Pyongyang palliative is Bush's bitter pill

Pyongyang palliative is Bush's bitter pill

by Eugene Kogan
The Japan Times
Sept. 11, 2005

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut -- Although buried by headlines from Iraq and Hurricane Katrina-devastated U.S. Gulf Coast region, the fourth round of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program, about to resume in Beijing, presents the best chance yet to resolve diplomatically the simmering crisis on the Korean Peninsula. That's the good news.

Unfortunately, the United States remains inflexible in its negotiation strategy. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has ruled out changing the sequence of the U.S. disarmament proposal, which envisions Pyongyang first disclosing its weapons programs, followed by provisional multilateral security guarantees.

The Bush administration also seems to be losing strategic coherence in drawing unusual attention to the issue of human rights in North Korea, which, while important, is an unnecessary and dangerous distraction from the problem du jour -- North Korea's nuclear program.

America's inflexible and, lately, strategically incoherent approach to the disarmament talks betrays a lack of understanding of the history behind North Korea's drive to become a nuclear power.

North Korea has been shopping around for a nuclear bomb intermittently since the end of the Korean War in 1953. After being rebuffed by China, North Korean leader Kim Il Sung signed two agreements on cooperation in nuclear research with Moscow. The Soviets then provided Pyongyang with a small experimental nuclear reactor. After the Soviets agreed to provide four light-water nuclear reactors (LWRs) to North Korea, the latter joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) on Dec. 12, 1985.

The end of the decade witnessed the demise of the Soviet empire, and the Soviets thus failed to provide the nuclear reactors, leaving North Korea with only its NPT commitments. Pyongyang withdrew from the NPT on Jan. 10, 2003 during an escalation of tension with the U.S.

In his account of North Korean negotiation strategy, "How Communists Negotiate" (1955), Adm. C. Turner Joy, chief U.S. delegate to the Korean Armistice Conference, writes that "distortion of truth as practiced by Communists is a science." North Koreans cheat systematically, but from their point of view, they also have been cheated. The first instance was the broken Soviet promise of four LWRs.

Pyongyang also claims that it was cheated by the U.S. in the 1994 Agreed Framework, in which the "two sides agreed to move toward full normalization of political and economic relations." North Korea used the nonfulfillment of this clause as one justification for declaring in May 1998 that it was no longer bound by its Framework obligations. The history of North Korea's drive to join the nuclear club holds important lessons for this month's six-party talks:

First, North Korea is afraid of being cheated. Therefore, leader Kim Jong Il sees Washington's sequencing of the disarmament proposal as a trap -- expecting the U.S. first to disarm and then to destroy his regime. Bush's appointment of a special envoy on human rights has aroused further suspicions in Pyongyang about Washington's true intentions.

In order for the talks to succeed, the Bush administration must make the strategic decision that, all else (e.g., human rights) being equal, a denuclearized North Korea is acceptable to the U.S. The administration made this strategic choice vis-a-vis Libya in December 2003 when Moammar Ghadafi, the Libyan leader, agreed to give up all weapons of mass destruction programs.

Given Washington's ambivalent attitude toward North Korea, however, it comes as no surprise that Kim is reluctant to give up his nuclear capability.

A second lesson to be learned from the history of Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear capability is that sometimes an imperfect option is better than none at all. The U.S. demand for a complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament should remain the end goal of negotiations. In the meantime, the six parties must negotiate a secure freeze of North Korea's weapons programs.

A freeze is desirable for two reasons. First, it will give the U.S. and its regional allies the breathing space they require to plan for the next steps in negotiations, while arresting the growth of Pyongyang's deadly arsenal. (Since the last round of talks in June 2004, North Korea's stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium has increased fourfold, enough to make nine nuclear bombs.) Second, this will be a test of Pyongyang's strategic outlook. If North Korea refuses to freeze, it will help the U.S. persuade China to exert more robust pressure on Pyongyang.

A freeze is a bitter but strategically necessary pill for the Bush administration to swallow. This decision will be similar to the Clinton administration's when it negotiated the Agreed Framework with Pyongyang. The common sense prevailed in 1994 that freezing the growth of North Korea's atomic arsenal was preferable to allowing the regime to become a full-blown nuclear power.

The same common sense must prevail today especially since Bush's options are more constricted than Clinton's. For instance, during the 1993-1994 nuclear crisis, Clinton administration officials developed contingency plans for surgical strikes on the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which, if carried out, could have effected a major regional conflagration with Pyongyang. Overextended in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. simply does not have this option.

This month the six parties must focus on disarmament and move toward negotiating a freeze of Pyongyang's ever-growing plutonium-based nuclear arsenal. This will lay a foundation for the next round of talks where issues like North Korea's uranium-enrichment program, LWRs, permanent dismantlement and verification issues can be addressed.

Eugene B. Kogan is a senior political analyst at Americans for Informed Democracy.

The Japan Times: Sept. 11, 2005