In January 2009, North Korean leaders announced that they were renouncing existing political and military agreements between the two Koreas, and several months later, in May, they declared that the provisions of the 1953 armistice agreement were no longer binding upon them. Since then, the North Korean regime has engaged in several actions which have jeopardized peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in the Asian Pacific region, including the launching of a long-range missile, a second nuclear test, the sinking of a South Korean warship, and the artillery bombardment of a South Korean island. What emerges from the last two years is a picture of a North Korea that is becoming increasingly aggressive in its efforts to compel a redrawing of the Northern Limit Line, the maritime border between the two Koreas, and increasingly confident of its ability to stand its ground as a nuclear weapons state against the U.S. and its allies. U.S. officials have warned that North Korea may develop the capability to strike the continental United States with an Inter Continental Ballistic Missile loaded with nuclear weapons within five years. At a press conference in Beijing last summer, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates declared that North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs were becoming a direct threat to U.S. national security. Several senior defense and intelligence officials in the U.S. provided congressional committees with similar assessments in recent months. Leon Panetta, Gates’ successor, has recently confirmed a similar assessment. There has been an intense debate over why North Korea is acting this way and what the U.S. should do about it.
This paper addresses two aspects of North Korea-U.S. interactions in recent years. First, it analyzes the meanings and motivations behind selected actions undertaken by North Korea in the last few years, as well as the Obama administration’s responses to these actions. Second, it enumerates and discusses various policy options which the U.S. might consider adopting with regard to North Korea, with an eye to assessing the viability and risks associated with these options and their overall implications for U.S. interests.
In April 2009, the new Obama administration was still assembling its team of senior officials responsible for Asia policy when North Korea launched a Taepodong-2 missile, followed by a second nuclear test in May. There are several possible explanations for North Korea’s actions:
1. In anticipation of an important set of diplomatic negotiations, North Korea often resorts to brinkmanship with a view to extracting concessions from the other party. North Korea’s actions here may have been designed to achieve such a purpose vis-à-vis the new Obama administration.
2. A second explanation foregrounds North Korea’s domestic political imperatives, specifically that the ill-health of Chairman Kim Jong Il following his stroke the prior August has rendered urgent the problem of political succession. North Korea’s actions may have been meant to satisfy the military, whose cooperation will be required for political succession to go smoothly.
3. A third explanation also highlights domestic political considerations. The North Korean leadership promised its people that 2012 would be the year that North Korea “will enter the gate leading to the status of a powerful and prosperous nation.” In this context, its military actions may have been intended to demonstrate Kim Jong Il’s success in developing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles—his realization of the philosophy of “Songun Jongchi” or military first politics, thereby shoring up the legitimacy of his regime.
4. A fourth explanation views the actions in question as bona fide military maneuvers meant to strengthen North Korea’s military capabilities and deter potential U.S. attacks.
5. A fifth and final explanation suggests that North Korea was demonstrating its technical capabilities in order to promote the sale of North Korean weapons systems.
The prevailing view among specialists in the United States, Japan and South Korea–a view shared by U.S. government officials–is that while multiple factors may have been at play, the domestic political imperative associated with the challenge of political succession was probably the most important factor shaping North Korea’s actions. The linking of North Korea’s nuclear weapons activity and its domestic political dynamics of course raises the question of whether the current policies which the U.S., South Korea, and Japan are pursuing to bring about the denuclearization of North Korea are adequately addressing the domestic political dynamics or not.
The U.S. government organized responses to North Korea’s two actions at the international level. The UN Security council’s presidential statement addressed the missile launching in April, and UN Security Council Resolution 1874, adopted on June 12, addressed the nuclear test in May. This resolution, designed to constrain North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons development programs, complemented UN Security Council Resolution 1718, adopted shortly after North Korea’s first nuclear test in July 2006. It is evident that the earlier resolution of 2006 failed to deter the North Korean actions in question.
During the following year, 2010, tensions between the two Koreas reached a historically unprecedented level, leading to two dramatic events: the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan by a North Korean torpedo in March, and the North Korean artillery bombardment of the South Korean island of Yeongpyeongdo in November. These are unprecedented incidents, the worst violence on the peninsula since the Korean War. Again, there are several possible explanations for the Cheonan incident:
1. The attack on the Cheonan was an act of revenge for the defeat suffered by the North Korean navy in the clash with the South Korean navy in November of the previous year.
2. The attack was intended to compel the U.S. to come to the negotiating table to discuss terms for a peace agreement to replace the existing armistice and to demarcate a new maritime border line (Northern Limit Line) between the two Koreas.
3. The attack was a punitive action against South Korea for the latter’s “policy of hostility,” as well as a move to compel South Korea to restart its economic assistance to North Korea.
4. The attack was meant to facilitate the process of Kim Jong Un’s political succession and power consolidation by magnifying the role he has played in the construction of a “powerful and prosperous North Korea.” Even though North Korea officially denies culpability, attacking the Cheonan may accomplish this in view of the presumption in North Korea that he was involved in the decision. Manufacturing a sense of external threat also helped the state to justify its efforts to tighten control over North Korean citizens who have spoken out against measures associated with the so-called currency reform
Once again, the prevailing view among analysts, as well as U.S. government officials, is that while some or all of these explanations may be true, the North Korean leadership’s intense concern about the problem of succession was at the heart of its decision to attack the Cheonan. The attack could be portrayed to its people as a bold and confident decision made by Kim Jong Un.
Interestingly, relations between the U.S. and North Korea had warmed slightly prior to the Cheonan incident. Former President Bill Clinton had visited North Korea in August 2009 to secure the release of two American journalists, providing for an indirect dialogue of sorts between the two nations. North Korea clearly viewed Clinton’s visit as a significant step toward the resumption of bilateral talks with the U.S., and Ambassador Stephen Bosworth’s visit to Pyongyang several months later occurred in that context. In addition, the U.S. government had decided to allow Kim Kye Kwan, a vice foreign minister and chief North Korean delegate to the 6 party talks, to visit the U.S. for talks with U.S. officials, but the Cheonan incident occurred just a few days before the approval of the visit was to be announced and prevented it from happening.
Unsurprisingly, the U.S. government viewed the sinking of the Cheonan as an act of aggression against one of its allies. From the perspective of U.S. officials, the attack constituted a violation of the armistice agreement, international law and the UN charter and had to be punished to deter future acts of aggression. The Obama administration, consistently emphasizing the U.S.’s commitment to defending South Korea, has taken the position that the U.S. will provide full support for the policy decisions and countermeasures undertaken by the South Korean government vis-à-vis North Korea. In fulfillment of this promise, U.S. officials engaged in extraordinary diplomatic efforts in support of South Korea at numerous international meetings such as the G-8, G-20, U.S.-China Strategic Dialogue, ASEAN Regional Forum and the UN Security Council.
Many commentators have accurately pointed out that the July 9th 2010 presidential statement of the UN Security Council addressing the attack on the Cheonan did not explicitly identify North Korea as the culpable party and in fact took note of North Korea’s protestations of innocence. But official statements issued by the White House and the U.S. Dept of State on that same day point out that the UN Security Council, by a unanimous vote, took note of the conclusion of the joint international investigation group that the North Koreans had sunk the Cheonan, and expressed its deep concern about and condemnation of the attack. Indeed, China’s affirmative vote for the presidential statement may be construed as its concurrence that the North Koreans were culpable for the attack.
There is no doubt that the Cheonan incident significantly impacted U.S. policy toward North Korea in various ways. A series of statements by senior U.S. government officials about North Korea’s intentions and capabilities in the wake of the Cheonan incident showed the seriousness with which the Obama administration viewed the event. Concretely, North Korea’s attack on the Cheonan prompted the U.S. and South Korea to conduct joint military exercises in the international waters of both sides of the peninsula in an effort to demonstrate the strength of the U.S.-South Korea alliance and deter North Korea from further provocations. Following the Cheonan incident, the U.S. and South Korea also agreed to postpone by three years the turning over of wartime operational control to South Korea and to postpone as well the dissolution of the U.S.-Korea combined forces command. In addition, the U.S. enacted more stringent financial sanctions against North Korea than those that had been in place, producing a deleterious impact on the North Korean economy. Overall, the incident strengthened the alliance relationship among the U.S., South Korea, and Japan, enabling closer cooperation among all three countries. For its part, South Korea took a number of countermeasures of its own including the so-called May 24, 2010 measures which severed most trade and economic relations and other exchanges with the North.
What about the other major incident of 2010? For the first time since the armistice of 1953 ending the Korean War, North Korea mounted a direct artillery shelling of South Korean territory, namely the South Korean island Yeongpyeongdo, located just off the NLL. It is likely that several factors were operative.
1. North Korea wanted to compel the U.S. to engage in bilateral talks with an eye to completing a peace treaty which would eventually lead to the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the peninsula.
2. It also wanted to draw the attention of the international community to the alleged illegality and inequity of the present border demarcation line and to pressure the U.S. and South Korea to agree to a new maritime border which would bring strategic advantage to North Korea.
3. North Korea hoped to demonstrate the unwillingness of the U.S. to go to war in defense of the 5 islands, thus straining the U.S.-South Korea and U.S.-Japan alliances.
4. North Korean officials wanted to intimidate South Korean President Lee Myung Bak into altering his “policy of hostility” toward the North and to coerce him into acceding to the North’s longstanding political, military, and economic demands. Part of their strategy may have been to deepen fissures in South Korean politics, encouraging left-wing and pro-North Korean forces in the South to press for policies in North Korea’s interests and eventually helping the left-wing forces to win victories in the forthcoming local and presidential elections.
5. As with the earlier incidents, the North Korean leadership wanted to ensure the survival of the Kim dynasty by placating the military and reinforcing the credentials of Kim Jong Un as a “brilliant strategist, and audacious and incomparable leader who has won a stunning victory over American imperialism and its puppet in the South.”
The prevailing view among U.S. analysts and officials is that while all these factors may have been operative, factors 1 and 5 were probably most important There is good reason to think that while North Korea’s mid to long term objective is a peace agreement, its overriding short term goal here was to achieve the demarcation of a new maritime border by 2012. Achieving that objective would give the regime an important strategic advantage vis-à-vis South Korea, validate North Korea’s strategy of using and threatening military power to secure diplomatic concessions, and enhance the legitimacy of Kim Jong Un’s leadership.
As for U.S. response to the bombardment of Yeongpyongdo, the U.S. government promptly condemned North Korea’s action and reaffirmed its commitment to the defense of South Korea. Furthermore, it expressed its full support for the various countermeasures the South Korea government announced, which included its intention to conduct a military exercise involving artillery shelling off Yeongpyeongdo and south of the NLL with a warning to the North of its readiness to launch air strikes against should North Korea repeats provocations. This despite the fact that there was a serious concern in the U.S. that such a retaliatory air strike would carry serious risk of escalation into a larger military conflict. South Korea ignored Chinese opposition and the Russian warning and went ahead with its planned military drill. The U.S. stood firm with South Korea while taking appropriate actions on its own to forestall potential military moves by the North. The U.S. was prepared for a possible military engagement. Despite its repeated and explicit warnings that it would respond militarily if South Korea proceeded with its naval exercise off the NLL, North Korea chose not to respond when South Korea actually carried out the drill.
The year 2011 began with what some analysts call North Korea’s “charm offensive,” referring to the regime’s rapid succession of calls for talks of various kinds with South Korea. This has emerged as a somewhat predictable pattern of North Korean actions: military provocations followed by diplomatic initiatives, presumably with the aim of increasing the regime’s leverage during negotiations. North Korea’s reasons for seeking inter-Korea talks at the start of this year were numerous and probably include the following:
1. Influencing the outcome of the U.S.-China summit which was to occur in mid-January. North Korea’s declared willingness to enter into inter-Korea talks without conditions could be seen as strengthening President Hu’s position at the summit and possibly softening the U.S.’s stance toward North Korea prior to the summit.
2. Accommodating the condition articulated by the U.S. government that North Korea must begin and make progress in inter-Korea talks before the U.S. will consider bilateral talks with that nation. In other words, trying to get to Washington through Seoul.
3. Seeking an international forum via Seoul in which to press for the reduction of punishing economic sanctions which the North Korean regime finds intolerable.
4. Securing economic and financial assistance which the North Korean regime desperately needs in order to make progress towards “powerful and prosperous” nation status by April 2012, the 100th anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birthday. North Korea perceives South Korea to be the most promising source of assistance given its vulnerability to the North’s actions. The fact that North Korean officials in their official pronouncements frequently and explicitly discuss the importance of providing sufficient food and other basic necessities to their people indicates their awareness of the potential political ramifications of this issue, in particular for the smooth ascension to power of Kim Jong Un.
5. Strengthening the position of political opposition forces within South Korea who are advocating a return to the “sunshine policy” of the Kim Dae Jung and Ro Moo Hyun governments, thereby increasing pressure upon the Lee government to pursue a policy of accommodation toward the North and increasing the likelihood that left-wing and pro-North Korea forces will recapture the South Korean presidency next year. North Korean leaders may think the latter event, should it occur, would help them solve their economic problems and move them toward their long-range objective of a united Korea on their terms.
6. Playing an international public relations game where North Korea looks reasonable and constructive for asking for talks and South Korea looks intransigent for refusing them.
During the period leading up to the U.S.-China summit of mid-January 2011 and since, there had been a discernible change in U.S. thinking on the need to return to a dialogue mode with North Korea. In a sense, North Korea’s provocative actions over the past few years have paid off. When Secretary of Defense Gates visited Beijing in the summer of 2010, he commented that North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons development programs pose a direct threat to the United States and that there is an urgent need to move towards talks with the North Koreans, not least to avoid future provocations from them that could potentially escalate into major warfare. Several considerations seem to be behind this apparent shift:
1. The desire to avoid the future escalation of military conflict of the kind that occurred in 2010. Even if no meaningful result can be expected out of talks—whether bilateral or multilateral— there is an expectation among U.S. policymakers that North Korea would at least refrain from further provocative actions while talks were underway.
2. The desire to forestall the further strengthening of the missile and nuclear capabilities of North Korea. There is a belief that North Korea may soon acquire the capability to strike a target in the continental U.S. with an Inter Continental Ballistic Missile loaded with miniaturized nuclear weapons, which would pose a direct threat to U.S. national security. There is an assessment that North Korea would agree to suspend some of its activities in this regard while talks were underway.
3. The desire to buy time while the U.S. deals with more pressing international and domestic problems coupled with the hope that the North’s leadership after Kim Jong Il may be more amenable to a negotiated settlement about the nuclear issue.
4. The ability to argue plausibly to the American people that the Obama administration is cooperating with relevant global actors to advance the denuclearization of North Korea and that lack of progress in this area is not due to diplomatic ineptitude on the part of the Obama administration but rather to North Korean intransigence.
5. The January 19 summit meeting of Presidents Hu and Obama and the joint communiqué that emerged out of that meeting are worth close examination in terms of their implications for U.S.-North Korea relations. The U.S. achieved its goal of having China endorse a joint statement expressing concern about North Korea’s uranium enrichment program (UEP). Prior to the summit, the Chinese government had expressed neither interest in nor concern about this issue. The joint statement, along with Obama’s strong additional comments on the UEP at the joint news conference, signal the depth of U.S. concern with North Korea’s growing nuclear capability and the threat it potentially poses to U.S. national security. It is noteworthy that a White House official cited the joint statement’s reference to the UEP as a factor that prompted North Korea to ask for high level military talks with the South just one day after the summit meeting. The Obama administration expressed satisfaction that South Korea promptly agreed to talks with the North as U.S. government officials have made progress in inter-Korea talks a precondition of U.S. talks with North Korea.
From the South Korean perspective, the U.S.-China summit was disappointing since the joint statement not only did not condemn but in fact did not explicitly mention North Korean actions such as the Cheonan attack or the Yeongpyeongdo bombardment. The statement refers to these incidents vaguely as “recent developments.” Still, South Korean leaders noted with satisfaction that Obama declared at the joint press conference that “further provocations” on the part of North Korea should be avoided. Additionally, South Korean leaders almost certainly anticipated that the summit would intensify international pressure, including pressure from the U.S., upon South Korea to soften its stance and commence talks with North Korea. Though displeased with the joint statement’s reference to an “early return” to the 6 party talks, which dealt with the denuclearization of North Korea, they endorsed its point about the importance of taking “measures” to facilitate the resumption of inter-Korea talks, since this could reasonably be read as an exhortation to the North to take certain measures to fulfill South Korea’s conditions for holding talks as well as justification for South Korea’s holding firm until such measures are taken. The preconditions South Korea has laid out include a) North Korea taking responsibility for and apologizing for the Cheonan and Yeongpyeongdo incidents; b) North Korea pledging not to commit aggressive actions again; and c) North Korea demonstrating its recommitment to the goal of denuclearization through concrete actions such as the suspension of all activities at nuclear facilities, the readmission of IAEA inspectors to all facilities, and movement toward the disablement program begun under the administration of George W. Bush.
North Korean leaders were likely disturbed by two aspects of the summit’s outcome. First, they must have been unpleasantly surprised by Obama’s remarks at the joint press conference about how he and Hu had agreed that “further provocations” must be avoided. This strongly suggested that Hu was endorsing the view that the Cheonan and Yeongpyeong attacks constituted North Korean “provocations.” North Korean leaders have denied any involvement in the Cheonan attack and have claimed that the Yeongpyeong bombardment was a legitimate self-defense measure against South Korean provocations. North Korean leaders may have interpreted the joint press conference remarks to mean that Hu intended to increase pressure upon them to proceed with inter-Korea talks. Indeed, this may be why North Korea moved so quickly to call for military talks after the summit was over. Also, the joint statement’s mention of enacting measures to facilitate the 6 party talks and its call for “sincere and constructive talks” between the two Koreas were clearly concessions to the South Koreans, who emphasize these issues and this particular language. That North Korea proposed just one day after the summit to hold military level talks with South Korea and proposed five days after the summit to hold military level talks with the U.S., suggests the North’s sense of urgency in gaining some control over events after the summit.
Faced with North Korea’s persistent calls for talks as well as the explicit mention of the need for inter-Korea talks prior to the 6 party talks by the U.S.-China joint communiqué issued at the conclusion of the Obama-Hu summit meeting of January 19, 2011, the South Korean government agreed to set up military level talks. However, the preliminary meeting held to arrange a high level military meeting broke down on February 9 after a day and a half when the North Korean delegation walked out as both sides could not agree on prioritizing agenda items. Whereas South Korea insisted on placing the issue of apologies for the two attacks before other issues, North Korea insisted that all issues be discussed simultaneously with the emphasis placed on the issue of the reduction of military tensions.
At first glance, it seems puzzling that North Korea would walk out of the talks given its view of the inter-Korea talks as a stepping stone to direct bilateral North Korea-U.S. talks. However, North Korean officials may have reached the conclusion during negotiations with the South that progress during the inter-Korea talks, stipulated by the U.S. as a precondition for bilateral North Korea-U.S. talks, was impossible given the South’s unwavering insistence upon calling North Korea to account for its military provocations. Since the breakdown of the talks, South Korea has shown no sign of softening its position. Despite its hopes for a reduction in tension with and the initiation of dialogue with North Korea, the U.S. maintains its position that the resumption of the 6 party talks as well as bilateral U.S.-North Korea talks depend upon progress in the inter-Korea talks.
In late April of 2011, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter traveled to Pyongyang with other members of the Elder Group in an attempt to play a mediating role on the denuclearization and humanitarian aid issues. Although his requests for a meeting with Chairman Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un were rebuffed, Carter somewhat controversially carried a message from Kim Jong Il to the South Korean government stating that Kim stood ready to meet anywhere with any of the parties to the 6 party talks without preconditions, and specifically with South Korea on any level and about any subjects. The South Korean government dismissed the message as an insincere and empty gesture. Even before President Carter arrived in Seoul, the South Korean Foreign Minister Kim wondered aloud why North Korea was sending a message through a private third party when so many official channels of communication existed, and also stated that he didn’t expect much to come of Carter’s visit as a private citizen to Pyongyang. At a press conference in Seoul, President Carter was asked whether he had raised the issue of human rights during his visit to Pyongyang. He responded that outsiders cannot force change in internal matters relating to human rights and added that the most important human rights issue in North Korea was the provision of adequate food to its people. He then declared that the U.S. and South Korea “deliberately withhold food aid to the North Korean people because of political and military issues” and that this constituted a human rights violation. Carter also conveyed that the North Korean military expressed deep regrets for the loss of life connected to the Yeongpyeongdo incident, although they stopped short of an apology. News commentators in South Korea and the U.S. characterized Carter’s personal diplomacy as biased and naïve. It was telling that President Lee did not grant Carter’s request for a meeting. Carter’s visit has had little impact on the prospects for inter-Korea talks. Despite the message entrusted to Carter by the North Korean leader, at the time of this writing, North Korea has not made a formal proposal directly to South Korea regarding inter-Korea talks.
What are the prospects for the resumption of inter-Korea talks? There is a strong sense among South Korean officials that North Korea must not be allowed to commit military attacks with impunity. While South Korean officials think that it is unlikely that North Korea will meet South Korea’s preconditions fully, they will not move ahead without this because they are unwilling to face the disapproval that the South Korean public would almost certainly express. The possibility that North Korea may face political instability and regime collapse in the near future, resulting in a united Korea on South Korean terms, also discourages South Korean officials from pursuing a policy of reconciliation and accommodation at the present time. However, depending upon a possible policy shift by the U.S. toward a flexible stance, which seems to be happening, the Lee Myung Bak government might nevertheless be open to pursuing a policy of reconciliation with the North, especially if a compromise solution could be found which allowed South Korea to claim that its preconditions had been met.
While the Obama administration would like to see progress in inter-Korea talks so that it can move into a dialogue phase with North Korea, manage relations with that nation at a tolerable risk level, and forestall the enhancement of its nuclear and missile capabilities, it is unwilling to put any public pressure on President Lee because it might cause President Lee domestic difficulty and antagonize South Korean public opinion. Indeed, a senior State Department official said at a press conference following Carter’s visit to Pyongyang that he rejected Carter’s characterization of the food aid issue as a human rights issue, and that the U.S. and South Korea are unified in their stance on inter-Korea and U.S.-North Korea talks. While the U.S. maintains its public support for South Korea’s stance, Secretary of State Clinton and other senior officials are reported to have tried in vain to persuade President Lee to show greater flexibility. It should also be noted that the U.S. has lately been moving toward the provision of food aid to North Korea despite continued misgivings on the part of the South Korean government. After consulting with South Korea, the U.S. dispatched in late May a mission led by Ambassador Robert King, US special envoy on North Korean human rights, to Pyongyang to discuss food aid and other humanitarian issues. The official US denial notwithstanding, such a move by the U.S. is viewed by the officials of South Korea, Japan, and North Korea as the beginning of the US- North Korea political dialogue.
On his visit to Seoul in late April of 2011, Special Representative Wu Dawei expressed China’s support for the 3-stage formula, wherein inter-Korea talks are followed by bilateral U.S.-North Korea talks, which are followed by renewed 6 party talks. At this moment, however, the prospects for inter-Korea talks are dim. Neither Korea has shown an inclination to be flexible on the issue of apologies. Also, while North Korea appears willing to recommit to denuclearization in principle, it is not clear what kinds of concrete actions it is prepared to take to demonstrate its sincerity on this issue. Then, on June 1, 2011, North Korea claimed that at a secret meeting held with South Korea on May 9, the latter had pleaded for a series of summit meetings with the North and that despite this, North Korean would no longer deal with South Korea and threatened to launch an all-out military retaliation for South Korea’s use of the portraits of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un as targets for shooting practice at a few South Korean army reservist training camps. The statement, issued in the name of the National Defense Commission, condemned the South Korean action as constituting the disparagement of the “supreme dignity” of their nation, i.e., its top leadership, and vowed to retaliate for the “heinous crime.” North Korea is demanding South Korea’s apologies and punishment of South Korean officials responsible for these actions. While North Korea’s outpouring of outrages may reflect genuine sentiments by the North Korean leaders and would impede the reconciliation with the South, South Korean analysts are suggesting that such manifestation of outrages may also be a function of competitive demonstration of the loyalty to the top leader on the part of the North Korean officials.
Still, there are formidable obstacles that must be overcome at every one of the three stages of the 3-stage formula. Ultimately, North Korea’s core demand that the U.S. cease its policy of hostility includes the demand for a virtual abrogation of the U.S.-South Korea relationship, a demand no U.S. administration will seriously entertain. Then there is the issue of whether and when the 6 party talks will resume. Since the presidential statement of the UN Security Council was issued on July 9, 2010 concerning the Cheonan incident, the Chinese government has exerted persistent diplomatic efforts to get the U.S., South Korea and North Korea to agree to resume the 6 party talks. Its objectives are to reassert its dominant role in Korean affairs, prevent the collapse of the North Korean regime, and forestall any U.S., South Korean and Japanese countermeasures against North Korea which might heighten tensions in the region, thereby adversely affecting China’s economic and developmental goals and strengthening U.S. military and political influence in the Asia Pacific region to the detriment of Chinese interests.
One intriguing question is whether North Korean officials really want to return to the 6 party talks. Until December 2010, North Korea consistently stated that it would not return to the 6 party talks unless its preconditions were met. These preconditions include assurances from the U.S.—concretized through bilateral U.S.-North Korea talks—about the removal of sanctions and the achievement of a peace agreement. These are precisely the conditions which Kim Jong Il stipulated in his meeting with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao in October 2009. It is significant that even in the most recent official statement issued by the North Korean government on May 26, 2011 following the summit between Chairman Kim and President Hu in Beijing on May 25, 2011, there is a conspicuous absence of any mention of North Korea’s willingness to return to the 6 party talks. According to the statement, Chairman Kim shares a view with Hu that North Korea’s adherence to the objective of denuclearization of Korea—of all of the Korean peninsula, not just North Korea—and the pursuit of the peaceful resolution of issues through dialogue such as the 6 party talks are consistent with the overall interests of the Northeast Asia region. This reflects no change from North Korea’s prior position on the subject of 6 party talks and contrasts sharply with the China News Agency report that Chairman Kim had argued for an early resumption of the 6 party talks at the summit meeting.
Some academic and media commentators in the West assume that North Korea is genuinely interested in resuming the 6 party talks, and there is some basis for this interpretation. First, North Korean officials are aware that the U.S., and especially China, favor the resumption of talks, so they want to at least project the image that they are ready to comply and work toward denuclearization. Second, resumption of the 6 party talks would reduce the degree of North Korea’s international isolation, potentially leading to the reduction of sanctions currently in force and enhancing North Korea’s international trade and economic relations. It might also assist in getting South Korea to modify its hard line position of denying economic aid to North Korea. All of this would presumably facilitate North Korea’s declared objective of becoming a “powerful and prosperous” nation by 2012.
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.
