatic campaigns. First, despite our tendency to focus on the offensive aspect of the North Korean military strategy, deterrence has been a critical enabling factor in North Korea's military actions. Second, legal factors mattered significantly in North Korea's military-diplomatic campaigns. Third, an element of surprise has almost always been an important ingredient in North Korea's military actions. Fourth, even if the domestic political objectives played a role, they seem to have been of secondary importance or less as motives of North Korean military actions. Fifth, the contention that the North Koreans took military actions when they faced negative international developments does not always hold true. Finally, despite short-term successes, North Korea's military-diplomatic campaigns have in some cases produced negative mid- to long-term consequences by provoking reactions from the concerned countries.; To reach these conclusions, this study will conduct (a) a decade-by-decade historical survey of the strategic equation on the Korean Peninsula for the period of 1960 through 2000; (b) a historical and analytical survey of North Korea's past military actions; and (c) studies on seven major cases, including the Pueblo incident of 1968, the Axe Murder incident of 1976, the nuclear diplomacy of 1993--1994, and the missile diplomacy of 1998--2000.