Solution to Nuclear Brinkmanship
By Anthony DiFilippo
During almost all of the time that the Obama administration has been in office it has had to deal with what it and U.S. allies have called provocative acts from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
The fact that the leadership in Pyongyang expected too much too soon from the new Obama administration is something that has exacerbated current problems.
Rather than wait until conditions were better, the DPRK launched what it called a communications satellite, the Kwangmyongsong-2, in early April, an act that essentially got it a slap on the hand from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), despite Washington and Tokyo's efforts for a considerably tougher punishment.
Outraged, Pyongyang declared that it would no longer participate in the six-party talks, the multilateral discussions designed to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue between the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia, and stated that it would begin to bolster its nuclear weapons capability in every way possible.
Trying hard to grab the attention of the Obama administration, the DPRK (North Korea) decided to conduct its second underground nuclear test on a U.S. holiday ― Memorial Day ― followed by a few missile launches.
Although restrained somewhat by Beijing and Moscow, this time the UNSC imposed additional sanctions on the DPRK, though less punitive than those sought by Washington, Tokyo and Seoul.
Still, Washington wasted little time flexing its muscle by sending a U.S. warship to monitor and possibly interdict a North Korean vessel and by deploying anti-ballistic missile equipment in the vicinity of Hawaii to perhaps intercept a DPRK missile launch.
Contrary to the North's expectations, which in January envisioned a new Democratic administration willing to engage in direct dialogue with the DPRK and disposed to improve the bilateral relationship enough to establish normal diplomatic ties and a permanent peace treaty, Pyongyang believes that it has been blindsided by Washington.
In his inaugural address Obama talked about extending the hand to nations that unclenched their fists. But the Obama administration did not do this with North Korea.
Instead of assuming a global leadership role and insisting on bilateral talks with Pyongyang where the hand of friendship could have been appropriately extended, the Obama administration, stressed multilateral dialogue via the six-party talks.
This is exactly what Tokyo urged the Obama administration to do. Given the current dire condition of Japan-DPRK relations, the six-party talks are the only venue where Tokyo can hope to press Pyongyang to resolve the nationalist-inspired and perpetuated abduction issue ― the kidnapping of 17 Japanese nationals by DPRK agents during the 1970s and `80s.
Having pushed the unification issue to the back burner, the conservative South Korean government of Lee Myung-bak has also accepted the six-party talks as the best way to deal with the North.
With its expectations frustrated, Pyongyang quickly concluded that the Obama White House offered more of the same hostility that it says it experienced throughout most of the Bush years.
None of this is meant to justify Pyongyang's impatience and haste in displaying its commitment to its military-first policy. Indeed, the possession of nuclear weapons by any nation and any kind of nuclear testing, including sub-critical nuclear testing performed most recently by the United States in 2006, is fundamentally contrary to human existence.
What is clear from all of this is that the Obama administration's North Korea policy is a hodgepodge of disparate interests belonging to Washington, Tokyo and Seoul, all of which are touting the rhetoric that they ``will never accept'' a North Korea with nuclear weapons.
But they need to look again: the DPRK already has nuclear weapons. The issue now is not the public consumption rhetoric coming from Washington, Tokyo and Seoul that relies on the inanity of refusing to accept something that now exists.
Rather, the issue at hand is how to get the DPRK to get rid of its nuclear weapons and the program to manufacture them.
The current strategy of demanding that the North unilaterally get rid of its nuclear weapons, a position zealously articulated most especially by the United States, but by others as well, simply will not work.
The DPRK views its possession of nuclear weapons and the testing of them as imperative for self-defense. This is what the DPRK ``juche"-based military-first policy dictates.
Demands, threats, sanctions and interdiction activities will only lead to more missile and nuclear tests and perhaps war, or, in the worse case, nuclear conflagration.
What's most important to Pyongyang is not its small cache of nuclear weapons, but the maintenance of DPRK sovereignty. Right now, Pyongyang is convinced that it must protect DPRK sovereignty with nuclear weapons.
In Pyongyang this past January, I was told unequivocally ― and on more than one occasion ― that the DPRK would not have any use for nuclear weapons if it was confident that the United States had no hostile intent.
Presently, Pyongyang is certain that the United States, supported by Japan and South Korea, presents a serious threat to the DPRK. Making this matter worse is President Obama's April speech in Prague, where he talked about the U.S. objective of eliminating all nuclear weapons, a goal, he said, that ``will not be reached quickly ― perhaps not in my lifetime."
When spoken, these words produced much skepticism in Pyongyang; however, they instantly became completely useless there when Washington, as it did just recently, formally provided South Korea with ``the continuing commitment of extended deterrence, including the U.S. nuclear umbrella,'' something that it has also given Japan in the past.
Pyongyang believes that the nuclear umbrella officially given to South Korea is part of Washington's plan for a ``preemptive nuclear attack,'' and so in the North's eyes helps justify its possession of a nuclear deterrent.
While the six-party talks have yielded some success, presently, bilateral dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang is necessary.
Indeed, offering a permanent peace treaty, which could easily be drafted to contain a safeguard clause that stipulates the abrogation of the accord if the DPRK re-commences its nuclear weapons activities, is a very small price to pay for denuclearization.
Along with bilateral dialogue, a permanent peace treaty to replace the armistice would immediately eliminate Pyongyang's justification for possessing nuclear weapons and create the requisite conditions for normalized U.S.-DPRK relations.
Anthony DiFilippo is professor of sociology at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, the United States. The author of several books dealing with security issues in Northeast Asia, he is currently completing the book ``Irrepressible Interests: Japan-North Korean Security Concerns and U.S. Objectives." He can be reached at difilippo@lincoln.edu.