Nuclear Confrontations with North Korea

WASHINGTON: Even as the debates over Iraq were raging in the United Nations, a new crisis emerged involving a nuclear weapon program in North Korea -- a far more serious nuclear proliferation problem than we faced in Iraq.

I said this was a new crisis, but in fact, the crisis was not really new. It is, in many ways, a rerun of the Korean Crisis of June of 1994. That crisis was the only time in my tenure as Secretary of Defense that we came close to a major war. We were willing to risk war because we believed that a nuclear weapon production program in North Korea posed unacceptable security risk.

What were the components that led us to that judgement? First of all, we believed that if North Korea possessed a significant nuclear arsenal, its leaders might be misled into thinking that the United States would be unwilling to defend its interest and allies in the region. The net effect of that would be a weakening of deterrence and a making of a war on the Peninsula more likely.

Secondly, we believed that North Korea's nuclear program could begin a domino effect of proliferation in East Asia, causing South Korea, Japan and Taiwan to question their own nuclear status. If any of those countries want to go nuclear, no one should doubt that they could achieve it and achieve it very quickly.

Third, given North Korea's record as a proliferator of ballistic missiles, and given their desperate economic conditions then and now, we've had to assume that some of the products of this nuclear program, the bombs themselves or the fissile material, would be for sale to the highest bidders not excluding terror groups.

Finally, we were concerned that loose nukes might be the result of some ultimate process of the breakup or collapse in the North Korean regime. Sooner or later we expected the regime will collapse and when that happened, we did not want it with a nation that possessed a nuclear weapon arsenal.

In aggregate, then, these issues were sufficiently dangerous that we were willing to use coercive diplomacy that included a credible threat of military action. Happily, war was avoided through diplomacy. The result of that diplomacy was the Agreed Framework. The Agreed Framework was far from perfect but it was the best that could be achieved under that circumstance.

The second point that I would make is that in the absence of the Agreed Framework, North Korea could today, this very day, have 50 nuclear weapons. That's a logical extrapolation of what they were doing at Yongbyon, excluding the uranium program.

Last year the nuclear threat in North Korea resurfaced. Since January, when North Korea ejected the IAEA inspectors, the threat has been obvious. Since the North Koreans still have the canned fuel rods left over from the '94 crisis, the threat is imminent. These rods give them the capability of making about five nuclear bombs this year. The reactors at Yongbyon allow them to begin serial production of bombs next year. These bombs would threaten not just the United States, but South Korea and Japan and indirectly, China. In effect, we were faced last January with the same problem we faced in June of 1994. So, why has it been so hard this time to develop a serious diplomatic strategy? That, to me, is a profound question.

Well, today, as in '94, the United States can not deal unilaterally with North Korea. Now, as then, it is clear that any credible strategy absolutely requires a concerted action with South Korea and Japan and would be greatly facilitated by support from China. That concerted action from South Korea and Japan and support from China, has not been forthcoming this time around. Why are these four countries in such disarray on an issue of such importance to all of them?

First, the United States administration has been distracted by Iraq. Secretary Rumsfeld has said, rightly, that we have the military capability to deal with two major regional contingencies at once. What he did not say is that we may not have the political capability of dealing with two major crises at once.

Secondly, I think there is a belief, perhaps, in the administration that it would be easier to deal with North Korea after we have fully dealt with Iraq. That, first of all may not be correct, but even if it is correct, it does raise the question of whether we have enough time, or whether we have the luxury of time to wait that long.

A third point is that the President has stated that he despises Kim Jong Il and does not want to deal with him. I must say that Kim Jong Il is not among the list of my favorite political figures. But, he exists, just as in an earlier era Chairman Mao existed in China and President Nixon found that it was important to U.S. national security to meet with him and talk with him. I do not think the personal view on this should overwhelm the consideration of what our best security interests are.

Finally, I must say, that the United States has not been treating our allies as full partners on this, partly because our allies seem to have some different views about how to handle the issue. I am reminded of Winston Churchill's comment during World War II, "The trouble with allies," he said, "is that they sometimes have ideas of their own." This seems to be a bit of a problem, how we're dealing with our allies in this case. Those are all problems, then, that the United States brings to the table in dealing with this trouble.

What about South Korea? South Korea is also distracted. In this case, distracted by the transition of going into a new administration. I was invited by President Roh to attend his inauguration, and did. I had a chance to talk with him afterwards and meet some of his government officials. This new government in South Korea, I think is undoubtedly consists of able people, but they are very inexperienced in foreign policy. They have no background or experience in dealing with the kind of problem we face in North Korea.

More to the point, all of the officials I talked with have an abiding belief, I guess faith might be a better word, that North Korea would never, never use nuclear weapons against them. Now, first of all, this might be a naive assumption, but secondly, even if it were true, this does not mean that nuclear weapons in North Korea is not a problem for South Korea because any use of nuclear weapons against any country would inevitably involve South Korea in a huge mess.

The South Korean government's stated policy, which was stated by President Roh in his inauguration address, is a no tolerance of nuclear weapons in North Korea. I asked him what does that mean, what does 'no tolerance' mean. In particular, what are the consequences associated if the other side does not accept your no tolerance. The answer was not forthcoming.

In short, I believe this is empty rhetoric on the part of the South Korean government, which will not impress the North Koreans at all. Finally, there is now quite a great space between President Roh and President Bush on this issue. Those discussions have been papered over during the meeting that the two Presidents had here a few days ago. But, as nearly as I can determine, nothing was done to bring them closer on what to do about North Korea.

The government of Japan was embarrassed by the failure of the summit meeting that they had with North Korea. Unlike South Korea, they do see the nuclear threat as real and imminent. They're beginning to question whether they can depend on the American shield. Their response to this is that they're beginning to increase their efforts on ballistic missile defense. They will quickly conclude, if they have not already concluded, that that is not an adequate defense against this problem.

It's not necessary for the North Koreans, if they want to deliver nuclear weapons to Japan, to use ballistic missiles. The next move, therefore, that the Japanese will be considering is going to nuclear deterrence themselves, which would be a catastrophic development for the whole region.

Finally, as to China, I had a long and detailed discussion with President Jiang Zemin on this. They claim limited leverage and they're not willing to do the heavy lifting necessary.

For several decades, North Korea has wanted nuclear weapons. They believe they're important for their own security, for protecting the security of the regime. We have, to this point, prevailed against that desire through a combination of carrots and sticks. Now, they are correctly sensing our disarray and they see a window of opportunity. They may very well pass through that window before the year is out.

What do I mean by a window? The window that I'm concerned about is a window by which they become a declared nuclear power, they conduct full-scale nuclear tests, they have the economic imperative to sell weapons or plutonium and they still would have enough left over to threaten Japan and South Korea. All of this by the end of this year. This is a nightmare scenario, but it is not an implausible scenario. By the time such a nightmare actually occurs, we will no longer have palatable alternatives available to us. It's obvious that the imperative is to try to prevent that nightmare from occurring, not respond to it once it has occurred.

So, how did we get into this mess and how can we get out of it? I believe we should not have cut off the engagement with North Korea two years ago. That probably contributed to the present problem with North Korea. In any event, it has made it much more difficult to deal with it. I believe that we should have stated, immediately when the crisis began, that the reprocessing of plutonium at Yongbyon would be a red line, thus defining our diplomacy from the beginning, as coercive diplomacy. I believe that we should get serious diplomatic talks underway as a highest priority.

China and Russia have an important role to play in the on-going discussions with North Korea. Certainly we and they have a commonality of interests. Indeed, for the past six months I have been urging China to play a much more active role. Last November I met with President Jiang Zemin and discussed with him the role China could play in helping the United States resolve this problem without a military confrontation. He said the right things about how the United States and China had common goals in this crisis. They wanted no nukes on the peninsula and, of course, they wanted no war on the peninsula. But, he was not prepared at that time to take forceful action with North Korea.

I had the distinct impression that he did not, at that time, understand how serious the situation was or just how adverse to China's interests North Korea's actions could be

Just last month, it appeared that China had come to recognize how serious this crisis could become and had decided to get off the sidelines and play a constructive role. Early in April, news media had reported that China had stopped delivery of fuel oil to North Korea, claiming that it had logistics problems.

Whatever the facts were on this hold up, it was only a week later that North Korea announced that they were ready to enter into talks with the United States on the nuclear problem without insisting that such talks be bilateral. A week after that, it was reported that these talks would be tri-lateral and that they would be held in Beijing. So, it certainly appears that the Chinese government played a key role in bringing about these talks. The news reports about the talks have been mixed, but at least the talks are under way.

Whatever actually happened at the talks, there are two positive conclusions that we can draw. The Chinese government is actively and positively involved and I think that is a really significant development in this effort. Secondly, the North Korean government is seeking to avoid military action and appears to be willing to put their nuclear program on the table to do so.

Given these two positive developments, there ought to be a diplomatic way out of the current crisis. But, I have no illusions about the North Korean government. I expect that such negotiations, if they get under way, would be contentious and drag on for some months. Thus, as long as the discussions are under way, we should require North Korea to freeze activities at Yongbyon. We should be willing to freeze any further military build up on the Korean Peninsula.

Some in the administration seem reluctant to deal with the North Koreans, believing talking with them somehow rewards them for their bad behavior. To them I can only quote one of my favorite presidents, John F. Kennedy, who said, "Never negotiate from fear, but never fear to negotiate."