Why study North Korea?
Not every state can, or should, try to understand every other state on its own. For small and medium-sized states like Australia or Canada, when it comes to deeply opaque regimes such as North Korea, pursuing direct analytical insight is an exercise in futility.
Small and medium-sized states instead pursue what can be called vicarious analysis—a method that prioritizes analyzing how major regional stakeholders respond to North Korea, rather than attempting to analyze North Korea itself.
This begs the question—why then do so many academics, researchers, journalists and even politicians in these countries end up wasting time on North Korea?
Vicarious analysis concerns the so-called “hard targets.” North Korea is the quintessential example. Its internal workings are among the most inaccessible in the world. Leadership decisions are made by a tiny, tightly insulated elite. There are no reliable public data sets, no credible internal opposition to leak information, and extremely limited foreign presence.
Intelligence, even for the United States and South Korea, is often speculative. For smaller powers, then, the pursuit of direct understanding becomes not just difficult, but inefficient. The question becomes: why try to analyze a country so determined to obscure itself, when one can study the clearer responses of others who are watching more closely?
The approach is not only pragmatic but strategic. By focusing on how countries like South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia interpret and respond to North Korean moves, smaller powers can form well-informed secondary analyses that reflect the regional reality without having to penetrate Pyongyang’s inner circle.
South Korea is the most immediate actor. It lives under the constant shadow of provocation—from missile tests to cyberattacks to infiltration plots. Its military alerts, joint exercises with the United States, and shifts in defense procurement offer telling clues.
A sudden reactivation of civil defense drills or a spike in inter-Korean hotline communication might signal that Seoul is preparing for escalation. These are measurable actions that reveal Seoul’s assessment of risk, even if the original threat remains opaque.
Japan, similarly, offers valuable insight. Tokyo tracks every missile launch over its territory with public precision. Policy shifts—such as debates over constitutional reinterpretation or the acquisition of counterstrike capabilities—stem directly from its perception of North Korea’s threat posture. When Japan quietly increases missile defense spending or issues alerts through its national broadcaster, that reflects both technological capability and political calculation.
Then there is China, North Korea’s lifeline and alleged enabler. While Beijing rarely discusses Pyongyang with candor, its trade flows, border controls, and diplomatic statements provide a window into how it views North Korea’s behavior.
A sudden halt in cross-border trade or the dispatch of a senior diplomat can mean more than any vague statement from North Korea itself. China’s reactions also reflect its concerns about regional stability, refugee spillovers, and the U.S. military presence in the region.
Russia, while often overlooked, is playing a more assertive role in the region, especially as it deepens military ties with North Korea. Russian diplomacy, arms deals, and vetoes at the United Nations tell us what Moscow seeks to gain—not from North Korea itself, but from using North Korea as a piece in its broader geopolitical chessboard. A North Korea that tests missiles during a G7 summit might be acting alone, but it may also be serving as a useful irritant for one of its northern patrons.
The virtue of vicarious analysis is that it acknowledges the asymmetry of intelligence capacity. For countries that do not maintain embassies in Pyongyang or cannot dedicate satellite assets and human intelligence networks to North Korean surveillance, trying to “crack” North Korea wastes valuable analytical bandwidth.
By contrast, tracking South Korea’s public policy shifts, Japan’s legislative debates, China’s economic levers, or Russia’s diplomatic maneuvers is not only easier, but far more rewarding in terms of actual policy relevance.
None of this means that smaller countries ignore North Korea altogether. North Korea can represent a direct threat. The threat though, occurs through its alleged criminal activity—state sponsored cybersecurity, insurance fraud, drug importation, and counterfeiting.
Defending against such threats require strong law enforcement and a reliable criminal justice system—police, courts, and corrections. In the more serious cases involving transnational crime networks and state-sponsored criminal activity, it requires enhanced cyber security, stronger internal security, organized crime control, and counter-crime strategies.
Smaller states must take care of law enforcement, but in navigating the complexities of Indo-Pacific security, the smart play is to let others carry the burden of direct engagement and instead analyze the interpreters. Vicarious analysis is not defeatism—it’s disciplined realism.
But it does mean smaller countries must routinely recalibrate how they approach North Korea. Building strong analytical teams focused on regional dynamics, participating in multilateral forums that include primary stakeholders, and strengthening information-sharing arrangements with allies who do have direct insight—are smarter investments.
It’s not about surrendering autonomy; it’s about recognizing the structural constraints of power, access, and relevance.
The obsession with accessing North Korea’s inner logic—why Kim Jong Un did or didn’t do something—is a distraction. For most countries, the real question is not “What is North Korea thinking?” but “How are the countries that matter reacting to what North Korea is doing?” The second question is answerable, observable, and policy-relevant. It turns the inscrutable into the actionable.
So why then do so many academics, researchers, journalists and even politicians across the globe end up wasting time on North Korea?
The most popular reason—sensationalism.
A disproportionate number of academics, researchers, journalists, and even politicians across the globe devote time to North Korea not because it offers strategic insight or practical policy relevance, but because it sells.
Sensationalism—fueled by missile tests, lurid defectors’ tales, and the theatricality of the Kim dynasty—draws attention, clicks, grants, and headlines. The mystique of a secretive nuclear-armed dictatorship provides an irresistible narrative hook, allowing commentators to present themselves as experts on a regime few genuinely understand.
The end result is a cottage industry built less on rigorous analysis than on spectacle, often recycling the same shallow tropes with little consequence. While the region’s real strategic weight lies in how powers like China, South Korea, and the U.S. respond to Pyongyang, North Korea itself becomes a performative fixation—entertaining, emotive, and ultimately unproductive.
