‘I know something you don’t know’: The asymmetry of ‘strategic intelligence’ and the great perils of asymmetric alliances
| Published date | 01 August 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221109727 |
| Author | Kiyoung Chang |
| Date | 01 August 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221109727
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2023, Vol. 25(3) 480 –497
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/13691481221109727
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‘I know something you don’t
know’: The asymmetry of
‘strategic intelligence’ and the
great perils of asymmetric
alliances
Kiyoung Chang
Abstract
Given that South Korea is a reliant consumer of the United States’ ‘strategic intelligence’
concerning North Korea’s imminent threat, this article assumes an asymmetric market for trading
such information between the two allied states. Based on the autonomy–security trade-off model,
South Korea may purchase the United States’ strategic intelligence about North Korea’s threat at
the cost of its political autonomy. When South Korea does not offer sufficient policy concessions,
however, the United States has more incentive to transmit ‘low-quality information’ because
the recipient cannot challenge its authenticity, and this information may bolster the opposition
parties in South Korean politics by signalling the current Korean leadership’s poor performance
in the national security arena. Given the United States’ control over strategic intelligence, South
Korea faces the risk of being manipulated to make policy decisions that are at odds with its own
interests, but may serve US interests.
Keywords
asymmetric information market, autonomy–security trade-off model, low-quality information,
political autonomy, strategic intelligence, South Korea–US alliance
When North Korea launched a long-range missile over Japan on 31 August 1998, this test
demonstrated that all of Japan, including the US military facilities in East Asia, may be
within the range of North Korean ballistic missiles. When North Korea first announced
that it simply fired an artificial satellite, however, both South Korea and Japan could not
prepare a counterplan because of the lack of ‘strategic intelligence’1 on North Korea’s
suspicious actions. After a few confusing moments, South Korea and Japan finally came
to know that North Korea had conducted an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test
Department of International Studies, Kyonggi University, Suwon, South Korea
Corresponding author:
Kiyoung Chang, Department of International Studies, Kyonggi University, Suwon 16227, South Korea.
Email: kychang@kyonggi.ac.kr
1109727BPI0010.1177/13691481221109727The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsChang
research-article2022
Original Article
Chang 481
under the guise of a peaceful satellite launch. Given its superior intelligence capacity to
detect North Korea’s missile test, why did Washington not provide its two restless alli-
ance partners more detailed and precise information on North Korea’s ICBM test in a
timely manner? How does this information-sharing problem affect alliance politics in
East Asia?
In International Relations (IR), strategic intelligence is often asymmetric when two
states know different things about the same situation (Powell, 1999: 9), and this informa-
tion confers the greatest advantage on the knowing states only if their competitors do not
have it (Keohane and Nye, 2001). Thus, sometimes the asymmetry of strategic intelli-
gence creates political tensions even among military allies when such information is criti-
cal to the national security of the unknowing state. Many studies on asymmetric alliances
have focused on various forms of power and non-power asymmetries that may influence
alliance politics (Altfeld, 1984; Morrow, 1991; Shin et al., 2016; Snyder, 1997). Except
for a few studies (Hass and Yarhi-Milo, 2020/21; Johnson, 2008; McManus and Yarhi-
Milo, 2017; O’Neil, 2017), however, existing studies have paid less attention to the infor-
mation-sharing problem between strong (patron state) and weak partners (client state).
By dealing with the alliance dynamics of information-sharing between the United
States and South Korea, this article examines how a patron state with more strategic intel-
ligence attempts to achieve more policy concessions from a client state with less informa-
tion and why a client state would accept even false information despite its continuing
efforts to avoid a strategic control of a patron state.2 Given that South Korea overly relies
on the United States’ strategic intelligence on North Korea’s military threats, this article
assumes an asymmetric market for trading such information between the two allied states.
In this article, I argue that the United States may deliberately transmit low-quality
information, which includes fabricated information, particularly when the two allies have
developed different ‘lenses’ through which they view the North Korean threat. This infor-
mation eventually helps serve US interests by creating a security vacuum for South
Korea. Given that there is no mechanism of military intelligence to challenge the authen-
ticity of strategic intelligence, South Korea is exposed to ‘the hazard of being manipu-
lated to make policy decisions at odds with its sovereign interest in favour of embracing
assessments’ (O’Neil, 2017: 540), which may serve US interests.
This article comprises four parts. The first introduces the literature on asymmetric alli-
ances and their information-sharing dynamics in IR. The second deals with information-
sharing problems between patron and client states. The third part examines why the
United States manipulates strategic intelligence concerning North Korea’s imminent
threat and how this information manipulation affects alliance dynamics in the Korean
Peninsula. The fourth part focuses on South Korea’s recent attempts to develop a new
mechanism for strategic intelligence. The article concludes by summarising its main ideas
and political implications.
Asymmetric alliance and strategic intelligence
Asymmetric alliance
A military alliance is the contracting states’ international agreement concerning national
security in which they agree to mutual support and protection in case of a military crisis.
An alliance among states with equal capabilities often requires all members to make some
policy concessions to other partners in exchange for their promises of military support. In
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