Constructing a Rogue State: American Post-Cold War Security Discourse and North Korean Drug Trafficking*

The author would like to thank Dr. Robert Stephens, Professor of History at Virginia Tech, Dr. Deborah Milly, Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech, and Dr. Timothy Luke, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech, for helpful comments in revising this manuscript. Participants at the 78th annual meeting of the Virginia Social Science Association in Richmond, Virginia, two anonymous reviewers, and Katie Paul also provided invaluable assistance in editing this paper.

Abstract

Through an analysis of government reports, political testimony, influential periodicals and interviews, this paper holds that claims of North Korean drug trafficking and producing are greatly exaggerated. An assessment of the 1999 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1999 North Korea Advisory Group Report, 2000 International Crime Threat Assessment, and 2004 United Nations Report on World Drugs, among other sources, reveals only inconclusive and anecdotal support for the contention that North Korea is a drug state. This lack of reliable intelligence allows American security analysts to construct North Korea as a drug sponsoring country, making the “truth” about North Korea's relationship to drugs come from endless repetition rather than sustained analysis. As a result, US approaches towards security and drug policy in the region need to be reexamined and contextualized.

The dominant definition of a problem acquires, by repetition, and by the weight and credibility of those who propose and subscribe it, the warrant of “common sense.” (Stuart Hall1)

Notes

The author would like to thank Dr. Robert Stephens, Professor of History at Virginia Tech, Dr. Deborah Milly, Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech, and Dr. Timothy Luke, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech, for helpful comments in revising this manuscript. Participants at the 78th annual meeting of the Virginia Social Science Association in Richmond, Virginia, two anonymous reviewers, and Katie Paul also provided invaluable assistance in editing this paper.

⁹⁵ Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 105.

⁹⁴ Bleiker, 2005, p. xxxiv.

⁹³ See Alan Dupont, 2001, East Asia Imperiled: Transnational Challenges to Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 133. (US Institute of Peace, 2001); Oh and Hassig, 2000.; Chalk, 1998, “Low Intensity Conflicts in Southeast Asia: Piracy, Drug Trafficking and Political Terrorism,” Conflict Studies (February, 1998), pp. 1–36.; and Oded Lowenheim, “Transnational Criminal Organizations and Security: The Case against Inflating the Record,” International Journal (September 2002), pp. 513–536.

⁹² See Andrew Natsios, The Great North Korean Famine: Famine, Politics, and Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, 2001); Oh and Hassig, 2000.

⁹¹ For a well written investigation of North Korean uranium enrichment programs, see Selig Harrison, “Did North Korea Cheat?” Foreign Affairs (January/February, 2005), p. 100.

⁹⁰ Many of these faults have been well documented by a number of recent studies, including Deborah G. Barger, “It's Time to Transform, Not Reform, U.S. Intelligence,” SAIS Review (Winter/Spring, 2004), pp. 23–31; James Jay Carafano, “An Agenda for Responsible Intelligence Reform,” Heritage Foundation Executive Memorandum (May 13, 2004); Frank J. Cilluffo, Ronald A. Markes and George Salmoiraghi, “The Use and Limits of U.S. Intelligence,” The Washington Quarterly (Winter, 2002), pp. 61–74; Chaim Kaufmann, “Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas,” International Security (Summer, 2004), pp. 5–48; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2004); Kevin Russell, “The Subjectivity of Intelligence Analysis and Implications for the U.S. National Security Strategy,” SAIS Review (Winter/Spring, 2004), pp. 147–163; and James B. Steinberg, Mary Graham and Andrew Eggers, “Building Intelligence to Fight Terrorism,” Brookings Institution Policy Brief #125 (September, 2003).

⁸⁹ Bleiker, 2005, p. ix.

⁸⁸ Grove Karl Gilbert, “On the Validity of Scientific Hypotheses,” American Journal of Science 31 (1886), p. 22.

⁸⁷ Cumings, 2004, p. ix.

⁸⁶ Bach, “North Korea's Drug Habit,” The New York Times, June 3, 2004, p. A27.

⁸⁵ Perl, “North Korea's Drug Habit,” The New York Times, June 3, 2004, p. A27.

⁸⁴ Victor Cha and Chris Hoffmeister, “North Korea's Drug Habit,” The New York Times, June 3, 2004, p. A27.

⁸³ Ethan Nadelman, personal communication (email), October 23, 2004, p. 1.

⁸² In Kaplan, 1999, p. 40.

⁸¹ For more on these global trends, see Alan Dupont, “Transnational Crime, Drugs, and Security in East Asia,” Asian Survey (May/June 1999), pp. 433–455; Michael J. Dziedzic, “The Transnational Drug Trade and Regional Security,” Survival (November/December, 1989), pp. 533–548; Alfred McCoy, “Coercion and its Unintended Consequences: A Study of Heroin Trafficking in Southeast and Southwest Asia,” Crime, Law and Social Change 33 (2000), pp. 191–224; Peter Chalk, “Low Intensity Conflicts in Southeast Asia: Piracy, Drug Trafficking, and Political Terrorism,” Conflict Studies (February, 1998), pp. 1–36; United States Drug Enforcement Agency, Drug Intelligence Brief: The Evolution of the Drug Threat (Washington, DC: DEA, 2002); United States Drug Enforcement Agency, Drug Intelligence Brief: Methamphetamine: The Current Threat in East Asia and the Pacific Rim (Washington, DC: DEA, 2003); and United States Drug Enforcement Agency, Drug Intelligence Brief: Heroin Signature Program (Washington, DC: DEA, 2004).

⁸⁰ See “Methamphetamine: Instant Pleasure, Instant Aging,“ The Economist (June 18, 2005), pp. 30–31; “Drugs and Violence in Mexico,“ The Economist (July 2, 2005), pp. 35–36.

⁷⁹ W. R. Bohning, “Undesired Jobs and What We Can Do to Fill Them: The Case of the Republic of Korea,” presentation to the Korea Small Business Institute, April 19, 1994, p. 4; Teresa Watanabe, “South Korea Braces for Defectors From the North,” Los Angeles Times, May 13, 1994, p. 9.

⁷⁸ Defectors are given large additional cash prizes if they deliver especially valuable information. Yi Ung-Pyong, a fighter pilot who defected with his MIG-19 jet in 1983, received 1.2 billion won. Another received $630,000 in 1987 for providing information on North Korean missile technology.

⁷⁷ Struck, “Heroin Trail Leads to North Korea,” Washington Post, May 12, 2004, p. A1.; Paddock and Demick, “North Korea's Growing Drug Trade Seen in Botched Heroin Delivery,” Washington Post, May 21, 2004, p. 12; and S. Struck, “Heroin Trail Leads to North Korea,” Washington Post, May 12, 2004, p. A1.

⁷⁶ AAP Newsfeed, “Pong Su Crew Members Deported,” August 3, 2004, p. 3.

⁷⁵ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2004, p. 167.

⁷⁴ Dupont, 1999, p. 438.

⁷³ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2004, pp. i–ix; Peter Chalk, “Low Intensity Conflicts in Southeast Asia: Piracy, Drug Trafficking and Political Terrorism,” Conflict Studies (February, 1998), p. 87.

⁷² United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2004, pp. i–ix; Peter Chalk, “Low Intensity Conflicts in Southeast Asia: Piracy, Drug Trafficking and Political Terrorism,” Conflict Studies (February, 1998), p. 42.

⁷¹ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2004, pp. i–ix; Peter Chalk, “Low Intensity Conflicts in Southeast Asia: Piracy, Drug Trafficking and Political Terrorism,” Conflict Studies (February, 1998), pp. 1–36.

⁷⁰ Nicholas Eberstadt, personal interview, October 31, 2004, p. 1.

⁶⁹ Gallucci, personal communication, p. 1.

⁶⁸ Susan K. Scholte, “North Korea and Asian Security,” Hearing Before the Committee on House International Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific (April 28, 2004), p. 2.

⁶⁷ Susan K. Scholte, “North Korea and Asian Security,” Hearing Before the Committee on House International Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific (April 28, 2004), p. 2.

⁶⁶ Joel S. Wit, “North Korea: Leader of the Pack,” The Washington Quarterly (Winter 2001), p. 77.

⁶⁵ Rachel Ehrenfeld, “An Interview about IACSP,” Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security International (Summer 2003), p. 45.

⁶⁴ Hwang, For example, another Lexis Nexis search undertaken in November, 2004, of articles published in the last two years mentioning “North Korea,” “drugs,” and “security” revealed over 3,000 articles asserting that North Korean drug operations funded covert weapons programs. An article in Newsweek International (Velisarios Kattoulas, “Neighborhood Dealers,” May 3, 1999, pp. 58–63) even reported that “drug money could be supporting North Korean programs to develop long range missiles and nuclear weapons.”, p. 1.

⁶³ O'Hanlon and Mochizuki, For example, another Lexis Nexis search undertaken in November, 2004, of articles published in the last two years mentioning “North Korea,” “drugs,” and “security” revealed over 3,000 articles asserting that North Korean drug operations funded covert weapons programs. An article in Newsweek International (Velisarios Kattoulas, “Neighborhood Dealers,” May 3, 1999, pp. 58–63) even reported that “drug money could be supporting North Korean programs to develop long range missiles and nuclear weapons.”, p. 15.

⁶² For example, another Lexis Nexis search undertaken in November, 2004, of articles published in the last two years mentioning “North Korea,” “drugs,” and “security” revealed over 3,000 articles asserting that North Korean drug operations funded covert weapons programs. An article in Newsweek International (Velisarios Kattoulas, “Neighborhood Dealers,” May 3, 1999, pp. 58–63) even reported that “drug money could be supporting North Korean programs to develop long range missiles and nuclear weapons.”

⁶¹ Larry Wortzel, personal interview, November 3, 2004, p. 1.

⁶⁰ Perl, personal interview, November 3, 2004, p. 1.

⁵⁹ Dr. Robert Gallucci, personal interview, November 3, 2004, p. 1.

⁵⁸ Bach, 1999, p. 32.

⁵⁷ Fitzgerald, 1999, p. 32.

⁵⁶ Kaplan, 1999, p. 32.

⁵⁵ North Korea Advisory Group, 1999, p. 2.

⁵⁴ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2004 World Drug Report (Geneva: United Nations Publication E.04.IX.I6, 2004), p. 187.

⁵³ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2004 World Drug Report (Geneva: United Nations Publication E.04.IX.I6, 2004), p. 69.

⁵² United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2004 World Drug Report (Geneva: United Nations Publication E.04.IX.I6, 2004), p. 23.

⁵¹ Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: 2003 (Washington, DC: United States Department of State, 2004), pp. 61–62.

⁵⁰ Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: 2003 (Washington, DC: United States Department of State, 2004), p. 63.

⁴⁹ Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: 2003 (Washington, DC: United States Department of State, 2004), pp. 61–62.

⁴⁸ Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: 2003 (Washington, DC: United States Department of State, 2004), pp. 61–62.

⁴⁷ Raphael F. Perl, “Drug Trafficking and North Korea: Issues for U.S. Policy,” CRS Report for Congress (December 5, 2003), pp. 13–19.

⁴⁶ Raphael F. Perl, “Drug Trafficking and North Korea: Issues for U.S. Policy,” CRS Report for Congress (December 5, 2003), p. 8.

⁴⁵ Financial Management, Budget, and International Security Subcommittee, “Drugs, Counterfeiting, and Weapons Proliferation: The North Korean Connection,” Hearing Before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee (May 20, 2003), p. 83.

⁴⁴ Financial Management, Budget, and International Security Subcommittee, “Drugs, Counterfeiting, and Weapons Proliferation: The North Korean Connection,” Hearing Before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee (May 20, 2003), p. 81.

⁴³ Financial Management, Budget, and International Security Subcommittee, “Drugs, Counterfeiting, and Weapons Proliferation: The North Korean Connection,” Hearing Before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee (May 20, 2003), p. 74.

⁴² Financial Management, Budget, and International Security Subcommittee, “Drugs, Counterfeiting, and Weapons Proliferation: The North Korean Connection,” Hearing Before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee (May 20, 2003), pp. 66–67.

⁴¹ Financial Management, Budget, and International Security Subcommittee, “Drugs, Counterfeiting, and Weapons Proliferation: The North Korean Connection,” Hearing Before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee (May 20, 2003), p. 65.

⁴⁰ William Bach, “Drugs, Counterfeiting, and Weapons Proliferation: The North Korean Connection,” Hearing Before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee (May 20, 2003), p. 31.

³⁹ Hollis, 2003, p. 24.

³⁸ International Crime Threat Assessment (December, 2000), < http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/pub45270index.html>.

³⁷ Jay Solomon and Haw Won Choi, “Money Trail,” The Wall Street Journal, July 14, 2001, p. A1.

³⁶ North Korea Advisory Group, p. ii

³⁵ North Korea Advisory Group, p. 42.

³⁴ North Korea Advisory Group, p. 41.

³³ North Korea Advisory Group, p. ii.

³² Kaplan, pp. 37–39.

³¹ Kaplan, p. 40.

³⁰ Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: 1999 (Washington, DC: United States Department of State, 2000), pp. 47–48.

²⁹ Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: 1999 (Washington, DC: United States Department of State, 2000), p. 46.

²⁸ Sections 481(d) and 489 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and Section 804 of the Narcotics Control Trade Act of 1974 require the State Department to release a report every year to “provide the factual basis for the Presidential narcotics certification determinations for major drug producing and/or drug transiting countries.”

²⁷ Roland Bleiker, Divided Korea: Toward a Culture of Reconciliation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), p. 116.

²⁶ Roland Bleiker, Divided Korea: Toward a Culture of Reconciliation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), pp. xxxvii–xxxix.

²⁵ See Edward Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan, 1990, pp. 15–22; Lipschutz, 1995, pp. 2–4.

²⁴ Alan Dupont, East Asia Imperiled: Transnational Challenges to Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 133.

²³ Griffith, p. 15.

²² Karen T. Liftin, Ozone Discourses: Science and Politics in Global Environmental Cooperation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), p. 19.

²¹ Michael Thompson, “Security and Solidarity: An Anti-Reductionist Analysis of Environmental Policy,” in Maarten A. Hajer and Frank Fisher, Living with Nature: Environmental Politics as Cultural Discourse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 135.

²⁰ Maarten A. Hajer, The Politics of Environmental Discourse: Ecological Modernization and the Policy Process (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 2.

¹⁹ For discussions on how security institutions have expanded to incorporate environmental concerns into their threat assessments, see Miram R. Lowi and Brian R. Shaw, Environment and Security: Discourses and Practices (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000); Jon Barnett, The Meaning of Environmental Security: Ecological Politics and Policy in the New Security Era (New York: Zed Books, 2001); Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, “Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict: Evidence from Cases,” International Security 19:1 (1994), pp. 5–40; Marc A. Levy, “Is the Environment a National Security Issue,” International Security 20:2 (1995), pp. 35–62; and Simon Dalby, Environmental Security (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002). For work on how security institutions have widened their focus on issues of development, see Robin Luckham, “Democratic Strategies for Security in Transition and Conflict,” in Governing Insecurity: Democratic Control of Military and Security Establishments in Transitional Democracies (New York: Zed Books, 2003); Benjamin Sovacool and Saul Halfon, “Security, Development, and Reconstruction: Imagining a New Iraq,” presentation at the Science and Technology Studies (R)evolutions Conference, March 18, 2005, p. 5.

¹⁸ Michael Renner, Fighting for Survival (Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, 1996), p. 12.

¹⁷ See Campbell, Writing Security, pp. 3–17; Annmarie Oliverio and Pat Lauderdale, The State of Terror (New York: State University of New York, 1998), pp. 5–9; Edward Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan, Terrorism Industry: The Experts and Institutions that Shape Our View of Terror (New York: Random House, 1990).

¹⁶ For investigations on how American perceptions of security have changed during the past 10 years, see David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998); Ronnie D. Lipschutz, On Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); and Ivelaw L. Griffith, “From Cold War Geopolitics to Post-Cold War Geonarcotics,” International Journal (Winter 1993/1994), pp. 1–36.

¹⁵ Personal communication (email) with Larry Wortzel, November 1, 2004, p. 1.

¹⁴ Personal communication (phone interview) with Raphael Perl, November 2, 2004, p. 3.

¹³ Owen Rathbone, “North Korea: A Gangster State,” American Daily, April 27, 2003, p. 4.

¹² Balbina Hwang, “Curtailing North Korea's Illicit Activities,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #1679 (August 26, 2003), p. 2.

¹¹ In David E. Kaplan, “The Wiseguy Regime,” U.S. News and World Report, February 15, 1999, p. 38.

¹⁰ North Korea Advisory Group, Report to the Speaker U.S. House of Representatives (November, 1999), < http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/dprk/nkag-report.htm>, p. 41.

⁹ O'Hanlon and Mochizuki, Crisis on the Korean Peninsula, p. 8.

⁸ Cumings, North Korea, p. ix.

⁷ Michael O'Hanlon, “Toward a Grand Bargain with North Korea,” Washington Quarterly (Autumn, 2003), pp. 7–18; Tsuneo Akaha, The Future of North Korea (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 23.

⁶ For contemporary histories on American security policy towards the DPRK, see Doug Bandow, Tripwire: North Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World (Washington, DC: CATO Institute, 1996); Bruce Cumings, North Korea: Another Country (New York: The New Press, 2004); Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig, North Korea: Through the Looking Glass (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2000); Michael O'Hanlon and Mike Mochizuki, Crisis on the Korean Peninsula: How to Deal with a Nuclear North Korea (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2003); Dae-Sook Suh and Chai-Jin Lee, North Korea After Kim Il Sung (London: Lynne Rienner, 1998); Samuel S. Kim and Tai Hwan Lee, North Korea and Northeast Asia (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002); Tae-Hwan Kwak and Seung-Ho Joo, The Korean Peace Process and the Four Powers (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing, 2003); and Chuck Downs, Over the Line: North Korea's Negotiating Strategy (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1999).

⁵ George W. Bush, “Presidential Determination of Major Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries for 2004,” Public Papers of the President, September 22, 2003, p. 10.

⁴ Peter G. Fitzgerald, “Drugs, Counterfeiting, and Weapons Proliferation: The North Korean Connection,” Hearing Before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, May 30, 2003, p. 2; Andrew Hollis, “Drugs, Counterfeiting, and Weapons Proliferation: The North Korean Connection,” Hearing Before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, May 20, 2003, p. 23.

³ Kim Young Il, “North Korea and Narcotics Trafficking: A View from the Inside,” North Korea Review 1:1 (2004), p. 2.

² For a more complete description of the Pong Su incident, see Richard C. Paddock and Barbara Demick, “North Korea's Growing Drug Trade Seen in Botched Heroin Delivery,” Washington Post, May 21, 2004, p. 12; and S. Struck, “Heroin Trail Leads to North Korea,” Washington Post, May 12, 2004, p. A1.

¹ Stuart Hall, Culture, Society, and the Media (New York: Routledge, 1989), p. 82.