Published: 1 December 2008
Air & Space Power Journal - Winter 2008

Red Rogue: The Persistent Challenge of North Korea by Bruce E. Bechtol Jr. Potomac Books (http://www.potomacbooksinc.com), 22841 Quicksilver Drive, Dulles, Virginia 20166, 2007, 288 pages, $23.96 (hardcover).

Deciphering the enigma that is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has become somewhat of a cottage industry, even more so now that the Hermit Kingdom has become the newest member of the family of nuclear powers. The general consensus among Korean scholars is that, far from perpetuating the popular madman myth, Kim Chong Il and the North Korean leadership have adroitly leveraged their limited options to skillfully employ the art of brinkmanship, with the effect of driving the political and military agenda of northeast Asia to maintain their hold on power, regardless of the negative impact on the North Korean people. In Red Rogue: The Persistent Challenge of North Korea, Bruce Bechtol updates this thesis by expounding on how the North Koreans have changed their military, diplomatic, and economic strategy since 11 September 2001 to achieve these ends.

Bechtol acknowledges that the nuclear situation in the region has become more critical but believes it is a mistake to concentrate efforts solely on weapons of mass destruction. Although the author concedes that the North’s weakened military makes forced unification of the peninsula under a communist regime unlikely, he contends that the DPRK’s conventional forces still pose a considerable threat and can influence the political environment. Bechtol points out that the concentration of artillery and rockets aimed toward Seoul can be as much a deterrent as nuclear warheads. His analysis of a 2002 naval skirmish between North and South Korean vessels further supports his point. Bechtol submits that the clash along the Northern Limit Line separating the two countries off the western coast was most likely neither a navigational error by the North Korean sailors nor a staged confrontation by military hard-liners opposed to Kim Chong Il’s policies. Rather, the naval engagement was almost certainly a deliberate provocation by the North Korean leadership. He extols several possible motives for the North Korean decision to initiate the scuffle, to include highlighting the disputed border, and suggests that the timing of the event to correspond with Seoul’s hosting of the World Cup soccer games supports his theory. Bechtol also provides a comprehensive study of the DPRK’s nefarious international business enterprises, perhaps one of the least-covered aspects in the study of North Korea. He does an admirable job of describing how the North Koreans depend on selling illegal drugs and counterfeiting US currency and American cigarettes to prop up their ailing economy and applauds the efforts of international law enforcement to deal with these issues. But he laments the failure of the US State Department to confront the North Koreans for fear of complicating efforts to reach a nuclear agreement.

In the debate of engagement versus isolation of North Korea, count Bechtol among the supporters of the latter policy. Red Rogue was published prior to both the South Korean presidential elections in 2007 and the shutdown of North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility in July 2007. One can surmise, however, that Bechtol would approve of the election of Lee Myung-bak of Korea’s conservative Grand National Party and would be wary of North Korean promises of compliance. He sees no concrete benefit to the Sunshine Policy practiced by the last two liberal South Korean administrations of Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun, maintaining that a demonstration of good faith by the North Koreans is required prior to any engagement with the rogue regime. North Korea’s tardiness in implementing conditions spelled out in the joint statement may validate his recommendations.

Bechtol’s experience in the Marine Corps and Defense Intelligence Agency, as well as on the faculty of the Marine Command and General Staff College, gives his work a military perspective often lacking in strategic analyses of the Korean peninsula. His research can be characterized as extensive since he utilizes numerous primary documents, the majority of them accessed through Internet sites. But firsthand interviews, noticeably lacking here, could have corroborated many of his assertions.

Readers should have a firm grounding in the recent history of the Korean peninsula, for Bechtol explains little of the causal factors that have led to the current situation. He only obliquely refers to the Agreed Framework of 1994 when explaining events that led up to the current state of nuclear negotiations with the South. He correctly points out that the Kwangju uprising in 1980 was the seminal event that characterized antagonistic civil-military relations in the Republic of Korea, but his scant summary of the unrest leaves an uninformed reader with more questions than answers. Bechtol ponders the question of who would succeed Kim Chong Il as leader of the DPRK, with no description of Kim’s own succession experience as a possible model. Nowhere in the book does he mention juche, the ideological philosophy of self-reliance that has driven North Korean domestic and foreign policy for over a half century.

Despite these deficiencies, the informed reader who requires updated information will find Red Rogue a succinct account of the current threat and subsequent policy concerning North Korea. By concentrating on the North’s actions that earned it a place as one of three charter members of the “axis of evil,” Bechtol provides ample ammunition for critics of an engagement policy toward the DPRK. I urge readers to peruse this book without delay, however, because the dynamic nature of the region may render much of the author’s current analysis moot in a short period of time.

Although one may disagree about whether the carrot or the stick is the more appropriate method when dealing with the North Koreans, few would dispute that the stability of the Korean Peninsula is vital to American interests. With the global war on terror and conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq capturing the majority of the attention of US policy makers, Bechtol provides a potent reminder of that fact.

Dr. John Farrell
Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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