|
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.
---
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
---
Hot Spots will return Feb. 15.
Brian Trumbore
|
