Surprise talks between U.S., North Korea sound too good to be true
Kim Jong Un unlikely to give up nuclear weapons
North Korea’s peace overtures to the U.S. are welcome news. The prospect of talks is almost always better than the prospect of war.
But the proposed negotiations, however useful, are unlikely to result in North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un giving up his nuclear weapons.
Kim’s offer this week to engage in talks aimed at the “denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula” is his latest surprise. Pyongyang “would have no reason to keep nuclear weapons if the military threat to the North were eliminated and its security guaranteed,” the South Korean delegation reported him as saying.
Even the Americans were guardedly optimistic. President Donald Trump indicated that the U.S. is open to the idea of talks. His secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, called Kim’s offer “potentially positive.” But the Americans also know from past experience that North Korea’s language is very specific.
When the North talks of eliminating the military threat to its regime, it means upending the alliance between the U.S., South Korea and Japan. At the very least, the North would demand the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea. But it could also logically argue that U.S. military bases in Japan and Guam pose a threat to Pyongyang. As for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the North has said before that this would require more than Pyongyang giving up its atomic weapons. It would also require the U.S. to withdraw its nuclear protection from South Korea and Japan.
In short, Kim’s offer is hardly groundbreaking. Politically, it would be almost impossible for the U.S. to meet his conditions for unilateral nuclear disarmament. Essentially, the Americans would have to withdraw militarily from the Asia-Pacific region. Even Trump, who briefly flirted with the idea of leaving Japan and South Korea to their own devices, is unlikely to do that.
As well, Kim is unlikely to easily give up the nuclear weapons he spent so much time and effort acquiring. To do so would make him look weak, a luxury that leaders of despotic regimes can rarely afford.
What then is Kim up to? At one level, his aim is to make mischief. His new reasonableness contrasts starkly with Trump’s habitual bluster. It also draws attention to the rift between the U.S. and South Korea over the usefulness of talks. Moon was elected president on a promise to improve relations with the North. Now Kim has given him a chance to fulfil that pledge. He has also alarmed those in Japan who were already worried about the U.S. commitment to that country’s security. At another level, he is trying to chip away at the economic sanctions aimed at the North. Moon insists that South Korea will not
The optics, practicality of the three countries talking is good, but it’s hard to see anyone giving up security around a denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
ease sanctions. But he is under pressure to do just that.
In particular, he is under pressure to keep a campaign promise to reopen the Kaesong industrial zone — an area in the North where Northerners worked in factories owned by South Korean businesses.
Still, there are benefits to South Korea and the world from Kim’s self-serving peace gambit. The benefit to the South is that talks offer the only chance to repair relations between two countries that were arbitrarily separated at the end of the Second World War by Cold War politics.
The benefit to the rest of us is that as long as talks are possible, the U.S. is unlikely to risk a war with nuclear-armed North Korea.