The only way forward on North Korea

So far, the US approach to North Korea has been to tighten sanctions and outsource the problem to China. But clearly a broader diplomatic approach is needed.

COULD the world soon witness another devastating war on the Korean Peninsula? That question looms large in many conversations these days. Of course, concerns about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program are nothing new. America first tried to resolve the issue in 1994 with the US-North Korean Agreed Framework, but that effort gradually collapsed due to actions taken — and not taken — on both sides.

Then in 2006, North Korea detonated its first nuclear device and put the issue squarely back on the UN Security Council’s agenda. In the ensuing decade, North Korea has conducted five more nuclear tests — most recently in September — and demonstrated the technological mastery needed to develop advanced thermonuclear weapons.

And under Kim Jong-un’s leadership, the situation escalated further when the regime began making significant progress toward developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the US mainland. This development coincided with the arrival of US President Donald Trump, who has promised a new approach to global affairs.

North Korea has made clear its commitment to developing a long-range nuclearstrike capacity. In its view, nuclear weapons are its only insurance against attack. Without them, Kim believes, he would share the fate of others who abandoned their pursuit of nuclear arms, such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Qaddafi in Libya.

In this context, the US objective of a denuclearized North Korea disarmed of ICBMs is unachievable by diplomatic means. At any rate, Trump has declared diplomacy a “waste of time,” and ominously warned that “only one thing will work,” though he has not explained what that means.

Given that neither the US nor North Korea has shown any enthusiasm for talks, one could conclude that war is inevitable. Yet for all its bellicosity, North Korea is unlikely to start a full-scale military conflict because that would surely spell its demise.

At the same time, the US has no good first-strike options. Surgical strikes may sound promising, but they are hardly foolproof. As US military commanders well know, strikes that failed to eliminate all of North Korea’s nuclear weapons at once could trigger a regional or even nuclear war costing millions of lives.

In the US, those who argue for military action often claim that deterrence will not work against an “irrational” regime. But there is no reason to assume that Kim is bent on mass suicide. After all, when Mao’s China made a dash for nuclear weapons in the 1960s, its rationale was little different from that of North Korea today, but no one doubted that deterrence would work.

Still, even assuming that deterrence — embodied in Trump’s threat to “totally destroy” North Korea — does work, it will not prevent a nuclear- and ICBM-armed North Korea from fundamentally altering the strategic calculus in northeast Asia.

The US nuclear deterrent protects America first and foremost. It remains to be seen if its “extended deterrence” will continue to protect US allies such as South Korea and Japan. If the US mainland becomes a potential target for a North Korean nuclear strike, the credibility of deterrence could depend on whether America is willing to sacrifice San Francisco to save Seoul or Tokyo.

Doubt about the US nuclear umbrella in the region could lead South Korea and Japan to decide to develop their own nuclear options. In fact, South Korea had a nuclear weapons program long before North Korea.

That program was abandoned when the South signed on to the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty in 1975, but restarting it has become a subject of debate in Seoul. Needless to say, further nuclear escalation on the Korean Peninsula would be very dangerous, not least because the Kim regime would feel even more threatened than it already does.

So far, the US approach to North Korea has been to tighten sanctions and outsource the problem to China. But while China has strong economic ties to North Korea, it is unclear whether Beijing has the clout to change the Kim regime’s behavior, even if it wanted to. Success would probably require something close to regime change.

It is thus unwise to rely wholly on China. Clearly a broader diplomatic approach is needed, and it should start by addressing a fundamental issue at the heart of the problem: No peace treaty has ever been signed to end the 1950-1953 Korean War.

Dialogue to replace the 64-year-old armistice with a formal peace agreement could pave the way for broader discussions about nuclear escalation and other threats to regional stability. And at a minimum, it could break today’s diplomatic stalemate and give the parties involved more reason to refrain from further provocations.

More broadly, a new round of diplomacy would have to address North Korea’s security concerns, and provide space for it to evolve politically and economically, as China has done over the past few decades. This may seem like a distant prospect, but if the security situation on the peninsula is resolved, it would not be out of the question.

The alternative is to continue on the current path and risk a military conflict or full-scale war. Even if those worstcase scenarios were averted, the region would have nothing to look forward to but instability for years to come.

Carl Bildt was Sweden’s foreign minister from 2006 to October 2014, and prime minister from 1991 to 1994, when he negotiated Sweden’s EU accession. ©Project Syndicate

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