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The Incident of USS Pueblo and North Korea's Policy Choices based on ‘the Empirical Analysis with Prospect Theory’

  • military history
  • 2018, (106), pp.37~81
  • DOI : 10.29212/mh.2018..106.37
  • Publisher : Military History Institute, MND
  • Research Area : Humanities > History
  • Received : October 1, 2017
  • Accepted : February 22, 2018
  • Published : March 15, 2018

Kim Chang Kyu 1

1국방부군사편찬연구소

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study is the analysis based on Prospect Theory for the North Korea's mechanism of policy choices on the USS Pueblo Incident happened in 1968. The Kim's reference points at the time of the USS Pueblo incident are externally to protect North Korea's sovereignty, to strengthen the alliance with the U.S.S.R. and China in addition to maintaining the autonomy for national security, internally to consolidate the Kim's autocratic power and to reinforce the revolutional power against the South Korea The USS Pueblo incident can be divided into two stages. The first stage is to seize of the USS Pueblo and the first response stage of the U.S.A. and North Korea. (from Jan. 16 to Feb. 1) At this stage, Kim estimated that the U.S.A. would not drive the situations to war because of her domestic and international political difficulties. In early January 1968, North Korea faced the difficult political situations due to her contradictory relationships with U.S.S.R. and China, the increase of consciousness to be encircled because of the establishment of the diplomatic relationship between South Korea and Japan, and the failure of the raid on Blue House by the North Korea's guerrillas. In these situations, the information collection of the USS Pueblo on North Korea was a threat against North Korea's security and a violation of North Korea's sovereignty, and it was also a challenge against Kim. So Kim perceived the situations were in loss-domain on the basis of his 4 reference points and chose the risk-taking collision policy to seize of the USS Pueblo and to deny negotiation. The second stage is the negotiations between the U.S.A. and North Korea. (from Feb. 2 to Dec. 23). As all efforts were failed, the leadership of the U.S.A. could not help stopping the armed demonstration and sitting down on the table for the individual negotiations with North Korea. As the negotiations had been going on, the U.S.A. had somewhat conceded '3A'(Admit, Apologize, Assure) and North Korea could get the result to be admitted the North Korea's sovereignty by the U.S.A. Kim had got the result to strengthen the alliance with the U.S.S.R. and to acquire her additional economical and military support, to improve the relationship with China, to enhance his internal & external prestige, to support the North Vietnam indirectly and to succeed in resulting in conflict between Korea and the U.S.A. These situations almost satisfied Kim's 4 reference points. So Kim perceived the situations as gain-domain and decided to choose the risk-avoiding selection to conclude the negotiations. This study shows the effectiveness of Prospect Theory. It will be the short cut to grasp the reference points of North Korea's leadership and the mechanism of policy choice and to cut or change its links in order to prevent and oppose the continuing North Korea's provocation effectively. This study expects to contribute to this.

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