The U.S. presidential campaign and its aftermath placed primacy on the North Korean nuclear issue. The issue was mentioned over 30 times during the first 90-minute TV debate between the two candidates. The Korean ambassador to the United States, Han Seung-Joo, said on Nov. 5 that the Bush administration, taking into account the direct threat posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons program, considers the North Korean nuclear issue more important than that of Iran.
One can easily realize that the North Korean issue has become a central problem for the United States. Will Bush's North Korea policy remain unchanged within the six-party talks? Will Bush employ an aggressive policy of coercion against Pyongyang? Exploring various policy tools provides useful insights to predict potential North Korea policy during the second Bush term.
There are three main policy options. The first option is preemption. If the U.S. must fight a war to disarm North Korea, it is best to fight and win the war before it deploys nuclear weapons. Aware of this vulnerability, Pyongyang made clear that it would retaliate with total war once the U.S. attacks North Korea. In reality, the United States is unlikely to attack North Korea because of the enormous costs and delicate relations with East Asian countries.
In the worst-case scenario, a full-scale conflict on the peninsula could result in massive casualties and damages to South Korea and Japan. Seoul is located within the range of thousands of North Korean artillery and rocket forces. Tokyo is vulnerable to North Korean ballistic missile attacks, possibly with nuclear warheads. For this reason, Seoul and Tokyo strongly oppose any military actions against North Korea.
Secondly, the U.S. can consider a containment policy. Proponents of containment argue that Pyongyang will eventually be forced to abandon its nuclear weapons and the regime will collapse under the continuing pressure of containment. Meanwhile, opponents of this policy raise issues of practicality and risk. The survival of the North Korea regime is dependent on external assistance, but key donors such as China have proved extremely reluctant to cut off aid because they fear the consequences of a North Korean collapse or a violent North Korean reaction to pressure even more than they fear the emergence of a nuclear-armed North Korea.
Similarly, neither South Korea nor Japan is anxious to precipitate a North Korean collapse or provoke Pyongyang to escalate tensions and increase the risk of military conflict. For Washington, too, a strategy of isolation and pressure risks creating a further crisis if North Korea survives long enough and conduct nuclear tests and tries to sell nuclear technology to other rogue states and terrorists. This worst-case scenario could increase regional pressures for nuclear proliferation in South Korea and Japan. For all of these reasons, Washington may find that it can only use containment policy once other alternatives are exhausted.
Therefore, the final and only viable option is negotiation. President Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun agreed in principle to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue through peaceful and diplomatic means within the framework of the six-party talks in their summit meeting on Nov. 20. Negotiation with North Korea within a multilateral framework is likely to be very difficult and protracted, and, as past experience shows, any agreement is vulnerable to North Korean cheating. Under such circumstances, Washington will need to brandish credible threats of pressure against Kim Jong-Il if he fails to accept "reasonable" terms within a "reasonable" period. Thus, Bush's negotiation strategy with North Korea should be of two tracks. One is blocking Pyongyang's nuclear proliferation within the six-party talks; the other emphasizing the North's human rights issue.
The U.S. Senate on Sept. 29 passed a bill aimed to increase pressure on North Korea to improve its human-rights practices. It allows Washington to supply up to $20 million per year to individuals and NGOs around the world who are helping North Korean refugees in third countries. In addition, on Nov. 19, the Mongolian government agreed to assist in North Korean refugees' transferal to a third country of their choice. Given Kim Jong-Il's Achilles' heel - regime collapse caused by massive flow of defectors - the human rights issue will be a hidden strategy of the Bush administration to seek collateral advantage in ongoing six-party negotiations.
Hyun-Jin Choi is a 2005 MALD candidate at the Fletcher School.
