East Asia’s regional politics tend to change the dynamics of international security. Since the end of the Cold War, the geopolitical shift from multipolarity to bipolarity and from maritime security to the nuclear arms race, brought significant development and competition in the East Asian Region.
The involvement of the global powers and the regional key players in the East Asian geopolitics were deeply intertwined, not just in the regional security dynamics but also the global security dynamics. Some of the major issues such as the increased militarization, maritime issues, situation in the Korean Peninsula and nuclear arms race threatened the functional security structure of the East Asian region, meanwhile increasing and decreasing the tensions at the same time.
The countries in the East Asian region tend to increase their national security in order to defend themselves from internal and external threats, meanwhile also increasing the competition with distrust between them. North Korea, a country which has a Juche philosophy, a defensive policy which emphasized military force for its national security for all threats, has an important major role in East Asia’s regional security politics. North Korea’s threat perception about the USA and its alliance with Japan and South Korea in the East Asia, lead North Korea to raise its military strength to cope with the security dilemma caused by them, as North Korea perceives the USA and its alliance as the challenge to its national security, just as South Korea perceives nuclear North Korea as a threat to its national security and international peace.
North Korea has been working on its nuclear missile programme since the 1950s and it performed its first nuclear test in 2006, which grabbed the attention of the world. North Korea’s production and testing of nuclear missiles was believed to destabilize the East Asian region. Later on South Korea desired North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapon programme and also got the USA to put a great pressure on it which resulted in a US-South Korean alliance that further provoked North Korea in its defensive policy.
The Biden’s Administration’s policy towards North Korea will have a major impact on North Korea’s nuclear strategy and will probably impact the security dynamics of East Asia. However, North Korea has stood firm on closing the doors of denuclearization and opening the doors to becoming a stable nuclear weapon state.
However, key world players such as China, Russia and other states also condemned North Korea’s nuclear missile production and tests, and showed their concerns for regional stability and international peace. However the diplomatic relations of North Korea with the key world players, mainly China, played an integral part in the nuclear settlement process on the Korean Peninsula. However, North Korea’s nuclear production, tests, and research are still a concern for the international community, which also prompted the USA, Japan and South Korea reinforce and improve their military technology against North Korea’s nuclear programme.
Japan, North Korea, and South Korea all agreed to emphasize their national security and defense structure in order to protect their territorial integrity from all the external threats, meanwhile creating a balance of power within the East Asian Region. However, the arms race started in the East Asia’s atmosphere, and has created a phase of surprised unintended escalation that can blow up from anywhere at any time, and a minor misunderstanding between the distrusted countries could lead to a surprise devastating incident. Howeverm here is somehow the involvement of the major key players such as China and the USA, which are playing their role to prevent any misadventure. The interest of the USA in East Asia for its own interests is another factor to be kept in mind.
Due to the regional interdependencies among the states, North Korea, Japan and South Korea have had their national security policies impact each other and also on East Asia’s regional politics.
North Korea’s foreign minister in 2012 also stated that North Korea would not denuclearize itself until the threat from the USA from the east did not vanish. He also said that the US threat included its alliance with South Korea and Japan, the US nuclear umbrella defending its allies in East Asia and the presence of US troops in South Korea.
From a realist perspective, a state’s main goal is to pursue its interests for the state itself, and being a rational actor it emphasizes its interests to pursue its goals such as in the case of North Korea. It perceives an existential threat from many countries so it pursues its economic, military and defense goals to accomplish its interests.
North Korea’s foreign minister also explained that if that threat is removed, North Korea would denuclearize itself in the next 10-20 years and stated that nuclear arms talks should begin in a way between one nuclear power and another. However, the 2012 strategy of North Korea changed in the current time with the changing US policy towards it. Now the North Korean president emphasized the development of nuclear and missile capabilities due to the USA’s harsh policies that results in ending the denuclearization of North Korea’s nuclear programme. However, the relations between North Korea and the USA changed after the recent shifts in US policy. North Korea now holds a new approach in its strategy, shifting from denuclearization talks to the discussion with the USA and itself as a de facto nuclear weapon state – that illustrates a major shift of North Korea, openly saying that it must be considered a nuclear weapon state as well.
The Biden’s Administration’s policy towards North Korea will have a major impact on North Korea’s nuclear strategy and will probably impact the security dynamics of East Asia. However, North Korea has stood firm on closing the doors of denuclearization and opening the doors to becoming a stable nuclear weapon state.
