The Law of Unintended Consequences in Statecraft

The Law of Unintended Consequences in Statecraft

By E. Stanley Ukeni

As the world breathe a collective sigh of relieve over the current de-escalation of the last weekend’s crisis in the Korean Peninsula—with the failure of the North Korean administration to conduct, what the United States’ administration would have considered, a provocative underground nuclear test sometime during the weekend celebrations marking the 105^th birthday of the founding leader of North Korea, Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current ruler of the hermit kingdom, Kim Jong Un.

It should be recalled that in the face of North Korean leadership’s persistent bellicose rhetoric and saber-rattling, the U.S. military purportedly dispatched a formidable aircraft carrier battle group to the Western Pacific Ocean—just off the Korean Peninsula. This was soon followed with statement by U.S. President Donald Trump that, “North Korea is a problem…” The U.S. President further issued a cryptic warned that, “The problem will be taken care of”.

It was widely believed that if the belligerent North Korean government had undertaken a nuclear test on April 15^th 2017, as anticipated by U.S, intelligence analysts, the Trump administration would have responded militarily against the North Korean regime. Thankfully, a dreadful military confrontation between North Korea and the United States did not occur, as many feared. 

However, as tensions between the two countries remain dangerously high—with an even more belligerent North Korean, led by an unpredictable Kim Jong Un, who views the new U.S. President as an existential threat to his administration, I feel it necessary to highlight the potential effects of the Law of Unintended Consequences in Statecraft.

I would hope that policymakers and security threat analysts are have factored this important variable into any future calculus in dealing with further North Korean provocations. And trust me, there will be further provocations—even escalation, from the North Korean regime.

I define the law of unintended consequences, as applied to this discuss, as a causal effect of political or military strategies, and policies, employed by a government, which has the potential of causing an unanticipated and unintended collateral effect.        

Frequently, this superfluous effect of an intended action may have been foreseen and thus factored into the calculus of the principal-initiator and so may have beneficial or neutral impact. But as sometimes the case, the unforeseen effect of this law is negative—one that makes the original problem worse. 

The law of unintended consequences is an ever looming phenomenon because of the propensity for even the most thoroughly gamed-out political maneuvering and plan or military strategies to be susceptible to its effect. Even with the best intelligence analysis on the capabilities of an opponent, this law still manages to surprise even the most tactical strategists.  

Case in point, the strategic decision by the U.S. leadership to threaten the North Korean regime with a military strike, if they conducted an underground nuclear test, was probably predicated on the believe that the U.S. intelligence agencies had a high degree of confidence that—based on their knowledge of the level technical progress of the North Korean ballistic missiles, that the ubiquitous U.S. missile defense systems would reliably shot down all know intercontinental ballistic missile in the North Korean arsenal that could threaten the American homeland.

Imagine the surprise of bewildered defense analysts to learn, during the military parade on Saturday, April 15, 2017, that the North Korean military does possess in its arsenal two previously unknown types of solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles—albeit concealed inside canisters.

Now consider a scenario where the decision to militarily engage the North Korean military is based on a flawed notion that Pyongyang does not possess a viable retaliatory capability only to learn, after the shooting war starts, the North Koreans has indeed achieved the technical capability to produce and deploy ultra-long-range solid-fuel missiles.

During my research for this article, I came across a telling quote by Ankit Panda in The Diplomat. He writes, “We don’t know what, if anything, was inside the canisters since North Korea hasn’t publicly shown off or tested any missile of that size before….”

He continues, “We can infer given the size of the canister and the fact that it was paraded on Saturday that Pyongyang wants the world to know that it is actively working towards at least two types of solid-fuel, canisterized ICBMs”.

The point of this article is not to deliberation whether the canisters were empty or not, or if they are still working on a prototype missile. The point is that no one seemed to know that this weapon system existed before the North Koreans revealed it.

So, for the sake of argument, what if the North Koreans have—say for the past two years, secretly deployed these two types of solid-fuel ICBMs in their arsenal and no one knew about it. Another intriguing question should be, ‘what other menacing advance weaponry could the North Korean be hiding deep in their underground bunkers?’ These questions are important because the law of unintended consequences often rears its ugly head amidst the unknown. Surprises can be very costly.

I should add here that there is no doubt in my mind that in an undesirable scenario a military conflict were to erupt between the United States and its regional allies and North Korea, the Korean People’s Army could not, by any stretch of the imagination, win a sustained war against the formidable U.S. Armed Forces. However, the law of unintended consequences does dictate that the North Korean’s could do a lot of damage, perhaps to the American homeland, before they could be stop.

In my humble opinion military confrontation may not a viable means of containing the North Korean military threat, at least for now. This challenge is one that could be managed diplomatically—preferably with the corporation of the Chinese government.     

It is heartening to note that the United States Vice President, Mike Pence, told U.S. servicemen aboard the Aircraft Carrier, USS Ronald Reagan, in Japan on Wednesday, April 19^th 2017, that, “The United States of America will always seek peace, but under President Trump, the shield stands guard and the sword stands ready.” I’m pretty confident that the Trump administration is well versed in the arcane art of Statecraft. They may on occasions employ unorthodox, and perhaps even bewildering, strategy in achieving a desirable outcome, but their process seems to be effective.   

The next time the North Koreans, or any other despotic country for that matter, engages in yet another ‘attention grabbing antics, it is well to keep in mind that the menace of the law of unintended consequences will be looming large over whatever decision is taken to contain the crisis.

Political strategists and war planners must factor the spectre of this unknown and un-quantifiable variable in their calculus. It is worth noting also that the specter of other, game changing State and non-State actors, entering the fray is one that I think must keep every analysts awake at nights.    

Authored by E. Stanley Ukeni, © 2017. All Rights Reserved. This material and other articles or stories posted on this blog site may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed, in whole or in part, without prior expressed written permission from the author, E. Stanley Ukeni.

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