Beyond Tailoring: North Korea and the Promise of Managed Deterrence

Abstract

How can one state maintain deterrence against another state undergoing an uncertain political transition? A debate within fourth wave deterrence theory focuses on whether and when a tailored approach, based on cultural, organizational, and idiosyncratic characteristics of a target state, has the greatest value. Tailored deterrence may not be appropriate under conditions of domestic political uncertainty in the target state, often those most in need of deterring. A more promising alternative for a defending state may be deterrence management. Deterrence management compensates for insufficient or low-confidence assessments of a target's values, organizational structure, power distribution, or cultural idiosyncrasies that prevent employment of tailored deterrence strategies intended to manipulate such factors. To make this case, I combine insights from deterrence theory with an exploration of the uncertain politics of a post-Kim Jong-il North Korea and the unpredictable process of power consolidation. Deterrence management may be applicable in cases of imperceptible leadership transitions in other target states. While no panacea, the deterrence management approach reinforces stability while remaining flexible enough to accommodate change.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thank Elaine Bunn, Kristin Chambers, Patrick McEachern, Brad Glosserman, Jim Przystup, Brad Roberts, Drew Thompson, Christopher Twomey and the anonymous reviewers at CSP for their helpful comments and observations on previous versions of this article. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the US Department of Defense or the US Government.

Notes

David C. Kang, ‘International Relations Theory and the Second Korean War’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 3 (September 2003), pp. 301–24.

Jeffrey W. Knopf, ‘The Fourth Wave in Deterrence Research’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 31, No. 1 (April 2010), pp. 1–33; Amir Lupovici, ‘The Emerging Fourth Wave of Deterrence Theory – Toward a New Research Agenda’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 54 (2010), pp. 705–32.

My discussion of tailored deterrence and alternatives in this section is not intended to imply that tailored deterrence is not useful in deterrence theory or practice; far from it. Rather I seek to highlight a scope condition under which tailored deterrence would be exceedingly difficult to implement with any surety. In such instances, I argue that deterrence strategies based on other premises can find success even under conditions of great uncertainty about one's opponent.

Bernard Brodie (ed.), The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946); Richard A. Brody, ‘Deterrence Strategy: An Annotated Bibliography’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 4, No. 4 (December 1960), pp. 443–57; Albert Wohlstetter, ‘The Delicate Balance of Terror’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 37, No. 2 (January 1959), pp. 211–34; Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961).

See, for example, Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996).

The third wave of deterrence research spans several decades, and value-added third wave research continues today. For early third wave research, see Alexander L. George and Richard Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974); Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), esp. Ch. 3. For a contemporary continuation of this tradition, see Christopher P. Twomey, The Military Lens: Doctrinal Difference and Deterrence Failure in Sino-American Relations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010); Van Jackson, ‘Making Diplomacy Work: Coercion and Conciliation in the First North Korean Nuclear Crisis’, Comparative Strategy, Vol. 31, no. 2 (May 2012), pp. 171–87.

Knopf, ‘The Fourth Wave in Deterrence Research’ (note 2), pp. 4–5.

See, for example, Lawrence Freedman, Deterrence (London: Polity, 2004). Amir Lupovici argues that a constructivist turn in deterrence theorizing is an essential part of the fourth wave. See Lupovici, ‘The Emerging Fourth Wave of Deterrence Theory’ (note 2), pp. 705–32.

For a full discussion of tailored deterrence, see Jeffrey S. Lantis, ‘Strategic Culture and Tailored Deterrence: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 30, No. 3 (December 2009), pp. 467–85. From a policy perspective, see David Yost, ‘NATO and Tailored Deterrence: Key Workshop Findings in 2007–8’, Strategic Insights, Vol. 8, No. 4 (September 2009), pp. 1–8.

Lantis, ‘Strategic Culture and Tailored Deterrence’ (note 9), p. 476.

Keith B. Payne, Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1996), p. 117.

Janice Gross Stein, ‘Rational Deterrence against “Irrational” Adversaries? No Common Knowledge’, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, New York, 15 February 2009.

See, for example, US Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, 6 February 2006, p. vi; US Strategic Command, Strategic Deterrence Joint Operating Concept, Version 1.0, February 2004.

The distinction between tailored deterrence and its alternatives, while real and consequential, should not be overstated. To some extent even the deterrence management approach suggested here is tailored in the sense that it privileges some actions and signals over others. My thanks to Brad Roberts for raising this point.

See, for example, Wallace Thies, When Governments Collide: Coercion and Diplomacy in the Vietnam Conflict: 1964–68 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980); Wallace Thies and Patrick Bratton, ‘When Governments Collide in the Taiwan Strait’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4 (December 2004), pp. 556–84; Van Jackson, ‘Making Diplomacy Work’ (note 6).

Jeffrey W. Knopf, ‘Wrestling with Deterrence: Bush Administration Strategy after 9/11’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 29, No. 2 (August 2008), pp. 253–6.

M. Elaine Bunn, ‘Can Deterrence Be Tailored?’, Strategic Forum, No. 225 (Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, 2007).

Patrick Morgan, Deterrence Now (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 66–7.

See, for example, Bruce J. Allyn, James G. Blight, and David A. Welch, ‘Essence of Revision: Moscow, Havana, and the Cuban Missile Crisis’, International Security, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Winter 1989–1990), pp. 136–72; James G. Blight and David A. Welch, On the Brink: Americans and Soviets Reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Noonday Press, 1990).

Lantis, ‘Strategic Culture and Tailored Deterrence’ (note 9), pp. 467–85.

See, for example, Jack S. Levy, ‘When Do Deterrent Threats Work?’, British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 18 (1989), pp. 485–512.

Jervis, Perception and Misperception (note 6).

For an excellent review of arguments on the relevance of distinguishing status quo versus revisionist states and offensively versus defensively oriented states, see Andrew Kydd, ‘Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Why Security Seekers Do Not Fight Each Other’, Security Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1 (1997), pp. 114–55; Evan Braden Montgomery, ‘Breaking Out of the Security Dilemma: Realism, Reassurance, and the Problem of Uncertainty’, International Security, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2006), pp. 151–85.

Charles Glaser, among others, has argued for a finer distinction than simply a dichotomy between status quo seekers and not, but such distinctions are less relevant for the purposes of crafting a general deterrence strategy than for categorizing more nuanced motivations of a target state, or for determining when hybrid competition-cooperation policies are preferable to strictly competitive or cooperative policies. See Charles L. Glaser, ‘Political Consequences of Military Strategy: Expanding and Refining the Spiral and Deterrence Models’, World Politics, Vol. 44, No. 4 (July 1992), pp. 497–538.

The most puzzling mixed signals coming from North Korea since Kim Jong-eun assumed power include the 29 February 2012 ‘Leap Day Deal’ in which North Korea agreed to a moratorium on nuclear and ballistic missile activity only to announce two weeks later that it planned to launch a ballistic missile under the guise of satellite technology. The disconcerting puzzle is why North Korea would bother negotiating a moratorium only to abandon it two weeks later, before it received any of the benefits of it. See Andrew Quinn, ‘Insight: Obama's North Korean Leap of Faith Falls Short’, Reuters, 30 March 2012.

Kurt Campbell, Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 16 September 2010).

At least one scholar has made a credible attempt at ascribing a series of policy preferences to the bureaucratic actors described here, though the preferences identified do not necessarily improve our ability to speculate about the odds of deterrence failure. See Patrick McEachern, ‘North Korea's Policy Process: Assessing Institutional Policy Preferences’, Asian Survey, Vol. 49, No. 3 (2009), pp. 528–52.

These categories should be viewed as ideal types. Other power configurations are of course possible, but for reasons of scope, and to avoid mere conjecture, I settle on the four possibilities articulated here as representing varied points on a continuum. While it may also be argued that a scenario could be envisioned in which a Chinese-backed puppet would rule the country by proxy for China, I do not consider this scenario here as it would most logically follow the fourth scenario I describe – regime collapse. For an excellent study with alternative power scenarios, see Ken E. Gause, North Korea after Kim Chong-il: Leadership Dynamics and Potential Crisis Scenarios (Alexandria, VA: Center for Naval Analyses, November 2011).

Several scholars have posited that this scenario is highly likely. See, for example, Daniel L. Byman and Jennifer Lind, ‘Pyongyang's Survival Strategy: Tools of Authoritarian Control in North Korea’, International Security, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Summer 2010), pp. 44–74; Bruce W. Bennett and Jennifer Lind, ‘The Collapse of North Korea: Military Missions and Requirements’, International Security, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Fall 2011), pp. 87–8; Marcus Noland, ‘Why North Korea Will Muddle Through’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 4 (July/August 1997), pp. 105–18.

See, for example, ‘Korean People Fully Determined to Win Final Victory under Leadership of Kim Jong Un’, Korean Central News Agency, 19 December 2011; ‘KPA Servicepersons and People of DPRK Vow to Remain True to Leadership of Kim Jong Un’, Korean Central News Agency, 19 December 2011.

For explanations of why dictators need institutions and legislatures, see Jennifer Gandhi and Adam Przeworski, ‘Authoritarian Institutions and the Survival of Autocrats’, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 40, No. 11 (November 2007), pp. 1279–301; Barbara Geddes, ‘Why Parties and Elections in Authoritarian Regimes?’, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, March 2006.

For a full discussion of North Korean domestic political structures over time, see Patrick McEachern, Inside the Red Box: North Korea's Post-Totalitarian Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010).

Ken E. Gause, North Korea after Kim Chong-il (note 28); Choe Sang-Hun, ‘Glimmer of Possible Korean Power Elites’, International Herald Tribune, 29 December 2011; Nicholas Hamisevicz, 10 People You Need to Know for Political Transition in North Korea (Washington, DC: Korea Economic Institute, December 2011).

Choe Sang Hun, ‘Economic Measures by North Korea Prompt New Hardships and Unrest’, New York Times, 3 February 2010.

Patrick McEachern, ‘Interest Groups in North Korean Politics’, Journal of East Asian Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 242–3.

Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig, North Korea through the Looking Glass (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), pp. 119–20.

Yoichi Funabashi, The Peninsula Question: A Chronicle of the Second Korean Nuclear Crisis (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2008), p. 458.

Tai Sung An, North Korea: A Political Handbook (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1983), p. 52.

Rodong Shinmun, 22 August 1998. See also Young Whan Kihl, ‘Staying Power of the Hermit Kingdom’, in Young Whan Kihl and Hong Nack Kim (eds), North Korea: The Politics of Regime Survival (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2005), p. 31.

Kim Jong Il, ‘Urineun Jigeum Shikryang Daemunae Mujeongbusangdaega Doego Issda’ [Our Food Situation Now Leads Us to Anarchy], Chosun Wolgan, No. 4 (1997), pp. 308, 316.

See, for example, McEachern, ‘Interest Groups in North Korean Politics’ (note 35), pp. 242–51.

Chung In Moon and Yongho Kim, ‘The Future of the North Korean System’, in Samuel S. Kim (ed.), The North Korean System in the Post-Cold War Era (New York: Palgrave, 2001), p. 236.

For an account of Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok's White House meeting with Bill Clinton and its implications, see Mike Chinoy, Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2008).

For a review of various permutations of collapse or internal instability scenarios in North Korea, see Paul B. Stares and Joel S. Wit, Preparing for Sudden Change in North Korea, Council Special Report No. 42 (Washington, DC: Council on Foreign Relations, January 2009). For the resources and missions necessary to manage an internal collapse, see Bennett and Lind, ‘The Collapse of North Korea’ (note 29), pp. 84–119.

Stares and Wit, Preparing for Sudden Change (note 44), p. 11.

Perhaps the most well known of these failed predictions comes from Nicholas Eberstadt. See Nicholas Eberstadt, The End of North Korea (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 1999); Nicholas Eberstadt, The North Korean Economy: Between Crisis and Catastrophe (New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2009).

Terry C. Stevens, Darren J. Smith, Chuck Downs, and Robert Dujarric, ‘Deterring North Korea: U.S. Options’, Comparative Strategy, Vol. 22, No. 5 (December 2003), pp. 489–514; Kang, ‘International Relations Theory’ (note 1).

Nuclear Posture Review Report (Washington, DC: US Department of Defense, April 2010).

Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Defense Priorities for 21st Century Defense (Washington, DC: US Department of Defense, January 2012).

One scholar defined ‘provocation’ as ‘an intentional military action by North Korea that breaches the sovereignty of South Korea or the United States and violates international law for the attainment of specific political, military, or economic objectives’. But this definition lacks precision and includes several ambiguous concepts that leave the definition open for interpretation. See Sung-Chool Lee, ‘The ROK–U.S. Joint Political and Military Response to North Korean Armed Provocations’, Report of the CSIS Korea Chair (Washington, DC: CSIS, October 2011), p. 10.

Scott Snyder and See-Won Byun, ‘CHEONAN and YeonPyeong: The Northeast Asian Response to North Korean Provocation’, RUSI Journal, Vol. 156, No. 2 (April/May 2011), pp. 74–81.

Paul B. Stares, ‘Military Escalation in Korea’, Contingency Planning Memorandum No. 10 (Washington, DC: Council on Foreign Relations Center for Preventive Action, November 2010).

For a discussion of the complexities associated with nonproliferation as a goal of US policy, see Michael J. Mazaar, ‘Going Just a Little Nuclear: Nonproliferation Lessons from North Korea’, International Security, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Autumn 1995), pp. 92–122.

Patrick Morgan, Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis, revised edition (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1985), p. 30.

Jackson, ‘Making Diplomacy Work’ (note 6).

Ibid.

Schelling, Arms and Influence (note 5), p. 175.

Patrick C. Bratton, ‘When is Coercion Successful? And Why Can't We Agree on It?’, Naval War College Review, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Summer 2005), pp. 99–120.

See, for example, Twomey, The Military Lens (note 6).

US Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review Report (note 48), p. vi.

Patrick M. Morgan, ‘Deterrence and System Management: The Case of North Korea’, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Vol. 23, No. 2 (April 2006), pp. 121–38.

Perhaps the best articulation of this is Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, ‘Deterrence: The Elusive Dependent Variable’, World Politics, Vol. 42, No. 3 (April 1990), pp. 336–69.

See, for example, Janice Gross Stein, ‘Extended Deterrence in the Middle East: American Strategy Revisited’, World Politics, Vol. 39, No. 3 (April 1987), pp. 326–52.

George and Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy (note 6), p. 5.

For a discussion of how North Korea's 2010 provocations have impacted South Korea, see Abraham M. Denmark, ‘Proactive Deterrence: The Challenge of Escalation Control on the Korean Peninsula’, Academic Paper Series (Washington, DC: Korea Economic Institute, December 2011).

For the classic statement on this, see Robert D. Putnam, ‘Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games’, International Organization, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Summer 1988), pp. 427–60.

For early work on diversionary theory, see Richard N. Rosecrance, Action and Reaction in World Politics (Boston, MA: Little Brown, 1960); Richard Ned Lebow, Between Peace and War: The Nature of International Crises (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981).

Byman and Lind, ‘Pyongyang's Survival Strategy’ (note 29), pp. 64–6.

Narushige Michishita, North Korea's Military-Diplomatic Campaigns, 1966-2008 (New York: Routledge, 2010).

For a discussion of the potential motivations and implications of North Korea's 2010 provocations, see Snyder and See-Won Byun, ‘CHEONAN and YeonPyeong’ (note 51).

Gilberto J. Algar-Faria, ‘How Does North Korea Signal to Other Regional Actors?’, POLIS Journal, Vol. 6 (Winter 2011/2012), pp. 1–42.

McEachern, ‘Interest Groups in North Korean Politics’ (note 35).

John Gledhill, ‘Competing for Change: Regime Transition, Intrastate Competition, and Violence’, Security Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1 (2012), pp. 43–82. Although Gledhill focuses on violence against domestic targets, nothing in his analysis precludes its utility in explaining violence against other states.

See, for example, Stephen Van Evera, ‘The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War’, International Security, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Summer 1984), pp. 58–107.

Richard K. Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977); David H. Petraeus, ‘The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam: A Study of Military Influence and the Use of Force in the Post-Vietnam Era’, PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1987.

Jong Sun Lee, ‘Attitudes of Civilian and Military Leaders toward War Initiation: Application of Richard Betts's Analysis of American Cases to Other Countries’, PhD dissertation, Ohio State University, 1991.

Scott D. Sagan, ‘The Perils of Proliferation: Organization Theory, Deterrence Theory, and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons’, International Security, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Spring 1994), pp. 66–107.

Ibid., pp. 73–6, 93–5.

Patrick Morgan, Deterrence Now (note 18), pp. 66–7.

Thies, When Governments Collide (note 15); Thies and Bratton, ‘When Governments Collide in the Taiwan Strait’ (note 15), pp. 556–84; Jackson, ‘Making Diplomacy Work’ (note 6).

See, for example, Barbara Demick, ‘China Launches Economic Projects in North Korea’, Los Angeles Times, 10 June 2011.

For insights into Chinese thinking on managing refugee flows, see Drew Thompson, ‘Border Burdens: China's Response to the Myanmar Refugee Crisis’, China Security, Vol. 5, No. 3 (2009), pp. 15–20.

Bennett and Lind, ‘The Collapse of North Korea’ (note 29), pp. 113–16.

On China's strategic relationship with North Korea, see Andrew Scobell, China and North Korea: From Comrades-in-Arms to Allies at Arm's Length (Carlyle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, March 2004); Bonnie S. Glaser and Scott Snyder, with See-Won Byun and David J. Szerlip, ‘Responding to Change on the Korean Peninsula: Impediments to U.S.–South Korea–China Coordination’, Working Paper, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, May 2010, pp. 13–19.

Bonnie Glaser, Scott Snyder, and John S. Park, ‘Keeping an Eye on an Unruly Neighbor: Chinese Views of Economic Reform and Stability in North Korea’, Working Paper, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, 3 January 2008, p. 19.

Offensive realism, for example, assumes that an anarchic international system means that states can never be certain about others' intentions, and therefore must constantly seek to maximize power. With such an ontology, deterrence would be the most conservative approach to interactions with other states. For a well-known statement of this view, see John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2001).

Freedman, Deterrence (note 8); Lupovici, “The Emerging Fourth Wave of Deterrence Theory' (note 2), pp. 705–32.

Nina Tannenwald, The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons since 1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

North Korea has a history of protesting, but not necessarily responding to, US–ROK exercises. See Donald Kirk, ‘North Korea, Don't Mess with South, U.S. Signals to Kim Jong-il’, Christian Science Monitor, 28 July 2010.

For a detailed discussion of the debates over North Korea's security-related intentions, see Victor D. Cha and David C. Kang, ‘The Debate over North Korea’, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 119, No. 2 (Summer 2004), pp. 229–54.

Andrei Lankov, ‘The North Korean Paradox and the Subversive Truth’, Asian Outlook, 3 March 2009.

Morgan, Deterrence Now (note 18), pp. 66–7.

Jervis, Perception and Misperception (note 6), Ch. 3. Several deterrence scholars have also noted the importance of distinguishing the security orientation of a regime in order to determine the degree to which threats, incentives, or both are appropriate. See Robert Jervis, ‘Introduction’, in Robert Jervis, Richard Ned Lebow, and Janice Gross Stein (eds), Psychology and Deterrence (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), pp. 2–4; Janice Gross Stein, ‘Deterrence and Reassurance’, in Philip E. Tetlock et al. (eds), Behavior, Society, and Nuclear War, Vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 9–72.

Andrei Lankov, ‘Changing North Korea: An Information Campaign Can Beat the Regime’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 88, No. 6 (November/December 2009), pp. 95–105.

Byman and Lind, ‘Pyongyang's Survival Strategy’ (note 29).

Thomas J. Christensen, Worse Than a Monolith: Alliance Politics and Problems of Coercive Diplomacy in Asia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011).

See, for example, 42nd U.S.–ROK Security Consultative Meeting Joint Communiqué (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 8 October 2010).

For two highly contrasting expressions of policy preference between the United States and the ROK on North Korea, see Denmark, ‘Proactive Deterrence’ (note 65); Chong Chol-ho, ‘The Redeployment of U.S. Tactical Nuclear Weapons to South Korea’, Paper presented at the Sixth ROK–U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, 8 June 2011.

Schelling, Arms and Influence (note 5).

Richard Ned Lebow, ‘Conclusions’, in Robert Jervis, Richard Ned Lebow, and Janice Gross Stein (eds), Psychology and Deterrence (note 93), pp. 226–7; Janice Gross Stein, ‘Reassurance in International Conflict Management’, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 106, No. 3 (Autumn 1991), pp. 431–51; Janice Gross Stein, ‘Extended Deterrence in the Middle East’ (note 63); Jackson, ‘Making Diplomacy Work’ (note 6).

Alexander L. George, ‘The Need for Influence Theory and Actor-Specific Behavioral Models of Adversaries’, in Barry R. Schneider and Jerrold M. Post (eds), Know Thy Enemy: Profiles of Adversary Leaders and Their Strategic Cultures, second edition (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: USAF Counterproliferation Center, July 2003), p. 276.

For an assessment that US policy towards Iran has failed largely because it fails to take into account the complexities of Iran's society and governing structure, see Ray Takeyh, Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic (New York: Holt, 2007).

For indicators of whether a state should be defined as status quo or revisionist, see Alastair Iain Johnston, ‘Is China a Status Quo Power?’, International Security, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Spring 2003), pp. 5–56.