THE QUIET GAME: SANCTIONS STALEMATE AGAINST NORTH KOREA

Abstract

North Korea (DPRK) remains the target of the strictest economic sanctions regime in United Nations Security Council history; despite this, there has been no concrete progress toward the goal of eliminating the DPRK nuclear weapons program. Through the lenses of historical analysis and sanctions scholarship, this thesis examines the potential causal factors that make the DPRK uniquely resilient in the face of these sanctions. In the game of economic sanctions, there are three players: the senders, the targets, and the sanctions-busting “black knights.” The thesis examines the characteristics of each of these players, as well as the rules of the game—characteristics of the sanction regime itself—with the goal of improving the efficacy of sanctions as tools of economic statecraft against North Korea’s nuclear program. Kim’s authoritarian selectorate demonstrates a capacity for redirecting sanctions impacts to the populace, as well as a wide variety of sanctions impact evasion techniques—to include smuggling, cybercrime, and cryptocurrency mining. Analysis shows that factors relating to both the game itself and the UN-led coalition of senders may have some detrimental impacts on sanctions effectiveness. However, the thesis concludes that it is primarily North Korea's unique blend of strategy and structure—and the support of China in the role of the "black knight"—that render even the most extreme bout of UN sanctions ineffective in changing the behavior of the hermit kingdom.