The Necessity to Discuss ‘Deterrence Failure’ Regarding North Korea’s Nuclear Threat

Hwee-Rhak Park

International Studies, 2023, vol. 60, issue 1, 67-90

Abstract: This article introduces the ‘deterrence failure’ concept and applies it to North Korea’s nuclear threat situation. For this purpose, it selects five factors, including retaliation posture; credibility of retaliation; probability of the challenger’s success; challenger’s irrational leader; and situational desperateness, to evaluate the US–South Korea nuclear deterrence posture against North Korea. Except for the retaliation posture, most factors are very concerning. Therefore, to strengthen their deterrence posture against North Korea, the United States and South Korea should take a few practical measures to ensure the implementation of the US extended deterrence, including the forward-deployment of more US retaliation assets around the Korean Peninsula.

Keywords: Deterrence failure; international relations; North Korea; nuclear deterrence; nuclear war; US extended deterrence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00208817231154389 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:intstu:v:60:y:2023:i:1:p:67-90

DOI: 10.1177/00208817231154389

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().