Unpacking the Ontological Foundation of North Korea's Ambivalent Foreign Policy: Brinkmanship as Rationality

Despite strong consensus regarding the rationale behind North Korea's nuclear ambitions, namely to guarantee the regime's survival, this paper investigates (1) why North Korea continuously engaged in provocations such as testing its nuclear and missile technologies despite its increasingly mature nuclear arsenal and thus its relatively high resilience vis-a-vis external interventions; and (2) why the USA was so successful at (temporarily) making North Korea cease such undertakings. Status Theory, a novel theory developed herein, is applied to provide an explanation for this phenomenon. Status Theory aims at shedding light on this crisis through its distinction between prestige and respect. It is hypothesized that Pyongyang places great importance on enforcing respect from Washington, while increasing its prestige domestically through frequent tests of its military capabilities. The post-June 12th detente, albeit presumably temporary, is considered conducive to Kim's status and is thus instrumental for the regime's ontological security, but it is not conducive to denuclearization.