Prognostications on the incoming Barack Obama administration's North Korea
policy should dwell less on the president-elect's purported propensity for
diplomacy and more on the North Korean leader's proven predilection for
patience and gaining attention. In 2009 and beyond, events - rather than
ideological orientation or diplomatic initiative - will shape the new US
administration's approach to North Korea. Events that will largely be of
Pyongyang's, not Washington's, making.
Over the past decade, Kim has proven most adept at playing the post-provocation
waiting game against the US. Even in the rhetorically hostile early years of
the George W Bush administration, North Korea was able to gain the upper hand
by taking provocative actions - like expelling International Atomic
Energy Agency inspectors from the Yongbyon nuclear reactor site, withdrawing
from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and reactivating the reactor - then
simply waiting for the US to respond.
The response came in the form of the Beijing talks in April, 2003, followed by
the first six-party negotiations in August that year. From the outset, North
Korea dictated the terms of the denuclearization talks by making verbal threats
of nuclear proliferation to US negotiators.
Leading up to and in the aftermath of Bush's reelection in November, 2004,
various reasons were served up by North Korea observers for Pyongyang's
protracted reluctance to return to the six-party talks: that North Korea would
adopt a wait-and-see approach on the election; the formation of a new national
security team; and possible unkind name-calling by the emboldened US president
in his State of the Union address in early 2005.
The much-awaited North Korean response to this American transition period came
via a formal declaration of nuclear power status in February, 2005. That bold
initiative by Pyongyang led to the resumption of the six-party talks in late
July of that year, followed by an agreement on a joint statement in September.
Over the next several months, North Korea patiently waited for its opportunity
as proponents of engagement and financial sanctions sorted out their
differences in Washington. With unconditional economic aid from South Korea and
China continuing to flow in, the North Korean dictator-for-life could afford to
exercise patience and draw out the pace of the denuclearization negotiations.
Beyond the virtue of patience, the North Korean leader has also shown the world
that he knows how to get the US president's attention, as he most notably did
in 2006 with multiple missile blasts in July and a nuclear test in October.
Bush's response thereafter has been vigorous engagement of North Korea,
culminating in the removal of that nation that he had once called "evil" from
the list of state sponsors of terrorism in October. Creating crises - both big
and small - and then waiting for economic aid and political concessions has so
far been good international business practice for the impoverished Pyongyang
regime.
And, so, Pyongyang will stir the pot once again in the early phase of the Obama
administration. Provoking Japan, as it did in August, 1998 by firing a
ballistic missile through Japanese airspace, or provoking South Korea, as it
did with naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002, and killing a middle-aged female
tourist in July this year, serve in varying degrees Pyongyang's political
interests. But nothing serves North Korea's long-term strategic interests like
making credible threats to the US: first, producing more nuclear weapons and
material that Pyongyang can proliferate; and second, developing long-range
ballistic missiles that can reach the US carrying a nuclear-tipped warhead.
Such strategic capabilities, or even the presumptions of such, would give the
North Korean state tremendous leverage in negotiating with the US on a host of
issues. One major North Korean national interest that would be greatly advanced
by such capabilities is the signing of a peace treaty and disarmament agreement
with the US. If consummated, such a sensational diplomatic coup would call into
question in South Korea and, to a lesser extent, the US, the raison d'etre of
the US forces stationed in South Korea and the bilateral alliance that the US
has maintained with South Korea since the early 1950s.
Political pressure, spurred by the public's pan-Korean ethnic nationalism,
would also build up within the South Korean government to outperform the US in
engaging North Korea. That effectively translates into pouring unconditionally
billions of dollars worth of money and material into Pyongyang's coffers as in
the past.
If patience is a virtue, then the North Korean leader just might be a most
virtuous man. Even in his present infirm condition, he will prove himself a
most patient patient, biding his time as expectations for a diplomatic
breakthrough between the US and North Korea reach a fever pitch. While treating
the six-party talks as a perpetual multilateral forum for receiving economic
and political aid from five of the world's strongest and richest nations, the
North Korean leader will bait the new US administration with another act of
provocation, fully expecting a high-profile diplomatic overture in response.
Just as the US is vulnerable to North Korea's capability to proliferate nuclear
material or couple nuclear weapons with long-range missiles, so, too, is North
Korea vulnerable to Washington's capability to put pressure on Pyongyang's
international financial transactions and human rights violations. Negotiations
for the sake of negotiation or diplomacy lacking a coercive element have all
proven futile over the past 15 years. For, as long as he can keep his own
mortality at bay, the North Korean leader enjoys an institutional advantage in
dealing with leaders who are bound by term limits and eager to carve out a
diplomatic legacy for themselves.
Patience is the key when it comes to negotiating with North Korea. The US has
always had in its diplomatic toolbox various useful implements like financial
sanctions, measures to prevent illicit activities and weapons proliferation,
freeze fuel oil delivery and unconditional aid, and human rights campaigns
through the international media in concert with other civilized nations of the
world, not to mention UN Resolutions 1695 and 1718. The ability to utilize them
in combination with diplomacy will determine the future of US policy toward
North Korea. As Pyongyang creates events calling for a US response, Washington
would do well to remember that it, too, can create events of its own making and
turn the tide in its own favor.
Sung-Yoon Lee is adjunct assistant professor of international politics at
The Fletcher School, Tufts University.
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