By Michael Breen
America's new foreign policy team, headed by Hillary Clinton, has started reviewing North Korea policy. Specifically, it wants to mull what else to do about the country's nuclear weapons.
As it does so, it may be useful to warn against the delusion that the country will be significantly changed by a shift in America's ― or any other country's ― policies.
This conclusion is simply stated, but hard to grasp, for it is natural in a democracy to think that your opponents, be they conservatives or liberals, are at the extreme of political stupidity, and that turning around their policies will change everything.
It is even more difficult when viewed from the United States, where the country's dominance of world affairs is easily exaggerated. Most of what happens in the world is not a result of U.S. policy.
This ``Unwashingtonian" thought leads to the next one which is that, as disappointing as it is, there is no ``big idea" that will transform North Korea from without. This shockingly unpleasant country is too noisy to be ignored and too large to squeeze into obedience. The only course is for foreign powers to manage it, preferably in tune with one another, until its leadership changes and it transforms itself.
This is a distressing fact when you consider the suffering of its citizens, but until the United Nations comes up with some way to fire failed leaders of member states, we are helpless.
Another point that the new team should appreciate is that, despite its weird actions and statements, North Korea is not so mysterious. We may not know much about its day-to-day affairs, but we have cracked the code in its DNA, which lies behind its weirdness. That is that it is run by a frightened minority. Its grip on the levers of repression is locked tight by the knowledge that any softening will lead to bloody revolt.
The leaders' fear for personal survival is backed by a moral imperative. If they go, they think that the state will collapse. That fear is not unreasonable because the state was founded to rival South Korean claims over the peninsula ― and has lost.
The leadership in North Korea acts the ways it does in order to remain in power, not in opposition to anything that we in the outside world might say or do. Nuclear weapons are a central strategy and will not be negotiated away for anything.
Now, let us consider the views of Jimmy Carter: The former American president on Monday said North Korea would be willing to give up its nuclear weapons for U.S. diplomatic recognition, a Korean War peace treaty, new atomic reactors and free fuel oil. ``It could be worked out, in my opinion, in half a day," Carter told the AP.
Carter's confidence comes from his experience in 1994 when he met the founding dictator, Kim Il-sung, and defused nuclear tensions. Some think that the North Koreans reneged on their part of the deal to mothball their plutonium program because the Clinton government reneged on its part to open relations. Those with shorter memories believe the North has been intransigent for the good reason that George Bush called it evil and its leader a ``pygmy" and exposed a secret uranium program.
But they're wrong. North Korea has to flip-flop. Period. Just as a bipolar person has to go up and down, so Pyongyang must blow hot and cold.
If you don't believe me, check out the evidence in what Pyongyang's foreign ministry announced, also on Monday. It said it would give up the weapons for diplomatic relations and if America ceased to pose a nuclear threat.
See that second part about nukes? How, pray, does America cease to pose a nuclear threat? Oh, I get it. North Korea will abandon its nukes if America does too.
And when America has melted all its weapons away, the North will have its next demand ready.
Michael Breen is chairman of Insight Communications Consultants Exclusive Partner of FD International. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com