North Korea in 2003

Back in 2003, North Korea revealed that it had been operating enrichment program and tensions with the US were very high. I got an email at the time because someone somewhere thought I was a Korea "expert". It might have been the Daily Universe, BYU's student newspaper, or it might have been part of a survey from a Korean studies organization, or maybe neither; I don't remember now.

I answered the questions as laid out below. Much has happened since then, but the situtation today is not all that different, so maybe the answers are still as useful as when I wrote them (however useful that was).


1) Why are things the way they are, or how did the situation get to this point?

How much background do you want on this one? The whole thing boils down to the fact that nobody won the Korean War so the country is still divided. If you mean how the whole nuclear weapons mess get started, the best source I can point you to is a detailed discussion by Joshua Muravchik.

The root of the problem is that North Korea is so isolated we have little to use as a disciplinary device. If Lybia acted this way we could threaten trade embargos, or cancel treaties or freeze financial assets, etc. North Korea has, in effect, done all of that to itself already. The only threat we have is military action, and we need to be very careful about actually using it. The North Koreans know this.

2) In your opinion, what are the possible solutions to the problem?

There are several possible outcomes, I don’t know if they are solutions.

A) Maintain status quo – this seems unlikely since the North is apparently busy producing weapons grade plutonium. If we wait long enough the status quo is gone and we are faced with a North Korea that both has a significant number of atomic bombs and may have “extra” to sell to rogue states and terrorists.

B) Military strike – this would (possibly) remove the threat, though the North probably already has one or two atom bombs from previous extraction and who knows where they are. If we bomb the extraction facility, they have promised to use these bombs, possibly on Seoul or even Tokyo. Would they? Do we want to risk it? The end result could be a second Korea War. The US and South Korea would undoubtedly win that war, but are we willing to allow the loss of civilian life. The South Koreans most definitely want to avoid this outcome.

C) Embargo and contain – this seems to the administration’s choice. That still leaves the North producing weapons, though maybe not exporting them. We can’t unilaterally impose an effective embargo, the Chinese need to be on board and probably the Russians, too. The Chinese seem to think that this is a US problem and don’t appear to be doing much, though who knows what’s going on behind closed doors. To give some kind of idea of what the Chinese could do, consider the following. There are a huge number of North Koreans currently hiding in northeast China. They’ve snuck across the border to flee the regime. The Chinese government doesn’t want a flood of refugees, so they have been rounding them up – often with North Korean cooperation – and sending them back. If China were to reverse this policy and openly welcome North Korean refugees, the flood of people across the border might well be like the flood of people out of East Germany just before the Berlin Wall fell. It could easily spell the end of the North Korean regime. Nobody else in the region: Japan, South Korea, the US or Russia has that kind of a card to play.

D) Negotiate – this might defuse the situation, but it sets a very, very bad precedent. Basically it tells the North that bad behavior pays off. It might be the easiest way out of the current mess, but it would only lead to bigger messes later on. The North Koreans have cheated over and over again on their promises. How can you trust them to stick to a new set of agreements? Would they accept the kind of invasive monitoring that weapons inspectors in Iraq are allowed? Only as a last resort, and maybe not even then.

3) What kind of a resolution do you anticipate?

I fear what the North Korean really want is attention. The leaders of the regime are faced with very bad options. They seem to believe that if they do not get some sort of non-aggression treaty with the US, the US will covertly or overtly work to bring their regime down. They may well be right. However, faced with the choice of lose power by revolution or lose power fighting a war, they might well chose to fight a war and hurt the South and the US as much as possible on the way out. What kind of a resolution is that then? Frankly, I don’t know. There is far too much uncertainty as to what really motivates the North and what kind of concessions they are willing to make. The answer right now seems to be none, and that is worrisome.

4) Do you believe the current strategy/plan is effective?

That is up to the North Koreans. There is little the US can do but capitulate and we won't do that. The only people with any real choice are the North Korean leaders who think they are (and probably in reality are) struggling to maintain their existence. The other party with leverage is the Chinese, and they seem to be content to let things develop before they decide to change policy. They probably don’t want a nuclearized Korea, but a united Korea may look pretty scary too. Maybe their frozen in indecision, maybe they’re working frantically behind the scenes, maybe the leadership in Beijing is so divided on the issue they can reach a decision what to do. In any case, there is little the US can do to resolve the crisis.