In the Event of a North Korean Missile Crisis

In the Event of a North Korean Missile Crisis
Lisa Zi Ting Shen
Swarthmore College
About: Lisa Shen is a Swarthmore College student majoring in political science. She has a
special interest in decision-making, nuclear weapons, and terrorism.
Email: Lshen1@swarthmore.edu
Phone: (415) 218-7138
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Abstract
Although President Donald Trump’s hardline rhetoric has stymied diplomatic talks with North
Korea’s Kim Jong-un, the President is not the sole actor in international relations. Whether the
two leaders are rational or emotionally intelligent will not bear as decisively on the simmering
crisis as one may expect. Government actions and decisions are largely determined by existing
organizations and bargaining among relevant players. In pinpointing the various factors that will
influence American foreign policy with North Korea, the Cuban Missile Crisis is analyzed using
the three conceptual models outlined in Graham T. Allison’s Essence of Decision: Explaining the
Cuban Missile Crisis and "Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis.” Though most
analysts explain occurrences in foreign affairs as the rational and deliberate acts of united
national governments, the Organizational Process Model (II) and the Bureaucratic Politics Model
(III) offer more insightful and comprehensive explanations. Both Models II and III hold
substantial predictive and explanatory power; using these two models, key lessons are
extrapolated from the failures of the Kennedy administration and solutions to the North Korea
crisis are proposed.
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Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un’s reckless personalities have certainly escalated tensions
between the US and North Korea. Fortunately, Graham T. Allison’s “conceptual schemes”
extrapolate lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis, which can help the US avoid a war on the
Korean peninsula. Whether the President is rational, irrational, emotionally wise or emotionally
immature, is less important than the outputs of standard organizational processes. Leaders can
only make decisions based on the information that organizations provide them. Governments
“perceive problems through organizational sensors” and they “define alternatives and estimate
consequences as organizations process information” (Allison 1969, 698). Presidents rarely make
decisions on a clean slate because organizational outputs determine the menu of options
available to the President during a nuclear crisis. Temperamental fitness helps to avert major
crises only to a small extent. As Allison observes, “if one understands the structure of the
situation and the face of the issue—which are determined by the organizational outputs—the
formal choice of the leaders is frequently anti-climactic” (Allison 1969, 699).
In addition to the Organizational Process Paradigm (Model II), the Bureaucratic Politics
Paradigm (Model III) views international occurrences as the outcomes of “bargaining games”
among major players. In other words, the actions and decisions of governments result from
“compromise, coalition, competition, and confusion among government officials who see
different faces of an issue” (Allison 1969, 708). Both models put little emphasis on rationality
and presidential character, in contrast to the Rational Policy Paradigm (Model I) and Fred I.
Greenstein in The Presidential Difference. In examining the factors that might bear decisively
on the simmering crisis, this essay will focus on the importance of emotional intelligence, the
greater importance of organizational outputs and bureaucratic decision-making, and possible
solutions to the simmering crisis.
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Why Emotional Intelligence Matters
Emotional intelligence is a crucial but often overlooked presidential asset. Greenstein
claims that “the presidency is a defective instrument of democratic governance” in the “absence
of emotional intelligence” (Greenstein 2010, 8). This claim is accurate when examining the
consequences of Trump’s incendiary rhetoric. For one, Trump’s impromptu remarks and goading
have exacerbated North Korea’s siege mentality and escalated tensions between North Korea and
the US. President Trump remarked in August, “any more threats to the United States” will be
met “with fire and fury like the world has never seen” (Osnos 2017, 2). Only a few hours
afterward, North Korea threatened to launch four missiles into the Pacific Ocean near Guam. As
a result of Trump’s impulsiveness, the possibility of a nuclear confrontation had suddenly
“entered a realm of psychological calculation” reminiscent of the Cuban Missile Crisis (Osnos
2017, 2). Trump is too emotionally volatile to be entrusted with a responsible public position.
Secondly, Trump’s lack of emotional intelligence has driven a wedge between himself
and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, creating setbacks in foreign diplomacy. As Zengerle
observes in “Rex Tillerson and the Unraveling of the State Department,” American foreign
policy “is adrift in the world” with Trump “dismantling international relations one tweet at a
time.” In one of his recent attacks, he accuses Rex Tillerson of “wasting his time trying to
negotiate with Little Rocket Man” (Zengerle 2017, 1). Before Tillerson took a third trip to Asia
in an effort to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis, Trump threatened in August that “military
solutions are fully in place, locked and loaded” (deGrandpre 2017, 1). In September, he claimed
that if the US was “forced to defend itself or its allies, [it] will have no choice but to totally
destroy #Noko.” As a result, the “impossibility of Tillerson’s assignment was apparent”
(Zengerle 2017, 1-2). Left without the crucial support of the President, Tillerson’s diplomatic
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efforts are no longer seen as representing the President’s foreign policy. Thus, the channel of
communication with North Korea remains closed at a time when the US requires diplomatic
contact and on-scene insight into North Korean affairs. Rather than supplementing diplomatic
efforts, the President has rhetorically committed himself to a position of bombing North Korea.
Trump’s boorish remarks and emotional outbursts have undermined his ability to coordinate with
his colleagues to effectively engage in peace talks with North Korea.
According to Evan Osnos in “The Risk of Nuclear War With North Korea,” rational
leaders may “compete to appear the more irrational, impetuous, and stubborn” in order to incite
the “right amount of fear without losing control.” Osnos then provocatively inquires, “what if the
adversaries are irrational, impetuous, and stubborn?” (Osnos 2017, 3). Greenstein appears to
answer Osnos’ question with a following moral: “Beware the presidential contender who lacks
emotional intelligence. In its absence all else may turn to ashes” (Greenstein 2010, 231).
However, the President is not the sole actor in international relations. There are factors other than
the President’s character that affect decision-making in foreign policy. One evidence supporting
this claim is that Khrushchev and Kennedy were rational actors but still ended up with a nuclear
confrontation. The second piece of evidence is the fact that there are dangerous similarities
between the Trump and Kennedy administrations, even though Trump and Kennedy have
drastically different temperaments. As such, Models II and III come into play in creating a more
comprehensive answer to Osnos’ question.
Why Model II Matters
Organizations play a huge role in the decision-making process because they determine
what information and options are available to the President. Therefore, the lack of both available
and accurate information as a result of organizational day-to-day routines will contribute to
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potentially disastrous outcomes during a crisis. For instance, the “September estimate” falsely
concluded that the Soviet Union would not introduce offensive missiles into Cuba despite
refugee reports of missile sightings, a CIA agent’s sighting of a strategic missile’s rear profile,
the arrival of large-hatch Soviet lumber ships in Cuba, and September U-2 photos showing the
construction of SAM sites. Not all the information were made available to the estimators “as a
consequence of the established routines and procedures of the organizations which constitute the
US intelligence community” (Allison 1969, 704). The intelligence community was gathering
information not just on Cuba but on all parts of the world, and the information base showed
nothing out of the ordinary. Allison suggests that “from an organizational perspective” there was
nothing “startling about the gradual accumulation of evidence that led to the formulation of the
hypothesis that the Soviets were installing missiles in Cuba…” (Allison 1969, 705).
Inaccurate information also played a decisive role during the crisis. General Walter C.
Sweeney, Commander of Tactical Air Forces, wrongly asserted that the Air Force could
guarantee no higher than a 90 percent effectiveness in a surgical air strike (Allison 1969, 706).
The inaccurate information, which was neither probed nor questioned, greatly contributed to
President Kennedy’s decision to permit a blockade instead (and the decision to do so most likely
avoided a nuclear devastation).
There was also a delay in information about the installation of missiles in Cuba because
of territorial disputes between the CIA and Air Force over who should conduct a special flight
over western Cuba. The CIA contended that it was an intelligence operation within CIA
jurisdiction while the Air Force maintained that the pilot should be an officer in uniform rather
than a CIA agent due to the increased danger that a U-2 plane would be downed. Had the 10-day
delay been avoided, photographs of Soviet missile sites in Cuba would have reached US leaders
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earlier. As Allison puts it, the “squabbling between organizations” determined the “context in
which American leaders came to choose the blockade” (Allison 1969, 705).
Model II: Lessons, Related Problems, and Solutions
So how does a Model II analysis of the Cuban Missile Crisis relate to the simmering
crisis in North Korea? For one, the “September estimate” shows just how crucial intelligence is.
Had more information been made available “on the desk of estimators” in September, there
would have been more time to reach prudent and preemptive resolutions. The lack thereof, as a
result of the intelligence community’s organizational day-to-day routines and procedures,
constrained Kennedy’s menu of options as he wandered into a nuclear stand-off. And although
the behaviors of organizations are determined by routines, Allison suggests that “organizations
do change. Learning occurs gradually, over time. Dramatic organizational change occurs in
response to major crises” or “dramatic performance failures” (Allison 1969, 698, 701). Certainly,
Trump’s understaffed and “demoralized diplomatic corps” is not an organizational improvement
(Zengerle 2017, 1). There is a great need for communication channels and intelligence at a time
when it is unclear whether the threats are serious or, as Osnos puts it, “mere posturing” (Osnos
2017, 2). Tillerson should be hiring more highly-qualified foreign-policy professionals, not
eliminating much of the State Department's most experienced diplomats. As Zengerle notes,
“few of the nominees have qualifications that match those of their predecessors” (Zengerle 2017,
9). A Foreign Service officer recalls that while “the world is going to hell in a handbasket,” the
most urgent issues being discussed were FOIA requests and typographical mistakes in memos to
the secretary’s office (Zengerle 2017, 15). The intelligence community requires more
bureaucrats who know how to effectively gather and filter through crucial information, not an
inexperienced cohort that fails to accomplish routine assignments.
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Secondly, the dispute between the CIA and Air Force reveals the importance of
coordination. Allison observes that “jobs do not fall neatly into precisely defined organizational
jurisdictions,” and the discord between the two organizations caused inefficiency and delay
(Allison 1969, 705). Perhaps an implication can be drawn from that territorial dispute:
coordination failure within an organization can have similar consequences. For instance, disarray
in the State Department continues to delay the opening of effective diplomatic channels, limiting
the President to only military options if a crisis were to happen soon. Zengerle points out that
“Tillerson’s true legacy may have transformed a venerable American institution into the
caricature of its most fevered, irrational critics” (Zengerle 2017, 8). Tillerson fails to coordinate
with and cater to the needs of the State Department staff. In fact, many employees suspected that
he had a “fundamental misunderstanding of what they did.” According to one senior State
Department official, Tillerson’s questionnaire and personal interviews with the employees “came
away with the impression that we’re very ‘patriotic’ and ‘professional.’ You don’t need a survey
to know that. It’s completely demeaning” (Zengerle 2017, 15). Tillerson’s standoffishness
combined with his plan to “gut the Foreign Service” has left the diplomatic corps perplexed,
demoralized, unraveled, and paralyzed at a time when diplomatic contact with North Korea is
more crucial than ever. In the absence of important assistant-secretary positions, Brain Hook,
the head of the department’s office of policy planning, has found himself attempting to “do the
job of 30 people.” The office of policy planning is particularly bogged down as it now handles
day-to-day operations when it has traditionally functioned as an “in-house think tank” that
handles tough issues like North Korea’s aggressive pursuit of weapons of mass destruction
(Zengerle 2017, 10). Diplomats have also reportedly lacked guidance and coordination with
other employees. One ambassador recalls, “I’d request instructions on action items, saying I need
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a decision, and I’d hear absolutely nothing” (Zengerle 2017, 17). In nearly 300 embassies,
“missions and consulates around the world where State Department officials work to promote
and defend America’s interests, diplomats complain about not just a dearth of resources but also
a lack of guidance” (Zengerle 2017, 15). If the State Department remains crippled and
diplomatic channels remain closed, Trump will be left with only military options during a
nuclear stand-off. As Allison remarks, “the probability of a nuclear attack is less sensitive to
stability and instability or balance and imbalance than it is to organizational factors” (Allison
1969, 703). If and when Tillerson leaves, gradual reforms to the State Department’s lineup will
have to be made. And filling vacant positions should be the first order of business.
Finally, lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis disprove the notion that rationality will
always lead to rational decisions. According to Model II, rationality and a stable nuclear balance
are not enough to prevent a nuclear disaster. Kennedy did not avert a nuclear disaster primarily
because he was a rational actor; the fate of the world essentially depended upon an inaccurate
piece of information. Thus, whether or not Trump and Kim Jong-un are rational actors will not
bear as decisively on the simmering crisis. Rather, organizational outputs will dictate the
decision-making process during a crisis. If rationality cannot be relied upon to save the US from
a nuclear catastrophe, then what can be relied upon? The answer lies in existing organizations
and the development of new organizations.
In order to broaden the President’s manual of options in the event of a nuclear crisis,
Congress has already made an emergency request for $4 billion dollars to develop cyber
weapons, drones, and fighter jets (Sanger and Broad 2017, 1). Before this all-out effort in
response to the unexpected progress of North Korea’s weapons development, the only solution
had been Alaska and California’s missile batteries that would attempt to shoot down long-range
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warheads. This tactic, known as “hitting a bullet with a bullet,” has failed half the time. As such,
the Trump administration plans to invest millions of dollars into two other approaches, including
cyber-attacks that would sabotage guidance systems and missile launches before they occur. The
second approach involves attacking rising missiles in the “boost phase” with fighter jets and
drones.
Why Model III Matters
Using the conceptual lenses of Model II, the mishaps of the Kennedy administration were
identified. And from these mistakes, potential resolutions to the weaknesses of the current
administration were also proposed. So how does Model III come into play? Like Model II, the
Bureaucratic Politics Paradigm focuses on the internal mechanism of the government rather than
the rationale of unitary actors. And like Model II, it takes into account the importance of
information; for more “precise predictions,” both models require “considerably more information
about the organizations and politics of [North Korea] than is publicly available” (Allison 1969,
717). But unlike Model II, Model III also takes into account the skills and personal stakes of
individual players. In describing how Model III bears on the simmering crisis, a section will be
devoted to discussing Model III’s key concepts and how they explain the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Using Model III’s conceptual framework, a second section will extract important lessons from
the Cuban Missile Crisis and discuss how they apply to current events.
According to Model III, “ the actor is neither a unitary nation nor a conglomerate of
organizations, but rather a group of individual players” (Allison 1969, 708). Happenings in
international affairs are the outcomes of bargaining games among government leaders. While
Model I assumes that a unitary actor makes strategic decisions based on the national interest,
Model III acknowledges that “the gap between the problems the player was solving and the
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problem upon which the analyst focuses is often very wide.” Allison states, “each decision has
critical consequences not only for the strategic problem but for each player’s organizational,
reputational, and personal stakes.” Important government actions “emerge as collages composed
of individual acts” and ”‘outcomes of minor and major games” (Allison 1969, 710). As such, the
most rational course of actions is not always chosen. For instance, diplomatic resolutions were
immediately off the table when it was confirmed on October 16 that the Russians had installed
offensive ballistic missiles in Cuba. The options of doing nothing or taking a diplomatic
approach were discarded even though they were rational: the narrowing of the missile gap was
inevitable and “it makes no great difference whether you are killed by a missile from the Soviet
Union or Cuba” (Schwartz and Derber 1990, 151). However, Kennedy had rhetorically
committed himself in his presidential campaign against the possibility of Soviet provocations in
Cuba. As Allison puts it, “Kennedy had staked his full Presidential authority on the assertion that
the Soviets would not place offensive weapons in Cuba” and “Khrushchev’s deceitful move
demanded a strong counter-move” (Allison 1969, 713-714). Kennedy’s political career would
have been over unless he resolved the problem. Thus, government behavior is understood
according to the perceptions, motivations, and maneuvers of specific players rather than rational
decision-making.
Fortunately, the Kennedy administration avoided a nuclear disaster partly because of
central players like Robert McNamara, Robert Kennedy, and Theodore Sorensen. The gripping
vision of a holocaust set McNamara firmly against the air strike. Additionally, Robert Kennedy,
the President’s most trusted confidant, opposed the airstrike on moral grounds. He refused to see
his brother become another “Tojo,” the Japanese wartime general who ordered the attack on
Pearl Harbor. Sorensen, another trusted confidant, eventually joined Robert Kennedy and
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McNamara against the use of airstrikes. It was this powerful coalition and the “incompatibility
between the President and the air strike advocates” that played a vital role in preventing the air
strike. As Robert Kennedy recalled: “The fourteen people involved were very significant…If six
of them had been the President of the US, I think that the world might have been blown up”
(Preston 2001, 251). The decision to launch a blockade was the sum of activities of all the key
individuals rather than a rational unitary actor.
Model III: Lessons, Related Problems, and Solutions
So how is a Model III analysis of the Cuban Missile Crisis relevant to the current
administration? For one, much like Kennedy, Trump has rhetorically committed himself as a
hardliner, prepared to go to nuclear war with North Korea. In fact, when Osnos asked Lieutenant
Colonel Pang Myong Jin of the Korean People’s Army how he expects Trump to respond to an
attack on Guam, Pang recalled, “Trump said if there is a war, then it will happen in the D.P.K.,
not in the US. So clearly he is preparing for war. He understands what he’s saying” (Osnos
2017, 35). Trump’s imprudent comments will limit his variety of response options in the event
that North Korea strikes Guam. In accordance with Model III, he will be compelled to take
military action because his reputation and presidential career will be at stake; Trump will be
helplessly bound by his own words. In order to avoid making a bad situation worse, the President
of America needs to moderate his rhetoric.
Second, the deliberations of ExComm show just how much effective power individual
players have over foreign policy decisions. It is also worth noting that under Model III, “the
probability of nuclear attack depends primarily on the probability of attack emerging as an
outcome of the bureaucratic politics of the attacking government.” This specific Model III
proposition reinforces the need to gain intelligence about the perceptions, priorities, and power
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of major individual players in North Korea. As such, Allison acknowledges some specific
questions that must be considered in order to better understand North Korea’s bureaucratic
politics: one, “which players can decide to launch an attack?” (Allison 1969, 711). Osnos offers
some insights in response to this query; he mentions that although “some analysts in Seoul argue
that senior Party officials can overrule or direct him,” US intelligence believes that “Kim is in
sole command” (Osnos 2017, 20). These two contradictory views reveal the poor understanding
of power dynamics in North Korea. More than ever, there is a need for intelligence to obtain a
fuller understanding of North Korea’s bureaucratic politics. If Kim Jong-un is actually in full
control over North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, the possibility of nuclear war increases. In a second
question, Allison asks, “what patterns of bargaining “could yield attack as an outcome?”
(Allison 1969, 711). Allison answers his own question in part by suggesting that a “stable
balance of terror” can only result when most of the relevant players “appreciate fully the
consequences of an attack” (Allison 1969, 712). But is this the case in North Korea? Once again,
Osnos offers an answer: “Analysts worry that, as Kim moves deeper into a confrontation with
America, he does not have advisers who speak candidly to him” (Osnos 2017, 21). This fact
bears significantly on the simmering crisis. Even if some of his commanders fully grasp the
prospect of nuclear doom, it is unlikely that they will speak out and risk their personal interests
like their own lives or military ranking. If the players are unmotivated to resist Kim Jong-un,
then the probability of nuclear war increases; if Kim Jong-un decides to launch an attack, there is
currently little evidence that anyone will hold him back. As such, it is wise to reexamine US
diplomacy policies to open up communication channels (i.e. a hotline) and negotiate directly
with Kim Jong-un.
Conclusion
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Models II and III undermine the idea that the Trump administration is a rational unitary
actor, motivated by a conscious calculation of advantages and costs based on a “consistent value
system” (Allison 1969, 693). Model III acknowledges that “the sum of the behavior of
representatives of a government relevant to an issue was rarely intended by any individual or
group” (Allison 1969, 694). Similarly, Model II recognizes that “a considerable gap separates
what leaders choose (or might rationally have chosen) and what organizations implement”
(Allison 1969, 703). However, this does not mean that the President holds no effective power
over government decisions. In fact, parts of Greenstein's work can be applied to Model II.
Trump’s lack of organizational capacity or inability to effectively rally his colleagues (i.e.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis) and structure their
activities, has unraveled the State Department. Meanwhile, political skill plays into Model III,
which emphasizes the importance of bargaining and persuasion. Although Model I, II, and III
offer different lenses in which to reexamine the problems of foreign and military policy, they are
not mutually exclusive. Through these conceptual models, lessons can be drawn from the Cuban
Missile Crisis and solutions to the simmering North Korea crisis can be offered.
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