North Korea, missile defense, and U.S.-China security dilemma

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between US missile defense and the US-China security dilemma dynamics by developing the concept of diffuse signaling involving the Korean peninsula. We argue that the US’ efforts to bolster deterrence against North Korea’s growing threats through missile defense have resulted in China’s countermeasures of enhancing survivability and penetrability of its second-strike capability, leading to downward spirals of tensions between Beijing and Washington. We explain how three structural factors – geography, the US alliance system, and nuclear asymmetry – have made diffuse signaling salient, thus making it very challenging for the United States to reassure China even when its actions targeted North Korea. The article empirically shows the action-reaction process through which China and the US have come to experience the aggravation of the security dilemma over the Korean peninsula.

Keywords:

• Missile defense
• North Korea’s nuclear and missile development programs
• security dilemma
• signaling
• the Korean peninsula
• US-China relations

Acknowledgements

For helpful comments and suggestions, we wish to thank Boaz Atzili, Alice Friend, Kei Koga, Julia Lau, Terence Roehrig, David Santoro, Chris Twomey and Andrew Yeo. We wish to thank Frieder Dengler and Patrice Francis for their research assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eleni Ekmektsioglou

Eleni Ekmektsioglou is a PhD candidate and an adjunct instructor at American University’s School of International Service. Her dissertation examines variation in state reactions to new military technologies. Her research interests include technological innovation in strategic weapon systems and their impact on crisis stability, Security in East Asia, and Chinese nuclear and naval strategy. Previously, she held positions as a Research Fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS, an Assistant Project Coordinator at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) and a Research Fellow at the European Institute for Asia Studies.

Ji-Young Lee

Ji-Young Lee (Corresponding Author) is an Associate Professor of International Relations at American University’s School of International Service, where she holds the C. W. Lim and KF Professorship of Korean Studies. She is the author of ‘China's Hegemony: Four Hundred Years of East Asian Domination’ (Columbia University Press, 2016). Her current book project, ‘The Great Power Next Door’ (under contract with Columbia University Press), is a historically informed analysis of when and how China has chosen to militarily intervene in the Korean Peninsula. Her other works concern the impact of China’s rise on the U.S. alliance system in East Asia today and South Korean foreign policy. Prior to teaching at AU, she was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Politics and East Asian Studies at Oberlin College, where she also taught as a visiting assistant professor. She has previously served as a POSCO Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center, a non-resident James Kelly Korean Studies Fellow with the Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies, an East Asia Institute Fellow, and a Korea Foundation-Mansfield Foundation scholar of the U.S.-Korea Scholar-Policymaker Nexus program.