How nuclear bottom lines collide

The June 7, 2008, demolition of a 60-foot-tall cooling tower at the main nuclear reactor complex in Yongbyon, North Korea was thought to signify the end of the North's nuclear program. But the North brought back its program and now is near making a hydrogen bomb with its delivery system having the United States in its range.

By Oh Young-jin

Often, expectations are set higher than what is realistically possible.

In the ongoing whirlwind of movement toward a potential resolution of North Korea's nuclear threat, the players demand what the other side finds impossible to accept.

If they insist on their overblown demands, the April 27 inter-Korean summit and the one in May between the North and the United States will not produce any meaningful breakthrough. Rather, it will only aggravate the situation and lead to a tragic denouement.

But it is worth calling their bluff to see what their bottom lines could be.

After all, it can be assumed with a degree of certain that the players want a negotiated end rather than a nuclear apocalypse.

The cast in the nuclear brinkmanship game includes the North, the U.S., South Korea, China and Japan.

Ahead of his summit with the North's Kim Jong-un, U.S. President Donald Trump has stacked his team with hardliners.

John Bolton, a member of the neocon faction that during the George W. Bush presidency who wanted to reshape the rest of the world like the U.S., is now White House national security adviser.

CIA director Mike Pompeo is designated as secretary of state.

Although he relented a bit after getting the job, Bolton previously made clear the North should follow the Libya-style nuclear dismantlement, giving up all its weapons of mass destruction first and putting its fate at the mercy of the international community.

Its leader Gaddafi took the deal and unilaterally disarmed himself, but he was overthrown and was killed by his opponents.

Pompeo is a Trumpian warrior who does not mind mounting a "bloody nose" ― a limited strike ― to derail the North's nuclear and missile programs.

First, Trump's embracing of these two hawks on top of his strong anti-North Korean rhetoric could mean during his summit with the North's Kim that he will not accept anything less than a complete and immediate dismantling of the North's threat at whatever cost.

Second, the U.S. leader could be willing to settle for the North reverting to the status that prevailed before Pyongyang continued to test missiles and nuclear devices in order to make a nuclear-armed intercontinental missile that can strike the U.S.

If Trump's bottom line falls somewhere between the two, both the U.S. and the North could go home, claiming victory. The region would be peaceful for a while until the next North Korean crisis comes along or the communist country collapses.

For the North, the top priority is to stay alive.

By all indications, it has sought to have talks with the South it has despised for being a U.S. puppet and with the U.S., a foe that it has threatened to burn into a bowl of fire through its intercontinental missiles.

The change was caused by the international sanctions that are biting into the North's fragile economy. If the sanctions continue, Pyongyang fears that its collapse could be a matter of time.

But the North knows it would be like signing its own death warrant if it gives up its nuclear weapons. Deprived of the nukes, it would be reduced to a defenseless pariah that does not have anything with which to bargain with the international community.

That makes one suspect whether the North's recent steps are just a gimmick to buy time. After all, the North has done it before ― after the 1994 Agreed Framework that defused the first North Korean nuclear crisis.

The North has pushed ahead its nuclear development in secret when it was possible and defiantly when it was caught. Through this deceptive policy, the North declared last November that it was a nuclear weapon state with a credible record of tests.

So what would be the North's bottom line?

Easing the sanctions would be its immediate priority. But it certainly wants its nuclear program to remain viable even if on limited status for now.

Waiting for the U.S. to be distracted by its domestic or other international affairs, the North would put its related development programs in mothballs to try to allay U.S. fears that it can be hit by the North's long-range missiles.

President Moon Jae-in says the South's priority is no war on the Korean Peninsula. Moon is believed to have concluded that if left to its own devices, the North will not last long, so he has opted to keep it afloat for now and guide it to its "natural death" with as few side effects as possible.

This has forced Moon to play honest broker between its key ally, the U.S., and its estranged brother, the North. He has done his bit well.

That explains the flexibility of the South's bottom line ― as long as there is no war, it can go back to the days when the North's threat was limited to the South, not to the U.S.

China wants the North to remain as it has been with reduced capability to create big trouble in the region. After all, the North is a buffer separating China from the direct U.S. influence in the South.

The North could be used as a valuable pressure point in what is emerging as a hegemonic war with the U.S. So the Chinese bottom line is that the North should be disciplined by the U.S., but not so much as to make its system unstable.

Japan has been isolated in the latest flurry of activities over the Korean Peninsula, but it would exert its influence when the China-U.S. standoff gets more serious. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has a murky bottom line.

The players will jockey for their own best interests, which means a period of confusion. But the outcome will likely be settled because these bottom lines clash and coordinate with each other.

Oh Young-jin (foolsdie5@ktimes.com, foolsdie@gmail.com) is the digital managing editor of The Korea Times.

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