Between Survival and Recognition: A Classical Theory Perspective on North Korea's Nuclear Decision-Making

Abstract

The concern of nuclear is by all measures one of the thorniest problems haunting geopolitics in 21st century, no diplomatic or coercive means has turned to work normally for solving this problem on Korean Peninsula. A central research question has been: What explains the persistence of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in pursuing and keeping her nuclear weapons program despite international sanctions and profound political isolation? This study transcends traditional realist or rational-choices models to argue that North Korea's nuclear policy is essentially based on a calculated and persistent trade-off of two fundamental, though incompatible, imperatives: the iron law of regime survival and the long-standing aspiration for international recognition. Drawing on a novel theoretical framework which refers back to classical political philosophy, this paper unpacks the core dialectic. The first applies the insights of Niccolò Machiavelli and Carl Schmitt to explain what it calls the nakedly rationalist logic of self-preservation, explaining that denuclearization would be political suicide from North Korea's viewpoint. Following this, it engages with a Max Weberian sociology of legitimacy as a theoretical caution about the DPRK seeking international "recognition" to change its base of rule. The paper concludes by weaving these perspectives together in the form of a dynamic model, referred to as the "dialectical trap." Rather than leaning on one mechanism or pathway to regime survival, I argue that instead the unquenchable thirst for recognition necessitated by the pursuit of survival, exposes that other preservative features central to authoritarian identity are subverted under conditions of recognition—eventually creating an unbreakable cycle where any gains made toward one goal create vulnerabilities to another.