The risks of pushing North Korea into a corner with sanctions

Sanctions that are too tough could make North Korea feel cornered and take dangerous action.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un directs a missile launch on November 29. Photo: Rodong Sinmun.

After North Korea launched a Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile on November 29, US President Donald Trump threatened to impose severe sanctions on the country. He also urged China to put more pressure on North Korea. However, some experts warn that this could be counterproductive.

“We have to be careful with sanctions,” said former US military official Daniel Davis, who served as an adviser to the South Korean military. “We don’t want to put too much pressure on the country like we did with Japan during World War II,” he said, according to CNBC.

Mr. Davis said the US economic embargo on Japan, which included a ban on petroleum exports, was one of the factors that led the Japanese empire to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941. He said Japan "viewed the sanctions as a threat to its survival because they could not live without oil."

"So we don't want to push North Korea too far," Davis said. "We want to put pressure on them, but not too much pressure because that might cause them to strike."

Davis said the international community should apply consistent diplomatic pressure over many years if necessary. "Perhaps one day we can achieve the goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," he said.

Another strategy, experts say, is to convince North Korea that Mr. Trump is serious about military options.

“We make North Korea believe that the United States is seriously considering attacking them, even if we don’t actually intend to,” said Denny Roy, an Asia-Pacific security expert and senior fellow at the East-West Center.

Roy said Washington's move would force North Korea to decide whether it wanted nuclear weapons or just to survive. However, many experts said North Korea's leader would not easily give up nuclear weapons. They saw what happened to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi when he gave up his nuclear weapons program under pressure from the West.

The civil war in Libya broke out in 2011. Fifteen Western countries formed a coalition to attack Gaddafi's forces to support the rebels. Gaddafi was officially overthrown in late August 2011 and killed on October 20, 2011, while on the run.

South Korean military leaders have recently expressed concern that Mr. Trump could launch an attack on North Korea without consulting Seoul.However, Mr. Roy admitted that the possibility of the US launching a preemptive strike against North Korea was unrealistic, due to concerns that Pyongyang would launch a counterattack against Seoul.

Bruce Klingner, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington,also warned that a US preemptive strike on North Korea would be an "unnecessarily reckless" act.

He stressed that there was a risk of miscalculation as tensions were rising on the Korean peninsula and Washington sometimes sent mixed signals.

The US has long relied on an international campaign of "maximum pressure" on North Korea through sanctions, but that has not stopped the country's nuclear and missile programs. The Hwasong-15 missile launch shows the country can withstand international sanctions.

China and Russia have consistently refused to impose an oil embargo on North Korea, fearing it could suffocate the country, causing its government to collapse and trigger a serious crisis.

"We've always looked to China. But we can't expect China to see the same thing as us," Roy said. "They don't want the North Korean regime to collapse, so they won't act aggressively."

According to VNE