01/31/2008
A View on North Korea
The other day I noted in my “Week in Review” column how Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had belittled U.S. Ambassador Jay Lefkowitz’s views on the current state of negotiations with North Korea, even though Lefkowitz is the president’s point man on human rights in the North. Specifically, Rice was upset at Lefkowitz’s speech at the American Enterprise Institute on Jan. 17, 2008. Following are some excerpts, which give a good general overview on the recent history of negotiations here.
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About this time last year, the North Korean regime and the other five negotiating parties reached the February 13th agreement, under which North Korea promised the abandonment of one of its known nuclear facilities and the full disclosure of all nuclear activities in return for economic and energy assistance and other inducements, including the normalization of relations.
An initial requirement that North Korea discuss all of its nuclear activities within 60 days of the agreement was not met. And it has since missed a December 31 deadline to disclose fully its activities. And most recently, the regime has said that it will strengthen its war deterrent.
This is rather unfortunate as it signals that North Korea is not serious about disarming in a timely manner. It is regrettable, and it is indeed an unfortunate development for our security, but it is also bad for North Korea. It seems unlikely that the regime will get from the international community a better deal than the current one.
In other recent developments, the Congressional Research Service noted in a study last month that there are reports from reputable sources that North Korea has provided arms and possibly training to Hizbullah in Lebanon and to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka – two of the most active terrorist groups. And this comes on the heels of widespread reports picked up again in the media today that North Korea may have been engaging in nuclear proliferation to Syria, which likely prompted the preemptive air strike by Israel four months ago. Taken together, these developments should remind us that North Korea remains one of the hardest foreign policy problems for the United States to solve. Its conduct does not appear to be that of a government that is willing to come in from the cold. Moreover, it is increasingly clear that North Korea will remain in its present nuclear status when the administration leaves office in one year .
North Korea’s long history of proliferating weapons systems and technology is also a major threat to our interests. This history has become much more troubling since the serial proliferator has become nuclear armed. The regime is not suicidal, but it is erratic and it refuses to be bound by the norms of the international community. For this reason, simple deterrence may not be sufficient. There is no guarantee that our own military and nuclear strength alone can prevent the regime from proliferating nuclear weapons or technology to Islamic terrorists or their backers.
We also have other deep concerns about the conduct of North Korea’s regime. Among these are its counterfeiting of U.S. currency and pharmaceuticals, its drug trafficking and money laundering, and of course, its human rights abuses which are infamous and notorious.
The way the North Korean government treats its own people is inhumane, and therefore, deeply offensive to us. It should also offend all free people around the world. Clearly, we want to see an improvement in this, just as we want to see an abatement of the threats to our security that are created by the regime.
But are the two unrelated? Certainly, many view the issues as separate. The six-party talks have not involved human rights. However, there is a valid question of whether this continues to make sense. After all, we know from history that improving human rights is not only a worthy end in itself, but it can also be a means to other ends, such as peace and security. Democratic societies, for example, simply do not attack each other.
But with a government such as North Korea’s, an inherently fragile regime, desperately clinging to power, the same forces that drive it to mistreat its own neighbors, often explains its threatening conduct towards its neighbors. Often we find that repressive regimes create enemies abroad to justify their authoritarian rule at home. Certainly, North Korea does this.
If you will look at the Korean Central News Agency, the state- run propaganda organ, seldom does a week go by in which it does not allege plotting by forces in the United States, Japan, or South Korea to invade the country and place it under imperial rule. Citizens are warned that they should be ever watchful. Under such conditions which the regime’s leaders know to be a fiction, extreme security measures are apparently justified at home. And so, the state is justified in redoubling its defenses against foreign enemies or at least it declares as much.
The North Korean regime’s paranoia prevents it from allowing liberalization of its state economy, because it fears any liberalization that would make people less dependent on the government would contribute to its demise.
Left destitute by this choice, North Korea must rely on foreign aid to survive and feed its people, but its paranoia about empowering its people at all prohibits it from accepting any of the monitoring and reform requirements that occasionally come with foreign aid. So instead the regime extorts the aid granted by others.
This is a major reason why it has pursued a nuclear program, why it stations thousands of artillery systems in reach of Seoul, and why it occasionally acts out well-planned and public diplomatic and military tantrums. These are often intended to frighten the international community into giving patronage .
China probably would prefer that North Korea not have nuclear weapons, but not at the expense of its other national interests. It has not seriously pushed North Korea to abandon its weapons program. And its assistance programs and trade with North Korea have persisted with only brief interruptions. The reasons are that Beijing believes that North Korea is unlikely to use nuclear weapons against China, that North Korea’s proliferation does not affect China directly and, most importantly, that Beijing does not want a precipitous collapse of the North Korean government which could cause a refugee influx and instability in its border region.
We may not like those views but they are understandable. Therefore, China has not played the role we had hoped in denuclearizing North Korea even though it clearly relished its hosting the six-party talks .
Because the Chinese and the South Korean governments have been unwilling to apply significant pressure on Pyongyang, recent talks have, in actuality, become more of a bilateral negotiation between the United States and North Korea. What we had hoped would be a process in which Beijing and Seoul would simultaneously withhold carrots and use their considerable influence over Pyongyang to end its nuclear activities, has evolved into a process that provides new carrots without a corresponding cost to Pyongyang.
So this brings us to the next steps and perhaps to some revised policy options. In my view, a realigned approach should take into account three factors. Number one, we should now shift our focus from a short to a longer time frame. It is increasingly likely that North Korea will have the same nuclear status one year from now that it has today. Number two, policy should rest on assumptions that correlate with recent events and facts, and it is evident that South Korea and China will not exert significant pressure on North Korea if they think it might lead to its collapse. And three, all negotiations with North Korea should firmly link human rights, economic support, and security issues.
In other words, we should consider a new approach to North Korea – one of constructive engagement intended to open up the regime .
Our engagement should include subsidiary dialogues and exchanges. When U.S.-Soviet relations evolved after the death of Stalin, we signed the cultural agreement that eventually enabled tens of thousands of Americans and Soviets to visit each other’s nations. By doing so, it exposed millions more to cultural exhibitions hosted by each country. It was a way of reaching behind the Iron Curtain to the Soviet people, and the same could be done with North Korea .
We now know what levers work on the North Korean government, and we should use them. The best solution may be an evolved dialogue, one that takes a holistic view of the challenges presented by North Korea. This, combined with a strong deterring capability, missile defense and effective counter- proliferation tools, could form an adjusted and whole policy, reflective of recent developments.
Source: aei.org
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Hot Spots will return Feb. 15.
Brian Trumbore
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