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Article Excerpt
This paper studies whether or not international cooperation could be a big factor in changing the behavior of a dissident state. The case study of international assistance toward North Korea confirms that a cooperative approach did not bear any fruit. Four reasons are discussed. First, the targeted state is politically stable. Second, aid-givers are too politically motivated. Third, aid goods do not reach enough areas to improve the devastating situation. Finally, the amount of contributions fluctuates. This study suggests that suppliers and recipients must have mutual consensus over methods as well as detailed objectives through diplomatic channels before starting engagement.
Since the beginning of diplomacy in ancient times, the basic unit of international relations has been the state, which has dominated all aspects of foreign policy based on national interests. Currently, almost all states accept the authority of the United Nations and recognize compliance with international regulations as a basic requirement for conducting diplomatic relations.
However, side effects to the rise of cooperative structures should be recognized as well. First, because the U.N. comprises various types of states, its organizational decisionmaking process is highly complicated. Second, confrontation between a super power and its subordinates replaces Cold War-oriented rivalry. Third, the international community has failed to block expansion of terrorist group networks. Those phenomena indicate that the community has established neither the concrete mechanism nor the methodology to enforce cooperative principles over the states that still ignore or resist the international authority. (1)
When taking dissident states into the global structure, the international community provides two options. One is a government-centered approach with military operation. If an aggressive state triggers the destruction of international or regional order, an alliance of concerned states militarily overthrows the rebellious regime and establishes a new government such as in the Afghan and Iraqi cases. The other option is a cooperative approach. Unlike the military option, the international community members neither take provocative action nor prepare for further confrontation. Rather, diplomatic negotiations and multi-layer engagements are the center of this problem-solving method.
Characterization of the cooperative approach is more complicated than that of military actions because different types of actors pursue various interests, sometimes not shared by others, and no one is clearly sure to design an optimum way to produce positive outcomes. (2) It is also difficult to reach International consensus for setting up concrete objectives.
Taking those matters into consideration, this study observes the effects of the cooperative approach and responds to the following questions: Can benign and generous offers alone change a dissident's confrontational behavior? And, is establishment of a reciprocal relationship between donor states and a recipient possible through the donor state's assistance? Asking the questions above is highly important for analyzing practical and conceptual aspects of the cooperative approach.
One practical difficulty in conducting such an approach is perception. The international community members acknowledge that "free service'' to aid dissident states would not be implemented based on altruistic conception. The recipient tries to utilize the cooperative approach in achieving its own political objective. Thus, all programs, considerations, and intentions on both sides turn into highly motivated political goods.
There are numerous examples of international assistance relevant to this study. One example, the unique case concerning North Korea, shows how a cooperative approach complicates situations. North Korea is a dictatorial state and has not complied with international standards. On the other hand, severe natural disasters in the 1990s have compelled the international community to interact with the reactionary government and to assist its population.
Extensive support for North Korea is indispensable because, as Leslie Gelb, former President of the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States, stressed, "threat reduction can be achieved by expanding contact with the North and offering larger packages of reciprocal moves." (3)
The international community created two types of interaction structures to deal with the North Korean situation. One was governmental. For example, the United States, South Korea, and Japan established the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, or KEDO, in March 1995 to supply energy resources in exchange for the North's abandonment of nuclear weapons programs. The goal of the government-initiated approaches was to remove a nuclear threat from the North Korean government and stabilize regional security. (4)
The other type of support was left to non-governmental organizations. Because of prolonged natural disaster that caused widespread starvation, NGOs provided extensive assistance to the North Koreans. Unlike government-initiated interaction, the purpose of NGO support was to save human lives.
One argument in this study is that governmental and private efforts to aid North Korea either from a strategic point of view or from a humanitarian standpoint are strongly linked as a whole. There are three reasons. First, both took place in the same time frame and targeted the same area. Therefore, both acknowledged exactly what the other did. Second, governmental and private activities are both goal-oriented, whether changing the nature of a totalitarian state or saving desperate population via generous cooperative programs. Third, the North Korean regime regarded the offers from both sides as a political game.
Taking these arguments into consideration, this study traces why a cooperative approach toward North Korea produces no expected outcome. Four assumptions stemming mainly from relations between aid-givers and aid-takers are proposed. First, North Korea would have no incentive to comply with the demands from the international community. Second, inconsistency from the suppliers could characterize the cooperative approach. Third, turning to relief efforts by various international organizations, aid could not reach all the population. Finally, donors stick with short-term aid programs whose generosity is restricted by limited resources; thus, the recipient could not be satisfied with the level of contributions. The North Korean case suggests that the cooperative approach could not bear the expected fruits, because the international community and the North Korean regime did not work based on mutual agreement and understanding. For both sides, the internationally praised cooperative approach was just like one-way traffic.
NORTH KOREAN POLITICS
As North Korea is without question categorized as a totalitarian state, (5) its supreme leader, Kim Jong II, plays a significant role in foreign relations. Kim Jong II was elected as a member of the Labor Party Central Committee in 1980. Gradually and concurrently, he held important positions in the party, and in 1991, Kim took office as the supreme commander of the People's Army. After his inauguration, the political campaign to recognize Kim Jong II for the next leader of the North intensified. In July 1994, Kim Il Sung died. The power shift from father to son was smoothly conducted without any interference from the prominent party and military leaders. That was because after the death of Kim Il Sung, the son referred to his father's greatness on many occasions and paid great respect to him.
Kim Hak Hoo points out six foundations by which dictatorial power is conferred on Kim Il Sung: 1) conceptualized paramount leadership, 2) Juche ideology, 3) all accomplishments recognized by the works of the leader, 4) violent rule, 5) media domination, and 6) exploitation of the national wealth only by the elite class. (6) Kim Jong Il inherited all the above foundations for consolidation of power from his father. One enormous asset for the new leader is, as Selig Harrison notes: "The North Korean political system inherited from the late Kim Il Sung is not sustained by repression alone but is infused with a strong spirit of nationalism that did not exist in the fallen Communist systems of Eastern Europe." (7)
On October 1997, Kim Jong Il succeeded the post of the general secretary of the party that his father had held. Reelected as the chairman of the National Defense Commission at the Supreme People's Assembly in September 1998, he officially consolidated the dictatorial position to dominate all aspects of power in the party, the military, and the state. (8)
The second Kim regime took on the same hard-line diplomacy as the late Kim regime. However, there are several developments that do not allow Kim Jong Il to pursue his father's political style. One is apparent failure in agriculture, economy, and industry. The heavy blow to the North came after the collapse of the communist regimes, when all transactions with North Korea became settled by the international price (9) There is little...
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