The hardline on North Korea.
James S. Robbins ably enunciates the get-tough approach to North Korea. (*) The Stalinist backwater is more of a criminal enterprise than a state, North Korea will not enter into any arms control regime in good faith, and there is no reason for us to unilaterally surrender our superior bargaining position.
Robbins draws an analogy to Reagan’s rebuff of Gorbachev’s offer at Reykjavik in 1986. Reagan wisely turned Gorbachev down. There was no reason to drop SDI when, in any case, the USSR could not compete in that area.
The situation with 21st Century Stalinism is different. The Soviets could be trusted to not sell their nuclear weapons to the highest bidder. The Soviet leadership was clearly ready to negotiate in good faith. Kim Jong Il is a less likely negotiating partner. He broke the 1994 Agreed Framework, for example. He has sold ballistic missiles to Pakistan and Iran. Yet, an appeal to his sense of self-survival can be made successfully.
It is right for Robbins to use the possibility to bolster his argument that North Korea could sell nuclear weapons to a hostile state or group, such as Al Qaeda. Yet, that possibility also bolsters the argument of the negotiations camp. It is necessary to disarm Kim Jong Il somehow, because if we do not we are likely to be stung either directly or indirectly. My argument is that we can disarm him peacefully.
North Korea of 2003 is different from the Soviet Union of 1986. Kim Jong Il has not plotted a course where his state could collapse of its own weight. It will either die in flames or slowly modernize. Gorbachev was instrumental to the Soviet collapse. He insisted that when various SSR’s (Soviet Socialist Republics, the constituent parts of the Soviet Union, like Lithuania, Latvia, and the Ukraine) began to announce their split from the USSR (the Union of SSR’s), Gorbachev let them go. The Soviet constitution provided for the right of SSR’s to split should they ever so decide. Gorbachev merely required that the Soviet constitution be honored as written, and so it was for one of the first and only times.
Kim Jong Il is not Gorbachev. He will not allow a peaceful disintegration. He will take his half of the peninsula down either the fiery path of oblivion and ruin, or the communist-capitalist hybrid model of China. The peaceful outcome here is better, so long as North Korea is sans nuclear weapons. Over time, human rights conditions in North Korea are bound to improve, particularly as free markets establish themselves. Once North Korea is disarmed, furthermore, it will be more amenable to human rights demands.
Robbins is right when he says the US should drive a hard bargain. On top of disarmament, the US should demand a process for further negotiations where human rights can be addressed. The US should demand that the North Koreans both negotiate in good faith and disarm in good faith. We should be prepared to go to war to make our demands stick. We should also be prepared, however, for Pyongyang to meet our demands.
The President should make this a personal top priority. It has been pushed to the back for too long.