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Why Kim Jong-il must
go
By Paul Nash
In 1994
tensions between the United States and North Korea began
mounting after Pyongyang started construction of
plutonium-producing nuclear reactors and processing
plants, from which it could harvest weapons-grade
plutonium.
At that time I was in China, and one
day found myself traveling by train from Beijing to
Shijiazhuang, the nearby capital of Hebei province,
sharing a berth with two South Korean businessmen from
Seoul. They too were bound for Shijiazhuang. They had
been unable to fly directly from Seoul because North
Korea had restricted its airspace to overflights from
the South. Instead, they flew first from Seoul to
southern China, from there caught a connecting flight
north to Beijing, where they joined me on the five-hour
train ride back southwest to their final destination.
During the long conversation we shared, I
discovered in my Korean acquaintances an astonishing
lack of concern over the DPRK (Democratic People's
Republic of Korea) nuclear issue. They seemed convinced
that calmer heads would ultimately prevail and the US
row with North Korea would, in time, simply blow over.
To them, it was little more than a disruption to their
normal business and travel plans.
For some
reason, this curious sense of complacency recalled to my
mind a similar sense of complacency that I had
encountered in another troubled area not long before -
in Beijing during the 1989 student protest taking place
in Tiananmen Square. Some observers, particularly in
certain foreign quarters of Beijing, believed the
protest would simply play itself out peacefully - but,
of course, it did not.
Nine years later, the
North Korean nuclear issue persists - it has not just
blown over.
In order to understand better the
gravity of this problem, I recently spoke to retired US
Marine Lieutenant-Colonel James G Zumwalt.
Since
1994, Zumwalt has made 10 visits to the DPRK in an
effort to help bridge the differences between the US and
the DPRK. A veteran of the US-Vietnam and Persian Gulf
wars, Zumwalt now acts as a private consultant to
foreign and domestic clients in exploring and accessing
investment opportunities in global markets, especially
those in emerging economies such as Vietnam, Cambodia,
Laos and China, where he has successfully brokered
infrastructure agreements. In 1991, then US president
George H W Bush appointed Zumwalt senior adviser to the
assistant secretary of state on human rights and
humanitarian affairs. In that role, he conducted
investigations into human rights violations in various
countries. He received a Juris Doctorate degree from
Villanova University in 1979 and the honorary degree of
Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa from Mercy College in New
York in 1991.
Paul Nash: Mr Zumwalt, in
1994 you were invited to participate in an international
delegation to visit North Korea on the occasion of Kim
Il-sung's 82nd-birthday celebration. The following year,
you led the first delegation of US businesses to visit
the DPRK. Looking back on your visits, do you recall any
sense that the nuclear issue would not simply blow over,
any early signs that a shadow loomed overhead?
James Zumwalt: Let me answer this
question by first providing some background.
I
think the North Koreans have perfected the process of
telling you to your face what you want to hear but then
demonstrating, by virtue of their subsequent words and
actions, they reached a completely contrary
"understanding". Thus, in dealing with the North Korean
leadership, one initially is full of hope and
expectation the leadership might be considering making
changes that might lead to a better life for its people
and world stability. This was the perception I had
during my first few trips to Pyongyang. In such an
environment of hope, it is difficult for an outsider to
perceive that it is really "business as usual" as far as
Pyongyang is concerned. The ray of hope one initially
perceives to exist in North Korea ultimately gives way
to the reality a shadow of darkness which will forever
remain cast there for as long as the current form of
leadership exists.
Pyongyang is well aware the
US government serves at the whim of the American people
and, therefore, can change in as few as four years or a
maximum of eight. Thus, the North Koreans, who have had
the advantage of continuous totalitarian rule under Kim
Il-sung and his son, Kim Jong-il, for more than half a
century, have been able to create initial perceptions
with each successive US administration that best enable
them to further their sole objective. The perceptions
the North Koreans create range from acts of aggression,
such as the seizure of an unarmed US intelligence ship
in international waters in 1968 during president
Lyndon Johnson's term, to acts of illusory peace, such
as the signing of a nuclear nonproliferation agreement
early on in president [Bill] Clinton's term.
While North Korean tactics have changed
depending on the US administration in power, their
overall objective has remained constant. That objective
has been the survival, at all costs, of Pyongyang's
leadership through the brutal and total control of its
people: an objective to be achieved regardless of the
repercussions either at home, as evidenced by the deaths
of 2 million North Koreans from famine, or abroad, as
evidenced by the country's bellicose threats to world
peace and stability. While each successive US
administration during the reign of the two North Korean
dictators has hoped for a diplomatic resolution, in
reality none has ever been achieved. While the
perception has been that such a resolution may have been
achieved previously, the reality is that it was only a
unilateral perception on the US side as the North Korean
leadership's objective to survive made it impossible
ever to achieve the necessary "meeting of the minds" for
a long-term resolution.
I began to realize my
expectation of change in North Korea was illusory
occurred in 1997, during my fifth (of 10) trips to North
Korea. In 1994, during my second trip to Pyongyang, I
had met Hwang Jong-yop, the country's philosophical guru
who was the architect of Kim Il-sung's juche
(self-reliance) philosophy. This was only a few months
after Kim Il-sung had died. Hwang Jong-yop came across
full of confidence and assurance during our discussions
on foreign policy matters that North Korea would emerge
a responsible player within the international community,
with its juche philosophy still very much intact.
When I met with him again in 1996, however, it was a
changed man with whom I spoke. There was no sign of the
earlier confidence; he almost seemed aloof; and, for the
first time, he appeared willing to truly listen to what
was being said on the other side of the table. I had
high expectations this signaled a change was being
considered by the leadership as it possibly embarked
upon a new direction. In 1997, I was surprised to learn
Hwang Jong-yop had defected to South Korea. It was then
that I realized what I had interpreted in 1996 as a sign
the North Korean leadership might be considering some
sort of change was really a realization by Hwang
Jong-yop such would never happen. For while Hwang
Jong-yop had recognized the only hope for peace and
stability on the peninsula lay in the regime altering
course, that clearly was not an option Kim Jong-il even
considered. For Hwang Jong-yop, it was a time of
realization for him that a dark shadow was, in fact,
firmly cast over his country-and the outside world now
needed to understand this.
Nash: Short of
a regime change in Pyongyang do you think that the US
and North Korea can find any common ground on which to
work out their differences peacefully?
Zumwalt: There will never be a
peaceful resolution of issues between Pyongyang and
Washington, regardless of any future agreements, while
North Korea continues to be ruled as it is. Why should
we believe that any leadership which has evidenced such
brutality against its own people is capable of honoring
its international agreements? To truly understand a
leadership's intentions vis-a-vis the rest of the world
community (a very difficult undertaking for a country as
isolated as North Korea), one must look to how that
leadership treats its own people. I believe the North
Korean leadership will say or do anything to ensure its
own survival, but it will continue to act in a contrary
manner to preserve its power.
Nash: In your
view, then, it is not so much the nature of the
agreements that is impeding a peaceful resolution as the
nature of the North Korean leadership itself.
Zumwalt: It is the North Korean
leadership's unwavering desire to survive in its current
form that is impeding a peaceful resolution to the
current level of hostilities between the US and North
Korea.
Nash: Do you believe that there is
any hope for a peaceful resolution to the current
hostilities, or has the dispute already carried too far?
Zumwalt: Sadly, I do not believe a
peaceful - and, more importantly, successful -
resolution of differences between the US and North Korea
is possible, absent a triggering event within North
Korea that brings forward an enlightened regime willing
to act more responsibly domestically as well as
internationally. And, due to the tight and brutal
control the current regime exercises over its people, I
put a very low likelihood on such a change occurring
internally.
We must keep in mind this is the
same regime which has been teaching its people for
generations the US is its natural enemy. Such
indoctrination is taught to North Korean children very
early in the education process. For example, the
children are given math problems along the lines of,
"How many American soldiers would remain in a patrol of
10 if seven are killed by North Korean soldiers?" They
are taught as well to believe the Korean War was the
result of a joint US/South Korean invasion of the North.
Such anti-Americanism has been fed continuously to the
North Korean people, in 1967 leading to one of the
best-kept secrets of the Vietnam War: Americans,
unknowingly, were fighting North Korean pilots during
that conflict. Former North Vietnamese combat pilots
confirm that Pyongyang, believing a future war against
the US was inevitable, pressured Hanoi to allow its
pilots to fly missions against US forces in order to
study US air-combat tactics. The North Korean air-combat
participation was short-lived, however, as almost every
Korean pilot who engaged an American aircraft was shot
down. North Korea's assistance became costly to Hanoi as
the Koreans were flying North Vietnamese planes. Unable
to afford the loss of additional planes, Hanoi
terminated North Korea's participation after only a few
months. Today, in a cemetery just outside Hanoi, there
are 14 graves with markers bearing the words
"Trieu-Tien", which is the Vietnamese phrase for
"North Korea". The markers further reveal that all 14
died in 1967 within a few months of each other. The
grave sites attest to the brief, but costly,
contribution these pilots made to Hanoi's ultimate
victory. Perhaps it was this cost and a quiet perception
among the North Korean military it might not be a match
for the US in a future conflict that led, just a year
later, to Pyongyang's decision to seize the USS Pueblo -
the unarmed US intelligence ship sailing in
international waters at the time of its capture.
Nash: Do you feel that there has been any
failure on the part of US policy towards North Korea,
either during the Clinton or Bush administrations, that
might have obstructed an earlier resolution?
Zumwalt: The problem each new US
administration faces in determining what course of
action to pursue in resolving issues with North Korea is
that it perceives it might be successful in negotiating
such a resolution where all previous administrations
have failed. As a result, each administration has played
the role-some to a greater extent than others - of an
"enabler". Because each administration has consistently
failed to recognize the North Korean leadership for what
it really is, we have unwittingly enabled Pyongyang to
act irresponsibly, playing various interests against
each other to maximize its security in the only way it
perceives it can be preserved - ie, through the
possession of weapons of mass destruction [WMD]. But
despite the enabling role that various US
administrations have played, such a role pales in
comparison to the one being played by South Korea. Its
"Sunshine Policy" has rewarded North Korea time and time
again for acting irresponsibly. Pyongyang has learned it
has to give up very little to gain a great deal from
South Korea - most notably the US$1.5 billion secretly
paid to Kim Jong-il by South Korea's former president,
Kim Dae-jung, so that the former Kim would agree to
participate in a summit conference with the latter Kim
in June 2000. Ironically, while Kim Dae-jung was being
hailed for his initiative in trying to resolve issues
between the two Koreas, an effort for which he would
later be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Kim Jong-il
undoubtedly was enabled to continue the pursuit of his
country's nuclear weapons development program with this
new injection of South Korean funds.
Nash:
Last year at West Point, President George W Bush said
that preemptive military strikes may be necessary to
defend American security and lives. Is the US preparing
a preemptive strike against North Korea? If the crisis
ever came to military conflict, would it be
advantageous, in your assessment, for the US to launch a
preemptive strike?
Zumwalt: Due to the
irresponsible conduct of Pyongyang and its bellicose
threats to destabilize the region, the US would be
acting irresponsibly if it failed to explore all
possible options in dealing with the North Korean
threat-including the option to conduct a preemptive
military strike. Should it be agreed that military
action is the only viable option to neutralize the North
Korean threat, it would be most beneficial for the US to
lead with such a strike. Obviously, North Korea,
similarly, is prepared - and has been for much longer
than we have considered such military action-to launch a
preemptive strike first against US and ROK [Republic of
Korea] forces south of the DMZ [Demilitarized Zone].
This is an option Pyongyang has mapped out for decades,
as evidenced by the numerous large tunnels it has dug
under the DMZ. Although four have been discovered south
of the DMZ, it is believed there may well be at least 20
more ready to transport thousands of North Korean troops
under the DMZ and south of US/ROK forces positioned
there to repel just such a strike. To add to the
confusion such a surprise strike south of the DMZ might
initially generate among US and ROK forces, the North
Koreans also are equipping their strike forces with ROK
military and police uniforms. Allegedly, at least
100,000 of these uniforms have been ordered by the North
within the last year.
A preemptive strike by the
US would clearly minimize the casualties North Korea,
with its long-range artillery situated just north of the
DMZ, might otherwise be able to impose upon both US/ROK
forces guarding the DMZ and upon the ROK's civilian
population. Such a strike obviously would seek to
further limit allied losses by knocking out any known
North Korean missile sites capable of hitting the ROK
and/or Japan.
Nash: US Secretary of State
Colin Powell has said that the US wants nothing less
than a "permanent solution this time". What would you
consider a permanent solution, and do you think it
possible to find one that ensures stability on the
Korean Peninsula and security for US interests in the
region?
Zumwalt: I think that any sort of
"permanent solution" to the North Korean nuclear problem
is simply not possible with a Kim Jong-il-led government
or, for that matter, with any other similarly configured
government without Kim Jong-il at its head. In my
opinion, there are only two conceivable ways
non-military action could, arguably, provide a permanent
solution on the peninsula:
(1) The four
countries with the most direct interests in the region -
the US, South Korea, China and Japan - agree to join
together to present a united front to the North Korean
leadership in an effort to prevent Pyongyang from
playing one interest against another. I would add to
this coalition of interests another country with which
North Korea has friendly relations - Russia. But, as the
likelihood the first four countries agreeing on such a
united approach are slim, I see the prospects of Russia
cooperating as well as virtually impossible.
(2)
North Korea agrees to a truly verifiable agreement by
which it commits not to develop a WMD capability. But,
even with such an agreement in place, I would not feel
totally comfortable a permanent solution still had been
achieved. This is because I place a great deal of
credibility on knowledgeable North Korean defectors,
such as Hwang Jong-yop, who warn Pyongyang will do
whatever is necessary to maintain this capability,
regardless of what international agreements it signs to
the contrary.
It is important too for us to
decide the exact parameters upon which such a "permanent
solution" is to rest. What I have outlined so far is
strictly a permanent solution based on the inner
parameters, ie, the WMD issue. But a decision must be
made as to whether a permanent solution is to include
the outer parameters, ie, should it address as well the
brutal treatment of the North Korean people by its
leadership? This is strictly a moral determination we
must make. We know Pyongyang has already allowed 2
million of its citizens to die of famine, choosing to
dedicate its limited financial assets to the development
of its WMD program rather than agricultural reform. We
know in North Korea, where rugged mountains leave only
20 percent of the land available for agriculture, some
farmers are ordered to replace food crops, so critical
in a country where nine percent of its population has
died of famine, with poppies, so critical in a country
where drug trafficking is a growing business to generate
cash for military purposes. In Pyongyang we have a
government with a long-established track record of total
irresponsibility in caring for its citizenry. Do we have
any moral obligation to help an enslaved people cast off
their yoke of suppression or do we turn a blind eye,
allowing millions more North Koreans to die quietly from
their government's acts of omission and commission - all
at the price of hoping to resolve the WMD threat posed
at the outside world? More than six decades ago,
England's prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, decided
to negotiate with [Adolf] Hitler - a dictator of the
same ilk as Kim Jong-il. Chamberlain returned to
England, heralding he had achieved "peace in our time".
History proved him wrong and the peace short-lived. Do
we now buy peace in our time by accepting similar false
promises from Kim Jong-il, knowing we are dooming the
North Korean people to a life of continued hardship and
suffering?
For this reason, before we embark
upon any effort to achieve a permanent solution on the
peninsula, we must first decide upon the parameters to
be met.
Nash: All along, China has been
urging the US and North Korea to meet in Beijing for a
second round of trilateral discussions, which apparently
will take place shortly. In agreeing to these
discussions, the White House has held firmly to the
condition that Japan also be invited to participate. Why
is Japan's involvement so important to the US and so
strongly resisted by North Korea?
Zumwalt:
The US sees Japan's participation in the next round
of talks as critical for a number of reasons. First,
Japan is clearly an economic superpower in the region
whose participation financially or otherwise in any
resolution of hostilities will be critical. Second,
Pyongyang sent a strong message to Japan when it fired
its Taepodong missile over the Sea of Japan in August of
1998. That message was clear: North Korea viewed Japan,
in spite of Japan's being stripped of its military might
in the aftermath of World War II, as a viable target for
Pyongyang's animosity - an animosity which still rages
half a century after Japanese occupation of the Korean
Peninsula had occurred. Third, despite generous Japanese
humanitarian aid to North Korea, Japanese citizens were
targeted over the years for kidnappings, many for whom a
full accounting has yet to be provided by Pyongyang.
Fourth, Japan, more so than any other country in the
region, has now accepted the fact that North Korea's
leadership cannot be trusted or reasoned with logically,
prompting Tokyo to support US initiatives and to explore
the possibility of removing constitutionally mandated
restrictions on expanding its own military forces. North
Korea's strong resistance to Japanese participation is
deeply entrenched, tied to Tokyo's efforts to wipe out
Korean culture during its occupancy of the peninsula
prior to and during World War II.
Nash:
China's vice foreign minister characterized his recent
visit to Pyongyang as youyide or "helpful". How
crucial is China in the process of finding a peaceful
solution?
Zumwalt: China's active
participation in resolving the North Korean issue is
absolutely critical if any non-military option is to
have viability. Obviously, the last thing China wants is
to see the US exercise its military option in China's
very own back yard. Thus, Beijing has a keen interest in
reigning in Pyongyang's leadership. Almost a decade ago,
realizing its own economic interests were more closely
aligned with South rather than North Korea, China
recognized the ROK. For Pyongyang, it was a devastating
loss of face to see its closest ally recognize its
familial enemy. But China fully realizes North Korea
poses a far greater liability to Beijing than it does an
asset. Hopefully, that realization will guide Beijing to
embark upon a foreign policy course that will make
Pyongyang understand its continued belligerent attitude
will only serve to totally isolate it from the rest of
the world - including its closest ally. But the question
would still remain as to whether even losing its closest
ally would impact positively on North Korea's conduct.
The Chinese are already seeing signs that even their own
ability to exercise some sort of control over this rogue
state may be on the wane.
Nash: South and
North Korean troops recently exchanged a short bout of
machine-gun fire across the Demilitarized Zone. How
precipitous are such actions?
Zumwalt:
With the buildup of North Korean forces on the DMZ,
with tensions mounting over the nuclear issue, with
Seoul starting to show some signs it may be rethinking
its disastrous Sunshine Policy, with the US talking
about withdrawing forces from the DMZ to reorganize them
more centrally in the ROK - possibly creating the
perception on either side of the DMZ that Washington is
unwilling to have its forces serve as a tripwire, many
factors are at play which leave the peninsula a
tinderbox, capable of being ignited by a simple spark. A
misinterpretation of an act by one side or a
miscalculation by the other could easily provide that
spark.
Nash: Your father, the late
Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, led a very distinguished naval
career. At age 44, he became the youngest officer ever
promoted to rear admiral, and at age 49 the youngest
four-star admiral in US history. He served as navigator
of the USS Wisconsin in the Korean theater from 1951-52,
and later as the commander of US Naval Forces in Vietnam
from 1968-70. If your father were still a member of the
US Joint Chiefs of Staff today, how do you think he
would have approached this present conflict?
Zumwalt: My father was one of those in
the forefront of the charge during the Cold War to warn
the American people about another country described then
by the US president of another era, president Ronald
Reagan, as the "evil empire" - the Soviet Union. It was
only in the aftermath of the collapse of that evil
empire we truly learned how appropriate Reagan's
description had been. There are clearly evil elements at
work in our world, both in the past as well as the
present, that have not hesitated to impose human
suffering on others while in pursuit of their own
selfish ambitions. My father loved Edmund Burke's quote
that all that is needed for the forces of evil to
prevail in this world is for enough good men to do
nothing. He took that statement to heart, spending most
of his life fighting the Cold War, both on battlefields
of war as well as those of public opinion, to slay the
forces of evil, then threatening world peace in the form
of the Soviet Union. A large part of the latter battle
consisted of making the American public understand the
exact nature of the threat. While the Soviet Union is no
more, a new threat to world peace, one that lay somewhat
dormant during the Cold War, has now replaced it. I am
sure were he alive today, my father would again be in
the forefront of the charge to ensure Americans fully
understood the threat posed by this member state of what
a new president now describes as the axis of evil. He
would be challenging his fellow Americans to not allow
the seeds of evil to take root by simply doing nothing.
Nash: What can the US expect if it does
become engaged in military conflict with North Korea?
Zumwalt: The answer to this question
turns on who takes military action first. As I have
pointed out, both sides are prepared to launch a
preemptive strike. This is an option North Korea already
demonstrated more than half a century ago it was willing
to exercise when it launched its surprise invasion of
South Korea. Depending on who attacks first, I would
envision a scenario unfolding along the following lines:
A military strike by Pyongyang would take place
in the form of the covert insertion of large number of
its troops south of the DMZ, via tunnels as well as
waterborne routes. These troops, many dressed in ROK
military and police uniforms to confuse US, ROK and
South Korean civilians, have been trained to conduct
operations similar to those for which the former Soviet
Union's spetsnaz (special) forces were tasked to
perform. As such, they will seek to disrupt lines of
communication and transportation. Wearing ROK uniforms,
they will confuse US and South Korean soldiers as to who
exactly is friend and who is foe. (There are already
reports a large order of ROK uniforms was placed by an
unknown source.) Japan will be targeted with WMD. North
Korean artillery positioned north of the DMZ will start
to rain fire down on allied forces as well as upon
civilians in Seoul. In the initial hours of the
conflict, the advantage could go to the North Koreans as
they inflict significant casualties on the battlefield.
However, immediate counterattacks by allied forces will
cause the situation on the peninsula to tilt quickly in
their favor. As US/ROK forces gain momentum, they will
ferret out North Korean infiltrators. Many will be found
to have been sheltered by pro-North sympathizers and
spies pre-positioned in the South. As allied advances in
the North disrupt enemy supply and transportation lines,
North Korean casualties will mount. The North Koreans
will be soundly defeated within 30-60 days.
A
first strike by the US military would take the form of
simultaneous hits against a series of tactical targets,
along the DMZ and scattered elsewhere around the
country. These targets will include military
headquarters that have been dug deep underground in
Pyongyang and elsewhere. Their destruction will disrupt
all North Korean command, control and communications. As
was Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-il too will become a target
of opportunity. The back of the North Korean military
will be broken in a matter of weeks, if not days, as the
army becomes totally disorganized and nonfunctional. It
will be very difficult, if not impossible, for it to
launch an effective counterattack. Many North Korean
soldiers will seek escape routes into the mountains and
China. The country will totally collapse in less time
than did Iraq.
(Copyright 2003 Paul Nash)
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