South Korean President Park Geun-hye achieved a landmark success in the simple six-point agreement reached on Aug. 25 between North Korea and South Korea. For over 60 years, North Korea has consistently followed a negotiating pattern that obtains benefits from manipulating crises that it creates, inspiring a demand for talks by instigating provocations, then delaying talks, ratcheting up provocations and rhetoric.
Calculated acceleration of risk has been the cornerstone of North Korea's negotiating strategy. This method of kick-starting negotiations has included such provocations as a 1968 attack on South Korea's presidential residence in Seoul; ax murders in the DMZ in 1976; a bomb attack on the South Korean Cabinet in 1983; the downing of a South Korean airliner in 1987; and more recently, the bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010 and the sinking of a South Korean Navy vessel.
All of these were done before the reign of the current leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. Not counting a nuclear test and two missile launches, the DMZ mining incident is the first such provocation under Kim Jong-un.
Robert Collins, US Forces Korea's long-time analyst of North Korean military behavior, suggests that the latest provocation was an attempt by the North Korean military to train the new leader in the benefits of North Korea's longstanding strategy.
Frustrated by their inability to lecture or advise the tempestuous young leader, they may have thought that placing mines where South Korean patrols would step on them would result in deaths that would make South Korea beg for talks. If so, the masterminds behind this act failed miserably.
When land mines ripped the legs and feet from two South Korean soldiers on Aug. 9, the public outcry against the North was joined by all political parties, and demanded a response; the soldiers, who survived, became national heroes.
In a brilliant move, President Park Geun-hye reinstated a practice that had been halted as a result of previous South-North negotiations: she started broadcasting the truth about North Korea through loudspeakers that can be heard by the North's soldiers and citizens along the DMZ. We tend to undervalue the effects of these broadcasts, but North Korea takes them very seriously.
Much of what then happened seemed to follow the course of past crises. North Korea's Supreme Leader told his people they were in a state of "near-war;" he moved troops and artillery to new locations; and some 50 of North Korea's 70 submarines went to sea. On Aug. 20, North Korea fired an anti-aircraft shell at the loudspeakers and South Korea retaliated within minutes. South Korea and the US talked of deploying strategic (nuclear) bombers to the Korean peninsula. China not only sent troops and tanks to the border with North Korea, but briefed the South Korean government on these troop movements.
Unlike past situations, however, the government of South Korea did not let North Korea determine who would lead the talks, or yield on questions of venue. Kim Jong-un had made the mistake of giving South Korea an ultimatum, a factor that weighed more heavily on his own negotiators.
North Korea's coordinator for North-South relations reportedly sought talks with his counterpart, the Minister of National Unification, but President Park insisted on higher level talks. She designated her national security adviser and North Korea sent Gen. Hwang Pyong-so, arguably the North's No. 2, and the man who probably persuaded Kim Jong-un to execute his own uncle.
South Korea won the North's agreement on the site of the talks — both the building and its communications system were under complete control of South Korea. American negotiators with the North have always been vexed by venue, starting at Kaesong in 1951. This time, North Korea came to an agreement uncommonly swiftly by its standards, and released an accurate text of the agreement even before the South did. Often in the past, the South or the US have announced agreements that North Korea denied or modified in its own state-run media.
Everyone outside North Korea would welcome a change in its modus operandi. We cannot conclude from one set of talks that North Korea has turned a new leaf, but there is clearly something unusual happening, and very mixed messages are emerging from Pyongyang. Hwang Pyong-so said the talks taught the South a lesson not to create "groundless cases" and "provoke the other side."
But his colleague at the talks, Kim Yang-gon, said, "We must work to ensure that the North and the South do not get entangled in mysterious incidents as we did this time and worsen the political situation."
"As we mark the 70th year of our nation's independence this year, our view to creating a great change, a great revolution in North-South ties and opening a grand path to autonomous reunification is consistent."
Kim Jong-un's North Korea is apparently not his father's North Korea. North Korea's handling of these talks may reflect the South's cleverness, Kim Jong-un's weakness, or a new strategy. We can only hope this mix portends well for the future.
Downs is author of "Over the Line: North Korea's Negotiating Strategy," and is a former deputy director of the Pentagon's East Asia office.
