North Korea demands? Let’s start with survival

It is fair to assume that human civilization generally wishes to avoid obliteration by nuclear war. It should be admitted, however, that we cannot know all that the regime of North Korea wishes for itself. We know too little about how it thinks.

We know what it says in public, but this is often a lie and always an exaggeration. We know as well what it shows the public; this, though, is a nearly-three-quarters-of-a-centurylong piece of performance art.

So despite insider accounts from enterprising tourists with camera phones and the New York Times, which equally never fails to get inside exactly what the regime invites viewers into, we don’t know, for instance, which plotters the regime most fears in Pyongyang, or in which caves it prefers to hide its weapons, or why it dresses its assassins in T-shirts emblazoned with the phrase “LOL.”

We can imagine the intentions behind its threats, of course; experts on North Korea speculate on these.

Perhaps its nuclear program is genuinely meant to push the peninsula toward reunification, say some. Perhaps it’s meant only to push American troops out of South Korea, say others.

But as it’s fair to assume human beings wish to avoid obliteration, it’s also fair to assume this, if only this, of North Korea: The regime wants to survive. Regimes typically do — none more so than the ones that have survived for much longer than they ever ought to have.

This is self-evident. What is less obvious, at least to anyone studiously paying zero attention — an exclusive club led by the president of the United States — is that North Korea equates obliteration with relinquishing nuclear weapons.

The North Korean regime believes it cannot survive without a nuclear program, which is inconvenient as much of humanity believes a nuclear North Korea threatens its own survival. Pyongyang’s weapons may or may not be intended for offensive purposes — we just can’t know — but they certainly protect it from attack.

Donald Trump is correct on one count. As he tweeted this week, nothing has worked. But then, as long as “working” is understood to mean preventing a regime from holding fast to that which it considers key to its survival, nothing will work.

Negotiations can’t force it to give up nuclear weapons. Negotiating requires each side to give up something it wants; we must give up the hope that North Korea will give up its existing nuclear program and replace it with, at best, the hope that it will stop expanding the program or, more realistically, stop launching rockets over its neighbours.

Sanctions can’t force it to give up nuclear weapons, either. It evades those and has even figured out how to occasionally profit from them. North Korea has developed sophisticated smuggling networks and the regime diligently claims its cut.

Not even China can force it to give up nuclear weapons. Beijing helps the regime with food, energy assistance and trade, but it values North Korea as a buffer between itself and the West. North Korea is not powerless in this relationship.

Negotiating, punishing, pressuring its friends have all failed. This, some believe, means war. But war won’t work either, not for potentially millions of victims in South Korea, Japan and perhaps the U.S.. Nor will it work for regional stability, creating refugee floods and a clash between major powers. Nor will it work for the global economy, devastating supply chains and growth.

It won’t even work for Pyongyang. North Korea probably can’t win a fight with the United States. But so what? For this totalitarian regime, any weakness of resolve, any backing down from its exaggerations and lies and performative threats, means certain death.