What about the other major incident of 2010? For the first time since the armistice of 1953 ending the Korean War, North Korea mounted a direct artillery shelling of South Korean territory, namely the South Korean island Yeongpyeongdo, located just off the NLL. It is likely that several factors were operative.
1. North Korea wanted to compel the U.S. to engage in bilateral talks with an eye to completing a peace treaty which would eventually lead to the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the peninsula.
2. It also wanted to draw the attention of the international community to the alleged illegality and inequity of the present border demarcation line and to pressure the U.S. and South Korea to agree to a new maritime border which would bring strategic advantage to North Korea.
3. North Korea hoped to demonstrate the unwillingness of the U.S. to go to war in defense of the 5 islands, thus straining the U.S.-South Korea and U.S.-Japan alliances.
4. North Korean officials wanted to intimidate South Korean President Lee Myung Bak into altering his “policy of hostility” toward the North and to coerce him into acceding to the North’s longstanding political, military, and economic demands. Part of their strategy may have been to deepen fissures in South Korean politics, encouraging left-wing and pro-North Korean forces in the South to press for policies in North Korea’s interests and eventually helping the left-wing forces to win victories in the forthcoming local and presidential elections.
5. As with the earlier incidents, the North Korean leadership wanted to ensure the survival of the Kim dynasty by placating the military and reinforcing the credentials of Kim Jong Un as a “brilliant strategist, and audacious and incomparable leader who has won a stunning victory over American imperialism and its puppet in the South.”
The prevailing view among U.S. analysts and officials is that while all these factors may have been operative, factors 1 and 5 were probably most important There is good reason to think that while North Korea’s mid to long term objective is a peace agreement, its overriding short term goal here was to achieve the demarcation of a new maritime border by 2012. Â Achieving that objective would give the regime an important strategic advantage vis-Ã -vis South Korea, validate North Korea’s strategy of using and threatening military power to secure diplomatic concessions, and enhance the legitimacy of Kim Jong Un’s leadership.
As for U.S. response to the bombardment of Yeongpyongdo, the U.S. government promptly condemned North Korea’s action and reaffirmed its commitment to the defense of South Korea. Furthermore, it expressed its full support for the various countermeasures the South Korea government announced, which included its intention to conduct a military exercise involving artillery shelling off Yeongpyeongdo and south of the NLL with a warning to the North of its readiness to launch air strikes against should North Korea repeats provocations. This despite the fact that there was a serious concern in the U.S. that such a retaliatory air strike would carry serious risk of escalation into a larger military conflict. South Korea ignored Chinese opposition and the Russian warning  and went ahead with its planned military drill. The U.S. stood firm with South Korea while taking appropriate actions on its own to forestall potential military moves by the North.  The U.S. was prepared for a possible military engagement.  Despite its repeated and explicit warnings that it would respond militarily if South Korea proceeded with its naval exercise off the NLL, North Korea chose not to respond when South Korea actually carried out the drill.
The year 2011 began with what some analysts call North Korea’s “charm offensive,” referring to the regime’s rapid succession of calls for talks of various kinds with South Korea. This has emerged as a somewhat predictable pattern of North Korean actions: military provocations followed by diplomatic initiatives, presumably with the aim of increasing the regime’s leverage during negotiations. Â North Korea’s reasons for seeking inter-Korea talks at the start of this year were numerous and probably include the following:
1. Influencing the outcome of the U.S.-China summit which was to occur in mid-January. North Korea’s declared willingness to enter into inter-Korea talks without conditions could be seen as strengthening President Hu’s position at the summit and possibly softening the U.S.’s stance toward North Korea prior to the summit.
2. Accommodating the condition articulated by the U.S. government that North Korea must begin and make progress in inter-Korea talks before the U.S. will consider bilateral talks with that nation. In other words, trying to get to Washington through Seoul.
3. Seeking an international forum via Seoul in which to press for the reduction of punishing economic sanctions which the North Korean regime finds intolerable.
4. Securing economic and financial assistance which the North Korean regime desperately needs in order to make progress towards “powerful and prosperous” nation status by April 2012, the 100th anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birthday. North Korea perceives South Korea to be the most promising source of assistance given its vulnerability to the North’s actions. The fact that North Korean officials in their official pronouncements frequently and explicitly discuss the importance of providing sufficient food and other basic necessities to their people indicates their awareness of the potential political ramifications of this issue, in particular for the smooth ascension to power of Kim Jong Un.
5. Strengthening the position of political opposition forces within South Korea who are advocating a return to the “sunshine policy” of the Kim Dae Jung and Ro Moo Hyun governments, thereby increasing pressure upon the Lee government to pursue a policy of accommodation toward the North and increasing the likelihood that left-wing and pro-North Korea forces will recapture the South Korean presidency next year. North Korean leaders may think the latter event, should it occur, would help them solve their economic problems and move them toward their long-range objective of a united Korea on their terms.
6. Playing an international public relations game where North Korea looks reasonable and constructive for asking for talks and South Korea looks intransigent for refusing them.
During the period leading up to the U.S.-China summit of mid-January 2011 and since, there had been a discernible change in U.S. thinking on the need to return to a dialogue mode with North Korea. In a sense, North Korea’s provocative actions over the past few years have paid off. Â When Secretary of Defense Gates visited Beijing in the summer of 2010, he commented that North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons development programs pose a direct threat to the United States and that there is an urgent need to move towards talks with the North Koreans, not least to avoid future provocations from them that could potentially escalate into major warfare. Several considerations seem to be behind this apparent shift:
1. The desire to avoid the future escalation of military conflict of the kind that occurred in 2010. Even if no meaningful result can be expected out of talks—whether bilateral or multilateral— there is an expectation among U.S. policymakers that North Korea would at least refrain from further provocative actions while talks were underway.
2. The desire to forestall the further strengthening of the missile and nuclear capabilities of North Korea. There is a belief that North Korea may soon acquire the capability to strike a target in the continental U.S. with an Inter Continental Ballistic Missile loaded with miniaturized nuclear weapons, which would pose a direct threat to U.S. national security. There is an assessment that North Korea would agree to suspend some of its activities in this regard while talks were underway.
3. The desire to buy time while the U.S. deals with more pressing international and domestic problems coupled with the hope that the North’s leadership after Kim Jong Il may be more amenable to a negotiated settlement about the nuclear issue.
4. The ability to argue plausibly to the American people that the Obama administration is cooperating with relevant global actors to advance the denuclearization of North Korea and that lack of progress in this area is not due to diplomatic ineptitude on the part of the Obama administration but rather to North Korean intransigence.
5. The January 19 summit meeting of Presidents Hu and Obama and the joint communiqué that emerged out of that meeting are worth close examination in terms of their implications for U.S.-North Korea relations. The U.S. achieved its goal of having China endorse a joint statement expressing concern about North Korea’s uranium enrichment program (UEP). Prior to the summit, the Chinese government had expressed neither interest in nor concern about this issue. The joint statement, along with Obama’s strong additional comments on the UEP at the joint news conference, signal the depth of U.S. concern with North Korea’s growing nuclear capability and the threat it potentially poses to U.S. national security. It is noteworthy that a White House official cited the joint statement’s reference to the UEP as a factor that prompted North Korea to ask for high level military talks with the South just one day after the summit meeting. The Obama administration expressed satisfaction that South Korea promptly agreed to talks with the North as U.S. government officials have made progress in inter-Korea talks a precondition of U.S. talks with North Korea.
From the South Korean perspective, the U.S.-China summit was disappointing since the joint statement not only did not condemn but in fact did not explicitly mention North Korean actions such as the Cheonan attack or the Yeongpyeongdo bombardment. The statement refers to these incidents vaguely as “recent developments.” Still, South Korean leaders noted with satisfaction that Obama declared at the joint press conference that “further provocations” on the part of North Korea should be avoided. Additionally, South Korean leaders almost certainly anticipated that the summit would intensify international pressure, including pressure from the U.S., upon South Korea to soften its stance and commence talks with North Korea. Though displeased  with the joint statement’s reference to an “early return” to the 6 party talks, which dealt with the denuclearization of North Korea, they endorsed its point about the importance of taking “measures” to facilitate the resumption of inter-Korea talks, since this could reasonably be read as an exhortation to the North to take certain measures to fulfill South Korea’s conditions for holding talks as well as justification for South Korea’s holding firm until such measures are taken. The preconditions South Korea has laid out include a) North Korea taking responsibility for and apologizing for the Cheonan and Yeongpyeongdo incidents; b) North Korea pledging not to commit aggressive actions again; and c) North Korea demonstrating its recommitment to the goal of denuclearization through concrete actions such as the suspension of all activities  at nuclear facilities, the readmission of IAEA  inspectors to all facilities, and movement toward the disablement program begun under the administration of George W. Bush.
