Cyber Arms Control on the Korean Peninsula: Challenges and Opportunities with a View to North Korea’s Asymmetry Strategy

North Korea’s defence strategy relies on its nuclear arsenal as strategic deterrent and on cyber capabilities as weapons technology to retain the strategic initiative during peacetime and to support kinetic attacks during conflict. Due to the advantageous cost-benefit ratio of cyber weapons compared to conventional and nuclear weapons, North Korea has invested considerably in cyber capabilities to underwrite its asymmetry strategy targeted at the US-ROK alliance. In combination with frequent occurrences of cybercrime and terror originating from North Korea, this has led to a proliferation of cyber attacks and exacerbated cyber insecurity on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea, the main target of North Korean cyber attacks, has furthermore proven unable to develop cyber defence capabilities able to sufficiently protect its military and civilian networks. Against this background, this chapter investigates the possibility of a cyber arms control regime on the Korean Peninsula. Fashioned after existing arms control regimes, this chapter proposes an inter-Korean cyber arms control agreement.