The souring of U.S.-North Korea relations

A U.S. service member was detained on Tuesday after entering North Korean territory, intensifying the already hostile relations between the two countries.

The United Nations Command, which operates the demilitarized zone, said the American, identified by the U.S. Army as Pvt. Travis King, was on a civilian tour of the so-called peace village of Panmunjom when he entered North Korea.

King “willfully and without authorization” crossed the border, Col. Isaac Taylor of the U.S. Forces Korea confirmed.

Just before this incident, Pyongyang announced that the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on July 12 was just the beginning of its “military offensive.” Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said Monday via translation that the situation on the Korean Peninsula has reached a point where “actual armed conflict ... and nuclear war are being discussed.”

The recent escalations, according to North Korea, serve as warnings to Washington after the Hermit Kingdom alleged that a U.S. spy plane had flown over its territory eight times in one day. In response, Pyongyang launched the ICBM into waters close to neighbors Japan and South Korea.

A State Department spokesperson called North Korea’s accusations “unfounded” and urged the country’s military to “refrain from escalatory actions.” On Sunday, Japan, South Korea and the U.S. held trilateral naval exercises in international waters aimed at improving their response to enemy missile launches.

As tensions between the U.S. and North Korea continue to heighten, Yahoo News spoke with David Hundt, an associate professor of international relations at Deakin University in Australia, and Edward Howell, a lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of Oxford in England, to help break down the timeline of the failing relations between the two countries. Answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What was the U.S.’s relationship with the Korean Peninsula before World War II?

Hundt: The U.S. didn’t have much of a relationship with the Korean Peninsula prior to World War II, mainly because the U.S. itself was in an isolationist period. But there had been a lot of interest in Korea, mainly for economic reasons, as the U.S. sought to expand its trade with Asia. There was a big push to increase relations with Korea after the war because Japan had been Korea’s colonial master and Japan, of course, was one of the primary enemies of the U.S. during the war.

How were relations between the U.S. and North Korea during the Cold War?

Hundt: You could say that the Cold War began on the Korean Peninsula because the U.S. and the Soviet Union were meant to be jointly liberating the peninsula from Japan.

Howell: The peninsula was initially divided along the 38th parallel in 1945, with the Soviet Union controlling the northern half and the U.S. controlling the southern half. This division was intended to be temporary, but the inconclusive end of the Korean War in 1953 started by Kim Il Sung’s invasion of South Korea saw the de facto inter-Korean border shift to the demilitarized zone.

Given how no peace treaty was signed, the early Cold War years were fraught with U.S. concern that North Korea would invade the South again, but also that South Korea, under its first president, Syngman Rhee, would try and reunify the Korean Peninsula on the South’s own terms. In 1953, the U.S. signed the Mutual Defense Treaty with South Korea, allowing it to station forces in the South, an arrangement that continues to this day.

North Korea would align with the Soviet Union and China, balancing precariously between these two communist superpowers. South Korea would become one of the U.S.’s ironclad allies in Northeast Asia, and North Korea one of its most potent enemies.

When did things start to become heated between Washington and Pyongyang?

Hundt: If anything, the situation has gotten worse since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s due to the lack of reform in North Korea. When North Korea was found to be developing its own nuclear weapons capacity in the 1990s and into the 2000s, relations deteriorated further. It truly has been a downward spiral.

Howell: Even before North Korea had nuclear weapons, North Korea’s belligerence was causing concern. Attempts to assassinate two South Korean presidents in 1968 and 1983; the capture of a U.S. spy ship, the USS Pueblo, in 1968; and the planting of two bombs on a Korean Air flight in 1987 by North Korean agents all lowered Pyongyang’s international reputation.

In 1985, North Korea joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons under pressure from the Soviet Union, thereby pledging not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons. By the end of the decade, however, U.S. intelligence had discovered that North Korea was operating plutonium-producing facilities.

Things began to look up when then-President Donald Trump met with Kim. What was the feeling at the time?

Howell: The feeling at the time was divided. Some thought Trump’s somewhat unexpected approach toward Kim could lead to minimal change, such as small concessions on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program in return for economic assistance.

Yet the opposing view, which was that such summitry was merely a form of optical diplomacy, became more prevalent with time. The Singapore summit joint statement was intentionally vague and, in fact, benefited North Korea.

Since then, it seems as though relations have gotten worse. Why is that?

Howell: Three meetings between Kim and Trump between 2018 and 2019 achieved little progress but lots of photo ops. The collapse of the Hanoi summit in February 2019, when both sides walked out of the talks, highlighted a fundamental mismatch in expectations, particularly on the part of North Korea with respect to the U.S.’s willingness to remove specific sanctions that targeted the North Korean economy.

When working-level talks between the U.S. and North Korea in 2019 broke down, North Korea lost its appetite for negotiations. After it sealed its borders in January 2020 following the onset of COVID-19, we are now at a stage where North Korea is intent on developing its nuclear and missile capabilities and does not even want to pretend to negotiate with the U.S.

What is Pyongyang’s reasoning for its issues with the U.S.?

Howell: North Korea’s time-old line is that the U.S. has been adopting a “hostile policy” ever since the Korean War. This “policy” is intentionally ambiguous, and North Korea controls its definition. This works to North Korea’s advantage: In short, North Korea believes that the U.S. is intent on overthrowing the regime. Any condemnation of North Korea’s nuclear development or human rights violations, imposition of sanctions, or criticisms of North Korea’s missile launches, among other things, forms part of the “hostile policy.” The “hostile policy” is a convenient way for North Korea to justify its continued nuclear development, which it has framed as a “defensive right” against a “hostile” United States and its allies.