Andrew Hagen

The Bush Administration is not giving the nuclear threats of Iran and North Korea the attention they deserve. The New York Times editorializes that we should offer positive incentives to change the ambitions of the bomb builders in the remaining spokes of the Axis of Evil. (*)

Positive incentives to those bent on malign ends tend not to have benign results.

Iran could be dealt with by attacking political targets from the air and fostering revolution from within, following the example of Serbia in 1999/2000. The weapons program can then be destroyed from the ground or left with a democratic open society that poses no threat.

Kim Jong Il’s grip on North Korea depends on the flow of Chinese energy and goodwill. Diplomatically, we need to drive a wedge between Kim and China. America’s trade ties with China should be leveraged to achieve that wedge. Economically, we need to put a heavier squeeze on North Korea. At some point, Kim can be nudged out.

Based on interviews with North Korean refugees in China, Nicholas Kristof reports that there is little thought of revolution from within or opposition to the regime of Kim Jong Il. (*) North Koreans are cut off from the rest of the world. They have no sense of how other countries are different. They hear only the state propaganda of how North Korea is a rich country.

Bush’s advisors base US North Korea policy on regime destabilization. Unless North Korea literally starves to death, Kim Jong Il’s regime appears quite stable.

Recently, an American non-governmental group received an official tour of North Korea’s nuclear weapons development plant. (†)

There is no reason to believe North Korea is going the route of Libya—toward giving up its nuclear weapons program. There is every reason to believe that North Korea offered the tour to make it fully apparent to the US that North Korea has nuclear weapons. This indicates their bravado. Their bravado indicates that Bush’s North Korea policy is failing.

Thanks to Operation Iraqi Freedom, Kim Jong Il’s totalitarian, starving North Korea now enjoys the uncontested slot as the worst regime in the world.

John H Fund looks inside a North Korea travel guide. (*)

North Korea expert Bruce Cumings is a typical paleoliberal on foreign policy matters. (†) When it comes to North Korea, however, that view seems to be the right one. We cannot truly threaten North Korea with war, and therefore peace is the only option. Preferably, peace would be on our terms. There is some thought that a preemptive strike could work against North Korea, however. (‡)

Koreawatch provides current commentary. (§)

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.

North Korea has shifted course and will continue negotiations on its nuclear weapons program. On the other hand, Chinese analysts have given their assessment of the talks, and are blaming the United States.

The switch comes as China’s top diplomats have grown increasingly concerned that the United States does not have a negotiating strategy beyond using multilateral talks to put pressure on North Korea, analysts who have spoken to Chinese officials about the issue said today.

In contrast, these analysts said, China is persuaded that North Korea is prepared to trade away its nuclear program for the right mix of security and economic incentives.

Wang Yi, China’s vice foreign minister and the host of last week’s talks, told reporters in Manila on Monday that he considered the United States the “main obstacle” to settling the nuclear issue peacefully. He did not elaborate. . . .

(*) Allow me to. George W. Bush is a stubborn old mule. Bush’s orneriness is a character trait with both good and bad dimensions. In this case, being a stubborn old mule is more bad than it is good.

There is no need to give North Korea a non-aggression pact or a peace treaty. Such a gift would be anathema to our long-standing policy of promoting a peaceful and free reunification of the Koreas. North Korea is proposing a non-aggression pact, but that appears to be merely a negotiating position that they would bargain away. In return they would want some kind of oral reassurance that the US will not attack.

Kim Jong Il is a skittish, growly bear. To our eyes, he appears to act irrationally. His moves all make sense, however, in the context of the preservation of himself and his regime. Reassure the bear, don’t put him in a corner, and feed him, and he will not swipe at you with his nuclear stockpile and will let you dismantle it.

Here’s a bare bones suggestion for such an approach. “We won’t attack North Korea because of its nuclear program unless North Korea continues its nuclear program. We also offer certain economic incentives to North Korea. . . . ” Etc, etc.

James Laney and Jason T. Shaplen argue in favor of talking. (†)

The President of the United States has just ended his one month of vacation, two weeks more than the average American is allowed. Taking his Labor Day holiday somewhere, Mr. Bush will be distressed to learn that North Korea has broken off from the 6–nation nuclear disarmament talks. (*) The Times thinks Kim Jong Il thinks Bush is distracted by Iraq. I think Bush is not really paying attention to anything beyond his jogging routine and his 2004 campaign coffers.

If North Korea tests a nuclear device, the seismic shock wave will be picked up around the world. The President says such a test will result in an economic quarantine. North Korea has long said that economic sanctions would be perceived as an act of war.

If it comes to war, James Woolsey and Thomas McInerney have recently opined that the US and South Korea can crush North Korea. (†) No matter how it would go, it wouldn’t be a pretty picture.

Let’s hope a grown up somewhere comes to his senses. Between Kim Jong Il and George W. Bush, I’m not so sure war can be avoided. Will they rise above expectations?

Colin Powell, where are you? Maybe you can force Bush to swallow his pride and accept bilateral talks.

One last thought: maybe Bush thinks Kim is bluffing.

The Washington Post recently published a superb analytical essay by Brent Scowcroft and Daniel Poneman on the need to deal with the North Korean crisis without delay. (*) (†) (‡) The longer we wait, the worse the situation gets as the Kim Jong Il regime moves to manufacture scores of nuclear weapons. If this is allowed to happen, it would put pressure on the entire region to match North Korea’s new arsenal. Furthermore, the likelihood of proliferation—the illegal and surreptitious transfer of such weapons to other powers, perhaps even terrorist groups like Al Qaeda—becomes extraordinarily high. In my opinion, this is especially so when one considers North Korea’s role in arming Pakistan with cruise missiles. Thus, Scowcroft and Poneman argue that the US and our allies must draw a clear line beyond which North Korea must not cross, or face the prospect of military engagement. This is a tough call because if hostilities break out, North Korean artillery could shell the major South Korean population centers, killing millions within hours. Furthermore, North Korea may already have nuclear weapons that could hit as far as the western continental United States. Nevertheless, I have to agree that the alternatives to risking such a tough stance—backing down or doing nothing—are worse. Once this clear line is established, the Bush Administration must be willing to negotiate with Pyongyang to forestall a disastrous war.

Writing in the conservative Washington Times, one of the newspapers that the President is said to read, Philip H. Gordon lucidly argues that we must be willing to negotiate with North Korea. (§)

Update: 24 February 2003. The Bush Administration’s North Korea policy has suffered another setback. China, Australia and South Korea have refused to help the US to put multilateral pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programs. (**) It now appears that the Administration must revise its policy to allow for the possibility of negotiations. They must change course soon to prevent this failure from turning into a disaster.

Update: 4 March 2003. The New York Times has a good article on the subject. (††)

Update: 10 March 2003. Hard-core hawk Charles Krauthammer has now joined the call for negotiations with North Korea, or what he calls “temporary appeasement.” (‡‡) (?:§) The Agonist sees signs that the Bush Administration is indeed, at last, moving in this direction. (***) I hope he’s right. In any case, the US will have more leverage, diplomatic and otherwise, against North Korea once war with Iraq has commenced.

Update: 11 March 2003. An in-depth article in USA Today is informative as to how little US intelligence knows about North Korea, and particularly its nuclear program. (†††) This uncertainty is further evidence of the need to engage in a dialogue with the North Koreans.

Earlier this month, the US went to North Korea for a discussion. The North Koreans told US officials that they had a nuclear weapons program. Eventually this admission was leaked to the press. The immediate question in the US media became what to do about North Korea’s admission.

Some Bush Administration officials said negotiations with North Korea were out of the question. Soon, American conservatives were lining up to congratulate the Bush administration for its hard line stance on North Korea, noting that this stance caused North Korea to make its confession. Included in their number was Wall Street Journal editorial board member Claudia Rosett, who recently wrote:

Last January he [Bush] called these regimes “evil.” Then, instead of apologizing to all the modern Neville Chamberlains who had gone faint with shock, he went about telling the world just how evil. His administration confronted Saddam and Kim Jong Il with evidence of their depredations and violations. And what do you know? Some of the world’s worst bullies have begun to crack.

(*) Unfortunately for Rosett and her conservative fellows, however, the facts are against Bush being a hardliner. Quoting from the New York Times, 25 September 2002, in an article entitled, “In Policy Shift, U.S. Will Talk to North Korea:”

President Bush will send a senior American diplomat to North Korea early next month, the White House said today, ending 20 months of internal debate on whether to open talks with a country that Mr. Bush lumped with Iran and Iraq as part of an “axis of evil.” . . .

Administration officials say they intend to have a wide-ranging discussion with North Korea that will cover its missile production and exports, its huge array of conventional weapons within reach of South Korea and its history of repression. There will undoubtedly be revived talk about its nuclear program, which has been frozen since 1994 under an agreement with the United States.

The timing of the White House announcement was significant, because the stance on North Korea contrasts so sharply with Mr. Bush’s approach to Iraq. Administration officials have gone to some lengths in recent weeks to explain why they think diplomacy can work with Kim Jong Il of North Korea but not with Saddam Hussein.

(†) In other words, it wasn’t threats from the Bush Administration that provoked the North Koreans into admitting their nuclear weapons program; it was negotiations. Furthermore, President Bush has not been against negotiations with North Korea all along, as so many conservatives exclaim. Instead, the whole reason for US officials to go to North Korea in the first place was to open negotiations. When North Korea admitted to its nuclear weapons program, things suddenly changed, and everyone conveniently forgot about the original intention behind talking to North Korea. Even today, however, negotiations appear as a distinct and realistic possibility.

That should clear up any confusion.

I posted earlier that North Korea might not have meant that they considered the 1994 Agreed Framework to be actually nullified. (*) Now North Korea is making statements indicating that, indeed, they do not consider it nullified. The New York Times reports on a recent broadcast made by Radio Pyongyang:

“Eight years after the Agreed Framework was adopted, the United States is still shifting around at the starting line,” the radio said in a broadcast monitored by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. “The framework is at crossroads whether it should be scrapped or not because of the delay in providing the light-water reactors.”

(†) This knocks out Colin Powell’s reasoning that since North Korea considers the Agreed Framework nullified, there is no point in negotiating with them. They do not consider it nullified. That is good news.

There are more questions than answers in the wake of the news of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. The US slowly gathered evidence on the program since 2000. As a resource-hungry highly enriched uranium program, it would have been impossible to hide it from spy satellites for long. Once the evidence accumulated, the US went to North Korea, accused them of having the program, and thus of having breached the 1994 Agreed Framework. The US expected nothing but denial from North Korea. (*) Instead, North Korea admitted that they had the program.

This was shocking to the US. Perhaps the US had planned to go public with the evidence and spearhead a strong, multilateral effort aimed at forcing North Korea to admit weapons inspectors, just like in Iraq. This would have helped smooth the waters for the desired UN Security Council resolution on Iraq, because the US would be seen as addressing the same threat in Iraq and North Korea, one an Islamic country, the other not. This could have served as proof that the effort against Iraq is not part of any “war of civilizations.”

For whatever reason, North Korea did not deny the existence of their program, and even hinted that they already had nuclear weapons, despite not having carried out a weapons test. Had this information been released by the Bush Administration to the public in early October, it would have changed the character of the debate on Iraq. President Bush would have had to explain to Congress why Iraq is more threatening than North Korea, when North Korea might have nuclear weapons and Iraq does not. As an expansionary power with a serial killer for a leader, Iraq is indeed more threatening than North Korea, but explaining this to the public and to Congress would have been very difficult. Instead of risking a more challenging debate, the Bush Administration withheld the information of North Korea’s admission from Congress and the public. The information was only released hours after President Bush signed the joint resolution authorizing force against Iraq. Congress is annoyed. (†) Unconvincingly, White House officials deny any ill motive. (‡)

Constantly to our detriment, the spirit of partisanship again stalks our foreign policy. By withholding a basic fact from the Iraq debate, President Bush was most concerned with securing partisan advantage. By expending less political capital on the Iraq debate, the theory seems to go, he can expend more on electing Republicans this November. The victim is our foreign policy, which now not only has an occluded moral clarity, but also has been rendered less credible just as the need becomes sharpest for a new Security Council resolution on Iraq.

What direction should US policy now take? We return to the question of why North Korea admitted its nuclear weapons program. If we knew their motive, we could conceptualize a better strategy than otherwise.

We do know that North Korea did not make its admission to prevent Congress from authorizing force against Iraq. Had it wished to, North Korea could have made a public admission any time before Congress voted. We have no reason to believe that North Korea wished to prevent a new Security Council resolution on Iraq. It was American officials who leaked the story to the media.

That leaves other motives. There is speculation that Kim Jong Il wants to be thought of as a “new kind of leader” who doesn’t resort to terrorism or secrecy. (§) Others believe that North Korea has a habit of extracting concessions from the US. With this admission, North Korea plans to get more economic assistance without really dismantling its weapons programs. This appears to provide the animating idea behind Bush’s strategy, as it was recently described. The US would get together with China and Russia, and say to North Korea: you will get rid of your nukes or face a total economic embargo, even from your old friends. (**) This is not a situation just like sanctions against Iraq, however, because of the different threat presented by North Korea. Today, we can still snuff out Iraq’s WMD programs before they become truly threatening to us and the rest of the world, but North Korea is already a nuclear threat to US allies South Korea and Japan, and to the US itself.

The US reaction to North Korea’s admission is still under consideration.

To understand why North Korea made its admission, it’s important to understand that North Korea’s point of view is that the US is the real violator of the Agreed Framework. (††) The US made certain promises pursuant to the Framework. As some analysts have said, the primary responsibility for fulfilling the Agreed Framework falls on the United States. (‡‡)

Yet, Secretary of State Colin Powell has taken a different position. “When the North Koreans told a U.S. envoy of its nuclear program, they ‘blamed us for their actions and then said they considered that agreement nullified. . . . When you have an agreement between two parties, and one says it’s nullified, then it’s hard to see what you do with such an agreement.”’ (§§)

Powell misses the point. The North Koreans apparently said that they considered the agreement nullified because of inaction on the US end of the bargain.

I’m not a lawyer, but here in the US, a “nullified” agreement is permanently dead. If the US were merely behind schedule, the agreement would not necessarily be nullified. Compensation for the delay could make up the difference. That’s a point made on a pro-DPRK bulletin board. (***) If the North Koreans did not truly mean “nullified,” and somehow sent the wrong message, or something was lost in translation, then North Korea might not consider the agreement actually nullified, but merely suspended. I would hope that the US State Department is on top of any such potential miscommunication.

Maybe the DPRK government is in danger of collapse at any moment, and they made the admission in hopes of securing an economic lifeline. If a collapse were to take place, the US would likely send in massive humanitarian aid to the starving populace. (†††)

The official web site of the North Korean government is interesting. (‡‡‡). It portrays a solemn and proud, but obviously very lonely country. There is little sign on the web site that anyone in North Korea is happy. The souvenirs page practically begs visitors to be interested in the stamps and videos. The business information page encourages any business at all to send their brochures and business ideas, as if North Korea were so desperate for investment that anything goes. Yet, no address is left, as if they know few if any would consider writing. The site details the Korean Friendship Association, which is supposed to get the truth out about the real North Korea. In case you were wondering, they are so desperate for people, membership is free. What you don’t see is any suggestion that North Koreans might have any individuality.

My overall impression of the North Korean leadership is that they have a major inferiority complex. The regime’s exact motivation in admitting it nuclear weapons program is as yet unknowable. It is clear, though, that Kim Jong Il wants to preserve the regime in Korea, and to achieve unification with South Korea. He would probably prefer a peaceful resolution over a military one.

One analyst in 1995 detailed a scenario that chillingly parallels that of today.

An American departure from the nuclear accords would evoke immediate loud charges from the north Koreans and prompt them to resume their nuclear activities . If things are left intact as they are now, a full year will have passed on October 21 without any contract being signed with north Korea. A logical conclusion would be that the Americans are not as good as their word, and Kim Jong Il would feel free to order the suspended nuclear activities restarted, including the reprocessing of the spent fuel. This would alarm the Americans into asking the United Nations for a possible sanction against Pyongyang. Imposition of a sanction by the Americans would be viewed as declaration of war on the north Koreans in flagrant violation of the July 27, 1953 Korean armistice agreement. Pyongyang would readily react in full force.

(§§§) Through the fog looms a crisis.

The advantage of diplomacy is flexibility, and that advantage cannot be written off in Korea. (****) A diplomatic solution with North Korea would make it appear not that the US is fighting only Islamic countries, but that the US is fighting only countries that do not make deals with the US and keep their word. There is ample room for a revised deal that would put any North Korean nuclear weapons into cold storage, halt the North Korean nuclear weapons program, and allow the Korean peninsula to hurry along toward peaceful reunification, presumably along democratic lines.

The 1994 agreement reached by the Clinton Administration with North Korea was intended to prevent Pyongyang from obtaining plutonium nuclear weapons. It succeeded, although by then they might have already had enough plutonium for two bombs. (*) The cost of preventing further production was to provide the regime with some uranium nuclear equipment. Apparently, that provided equipment was not sufficient by itself to create a new nuclear weapon, as some conservatives have charged. This marks the Clinton Administration approach as a partial, but not complete success. Unfortunately, the North Koreans cut a secret deal in the late 1990s with the Pakistanis. It was North Korean missiles for Pakistani highly enriched uranium equipment. The North Koreans got their equipment, and now they hint darkly that they have a uranium bomb, or at least a highly enriched uranium program. (†)

All is not lost. Going by recent actions by the North Koreans, they are eschewing aggression. American officials recently became convinced that North Korea had a uranium weapons program. (‡) They confronted North Korean officials. The North Koreans admitted to having at least a program. It was an admission, not a challenge. They have declared the 1994 agreement “nullified,” but it is not clear that they have accessed the plutonium that they set aside after 1994. North Korea has apologized for some of its aggressive acts in the past. North Korea has recently admitted to the kidnapping of some Japanese citizens between 1978 and 1983 . (§) The Koreas have set up a hotline to defuse military conflict. (**)

What must be done is diplomacy. The goal of the diplomatic efforts should be to reunite the Koreas. If North Korea might be convinced to give up its nuclear weapons before reunification. North Korea is a failing state. It can’t feed its people. It can’t participate in global trade. It is looking at its successful southern cousin wishing to experience its prosperity. More direct cultural interaction between Koreans of the north and south must take place.

The Bush Administration is choosing to forge a coalition, including South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia. (††) The coalition will attempt to pressure North Korea into giving up the nukes. This is a strategy fraught with peril. As with Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il may see his nuclear weapons program as the only sure method of preserving his power, and thus may never agree to give them up. What is most needed is a lasting solution to the Korean conflict, a peace treaty to succeed the armistice signed in 1953. This coalition being forged should have the ultimate goals of implementing a peace treaty and reuniting the Koreas. A peace treaty would be a great first step. On the basis of North Korea’s recent spate of peacemaking statements and policies, a peace treaty predicated on eventual reunification should be within reach.

The long-term strategy has got to be a renewed, updated Nonproliferation Treaty. The Bush Administration needs to face the fact that pure unilateralism is not effective in addressing the peculiar threat of nuclear proliferation, as the North Korean–Pakistani deal shows.

The Kim Jong Il regime has terminated an agreement it made with the US in 1994 “to freeze all nuclear weapons development activity,” in the words of the New York Times. (*) What is not clear is whether North Korea has withdrawn from the entire 1994 agreement or only part of it.

North Korean officials have hinted darkly that they have the bomb. The usual sign that a nation has the bomb is the carrying out of a nuclear bomb test, detected seismically by other nations. No test has been reported. Thus, there is no proof that North Korea has the bomb. On the basis of its admission, however, North Korea must have at least an unfrozen nuclear weapons development program.

This could monkeywrench a UN Security Council resolution on Iraq, because now, some will argue, resolutions are needed on both Iraq and North Korea. Under this line of reasoning, China could use its veto to protect North Korea, thus scuttling an Iraq resolution indirectly. A UN Security Council resolution should not be needed on North Korea, however.

President Bush should work diplomatically to get the North Koreans back on track to a peaceful relationship with South Korea, culminating in an armistice and reunification. North Korea has made commitments under “the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), its International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreement, and the Joint North-South Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” in the words of State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. (†) Reminding the North Koreans of their treaty commitments is exactly the right approach. Our approach should be diplomatic.

Another response could be to stop fuel oil shipments to North Korea. (‡) This only makes sense if the North Koreans have revoked the entire 1994 agreement. It is not clear whether they are opening containers of radioactive materials that were sealed since that 1994 agreement. If they are opening the containers, then we’re back to square one, and the US should halt fuel oil shipments.

The regime of Kim Jong Il is less threatening than that of Saddam Hussein. Kim Jong Il does not have the extensive relationships with terrorists that Saddam Hussein has. (§) Nor does Kim Jong Il have a track record of using weapons of mass destruction.

Kim Jong Il may want North Korea to become a major regional power. He must see his possession of a nuclear weapon as putting him in the same category as China, Russia, and the US, especially because regional rivals South Korea and Japan do not have nuclear weapons.

While right-wing commentators launch into a blame-it-all-on-Clinton approach, and in this case, Carter, too, because he helped forge the 1994 agreement, many nuclear reactors promised North Korea have never been delivered. Therefore, it is unlikely that the 1994 agreement helped North Korea’s weapons program.

In retrospect, could more have been done? Yes. President Bush could have continued the Clinton Administration’s policy of pursuing an armistice and reunification of the Korean peninsula. Such an outcome was ripe for the picking when Bush was inaugurated. Instead, Bush changed course 180°. Bush let the possibility of peaceful Korean reunification in 2001 slip through his fingers on the basis of domestic partisan politics—the desire to show Clinton up. How many times must it be said? Partisan politics is the bane of a successful US foreign policy.