Neither War no Peace: State Provocation Strategy in the Context of the Inter-Korean Conflict

North Korea's developing nuclear program has resulted in strong interest in North Korean affairs in the 21st century at the expense of North Korean history and policy studies before the advent of nuclear weapons. Particularly missing is overarching analysis of North Korea's pattern of military provocations against South Korea. Where literature has touched upon, for example, the 1968 Blue House raid, or the 1987 KAL 858 Bombing, they are either analyzed on a case-bycase basis or anachronistically viewed from the position of a nuclear-armed North Korea. This paper aims to develop an analytical trend in North Korean provocation strategy from the end of the Korean War in 1953 to the present. Did the North Korean perspective on when and how to use provocations change over the years, or did its provocation policy remain constant throughout North Korea's relatively short history? This thesis expands upon existing provocation literature in international relations to present not only a broad analytical framework of North Korean provocations, but also a theoretical framework explaining state provocation behavior. I argue that North Korea was primarily influenced by changing economic and political domains on the Korean Peninsula when choosing to engage in hostile activities against South Korea. Finally, based on the case studies taken from the Korean conflict, I hypothesize three main strategies states undertake when obligated to provoke other states: provoking to incite, provoking to isolate, and provoking to coerce.