Almost Back to Square One

Abstract

That's where the Bush administration now finds itself after nearly four years of playing games with policy on North Korea.

Taking office in January 2001, George W. Bush and his foreign policy team could have continued the Clinton-era negotiations aimed at suspending North Korea's nuclear weapon and missile programs. Indeed, incoming Secretary of State Colin Powell assured his predecessor, Madeleine Albright, that the Bush team would pick up with North Korea roughly where the Clinton team left off. And Powell repeated this assurance to reporters on March 6, 2001, when South Korean President Kim Dae Jung–architect of Seoul's “sunshine policy” of engagement with the North–arrived in Washington.

But the very next day, as Bush conveyed the new U.S. line to Kim Dae Jung, Powell stepped out of the Oval Office to tell the press that North Korea was “a threat…. We have to not be naïve about the threat,” adding that if “there are suggestions that there are imminent negotiations [between the United States and North Korea], this is not the case.” Powell said the president “understands the nature of the regime in Pyongyang and will not be fooled by it.” A day later, Powell told the Senate that the United States might want to revisit the 1994 Agreed Framework by which the United States and its partners agreed to supply heavy fuel oil and to build two light-water reactors for North Korea in exchange for nuclear arms control.

In his memoir, My Life, President Bill Clinton concedes that the North Koreans broke the spirit if not the letter of the 1994 accord by beginning in 1998 to produce small quantities of highly enriched uranium. But the plutonium production halted in 1994 was a much larger program. Had it proceeded, it would have yielded sufficient plutonium to make several nuclear weapons a year. Clinton's memoir details how military threats, economic incentives, mediation by Jimmy Carter, and negotiations by Robert Gallucci combined to move Washington and Pyongyang from confrontation to the Agreed Framework.

And whatever its shortcomings, that agreement could probably have been saved, had work on the two promised light-water reactors moved at full speed and had the Bush team talked in a civil way with Pyongyang. More communication might also have reduced antagonism and helped to constrain internal opposition in Washington and Pyongyang. Instead, the Bush administration poisoned the atmosphere and sabotaged the prospect of accommodation.

American rebuffs

Kim Jong Il succeeded his father as head of North Korea in 1994–some months before negotiators worked out the Agreed Framework to freeze and gradually dismantle the North's capacity to produce weapons-grade plutonium. In the 1990s and even in the first year or two of the Bush administration, Kim and his deputies made it known that he wanted to negotiate directly with the United States, not with four or five other countries, and that talks at the highest level could solve all problems. But the Bush White House insisted on six-party talks (including China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea) and refused to send anyone to Pyongyang or to the talks who ranked higher than an assistant secretary of state. Notwithstanding North Korean sensitivities, President Bush himself, his secretary of state, and the undersecretary responsible for arms control, John Bolton, repeatedly insulted the “Dear Leader” and his regime. (In August 2003, Bolton called Kim Jong Il a “tyrannical rogue.” Pyongyang then branded Bolton “human scum” and successfully demanded his exclusion from the upcoming meeting.)

North Korea has been an aggressive and dangerous state since the late 1940s, engaging in a wide range of terrorist acts, including overt cross-border invasions, kidnapping, assassination, and attempted destruction of civilian airliners. Its government has been so callous that it has permitted millions of its own people to starve. It has isolated its people from contact with the world at large. And any government that associates its survival with just one asset, nuclear weapons, may be supposed to be a difficult interlocutor in arms negotiations.

But the very fact that North Korea seems so dangerous and, to most Westerners, unfathomable, only adds to the urgency of trying to communicate with its leaders and to explore the feasibility of arms controls and other accords to stabilize the Korean peninsula. Indeed, intelligence findings that North Korea was developing nuclear arms prodded the Clinton administration in the 1990s to employ sticks and carrots, military threats and diplomatic negotiations, to dissuade Pyongyang from proceeding on that path.

From 2001 through 2004, however, the Bush White House did not seem to regard North Korea as a serious, long-term problem for U.S. foreign policy. Instead, the Bush team permitted a serious danger to fester and probably helped to make it worse.

Why? How could it be in the country's best interests to delay action to bring North Korea back into the non-nuclear fold? Any rational assessment would have ranked the North's drive for nuclear weapons as a greater threat to U.S. interests in the early twenty-first century than the regime of Saddam Hussein–given that war, sanctions, and international inspection had largely destroyed Iraq's weapons programs.

Any rational assessment would have ranked the North's drive for nuclear weapons above an Iraqi threat.

Ulterior motives

Earlier generations of U.S. diplomats generally focused on achieving arms control agreements because of their potential practical benefits–reducing the costs of defense, making war less likely, and limiting damage if war occurred. The Bush White House, by contrast, has seemed skeptical about international accords of any kind–indeed, about any restraint on its go-it-alone attitude. The Bush team did not view arms and arms control issues as a challenge for negotiators to come to a mutually satisfactory agreement. They did not ask: How can we deal with this problem so as to enhance U.S. and perhaps world security? Instead, they weighed how best to manipulate issues to advance their larger political agenda.

For its part, Pyongyang also seemed to use arms negotiations for ulterior motives. So long as North Korea appeared amenable to dialogue, it was given a breathing space in which to cultivate its nuclear arsenal. The North's apparent willingness to talk also undermined the political capacity of foreign foes to attack its nuclear facilities.

We do not know whether North Korea planned in 1994 to violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the Agreed Framework by building a clandestine program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. More likely, it engaged in contingency planning, calculating that if arms control did not lead to a broader breakthrough in normalizing relations with the United States, it would at least shield it from attack. Sooner or later the North could present the world an accomplished fact that could not be easily removed–the same route taken by China, India, and Pakistan.

Yugoslavia's nuclear ambitions under Marshal Tito underscore how a dictatorship may guard its secrets and, feeling threatened, may devote huge resources to building its own nuclear bomb. “We must build it even if it costs us half of our income for years,” said Tito's collaborator Edward Kardelj in 1950. Yugoslavia under Tito–like North Korea today–showed that “the more isolated the regime and the more hostile the international environment, the less relevant are global norms regarding weapons of mass destruction. Isolated regimes also are inclined to discount the political costs of violating international taboos.” 1 National egotism can also play a role. North Korea, like the former Soviet Union and Hindu nationalist India, may feel a need to show that it can shine in the military sphere if not in others. 2

The role of national missile defense

The zigs and zags of U.S. behavior since 2001 suggest that the Bush administration attached a very low priority to reaching an accord with Pyongyang. The White House may even have opposed an accord on nuclear weapons because it might undermine other objectives.

Despite its ostensible concerns about Iraqi weapons, the White House may not have worried much about nuclear proliferation so long as the United States could improve its own arsenal. Indeed, the incipient nuclear-missile capability of North Korea was repeatedly cited as the justification for the United States to deploy a national missile defense (NMD)–the holy grail for many conservatives since President Ronald Reagan unveiled his Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983. 3 Meanwhile, the combined impact of Bush's foreign and military policies gathered dollars and political support from passionate conservative donors and voters who also value a tough stance toward the outer world, distrust and disdain international institutions, and want no truck with communists.

By June 2004, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld seemed almost pleased to declare: “Needless to say, time favors North Korea.” Refusing to negotiate in earnest, the Bush team also ruled out the use of military force. Weakening U.S. leverage still further, the Pentagon announced in 2004 that it would transfer 12,000 American troops–one-third of the total–from South Korea to duty in Iraq, and pull back most of the remaining U.S. troops from positions close to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) to bases south of Seoul.

To be sure, in 2003 and 2004, the Bush team took part in several rounds of six-party talks. In June, American diplomats finally offered what many observers saw as the first somewhat attractive U.S. proposal to the North. But Washington had put off this proposal until it was ready to begin missile defense deployment in Alaska.

Even then, the United States threw in “jokers” almost guaranteed to preclude Pyongyang's acceptance–ensuring more time for NMD deployment to proceed. The U.S. plan stipulated that America's partners (no longer joined by the United States) would supply heavy fuel oil to North Korea each month and that the United States would provide a “provisional” guarantee not to invade the country or seek to topple its government. Aid would begin flowing immediately after a commitment by Kim Jong Il to dismantle his plutonium and uranium weapons programs. But North Korea would have only three months to seal and shut down the country's nuclear facilities–similar to the plan Libya committed to in 2003. Continuation of the oil assistance and talks on other matters would hinge on North Korea's giving international inspectors access to suspected nuclear sites and meeting a series of deadlines for disclosing the full nature of its facilities, disabling and dismantling them, and shipping them out of the country, as Libya did.

Overall, however, Washington seemed to demand more of North Korea than it did of Libya. The Bush team pressed Pyongyang to go even further than Tripoli and give up its other illicit activities, transform its economy, end restrictions on food assistance, and become a “normal” state. 4 This package might seem desirable from the U.S. standpoint but was likely to be a deal killer for Pyongyang.

The Americans made no effort to save face for the North Koreans. They demanded what could be construed as capitulation. North Korea would have to submit to a rapid dismantling of its facilities and international inspection, with no sure prospect of long-term improvement in relations. Washington abjured the stick but offered few carrots. The proposal seemed crafted to ensure rejection.

North Korea also introduced a plan in June 2004, one that was more reasonable than those of the past, but it too contained jokers. Pyongyang offered to freeze its nuclear programs on the condition that aid begin immediately–on a scale sufficient to meet about a quarter of the North's current energy needs. It also demanded that the United States contribute to this energy aid, offering to be more flexible if Washington agreed to do so. But its sequencing of events ran counter to the U.S. determination not to permit the North to retain nuclear weapons materials and facilities, as had happened in 1994. The North's chief negotiator warned his American counterpart that his government might conduct a nuclear test. 5

These rival negotiating positions resembled the U.S. Soviet standoff in the early years of the Cold War when the Kremlin demanded “disarmament first, inspection later,” while Washington wanted “inspection first, disarmament later.” 6 In 2004 the Bush team took up the familiar Soviet tactic of demanding a sequence unacceptable to the other side, in this case, immediate disarmament, to be followed promptly by verification.

The upshot

American and North Korean negotiators have continued to kill time this year. They maintain a façade of reasonableness, but neither the North Korean nor the U.S. government has pursued its country's best interests. Yes, Pyongyang could boast that it was beginning to acquire a nuclear missile force that could threaten not only South Korea, but also Japan, and eventually, the United States. The North also made progress in its efforts to woo public opinion on Korean reunification. North and South Korea agreed in June to stop propaganda broadcasts along their border and to take steps to avoid clashes along the DMZ and in disputed areas of the high seas, but they made no moves to reduce troops and arms. They did not sign a peace treaty or take any action on weapons of mass destruction. And the tank traps, gun emplacements, and minefields remain in place, with no sign of an imminent political solution.

Frustrating U.S. efforts to maintain a cordon sanitaire around the North, both Japan and South Korea expanded their investments in North Korea in 2004. China openly challenged the United States to provide evidence that the North had indeed opened a second production line for nuclear weapons, though Beijing probably shared U.S. suspicions and anxieties on this matter.

Still, none of these developments brought substantial gains to the North Korean people. The North remains isolated and impoverished, with no immediate way to enter the global community of modernizing and prosperous nations. The pity is the greater in that North Korea probably has no need for a nuclear deterrent, because its million-man army and artillery are sufficient to intimidate both Seoul and Washington. Even if some American decision makers wanted to attack North Korea, their hand would be stayed by concern for the South.

A no war-no peace outcome permits Kim Jong Il to remain in power. It satisfies those military and other elements in the North who oppose closer relations with the United States. But the standoff is probably unnecessary for regime survival. The North's totalitarian dictatorship could probably survive a taste of détente.

The Bush team claims it has been firm as well as flexible in dealing with a “rogue” state. Eschewing what it portrayed as the arms control mirage created by the 1994 Agreed Framework, the Bush administration exposed the North's duplicity. The White House did not rattle its saber but did insist on multilateral talks to deal with issues that concerned all of North and East Asia. When the talks led nowhere, however, Washington could stick to its rationale for going ahead with NMD. Since North Korea looked ominous, Japan too wanted a role in missile defense, and the North's nuclear ambitions added to pressures on other regional powers to look for nuclear solutions.

There is still a chance that, having wasted nearly four years, the United States and North Korea could move toward a mutual-gain solution in 2005-2006. Washington and Pyongyang could revive their October 2000 pledges of “no hostile intent,” buttressing them with security assurances from Japan, China, Russia, and South Korea. Like Libya and South Africa, North Korea could freeze and then terminate its nuclear programs, subject to International Atomic Energy Agency inspection, in return for immediate and long-term energy assistance. Instead of leading a hostile encirclement of the Hermit Kingdom, the United States could reduce barriers to trade and technology transfer. Americans, if they wished, could save the $100 billion or $200 billion they may otherwise spend on a Swiss-cheese missile defense.

Having met his North Korean counterpart, Park Nam Sun, at a meeting on Asian-Pacific security in Jakarta on July 2, Secretary of State Powell told reporters that there had been no negotiations–only a reaffirmation of current positions. Both sides, said Powell, looked forward to another round of six-party talks in the fall, but he cautioned against seeking instant solutions. If the present analysis is correct, however, Powell's boss had since January 1, 2001, deliberately thwarted an accommodation with North Korea.

Perhaps the pressures of the November 2004 elections, combined with embarrassments over Iraq and other issues, could push the Bush team to become more creative in dealing with Pyongyang. A major reorientation of this kind seems unlikely. Still, a positive outcome would not require great diplomatic finesse. Both North Korea and the United States remain vulnerable. Common sense about each side's needs could suffice for an accord oriented to mutual gain.