ABSTRACT
North Korea (DPRK) committed to nuclear weapons as a path to security in the 2000s and has adopted a fairly orthodox nuclear strategy. A combination of countervalue retaliatory capabilities, both against South Korea and, increasingly the United States, as well as battlefield nuclear weapons point to two “complementary” strands of strategy: to deter the ROK and the United States, and to “repel” aggression if deterrence fails. While the DPRK’s conventional arsenal has improved significantly in the past two decades, there seems little prospect that the DPRK would fight a major war without detonating nuclear warheads. Furthermore, in light of the ROK’s posture of pre-emptive conventional counterforce, the North almost certainly has to wrestle with the prospect of “use them or lose them” dilemmas. It is the prospect of war on the Peninsula that looms largest in the DPRK’s nuclear calculations, leaving little room for the influence of changing great power politics or innovations in the realm of norms and institutions. Despite being the newest nuclear power, the DPRK is arguably the most attached to the “traditional” uses of nuclear weapons.
