On the other hand, contrary to some of its public rhetoric, North Korea may not be in a hurry to resume the 6 party talks, unless of course its preconditions were to be met. North Korean officials may well see their domestic political interests as better served by not resuming these talks in the near future. The North Korea military does not favor the resumption of the 6 party talks, for one thing, and North Korea could use the time to enhance its nuclear and missile capabilities. Moreover, Kim Jong Il’s paramount short term priority is managing the political succession issue and consolidating Kim Jong Un’s power, which may require, in his view, a strategy of engaging in bellicose actions toward other states rather than engaging in diplomatic negotiations with them. Besides, North Korea is aware that the Obama administration is under a series of constraints so much so that it will not be in a position to provide any major incentives of the sort North Korea wants. Moreover, the recent massive outpouring of North Korean tirades against South Korea over the use of the portraits of the top leadership will remain a serious impediment to the resumption of inter-Korea dialogue in the near term, thus blocking the movement toward bilateral US-North Korea talks, which would be required prior to the resumption of 6 party talks. It is possible that North Korea is prepared to wait for the expiration of President Lee’s term of office.
Even if the 6 party talks were to resume, there is no assurance that they would lead to meaningful results. From their beginning in 2003 to their breakdown in 2008, these talks produced no significant achievement on the denuclearization of North Korea. The future task for the parties to the talks, formulating a roadmap for the implementation of the September 19, 2005 agreement, will be a difficult one. The most formidable obstacle to progress is North Korea’s demand that all future negotiations be premised on the finding that North Korea is already a nuclear weapons state. This is precisely what the Obama administration pledged it would never acknowledge because doing so would undermine the non-proliferation regime with devastating implications for U.S. interests. The Obama administration’s apparent acquiescence alone would be damaging to the nonproliferation regime.
Few officials in the Obama administration believe that the 6 party talks, when and if they are resumed, will achieve their declared objective of denuclearizing North Korea. Most experts in and out of the U.S. government believe that North Korea will never voluntarily relinquish its nuclear weapons and programs. So why does the U.S. still favor the resumption of the 6 party talks, even if it is not actively pressing for this development? It is possible that U.S. officials believe that the tension and instability of the current situation should be managed with short term strategies, while they expect and hope for a significant political transformation in North Korea which would enable the U.S. to deal with the denuclearization issue more effectively. In any case, of the multiple factors that will shape future scenarios, the role that the U.S. chooses to play will be among the most decisive. It remains to be seen whether, when, and to what degree the U.S. government will be willing to commit its national resources to achieving the objective of a denuclearized North Korea despite the substantial risks and costs associated with this endeavor. North Korean officials are confident that sooner or later the US government will realize that it has no realistic option but to acknowledge de facto nuclear weapons state status of North Korea. They are optimistic that eventually North Korea will become another Pakistan.
Since no U.S. administration is likely to ever publicly acknowledge North Korea as a nuclear weapons state, one can expect the U.S. government to continue espousing its current policy of pursuing CVID—that is, complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of all the nuclear weapons and programs in North Korea. How to accomplish this goal will remain a matter of serious debate within policymaking circles. Once the U.S. rules out the option of acquiescence, de facto acknowledging North Korea’s nuclear weapons state status, as well as the option of using force against that regime, what alternatives are left? One strategy is that of seeking regime change in North Korea through all available means, save the direct engagement of military forces. It should be noted here that Secretary Gates declared in early June 2011 at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, that the US is not interested in regime change in North Korea or destabilizing North Korea. Whether the remark is to be taken as a mere diplomatic rhetoric is not clear. At any rate, the serious quest for regime change in North Korea, in addition to carrying substantial risks, rests on the unwarranted assumption that the succeeding regime would be more amenable to a negotiated settlement with the U.S. on the nuclear weapons issue. An alternative,” unthinkable” policy of pursuing a genuine rapprochement with North Korea with a view to bringing about a fundamental restructuring of the relations with North is theoretically conceivable, but not realistic given the current configuration of domestic and international forces within which U.S. policymakers have to operate. It is reasonable to argue then that for the time being the “dual sanctions plus dialogue” policy that is currently in force—which is equivalent to what a Council of Foreign Relations Study calls the option of “manage and contain”—is a reasonable course for safeguarding U.S. interests, though it, too, risks degenerating into a policy of acquiescence involving the de facto acceptance of North Korea’s nuclear weapon’s state status. Both Japan and South Korea would strongly oppose this outcome as clearly detrimental to their respective national interests. U.S. efforts at promoting nuclear non-proliferation around the globe would also be damaged. It should be possible to consider a variation of the current policy, namely, a long-term strategy of “expanded sanctions and flexible engagement” involving the imposition of a more stringent set of financial sanctions with more rigorous and effective implementation of the existing and additional sanctions plus simultaneous and flexible pursuit of expanded engagement with a broader spectrum of the North Korean society. It should be kept in mind that a range of options available to the US could become broader depending on the longer time frame within which the US feels compelled to address the North Korean nuclear issue seriously.
A few additional observations are in order about the policy currently in place under the Obama administration. As mentioned earlier, officials in the Obama administration have become convinced that Kim Jong Il will never give up his nuclear weapons on his own volition. This conviction, coupled with the Obama administration’s preoccupation with domestic and international issues of higher priority, has sustained the current policy. Yet the sanctions plus dialogue approach contains an element of settling in to wait for a political change in Pyongyang, and the concern here is that by attempting to manage the situation in this way rather than taking a more proactive approach, the U.S. may be missing an opportunity to achieve a meaningful political settlement with Kim Jong Il. The failure to gain control over North Korean nuclear materials in a period marked by social and political instability related to the problem of political succession in that nation could potentially be catastrophic for the interests of the U.S. and its Asian allies. Nor will Kim Jong Un or any other possible successor possess enough authority in the short term to make a crucial decision about nuclear weapons and programs against the opposition of the North Korean military.
The Obama administration has articulated a set of broad principles that could potentially serve as the basis for a negotiated settlement of the nuclear weapons issue with North Korea. However, the U.S. has not yet defined a comprehensive set of compensatory programs that the U.S. and other powers would be willing to place on the table in serious, intensive talks with North Korea. At this moment, the U.S. government appears prepared to hold bilateral U.S.-North Korea talks if and only if meaningful inter-Korea talks have taken place with results that satisfy the South Korean government and if and only if North Korea first demonstrates through concrete actions a willingness to denuclearize. How long the U.S. will insist on this set of preconditions remains to be seen. This will in part depend on the actions North Korea takes in order to compel the U.S. to come to the negotiation table, as well as the development of other factors affecting the perceived urgency of the North Korean nuclear issue. For example, a significant enhancement of North Korean nuclear and missile capabilities or an imminent transfer of its WMDs to groups intensely hostile to the U.S. could force the U.S. to embrace other options such as the use of force against North Korean targets and a negotiated resolution to the nuclear issue that falls short of CVID objectives. Likewise, a fundamental transformation in Japan’s foreign/security policy orientation toward China and/or North Korea, albeit unlikely in the near future, might cause the U.S. to ponder a rapprochement with North Korea and seek a comprehensive political settlement involving a fundamental restructuring of the U.S.-North Korea relationship. There are various scenarios under which the current delay in moving toward diplomatic engagement with North Korea might become untenable for the U.S. For example, the enactment of a new set of North Koran provocations against South Korean and US targets might compel the US to revise the current stance and move on to a dialogue with North Korea. Under a similar scenario, it is conceivable that the US might opt for a collaborative effort with China to impose on their respective allies the semblance of peace and stability in the region at the expense of the interests of their allies.
In due course, the U.S. government should enter into direct and serious diplomatic engagement with North Korea, leading to a possible summit meeting and the working out of a comprehensive political settlement. Existing preconditions put forward by both the U.S. and North Korea could be worked through in the course of unpublicized bilateral talks. A meaningful political settlement would depend upon getting Kim Jong Il involved at an early stage of bilateral talks since he alone can authorize the necessary decisions. U.S.-North Korea bilateral talks could be conducted concurrently with inter-Korea talks and possibly Japan-North Korea talks as well. In any event, U.S.-North Korea talks would be preceded by meaningful consultation on the part of the U.S. with South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia—after all, a final political settlement between the U.S. and North Korea would be subject to the endorsement of these key regional players—and could take place within the 6 party talks or a new multilateral framework. This is the most viable route toward the effective interim management of the nuclear issue aimed at a possible, eventual achievement of a denuclearized North Korea and a safer, more stable Asia Pacific region. If these diplomatic efforts to contain and denuclearize North Korea prove futile, the U.S. will be on firmer political and moral grounds to pursue other means of achieving this objective.
