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Last month representatives of North and South Korea met in Beijing to discuss the resumption of nuclear talks.
Currently, it is not clear what the immediate impact of this meeting will have, but few people in the know would doubt that the resumption of nuclear talks is in the offing.
But what are these talks about? For the roughly two decades (and these talks in one form or another have dragged on for nearly two decades by now) that talks were conducted, deals made and money paid, ostensibly, to achieve a goal which was described as ``complete, verifiable and irreversible” denuclearization of North Korea.
This is a worthy aim, to be sure, but there is one small problem with it: It is unachievable. Under no circumstances will the North Korean government surrender its nuclear program. Actually this has been the case from the beginning, but only now, after decades of efforts, expectations and failures has this simple truth finally been realised by the majority of decision makers in Washington and Seoul.
The North Korean nuclear program fulfils three major aims. First, it provides the regime with a powerful deterrent. Second, nuclear weapons play a major role in North Korean diplomacy. Third, nukes are used for propaganda purposes as well, since the existence of nuclear weapons boosts nationalist feelings and is good for the domestic prestige of the regime.
As time has passed, the relative importance of these three aims has changed, but all of them have been present from the outset.
First of all, the North Korean government believes that nuclear weapons constitute the ultimate deterrent, making a foreign invasion very unlikely.
North Korean diplomats used to say that Saddam Hussein would probably still be living in his palace had he had nuclear weapons. Of late, the approach has been further vindicated ― at least in the eyes of the leadership in the North ― by events in Libya. In 2003, Colonel Gadhafi did what the North has been asked to do for years ― he surrendered his nukes in exchange for better relations with the West.
However he did not get much from the surrender. On the contrary, Western countries intervened in the Libyan Civil War and helped to overthrow the credulous dictator. One cannot imagine a starker confirmation of North Korean leaders’ ingrained fears. They believe ― probably correctly ― that countries of the West would never have meddled in the affairs of a nuclear Libya, so the anti-Gadhafi rebels would have been slaughtered in no time. Neither Kim Jong-il nor his people will repeat Gadhafi’s grave mistake.
Second, a nuclear program is a major factor which allows the North to punch well above its weight in the international community. Objectively, North Korea is a fourth-rate dictatorship whose economy is roughly the size of Ghana’s and whose social system is a joke. It can squeeze unconditional and relatively generous aid from foreign powers only because it knows how to appear dangerous. This diplomacy ― as a matter of fact, successful ― is made possible by the existence of the nuclear program.
It is often argued that North Korea would be rewarded for its denuclearization by a generous aid package, so it would therefore make economic sense to ``sell the nukes.” The leadership in Pyongyang is sceptical of such promises. They know that without nukes they would immediately lose control over the conditions under which aid is provided, and they need aid to be provided strictly according to their conditions.
Among other things, these conditions include lax control over distribution, which allows aid to be first delivered to groups whose support is vital for regime stability (like the police and the military). Huge foreign investment is not attractive to Pyongyang, either. North Korea does not need foreign money that it cannot completely control; rather it needs aid and donation.
That being the case, what can be realized by the resumption of negotiations? The ROK-U.S. side obviously believes that negotiations will drive tensions down. This seems to be a correct assumption, but with an important proviso; the North is not going to talk merely for the sake of it. They see negotiations as a means to get a large scale resumption of aid from the United States and South Korea. If they do not get aid and concessions fast enough, they are likely to resume their favoured tactics ― building up tensions through a chain of provocations.
Apart from aid, the North Korean side would like to discuss arms control ― that is, a deal under which Pyongyang would stop further production of nuclear devices but will keep what it has got. But this option is unlikely to be considered by Washington and Seoul any time soon.
So it is good news that talks might start soon. However, neither side is willing to make sufficient concessions, so one should not expect too much from this coming diplomatic offensive.
Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. He can be reached at anlankov@yahoo.com.
