North Korea's Nuclear Decision-making and Plausible Scenarios

North Korea continues to enhance its nuclear capability. The plenary meeting of the Korean Workers Party's Central Committee, held on March 31, 2013, ended with a declaration of North Korea's commitment to perfecting all its military and operational strategies, for deterrence and warfare alike, in a way that emphasizes the pivotal role of its nuclear weapons. In other words, North Korea has made known its intent to use nuclear weapons for military purposes, and to other ends, if necessary. This recent development leads us to ask: Will North Korea indeed use its nuclear weapons? If so, in what circumstances, to what ends, and in what ways will North Korea launch its nuclear weapons? To explore the answers to these questions, this study makes use of the situational deterrence model, based on a survey of the literature on decision-making regarding nuclear weapons. The model, providing a new framework of analysis, has as its premise the assumption that the leading power elites of the North Korean regime will decide to use their nuclear weapons when the losses incurred by failing to use such weapons are greater than the losses incurred by using such weapons. According to this logic of the situational deterrence model, the likelihood of deciding to use nuclear weapons increases amid incidents of domestic unrest; in the early, middle, and later phases of a possible war launched by North Korea against the South; or in response to preemptive strikes by the United States against North Korean nuclear facilities. It is in these circumstances that the perceived losses resulting from the failure to use nuclear weapons grow larger than the losses resulting from using nuclear weapons. In the meantime, the advancement and enlargement of the nuclear arsenal can help reduce the risks associated with using them. The Kim Jong Un regime, with its expanding nuclear program, is thus growing all the likelier to use nuclear weapons in possible future wars, and also to increase the number of nuclear weapons it would employ in such wars.