Author

Sung-han Kim , Professor
Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS)
Seoul, ROK

I. U.S. Approach to Non-Proliferation and North Korean Nukes

Preventing WMD Terrorism
The Bush administration’s nonproliferation objectives were spelled out in the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction issued in December 2002. Specifically, that strategy has three main pillars:

• Counterproliferation to combat WMD use including active measures: (1) to prevent the threat from occurring via effective interdiction of WMD systems, materials, technology, and expertise being transferred to hostile states and terrorist organizations, (2) to seek to deter the threat if materializes, and (3) to defend against the threat if it is employed against the U.S., its allies, and friends.

• Strengthened nonproliferation efforts involving active diplomacy, multilateral and bilateral regimes, nonproliferation and threat reduction cooperation, controls on nuclear materials, export controls, and nonproliferation sanctions.

• Consequence management to respond to WMD use.

President Bush has stressed repeatedly that the greatest threat before human dignity is the possibility of secret and sudden attack with chemical or biological or nuclear weapons. The Bush administration is thus poised to channel all its energies into removing even the remotest possibility of “WMD terrorism.” The Bush administration considers the three gravest threats of nuclear terrorism to be 1) lax control over and the consequent leakage of nuclear materials from the former Soviet republics, where 90 percent of the world’s total nuclear elements are stored; 2) the possible sale of nuclear-related materials by rogue states such as North Korea and Iran; and 3) terrorist organizations’ persistent attempts to procure nuclear materials.1 In this light, the U.S. policy toward the North Korean nuclear problem is aimed at neutralizing North Korea’s attempts to become a nuclear state while preventing North Korea from transferring nuclear weapons or materials, if any, to other states or terrorists.

Hawk Engagement

The Bush administration hopes that North Korea’s Kim Jong-il regime will “voluntarily” make a strategic decision to dismantle its nuclear development programs as Libya’s Qadhafi regime did. Washington’s preference for resolving the North Korean nuclear issue in the Libyan way was expressed positively by Rice during her visit to South Korea in July 2004. Rice, then national security advisor, stated, “The time has come for North Korea to make a strategic choice at the six-party talks in the direction of nuclear disarmament... I wish [National Defense Commission Chairman] Kim Jong Il would talk to [Libyan leader] Qadhafi, and he will know what I mean.” Confronted with a rocky post-war reconstruction process in Iraq, however, the United States is of the mind that it can “manage” the North Korean nuclear issue limitedly as long as North Korea does not cross the “redline,” or Washington’s ultimate patience, by conducting nuclear tests or transferring nuclear materials outside the country.

U.S. approach to the North Korean nuclear problem is based upon the idea of “hawk engagement.” Victor Cha, currently director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council (NSC), claimed that the crux of the “hawk engagement” policy was “based on the idea that engagement lays the groundwork for punitive action [in case the other party rejects or abuses engagement afterwards].” Only when countries concerned, excepting North Korea, reach the consensus that “the failure of enhanced diplomacy should be demonstrably attributable to Pyongyang”—as the “Armitage Report” contends—will it be possible to form a coalition to execute a pressure policy on North Korea.

“Hawk engagement” failed to play a proper role during Bush’s first four years in office for two reasons. First, the Bush administration proclaimed the preemptive attack doctrine at home and abroad in the National Security Strategy of the United States of America (NSS) and the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) following the September 11 attacks, thereby giving the impression that it was a new doctrine Bush formulated for the first time and that his administration was seriously considering a preemptive attack to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue. Consequently, Pyongyang seized on Washington’s renewed preemptive attack pronouncements as a golden opportunity to launch a “propaganda campaign” peddling that hostile U.S. policies compelled it to develop nuclear weapons.

North Korea’s obstinate strategy of “muddling through” that resists showing a real progress in the nuclear six-party talks will slowly exhaust the “patience” of the other five countries concerned, which in turn will provide the grounds for the United States to gradually tighten the screws on North Korea. One cannot rule out the possibility, then, of North Korea’s provocative actions in response. It had been reported at the very end of 2002 that the Bush administration would prepare a “tailored containment” policy to put maximum economic and political pressure on North Korea so that it would abandon its efforts to make nuclear weapons. If North Korea refuses to forgo its nukes, the United States would impose economic sanctions through the UNSC, and the U.S. military might intercept missile shipments to prevent North Korea from proliferating the transportation vehicle of WMDs to other regions. The plan also calls for the United States to encourage North Korea’s neighbors, i.e., China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea to limit or even sever economic ties with North Korea.

Tailored containment is different from simple containment in that the former is more systematic and proactive than the latter that means the waiting for the enemy’s collapse. George Kennan’s containment policy of half a century ago called for the political isolation of the Communist countries by means of a slow strangulation through the development of political and military alliances. The Bush administration appears to be considering a more sophisticated policy by which the United States would withdraw or reduce “goodies” on which North Korea is dependent, i.e., food and energy. The United States would “tailor” its containment policy to maximize North Korea’s political and economic vulnerabilities to the surrounding countries. For this policy to be successful, however, it is necessary to form a regional consensus that efforts to resolve the nuclear problem in a peaceful manner have been exhausted. Without this consensus, the containment of North Korea’s Kim Jong-il regime is unworkable.

Against this backdrop, it is less likely that the United States will replace the current Six Party Talks with the bilateral talks with North Korea. The United States will just allow the bilateral talks within the context of the Six Party Talks. Should the United States enter into bilateral talks while the North claims the Six Party Talks useless, North Korea might then drag on the talks for a matter of months, thus potentially riding out what could be the worst period of international reaction to its nuclear declarations and ambitions. By the time such bilateral talks end or collapse, the focus would likely be upon the mutual recriminations as to who was responsible for the breakdown of the talks, rather than the acceptability of North Korea’s withdrawal from NPT and its declaration of its nuclear status...(Continued)