Circle of escalation: What explains North Korea’s selective response to military exercises?
Keywords:
North Korea missile crisis, US-ROK joint military exercises, Qualitative comparative analysis.Abstract
After brief ease of tension between the United States and North Korea in 2018, situation on the Korean Peninsula deteriorated again in 2022 as both the number and intensity of US-South Korea joint military exercises (JMEs) and North Korean missile launches increased. While existing literature mainly applies quantitative methods to investigate the relationship between JMEs and North Korean behavior, this study applies qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) approach which aims to test the mixed motives instead of a single cause of the situation of the Korean Peninsula. This is done through a comparison of 26 US-South Korea joint military exercises between 2012 and 2022 using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fs/QCA). The result demonstrates that the regime’s internal incentive to promote its missile program is the key explanatory condition. However, when combined with high level of threat and/or the absence of recent international sanctions, the causal paths do not correlate strongly with the outcome. This result shows the instability and unpredictability of the North Korean regime
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