Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013. viii, 307 pp. (Figures, B&W photos.) US$35.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-8014-5082-2.
Despite the recent emergence of interests in North Korea, historical monographs about its foreign relations have been lacking. Armstrong’s book admirably helps to fill this gap. Drawing on archival materials from former communist countries in Eastern Europe, China and the Soviet Union, he reconstructs North Korea’s foreign relations in the global context.
In chapter 1, Armstrong first shows the context of the North Korean attack on South Korea in June 1950, drawing on Soviet and Chinese documents. Then, he offers an original account of the occupation policies of South and North Korea, along with brutalities committed by both sides, as zones of occupations changed during the war. Kim Il Sung developed suspicions about the Soviet Union and China by the end of the war, and wished to pursue a policy of self-reliance (50). However, for the post-war reconstruction, North Korea had to rely heavily on Soviet assistance. Chapter 2 offers vivid accounts about the reconstruction of Pyongyang and Hamhŭng city, which was rebuilt with assistance from East Germany.
In chapter 3, Armstrong shows the process through which Kim Il-sung consolidated his leadership in the 1950s by purging the Soviet-Korean and Yanan groups (99). While blocking the destabilizing effects of de-Stalinization, Kim’s regime began promoting its nationalistic Juche ideology, and began distancing itself from China as well. With the emergence of the Sino-Soviet split in the late 1950s, Kim skilfully maintained a diplomatic balance between them. Armstrong confirms that the signing of two similar alliance treaties with Beijing and Moscow in July 1961 were the outcome of Kim’s masterful manipulation through phased secret negotiations, rather than an outcome of trilateral cooperation in the communist bloc (125). The author shows that this method of carefully steering “a course between the Soviet Union and China, refusing to take sides” continued until the end of the Cold War. Through such skilful diplomacy, Pyongyang gained economic assistance and pledges of military aid from both sides.
During the 1960s North Korea made progress in securing support from newly independent countries in Asia and Africa as a seemingly successful example of postcolonial nation-building, as shown in chapter 4 (143). During the Vietnam War, North Korea covertly provided a small number of pilots and medicine to North Vietnam while South Korea openly sent combat troops to support the US war efforts. From the late 1960s, Pyongyang embarked on a series of provocative actions in its policy toward South Korea and the United States. In particular, detaining a US intelligence vessel and its crew during the Pueblo Incident was regarded as too provocative by Moscow. But with the start of détente diplomacy between China and the United States, North Korea reached a short-lived agreement with South Korea in July 1972, which pledged to refrain from mutual criticism and to pursue unification through dialogue and without foreign interference.
During the 1970s, North Korea exerted its efforts to reach out to the United States, Japan and western European countries. But chapter 5 shows that such efforts could not achieve much success, with the decline of detente mood within the Korean peninsula and in Asia more widely since the mid-1970s. Pyongyang’s provocations, exemplified by its brutal murder of two American officers in August 1976, further tainted the North Korean image. Its efforts to expand economic interactions with Japanese and European banks also ended with it defaulting on its foreign debt by the mid-1970s. Meanwhile, North Korea continued its efforts to gain support in the Third World. While expanding its diplomatic reach in Africa, Pyongyang also supported rightwing dictators Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and Idi Amin of Uganda. North Korea also gave support to Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Republic after the Iranian revolution in 1979 (185). Despite such a diplomatic drive in the Third World, Juche was never an attractive model for the Third World, though it remained more useful for domestic propaganda and diplomatic rivalry with South Korea (205).
In chapter 6, Armstrong shows how Kim Jung Il came to consolidate his position as the successor of his father through an elaborate personality cult beginning in the early 1980s. Based on the synthesis of scholarly literature, the author also explains how the transformation of North Korean official ideology, emphasizing Confucian virtues of filial piety and “revolutionary lineage,” justified such a feudal power transfer. But, in the international arena, the non-alignment movement lost momentum while the military balance with South Korea turned against Pyongyang in the second half of the 1980s. The author explains that the marked rise of North Korean terrorist attacks on South Korea was driven by its weakness and fear of a declining correlation of forces (236). Chapter 7 shows how North Korea, faced with the disintegration of the Soviet bloc at the end of the Cold War, chose to pursue fervently nationalistic Korean-style socialism.
In the epilogue, the author succinctly shows how North Korea has struggled to secure its regime survival though “military-first politics,” while failing to emulate the Chinese model of economic opening. He also offers a sharp critique of the approach towards North Korea of George W. Bush’s administration. In his assessment, the Bush administration’s unnecessarily hawkish policy and “Rhetorical Conflation,” defining North Korea as a part of the Axis of Evil, further emboldened North Korea’s resolve to pursue nuclear weapons capability.
Tyranny of the Weak is a welcome addition to the literature on North Korea and the broader history of international relations. It is well couched on small state theory, which underscores the ability of weak states to secure autonomy and influence through a skilful use of diplomacy. While often assuming a sympathetic view of North Korea’s unique situation, the author does not turn a blind eye to the brutality of the North Korean regime.
Armstrong successfully shows North Korea’s interaction with the world based on a masterly use of new historical sources as well as secondary sources in many languages. Nevertheless, when discussing the twists and turns of North Korean diplomacy, the author could have consulted the South Korean foreign ministry archives and American archives further. Still, Armstrong admirably achieves success in showing the evolution of North Korea’s foreign relations in a truly global context, much in line with the mainstream approach in historical scholarship today.
Seung-young Kim
University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
pp. 874-876