The U.S. May Have to Rethink Its Approach to North Korea -- Journal Report
23 January 2019 - 5:59AM
Dow Jones News
By Jonathan Cheng
SEOUL -- A year of intense diplomacy, including the first summit
between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader, has
helped dial back tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
A second summit is now being planned for late February between
President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. But so far
diplomacy has yielded little on one of Mr. Trump's top
foreign-policy priorities: Mr. Kim appears no more willing to give
up his nuclear program than he was before engagement began more
than a year ago.
On Jan. 1, Mr. Kim said in a New Year's address, without
elaborating, that he isn't producing nuclear weapons. But he
offered no suggestion that he was willing to discuss his existing
arsenal, and he repeated demands for sanctions relief from the
U.S.
In December, North Korea said it wouldn't give up its nuclear
arsenal unless the U.S. first removed nuclear threats in any "areas
from where the Korean Peninsula is targeted."
The vast majority of U.S. nuclear warheads are stationed in the
continental U.S. and are capable of targeting North Korea.
A few weeks earlier, meanwhile, North Korea had said it could
resume open development of its nuclear program if U.S. economic
sanctions against the country remained in place.
For an increasing number of policy makers and North Korea
watchers in Washington, this all raises a thorny question: What can
the U.S. do about a North Korean state that may never give up its
nuclear weapons?
The official U.S. diplomatic stance leaves little room for
talking about North Korea as an established
nuclear-weapons-possessing state. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in
recent interviews has reaffirmed the U.S. policy goal as the
"final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea," a variant
on the U.S.'s long-cherished goal of CVID -- the "complete,
verifiable, irreversible dismantlement" (or "denuclearization") of
North Korea.
But while U.S. government officials involved in the diplomatic
efforts haven't yet ruled out Pyongyang's willingness to
denuclearize, some North Korea experts in Washington say it is time
to face an unpleasant reality: that North Korea, having invested
heavily in its nuclear program for decades, isn't going to give up
its arsenal now that it is at the finish line.
These experts recommend de-emphasizing, or even abandoning, the
goal of dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal, and instead trying
to manage a nuclear North Korea in hopes of preventing a
miscalculation that could lead to an unwanted nuclear showdown.
"Nobody is happy about this outcome, but unfortunately it's the
world we live in," says Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the
Federation of American Scientists, and part of a small but growing
circle of mostly younger nuclear- and foreign-policy specialists
calling for what they say is a more pragmatic assessment of
Pyongyang's nuclear capabilities and intentions.
These experts consider the goal of denuclearizing North Korea to
be unrealistic. Setting this goal aside, they argue, would open the
door to long-overdue policy discussions, such as how to ensure that
North Korea manages its nuclear arsenal in a responsible manner and
doesn't sell its components or expertise to other countries or
nonstate actors.
"When a country becomes a nuclear-weapons state, you find a
common ground in managing the relationship and transparency, like
we learned to do with the Soviets and the Chinese," says Mr.
Mount.
"Every week we spend on an unrealistic attempt to disarm North
Korea is one where we're not managing the threat from North Korea,"
he says. "There is a range of practical and pressing threats that
emanate from North Korea that...are being neglected while we chase
this fantasy."
James Clapper, a former U.S. director of national intelligence,
has expressed similar views about how to approach the regime in
Pyongyang. The North Koreans are " not going to give up their
nuclear weapons," he said in a speech at a 2017 forum in Seoul. Mr.
Clapper urged U.S. policy makers to consider opening a de facto
embassy in Pyongyang, perhaps in exchange for a more modest goal,
such as a verifiable halt to nuclear and missile tests.
Other North Korea experts and U.S. policy makers counter that
it's premature and inappropriate to even be talking about North
Korea as a nuclear-weapons state. These experts believe that
securing a freeze on all nuclear and missile development, even if
unlikely, is attainable -- and could pave the way for an eventual
rollback of the North's nuclear capabilities.
Duyeon Kim, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New
American Security, argues it is irresponsible to even publicly
discuss the prospect of accepting North Korea as a
nuclear-weapons-possessing state. It could open the door for U.S.
allies South Korea and Japan to pursue nuclear weapons and spark an
arms race in the region, she says.
"To suggest that we should think about living with a nuclear
North Korea is aiding and abetting North Korea," Ms. Kim says.
"That's exactly what they want to hear."
Mr. Cheng is Seoul bureau chief for the The Wall Street Journal.
Email jonathan.cheng@wsj.com.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 22, 2019 13:44 ET (18:44 GMT)
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