New policy for nuke-armed N. Korea
The North Korean nuclear threat has been the most serious challenge to the South Korea-U.S. alliance for decades. At present, Washington and Seoul are not completely aligned on how best to deal with Pyongyang.
Anxious to break the stalemate since the failed 2019 Hanoi summit, the Moon Jae-in government has expressed frustration at Washington’s emphasis on sanctions and the reluctance to approve inter-Korean economic initiatives and humanitarian assistance for North Korea.
On the other hand, the Joe Biden administration places democratic values at the center of its approach to foreign policy. Secretary of State Blinken criticized the Kim Jongun regime for its repressive nature during his trip to Seoul in March, and declared that the U.S.’ North Korea policy would emphasize not just security issues but also human rights.
However, the Moon administration did not criticize the human rights violations, based on the assumption that not offending the Kim regime is the best way to speed up the peace process, and ultimately bring about positive change in North Korea.
In accordance, Seoul recently decided not to co-sponsor a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution condemning North Korea’s human rights abuses for the third consecutive year.
As the Biden administration rallies its allies and partners to counter the destabilizing behavior of China and Russia, South Korea has refrained from criticizing either country, viewing them as potential partners for advancing its peace process on the Korean Peninsula.
A few days after Blinken and Austin’s visit to Seoul, the Moon administration hosted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for a bilateral meeting. The Global Times, the Chinese state-run newspaper, characterized the visit as a “countermove” to the U.S. diplomatic offensive against China and Russia.
The meeting between the South Korean and Chinese foreign ministers on April 3, the same day as the national security advisers of the U.S., South Korea, and Japan met in the U.S., was also perceived as a similar move.
Decades of sanctions have failed to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear ambitions. However, if Washington had acknowledged that it was unable to negotiate away North Korea’s nuclear program, it would have been seen as accepting North Korea as a nuclear power or as presenting military conflict as the only recourse.
Both options were politically unacceptable and risky, particularly when North Korea’s nuclear progress remained limited and hopes for denuclearization diplomacy continued.
However, with North Korea’s nuclear program now “complete” and its delivery system more sophisticated, some argue that it’s time to accept a new strategy based on realistic assumptions. The Biden administration’s North Korea strategy should be designed to deal with a nuclear-armed North Korea and an uncooperative China.
Although the Moon administration believes that North Korea will give up its nuclear program once an acceptable guarantee for regime security is provided, the opinion gaining voice in Washington, however, is that North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons, because they consider them to be the guarantee for regime security.
The dilemma of a new strategy based on acknowledging North Korea as a nuclear weapons state, even temporarily, will be the surrender of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization (CVID), which has been the U.S. policy objective all along, and can be seen as a serious concession.
However, it’s also true that various attempts to bring about CVID have not worked and have only resulted in North Korea becoming a nuclear armed state that continues to develop its nuclear capability, eventually threatening the U.S. mainland.
Those who argue for CVID say that sanctions are working and if strengthened, they will bring the North Koreans to the negotiating table again. However, necessary Chinese cooperation seems unlikely under current U.S.-China relations.
Regardless, a U.S. approach to engage North Korea would surely be welcomed by President Moon. The U.S. might be able to accept humanitarian assistance related to COVID-19, which does not conflict with the terms of the U.N. sanctions, as a concession for a small deal, as well as the humanitarian assistance suggested by President Moon.
Unfortunately, the reckless concessions made during Trump’s presidency have raised the expectations of Kim Jong-un to make outrageous demands, such as the U.S.-North Korea summit, relief of essential U.N. sanctions, and the termination of U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises.
A pragmatic North Korea strategy is unlikely to be as politically attractive, amidst continued hopes of immediate denuclearization. To prevent any domestic and international fallout, these adjustments to strategic assumptions should be made without abandoning either coordination with China or the principle of not accepting North Korea as a nuclear power.
On April 16, at a joint news conference after the summit at the White House, President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga reiterated that the goal was still the denuclearization of North Korea.
Nevertheless, restraining North Korea to prevent nuclear tests, ballistic missile tests or military aggression would still be worth taking the risk to achieve.
An essential condition for making such small deals, without the complete denuclearization of North Korea, would be the allies — South Korea and Japan — being assured that measures to deter possible nuclear missile attacks are in place. Military readiness should also be at its maximum level, while the long-term goal of the denuclearization of North Korea should be reaffirmed.
The upcoming summit between Presidents Biden and Moon at the end of May in Washington will be a good opportunity to discuss all of these possibilities, and will hopefully result in a fully coordinated North Korea policy by the allies that will bring real progress.