Washington Needs a Roadmap to Peace in North Korea

While the drumbeat for war with Iraq gets louder, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has embarked on a trip to East Asia in order to avoid another war. His challenge is not just to walk North Korea back into nuclear compliance but to win the support of the countries he will be visiting - Japan, China and South Korea - for a common strategy of a multilateral talk. However, in order to succeed in forming a diplomatic coalition that could rein in North Korea, Washington needs to spell out its objectives and lay a clear roadmap to achieving them.

Ever since October last year, when North Korea admitted to running a secret uranium enrichment program designed to make nuclear bombs, the US has tried to get other governments to put pressure on Pyongyang. The US frustration about not succeeding in this effort has only grown with successive North Korean violations of its many non-proliferation commitments.

The Bush administration's unhappiness surfaced in early February when the Washington Post quoted President Bush as saying that the United States, China, and Russia "have responsibilities, joint responsibilities" in dealing with North Korea's expanding nuclear program. Other reports quoted Secretary of State Colin Powell, his deputy Richard Armitage, and other administration officials in voicing frustration that China, Russia, and South Korea were not fully supporting the United States in placing concerted pressure on North Korea.

The frustration was not sudden. Washington's strategy since October 2002 has been to persuade other governments to intensify pressure on North Korea to end its secret uranium enrichment program, shut down the reopened Yongbyon installations, rejoin the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and place its entire nuclear program under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards inspections; in short, to comply with at least four nuclear agreements which Pyongyang has broken. US entreaties to other governments suggested a resort to economic sanctions if North Korea did not comply. The strategy became one of reliance on these governments to bear the diplomatic initiative as Washington stressed its unwillingness to negotiate with North Korea over the nuclear issue.

The frustration came as other governments reacted negatively to Bush administration entreaties. They endorsed the general US goal of a non-nuclear North Korea. However, after each North Korean provocative nuclear move, those governments increased criticism of the Bush administration more than they criticized North Korea. They criticized the cutoff of oil shipments to North Korea under the 1994 US-North Korean Agreed Framework. They voiced exception to the administration's talk of economic sanctions. They expressed alarm at the scenario of US military action against North Korea. China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan all called on the US to negotiate directly with North Korea.

Washington's frustration has led it to increase pressure on China and Russia to endorse US strategy, insist strongly on a multilateral diplomatic framework, and push for formal UN Security Council consideration of North Korea's actions. It also is suggesting a negotiating forum under UN auspices, dubbed "five plus five" to include the five permanent Security Council members plus five other nations, including Japan and South Korea. The US again faces major difficulty in getting the cooperation of the other key governments. China, Russia, and South Korea oppose a Security Council meeting and are skeptical of the five plus five formula. Meanwhile, divisions between the Bush administration and other governments over Iraq undoubtedly complicate the administration's efforts to secure support on North Korea.

Time for diplomacy, in fact, may be short. An American war with Iraq likely will lower the intensity of diplomacy on North Korea. The much discussed danger is that North Korea will take advantage of Washington's pre-occupation with Iraq to reprocess spent nuclear fuel into weapons-grade plutonium, produce up five or six atomic bombs, proclaim itself an open nuclear weapons state, and be in a position to proliferate nuclear weapons or materials to other states or even to terrorist groups. A North Korean decision to start reprocessing would confront the Bush administration with a fundamental decision: whether to stop reprocessing by bombing Yongbyon or allow North Korea to complete a "nuclear breakout." The first option runs a high risk of igniting another Korean war; but the second option would be perceived abroad and in the United States as a major foreign policy defeat for the United States, which would overshadow any military victory over Iraq.

The administration's frustration over the stalemate in its multilateral strategy and its recent statements that all US options are open suggest that the administration is aware of the potential magnitude of the situation. However, expressing frustration and blame will not be enough to move the multilateral strategy forward. For the US to be able to increase its influence on other governments, it will have to understand the reasons for these governments' criticism of US policy and adjust US strategy, if not in terms of objectives, then certainly in terms of tactics.

China, Russia, and South Korea have their own special interests in their policies toward North Korea. The United States cannot change these, but it can address other factors that influence these governments to distance themselves from US policy. One such factor is the view in other capitals that US policy since President Bush's "axis of evil" pronouncement has helped to bring about the present crisis. This view holds that American threats, warnings, and demands for sweeping unilateral North Korean military concessions have produced North Korean fears of a US attack and its moves since October 2002 to deter the Bush administration. They see the tough rhetoric of the Bush administration as only masking a weak and inert policy which is result of factionalism among policy makers. They are loath to deal with North Korea not only because of the fear of losing out. They consider it as almost immoral to negotiate with such a vile regime and are unwilling to offer North Korea any kind of US reciprocity even for significant military concessions from Pyongyang.

Additional factors affecting the thinking in Seoul are the South Korean views that the Bush administration has tried to undermine President Kim Dae-jung's sunshine policy and that the US Military Command in Korea exaggerates the threat from North Korean conventional forces. Added to these is the lack of any common US-South Korean initiatives toward North Korea (even on an issue like conventional force reductions where there is clear logic in US-South Korean coordination).

There is also the factor of North Korea's successful propaganda since it began its nuclear provocations. Pyongyang has successfully portrayed itself as the benign party only seeking a non-aggression pact and US agreement to cease "stifling" of North Korea's economy - proposals which, in reality, mask older proposals for a bilateral US-North Korean peace treaty and removal of North Korea from the US list of terrorist countries. North Korea also has successfully projected the charge that the Bush administration plans a "pre-emptive attack" on North Korea. South Korea's President-elect Roh Moo-hyun even echoed this North Korean accusation in January 2003. Pyongyang's propaganda campaign has influenced governments and opinion in other countries and even opinion in the United States.

In the face of the North Korean propaganda offensive the Bush administration has been strangely passive. Yet its "five plus five" formula may have potential. A similar framework under the United Nations succeeded in securing Vietnam's military withdrawal from Cambodia and the Cambodian peace agreement in 1991 and paved the way for successful US-Vietnam negotiations. However, that multilateral framework involved from the beginning a US commitment from the first Bush administration to negotiate with Vietnam. The second Bush administration undoubtedly will have to make a similar commitment to other governments to negotiate directly with North Korea within the five plus five framework in order to secure other governments' support for this or any other multilateral formula. The impact of such a commitment, and the effectiveness of the US negotiating strategy, would be strengthened by a detailed US negotiating strategy or roadmap that the administration could lay out to Seoul, Beijing, and Moscow and present to North Korea. It could conform to the administration's position that North Korea must act first to bring its nuclear program completely under the nuclear agreements which it has violated. However, the administration would have to offer specific measures of US reciprocity after North Korea has satisfied the United States on the nuclear issue. The Bush administration would also have to spell out its position on other security issues and clarify its previous vague statements of future assistance to North Korea - the so-called "bold initiative".

This would present Washington the opportunity to coordinate negotiating strategy closely with Japan, since Japan also has offered economic aid to North Korea and has security interests in North Korea's nuclear weapons and missiles similar to those of the United States. As a North Korean long-range missile test would affect Japan and the United States directly, there is a strong rationale for a Japan-US coordinated response to such a provocation. The US also could use a commitment to negotiate with North Korea and a comprehensive approach to press China and Russia for their endorsement of the negotiating strategy. They could be asked for their commitment to pressure North Korea to negotiate on the basis of a US roadmap, and for agreement that further escalation of North Korean provocations, including plutonium reprocessing and/or a long-range missile test, would constitute grounds for economic sanctions against Pyongyang. Even given current US difficulties with South Korea, there still appears to be opportunity to coordinate a US-South Korean initiative on conventional force reductions and pullbacks from the demilitarized zone (DMZ). In fact, the growing controversy in South Korea over U.S. military forces creates an additional logic for developing such a proposal and including US troops in it. If the US force structure in South Korea is to be changed, as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld recently suggested, why not negotiate for pullbacks of North Korean artillery and rocket launchers on the DMZ in return.

In short, a well-conceived US negotiating strategy would be aimed at influencing other governments as much as North Korea. The two goals are not mutually exclusive. The Bush administration could use negotiations to clarify North Korea's choices to both Pyongyang and other governments. A US counter-propaganda campaign that weakened North Korea's negotiating proposals would strengthen the US hand in negotiations. Negotiations also would give the administration the opportunity to lay out clearly "red lines" of North Korean provocations that would trigger the imposition of US sanctions and penalties. If North Korea accepted a US negotiating roadmap, the role of other governments likely would increase as the roadmap was implemented. If North Korea rejected a clear presentation of its choices, then the attempt at negotiations would have served to build a stronger justification for other governments (at least Japan and the European Union) to join the United States in imposing economic sanctions on North Korea.

Other governments will have to recognize their responsibilities if a formula like "five plus five" is to succeed. Even while advocating US-North Korean negotiations and US reciprocity, other governments will have to recognize the credibility of the Bush Administration position that nuclear negotiations should not be a quid pro quo proposition and that North Korea must agree and act first to roll back its provocative acts since mid-December 2002, end its uranium enrichment program, and place its entire nuclear program under IAEA safeguards. Other nations also will have to recognize the credibility of economic sanctions if North Korea refuses to negotiate on this basis or crosses "red lines" with new provocations.

The outlook for the Bush administration's multilateral strategy is clouded by the prospect of war with Iraq. If North Korea does not conduct a "nuclear breakout," diplomacy after a US-Iraq war would re-focus on the issues of today. The Bush administration should not believe, however, that a military victory over Iraq would strengthen its position in relation to China, South Korea, and Russia. Divisions with these governments over Iraq, in fact, may widen divisions over North Korea and make Washington's task even harder.