Brookings: Experts - James E. Goodby

A Possible "Off Ramp" in North Korea

James E. Goodby — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:04:00 -0400

At the Brookings panel discussion on North Korea on April 15, “North Korea and Policy Priorities for the United States,” several important points were made that suggest a connecting of the dots would be useful. First, the consensus appeared to be that Kim Jong-un is calling the shots. Second, there is a high risk of catastrophic miscalculation in the present situation. Third, we should pay attention to what the North Koreans are telling us, "in their own words." Fourth, Kim Jong-un would like to open a discussion with the United States but he has left himself no exit from the current confrontation.

It can be argued that Kim Jong-un has in fact left himself an exit in a variety of ways, of which the most commonly mentioned is that the ending of the current United States-Republic of Korea joint military exercise will permit him to ratchet down the rhetoric. There is one other "off ramp" strategy that is never mentioned at all, which is surprising, considering that it was presented in Kim's own words in a highly public manner. It can be found in Kim Jong-un's New Year's Day speech this year, an address that Kim must have seen as a major statement of his intentions but which has been almost totally ignored.

This is what he said: "All the compatriots in the north, south and abroad should launch a dynamic struggle to carry out to the letter the June 15 Joint Declaration and the October 4 Declaration, great unification programs common to the nation in the new century and milestones for peace and prosperity."

The June 15, 2000 Joint Declaration was signed by then-ROK President Kim Dae-jung and former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il at a summit meeting held in Pyongyang. It included some features from the 1992 Basic Agreement, including family reunification, but was much less sweeping in its reach than the 1992 agreement. Its emphasis was on an independent effort by North and South Korea to achieve reunification. The October 4, 2007 agreement was signed by then-ROK President Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang and was much more programmatic and substantive in content than the June 15, 2000 Declaration. Like the earlier summit declaration, the 2007 agreement stressed what it called "by-the-Korean-people-themselves." In the present crisis-filled atmosphere, paragraph 4 of that document can be read as either an anachronism or as a beacon of hope. This is what it said:

The South and the North both recognize the need to end the current armistice regime and build a permanent peace regime. The South and the North have agreed to work together to advance the matter of having the leaders of the three or four parties directly concerned to convene on the Peninsula and declare an end to the war. With regard to the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, the South and the North have agreed to work together to implement smoothly the September 19, 2005 Joint Statement and the February 13, 2007 Agreement achieved at the Six-Party Talks.

Of course, both the Declaration in 2000 and the Agreement in 2007 were negotiated by leaders of a party that is now out of power in South Korea, and the North Korean leader has been succeeded by his son. Both documents have been gathering dust in the archives for years. But Kim Jong-un's reference to them gave them new relevance. This is the powerful leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea saying that he and all Koreans should live up to the letter of these documents and he was saying that on January 1, 2013.

As an off-ramp strategy, one can find flaws in it, especially in the possibility that it was intended by Kim Jong-un as an attempt to drive a wedge between new ROK President Park Geun-hye and the leaders of South Korea's allies. It also opens the door to economic cooperation and possibly renewed assistance, difficult to contemplate under today's circumstances, which include the shut-down of the Kaesong Industrial Complex. But skillful diplomacy should certainly be able to exploit for the good whatever good there is in it.

Authors

James E. Goodby

Image Source: © KCNA KCNA / Reuters

The Seoul Nuclear Security Summit: New Thinking in Northeast Asia?

James E. Goodby and Markku Heiskanen — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:25:00 -0400

Over fifty heads of state will meet at the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit on March 26-27. Among the participants is US President Barack Obama, host of the first nuclear security summit held in Washington, DC, in April 2010.

The primary motive for convening the 2010 nuclear security summit was to address the unprecedented threat of nuclear materials in the hands of terrorists. This remains the main task of the summit, but two other security problems will be on the minds of participants: the Fukushima catastrophe of 2011 and the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran.

The nuclear crises in the Middle East and Northeast Asia and the stalled promise of a nuclear renaissance in civil nuclear power could all be solved by a more rational approach to the generation of electric power. Although it will take years before the current, outdated system is replaced, the Seoul meeting could provide a political impetus. The new system would rest on three legs: small modular reactors (“mini-reactors”), internationally managed nuclear fuel services, and increasing reliance on the distributed (local) generation of electricity. After the disaster in Fukushima, there has been an understandable retreat from plans for large-scale reactors, with their inevitable safety issues. A vivid example of this reaction is found in Germany, which has cancelled its plans to increase the generation of electricity from nuclear reactors even though they are cleaner and more dependable than most other sources currently available. Vulnerabilities and inefficiencies of long-distance transmission lines point to a paradigm for generation and distribution of electric power that is more local – connected to national grids, to be sure, but able to operate independently of them. This is an ideal situation for mini-reactors, which are safer and less prone to encourage the spread of nuclear weapons. Internationally managed nuclear fuel services already exist and the security of supply can be assured by policies that foster more fuel service centers in Asia and elsewhere, including in the United States. These factors would enable suppliers of mini-reactors to expand their business to nations like North Korea and Iran under IAEA safeguards.

The relevance of this energy paradigm to resolving the issues in North Korea and Iran is evident: both nations could develop civil nuclear programs with assured supplies of nuclear fuel from multiple internationally managed fuel service centers in Russia, China, and Western Europe while avoiding the ambiguity of nationally operated plutonium reprocessing and uranium enrichment. Reliance on distributed generation of electricity would be more efficient and less prone to blackouts. And the presence of a level playing field should be apparent from the fact that similar arrangements would be the 21st-century way of generating electricity from nuclear energy in the developed economies as well as in energy-starved economies such as India and China.

Is this vision nothing but a dream? Maybe, but the main issues standing in the way are neither technical nor economic, but political. That is not to say that political problems are easy to solve. Einstein famously said that politics is harder than physics.

Politics will be front and center at the summit because it takes place in one of the major capitals of Northeast Asia, and all heads of state from this region or engaged with it – North Korea excluded – are participating. This will open opportunities to discuss regional problems in a situation quite different from that of the first nuclear security summit in Washington in 2010.

Northeast Asia is one of the most dangerous hotbeds of global nuclear diplomacy. China and Russia are nuclear weapon states; the United States, also a nuclear weapon state, is a regional political actor; North Korea has conducted two nuclear weapons tests; and Japan, South Korea, and even Taiwan can “go nuclear” in a relatively short period of time.

The Seoul summit could, at least indirectly, become a launching pad for settling this fatal situation.

One can never be certain when it comes to Korean developments, but new hope has arisen after the United States and North Korea reached an agreement on a North Korean moratorium on nuclear activities in Beijing on February 29. This may be a modest step forward, but it is encouraging. Fulfillment of this understanding would open the door to resumption of the six-party talks, where a framework already exists to discuss the elements of a political settlement: commitment to a nuclear-weapons-free Korean Peninsula, an interim agreement on borders and means of ready communication between the parties, people-to-people contacts, economic cooperation, and a Northeast Asia organization for security and cooperation akin to the Helsinki process, including its human rights provisions. It can be considered the first major signal by the new Kim Jong-un regime in Pyongyang that they are open to direct dialogue with the Americans.

There will be a shift of power in South Korea in early 2013, when the term of President Lee Myung-bak comes to an end. The United States will hold its presidential and congressional elections in November, Vladimir Putin has just been elected president of Russia, and China will have a new president in 2013. As for Japan, changes in government seem to occur several times a year.

All of these changes cause observers of the Northeast Asian scene to conclude that the time for a more active diplomacy in the Korean Peninsula is approaching. And that refers not only to solving the North Korean nuclear issue but also to several legacies dating from World War II and the Korean War. The ultimate goal should be to sign a peace treaty to end formally the Korean War, which concluded only with an armistice agreement in 1953, and to reunify Korea in one way or another.

There is some well-founded hope that the year 2012 could open a new era in multilateral efforts to finally construct a new post-Cold War political and security architecture in Northeast Asia.

Europeans have a low profile in Northeast Asia. Almost all EU-member states, however, have diplomatic relations with North Korea, and a number of major European states have resident ambassadors in Pyongyang.

The successful post-war arrangements in Europe have often been held up as an example of how a multilateral peace process could be initiated in Northeast Asia. The Finnish experience of the Helsinki CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) in 1969-75 proved that patience and determination will bear fruit in the long run. Perhaps this is also a good recipe for Northeast Asia.

Authors

James E. Goodby
Markku Heiskanen

Publication: The Nautilus Institute

The Fukushima Disaster Opens New Prospects for Cooperation in Northeast Asia

James E. Goodby and Markku Heiskanen — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

The nuclear disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan has dramatically demonstrated the interdependence between the countries of Northeast Asia. This crisis poses a palpable threat to Northeast Asia, and is not an issue of military conflict, but rather of environmental pollution as radioactive materials spread across national frontiers. It is an example of a number of transnational issues that can be addressed effectively only through cooperative actions. It is hard to find any positive thing to be said about this disaster except to express the hope that this common threat can rally Northeast Asia to recognize that degradation of the environment is an immediate threat. If it can lead the nations of Northeast Asia to divert more of their budgets to non-traditional threats, it could be a unique gift presented by this crisis.

The massive release of radioactive material is a serious threat with implications for all of us and requires renewed examination of nuclear safety globally, not just in Japan.

The countries in Northeast Asia are heavily dependent on nuclear power. China already has 13 power reactors and 25 more are being built. Others are planned. In Japan there are 50 main reactors. There are 21 nuclear reactors in South Korea. North Korea has one. Given this concentration of reactors in areas where earthquakes and other natural disasters have happened fairly frequently, it would be prudent to consider whether additional safety measures are called for.

The full support of the entire international community is needed to address nuclear reactor safety. Top experts from around the world should be mobilized to discuss how radioactivity from damaged reactors can best be contained. International research teams should work around the clock to develop new systems to prevent and respond to similar crises.

We need full funding support to quickly make the solutions proposed viable. There are two possible avenues for progress in this area: one is the Nuclear Security Summit scheduled to meet in Seoul in 2012; the other is to proceed within the framework offered by the Six-party Talks.

This process should and can be started without delay in Northeast Asia. The six-party talks, aimed since 2003 at solving the North Korean nuclear issue, offers a ready-made forum for such a regional conference in Northeast Asia with the participation of Japan, China, North and South Korea, Russia and the United States. There is a specific working group on economy and energy ready to tackle this issue. European expertise could be utilized in the process. If those talks are not reinstated soon, a forum might be found within the framework of preparatory work for the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit.

Although the main target in the talks should be urgent development of a regional energy safety system, in the longer run what should emerge is a fully developed regional energy system. The ultimate goal should be a Northeast Asia Energy Development Organization including all the countries of the region. This proposal, and how to realize it, could be discussed in the run-up to the Seoul Summit. The President of South Korea already has suggested that North Korea participate in the Seoul Conference. It would be natural to invite North Korean energy experts to participate in the preparatory talks if an item such as is suggested here were on the agenda.

A version of such an organization was established in 1995 as the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), in which the EU also participated, to fulfill the 1994 US-DPRK Agreed Framework. It was founded by Japan, South Korea and the United States. KEDO was terminated in 2006 after evidence of uranium enrichment activities in North Korea was revealed. Finland was the first general member of KEDO.

A new and more comprehensive energy organization should include China, Russia, Japan, the United States, the ROK and the DPRK. The EU might also participate in some fashion. The mandate should be to promote energy security and safety in Northeast Asia and contribute to economic development. It should have a standing secretariat; broad oversight should be provided by a Council of Ministers. The European Atomic Energy Community’s charter suggests some relevant missions.

The provision of nuclear fuel services could be multilateralized within this framework, allowing the sharing of both North and South Korea in the ownership and the output of one or more nuclear fuel service facilities in China, Russia, and Japan. The condition must be, of course, that the DPRK re-commits to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), including its status as a non-nuclear weapon state. And that means a confirmed dismantling of its nuclear weapons program.

The European post-war experience of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), founded in 1951, has lessons which may be useful in the present situation. The insight of French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman and his intellectual collaborator, Jean Monnet, was that if Franco-German production of coal and steel were placed under a common High Authority, it would plant the seeds of peace between Germany and France. Today’s European Union traces its origins to Schuman’s declaration of May 9, 1950, celebrated today as “Europe Day”.

We can turn the disaster in Japan into a process towards a new era of peace and security in Northeast Asia.

Authors

James E. Goodby
Markku Heiskanen

Publication: Nautilus Institute

U.S. Relations with North Korea: Strategic Patience Has Become Strategic Passivity

James E. Goodby and Donald Gross — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

While the Obama administration pursued a policy of "strategic patience" toward North Korea during its first two years in office, Pyongyang continued to create "facts on the ground."

In this period and during the last years of the Bush administration as well, North Korea conducted nuclear weapons tests and flight tests of missiles. It built a uranium enrichment plant and is constructing a new nuclear reactor. It repudiated the 1953 Armistice Agreement that suspended hostilities, but did not legally end the Korean War. It recently sank a South Korean warship and bombarded a South Korean island, killing four people, wounding several, and severely damaging civilian property.

The Obama administration says that it will not return to a process which rewards North Korea for bad behavior. But the bad behavior goes on. Sanctions have not yielded results. Toughening the already strict sanctions against North Korea requires a level of cooperation from China that is not likely to occur. Tough action just by the United States, South Korea, and Japan will not suffice.

No doubt, Pyongyang’s pernicious behavior is the fundamental reason for the failure to come to closure in the Six Party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. But a contributing factor has been the inability of successive U.S. administrations to keep a high-level focus on managing the North Korea portfolio and pursue a coherent policy goal. A policy of so-called “strategic patience” will not fix that problem.

Fortunately, after years of false starts, miscalculations, and willful blindness to the real complexities of nuclear weapons issues on the Korean Peninsula, it now appears that a consensus has finally emerged in Washington that nothing less than a broad approach to North Korea has any chance of resolving the nuclear issue. The Obama team has accepted this.

As President Obama noted in his Veterans Day speech to U.S. troops located just south of the Demilitarized Zone: “we’ve made it clear that North Korea’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons will only lead to more isolation and less security for them….If they choose to fulfill their international obligations and commitments to the international community, they will have the chance to offer their people lives of growing opportunity instead of crushing poverty – a future of greater security and greater respect….”

Consistent with President Obama’s views, U.S. strategic objectives, at a minimum, should be to deter and, if possible, reduce the military threat that North Korea poses to its neighbors and to the United States. The United States also has an interest in transformative diplomacy in the region, including inducing a change in how North Korea’s government treats its own citizens.

But strategic patience tends to support the status quo rather than encourage change. To regain the initiative, the United States needs, as a first step, to embrace a concept of what a peace system for the Korean peninsula would look like. That means something more than vague references to a peace treaty and economic cooperation, which is about all the Obama administration has said so far. The U.S. should launch a two-track approach, with one track focusing on regional security and the other on North Korean issues.

The potential for transformative diplomacy in Northeast Asia is huge but requires leadership from Washington. A fully-functioning multilateral security mechanism for Northeast Asia, perhaps derived from the Six-Party talks, could be a much needed agent for change. A multilateral organization is not a panacea: many sensitive issues will continue to be handled through other channels. But a multilateral consultative mechanism could help lead the region to a stable peace.

As soon as it can be arranged, therefore, the five nations that have been trying to negotiate with North Korea should convene a meeting of their foreign ministers. North Korea also could be invited. It might not attend, but a meeting like this would bring added diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang and could lead to a Five-Party Forum that would be useful in its own right.

Engagement with North Korea eventually will require a direct discussion between a top North Korean leader and a comparable official from the United States government. A conversation in Beijing between General James Jones (USMC), President Obama’s former National Security Advisor, and one of Kim Jong-Il’s senior military deputies on North Korea’s National Defense Commission is one possibility that should be considered.

What to do next? Replacing the 1953 Armistice Agreement with a U.S.-DPRK interim agreement for regulating military activities on the Korean Peninsula might be the best move, in the context of North Korea’s renewed commitment to disabling and dismantling its nuclear weapons program. Other nations, especially the ROK, should join in. This interim agreement would not be a peace treaty, since relations are not yet mature enough for that.

An interim agreement could define borders, including the Northern Limit Line, and provide a Consultative Mechanism for nations most directly concerned with the Armistice Agreement. It could include military confidence-building measures like an “incidents at sea” agreement, which helped the U.S. and Soviet navies avoid confrontations in the last years of the Cold War. It would be a genuine step forward.

Although a solution to the basic political and security issues in Northeast Asia is not likely to be found in the near future, we should be clear about one other thing: U.S. disengagement from talks with North Korea effectively contributes to instability in the region. Strategic patience is no longer viable. Diplomatic initiatives and vision must replace passivity, and soon.

Authors

James E. Goodby
Donald Gross

Publication: The Nautilus Institute

The Emerging Architecture for Security and Cooperation in Northeast Asia

James E. Goodby — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:00:00 -0400

SUMMARY

The Six-Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program could rank in importance with the creation of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe if two things happen: North Korea makes a strategic decision to terminate its nuclear weapons program and destroy any nuclear weapons in its possession; and all the governments involved opt for transformational agreements, as opposed to preserving the status quo in Northeast Asia. Three interrelated elements bear on bringing peace to divided Korea: an agreement to end the armistice agreement, a larger cluster of agreements that create conditions for enduring peace in Korea, and a regional framework that provides a mechanism for resolving conflicts and promoting peace in a region where divided Korea is not the only bitter residue of the past. Thus, the future security architecture of Northeast Asia will have at its core the Korean Peninsula legally at peace after six decades, that peace supported by a set of cooperative understandings mainly between South and North Korea comprising a “peace regime,” all embedded in a multilateral mechanism for promoting peace and security in Northeast Asia.

A mechanism for peace and security could evolve from the Six-Party Talks, through the meeting of foreign ministers envisaged in the Feb. 13, 2007 statement. Their agenda would include political and security issues, economic and scientific issues, and human dimension issues. Establishing multilateral ministerial meetings to focus on a broad range of issues, including the human dimension, could enhance progress in these areas and the prospect for long-term stability on the Korean Peninsula and elsewhere in Northeast Asia. The agenda for institutionalized foreign ministers meetings would have its counterpart in a charter for a mechanism for peace and security in Northeast Asia. That charter could include agreements not to use or threaten force in the mutual relations of its members; to enhance transparency in military affairs; to cooperate in developing the energy and transportation infrastructure in Northeast Asia; to work for the improvement of human welfare everywhere; to develop cultural and historical awareness; to encourage the freer movement of people, information, and ideas across borders; and to promote adherence to international human rights standards. Critical to the success of the mechanism for peace and security would be provisions in the mandate for follow-up.

The outlook for the Peninsula is far from bleak. The Bush administration seems to be assigning a high priority to resolving many of the tough issues related to Korea and Northeast Asia before leaving office. North and South Koreans are continuing to work harmoniously together. China, Japan, and Russia all have reasons – not necessarily the same – for wanting progress. But top-level leadership in all countries will be required if 2008 is to see significant progress toward a new system for peace and security in Northeast Asia.

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Authors

James E. Goodby

Publication: Insights and Isues

Don't Expect Miracles in North Korea Deal

James E. Goodby and Markku Heiskanen — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0500

"The Bushies finally got it!"

That was the reaction of Korea watchers like us who have argued for years that the nuclear issue could only be definitively solved in the larger framework of a settlement of the Korean War. "More for more," some said. "Enlarge the problem," was the way we put it.

Now the U.S. administration has adopted this approach and it finds itself under fire from left and right. Naturally, we believe this approach should have been taken earlier, even in the last Democratic administration. But it is not correct to say that there is nothing new in it.

The agreement reached in Beijing on Tuesday by the six powers involved in the resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue could mark the first step towards a new era in Northeast Asia, a region where Cold War structures still remain.

First, the agreement is a compromise accepted by all six players in northeast Asia, including North Korea. This is a major change compared with the Agreed Framework of 1994 between the United States and North Korea. It is a clear move from traditional bilateral to multilateral diplomacy in the region.

Second, the nuclear issue was handled in parallel -- not sequentially as in the past -- with other relevant sectors: the normalization of relations of the United States and Japan with North Korea and four-party talks to end the Korean War with a peace treaty. This is crucial in fitting all these moving parts into a balanced package deal.

Third, the Beijing agreement calls for creating a multilateral process of security and cooperation in Northeast Asia, one of the few regions of the world that lacks one. That's important for the region as a whole, where there have been disturbing signs of a revival of old animosities.

Fourth, establishing working groups is a major step forward. This commits the six nations to concrete formulation of specific action plans. The work in all the five working groups are naturally interlinked, but, as it is said in the agreement, progress in one working group shall not affect progress in other working groups. Plans made by the five working groups will be implemented as a whole in a coordinated manner.

Economic cooperation now has an important role. The Beijing agreement may reflect positively, more or less immediately, on inter-Korean relations. The joint-Korean experiment of the Gaesong industrial park in North Korea may now continue. North Korea may drop its objections to the test runs of the completed railway corridors across the demilitarized zone between the two Korean states.

If North Korea implements the denuclearization program as provided by the Beijing agreement this certainly will have a positive effect on future economic cooperation with its big neighbors China and Russia, both willing to support the economic recovery of a nuclear-free North Korea.

Normalization of the relations between Japan and North Korea would open new prospects for the recovery of North Korean economy. In the long run it is a realistic option that a "Eurasian Land Bridge" could be opened from Japan via the Korean peninsula up to Europe, also by utilizing the new "Iron Silk Road."

Europe does not have any concrete role in the ongoing process in Northeast Asia. But it can support the process as one of the major economic players in the region. Let us keep in mind that the European Union and Northeast Asia both share a frontier with the growing economy of Russia.

Will this new approach succeed? Critics are already sniping at it, North Korea can be counted on to be difficult, Japan is not happy that the abductee issue has not been resolved, and the issues themselves are daunting. So no one should expect miracles.

But this approach deserves support. It is perhaps the last best hope for averting catastrophe, both in Northeast Asia and in the Middle East. Let's not forget that what happens now in Northeast Asia will have an impact on Iran, as well.

Authors

James E. Goodby
Markku Heiskanen

Publication: OhmyNews International

U.S. Must Take Offensive Against Nuclear Terrorism

James E. Goodby — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0500

It's only a matter of time. That's what the experts say when asked whether a terrorist organization might detonate an atom bomb in an American city.

The Bush administration has taken several initiatives to defend the country against nuclear terrorism. These measures will help to prevent the theft of uranium and plutonium and to interdict any illicit shipments of nuclear materials or equipment. The recent capture in the Republic of Georgia of a smuggler carrying enriched uranium is a case where cooperative intelligence worked quite well. But we are still playing catch-up. Why?

First, the task of preventing the spread of nuclear materials and technology too often is assigned a lower priority than other national goals.

Second, we are not aggressively using the full array of diplomatic and security tools available to us in this fight.

The consequences are clear to see. While the Bush administration debated whether to negotiate with or strangle North Korea's government, that country built and tested a nuclear weapon. Pakistan, whose president has escaped two assassination attempts by Islamic extremists, is the home of Abdul Qadeer Khan, who set up an international black market in nuclear materials, equipment and even weapon designs, and used this to help Libya, Iran and North Korea.

Pakistan has tested nuclear weapons. The Bush administration perceives that it needs Pakistan's help in the war on terror. Consequently, nuclear nonproliferation issues must take a back seat in our dealings with that country.

India refused to accept the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and tested nuclear weapons, causing Pakistan to do so shortly afterward. Despite the worries of a few "proliferation hawks" in Congress and elsewhere, President Bush negotiated a deal to assist India's civil nuclear power program. Congress even endorsed a change in U.S. anti-proliferation laws to accommodate India.

In the case of Iran, the United States missed opportunities after 9/11 to engage with that country on security and other issues. Subsequently, we became bogged down in Iraq on the spurious grounds that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapons program. Now, according to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, the United States has little leverage to bring to bear in any discussions with Iran. And military options carry grave consequences. Meanwhile, Iran is putting in place the infrastructure needed to build atom bombs.

Is all this relevant to preventing a nuclear bomb from being detonated in an American city? North Korea and Iran are not so bent on national suicide as to think of launching a nuclear attack on the United States. India and Pakistan are friends and are likely to remain so. So what's the problem?

In the nuclear field, America has no permanent friends, only permanent interests. We would do well to remember that America once supported Iraq in that country's war with Iran. Before that, we supported Iran's aspirations to become a dominant power in the Middle East. From the beginning of the nuclear age, America's interest has been to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to any other nation, even our closest allies. That is still our interest.

We cannot expect that the defensive measures we take to prevent terrorists from infiltrating a nuclear device into our country will succeed indefinitely in a world where more and more nations—some reliable, others less so—acquire the capabilities to build the bomb. Like the levees around New Orleans, sooner or later the rising tide of nuclear weaponry will break through those barriers.

To the everlasting credit of all concerned, the Bush administration, and the Clinton administration before it, worked with Russia to improve the security of nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere. Most, but not all, of these improvements relate to civilian research establishments. However, there are thousands of small, portable, "tactical" nuclear weapons in Russia—presumably in secure military installations scattered around the country—that terrorists would pay millions of dollars to get their hands on. None of these has been touched by any U.S.-Russian agreement.

We need an aggressive U.S. policy aimed at denying terrorists the pool of nuclear weapons and related materials from which they can buy or steal the means to destroy an American city. A diplomatic offensive to block nuclear terrorism should not just fix the easier problems. It should dry up the most serious potential source of nuclear terror: the weapons that are stockpiled, the new weapons that are being built, and the infrastructure that supports these programs—and not just in Russia. No American anti-proliferation policy can be complete or successful if it does not address this side of the problem.

Our offensive against nuclear terrorism should have the highest priority. It should be equipped with all the leverage we can provide it. That's not the case today. And that's why the experts can confidently say: It's only a matter of time.

Authors

James E. Goodby

Publication: The Baltimore Sun

Nuclear Nonproliferation's Missing Link

James E. Goodby — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Whether it will prove to be wise or foolish, the U.S.-India agreement to promote civil nuclear cooperation appears to be a done deal. It is possible that in the end India will not accept restraints that many in Washington think are important, India's nuclear relations with Iran being one of them. The recent India-China agreement on civil nuclear cooperation will enable India to be even less obliging to the United States on issues like this. But the attitude on Capitol Hill has been made crystal clear by the Senate's 85-12 vote in favor. Congress is ready to amend the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to make a special exception for India, a state that adamantly refuses to accept the nonproliferation treaty and has no intention of being America's counterweight to China. American firms will be able to sell civil nuclear technology and equipment to India. India, in turn, has agreed to accept U.N. inspections in some of its civil nuclear facilities. Its nuclear weapons installations will be off-limits.

The Bush administration has argued that this deal will strengthen the nonproliferation regime, in part because U.N. inspectors will have access to facilities in India that were closed to them until now. The Senate accepted this argument. But the reality is that the nuclear police have been given a new precinct to patrol while the law they are supposed to enforce is being rescinded. Ratification of the U.S.-India deal places squarely on the table a fact that Washington has not been willing to face: a new contract is needed between the nuclear haves and have-nots. The old one is not working.

For nearly forty years the nuclear nonproliferation treaty has helped to slow progress toward a nuclear-armed world. Today, more than 60 years after the world's first and only use of nuclear weapons in war, fewer than ten nations have nuclear arsenals. Several nations have given up nuclear weapons or abandoned weapons programs. Even the nuclear challenges of Iran and North Korea are portrayed as defying the collective will of the international community.

How could a system that has been so successful be seen as a failure? Brazilian Ambassador Sergio de Queiroz Duarte, the president of the 2005 international conference that reviewed the Treaty, reported that several nations "came out of the Conference unconvinced that the Treaty can still provide reasonable assurance that proliferation has been checked and that progress in nuclear disarmament can be achieved." The writing on the wall is there, unmistakably, and the U.S.-India deal just makes it clearer. There are no negotiations or even discussions about nuclear disarmament. The need for new weapons designs and threats to use nuclear weapons in less than all-out war are being discussed in Washington, and perhaps elsewhere. North Korea has joined India, Pakistan, and Israel as possessors of nuclear weapons. If Iran succeeds in acquiring nuclear weapons there will be as many nuclear-weapons states outside the nuclear nonproliferation treaty as there are in it.

The nuclear nonproliferation treaty is being undercut by governments that are reluctant to restrain their own actions. Iran says that the Treaty permits it to enrich uranium and separate plutonium. North Korea built up its nuclear infrastructure while complying with the Treaty. The United States says that it has reduced its nuclear arsenal and the onus is on other countries to live up to the bargain struck by the Treaty. The cumulative effect is that the Treaty has little effect on what governments actually do.

Where is the world headed? One indicator of what the Bush administration fears the future may hold is the energy it has devoted to defensive strategies, such as the interdiction of illicit shipments of nuclear materials. These worries are certainly justified. The A. Q. Khan nuclear smuggling ring, based in Pakistan and connected with an intercontinental network, was a wake-up call. The administration is right to say that the international community urgently needs more reliable controls over nuclear materials and strengthened efforts to detect and interdict illicit shipments of these materials. It is wrong to assume that a steady increase in the number of states — even if they are mostly "good guys" — that can build and deploy nuclear bombs will not outstrip the capacity of any system to plug leaks and intercept bombs. Like the levees in New Orleans, a rising tide of nuclear-capable nations, some quite responsible, others less so, in the end will overwhelm any defensive barrier. In the age of globalization, borders are simply too porous to indefinitely hold back determined efforts to smuggle nuclear weapons.

An offensive strategy is needed, one that will reverse the growing pressures on nations to acquire nuclear weapons and roll back the numbers of nuclear weapons in the world.

The missing link is the nuclear nonproliferation treaty itself. It is possible to listen to policy pronouncements by senior administration officials about the administration's fight against nuclear proliferation without ever hearing the Treaty mentioned. Why is the administration not putting as much muscle into an effort to restore confidence in that Treaty as it is in creating new interdiction tools? It could be that the administration believes the fight against nuclear proliferation already has been lost. But the answer also lies in the administration's ideological mind-set.

President Bush's approach to nuclear weapons is based on three premises that have permeated his administration's actions:

Nuclear weapons are not the fundamental problem; they become a major security problem when they get into the hands of rogue states or terrorist groups.
Global norms have their place, but the most effective means of countering proliferation are through coalitions of democracies, using military force if necessary.
Restraints on the ability of the United States and other democratic nations to maintain nuclear forces that they alone deem necessary for their security should be avoided.

This thinking has freed the administration to focus intensely on countries that pose a proliferation threat, like Iran and North Korea, but successes are hard to find. Selectivity in the application of nonproliferation norms and policies actually encourages proliferation. It drives potential proliferators to acquire nuclear weapons, either to deter the United States, as in the cases of North Korea and Iran, or because there are no sanctions against proliferation, in the cases of friends of the United States, like India. And there is also no presumption that the nuclear weapon states have any obligation to scale back their nuclear weapons to levels lower than they have unilaterally determined they need. That was the logic of the Treaty of Moscow, signed by Presidents Putin and Bush in 2002.

The current drift towards a world of 20 or 30 nuclear-armed states will continue unless a new contract is concluded to replace two articles in the Nonproliferation Treaty. These are the undertakings by the nuclear-weapons states to negotiate on nuclear disarmament, and the right enjoyed by any country to a civil nuclear power program. These articles have been neglected or abused by a number of countries. There is no use in pretending that the nuclear nonproliferation treaty can still be an effective barrier against the creeping menace of nuclear terrorism unless a new contract replaces those two provisions.

Concessions are needed from both sides, those that have nuclear weapons and those who are being asked to refrain from acquiring them. First, the new contract should include an undertaking to assist civil nuclear power programs by promoting regional multilateral fuel production facilities or by establishing a nuclear fuel bank under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency, as Warren Buffet has urged. Much has been said about this latter point since President Eisenhower proposed it in 1953, including by President Bush, but nothing has been done. Nothing will be done unless this idea becomes part of a new nonproliferation contract.

The second part of the new contract would be an obligation on the part of nuclear weapons-capable states to shrink nuclear arsenals globally. The Nonproliferation Treaty's provision on this point now lacks any credibility. Is there room for further cuts in nuclear weapons after the 2002 Bush-Putin Treaty of Moscow? That treaty stipulates that Russia and the United States each can have as many as 2200 operationally deployed nuclear warheads six years from now, in 2012. There is no limit on how many warheads can be held in reserve, in what the Administration calls a Responsive Force. These reserve weapons can be used to reconstitute the operationally deployed force. Given the state of relations between the world's two largest nuclear weapons powers today, there is no real reason why Russia and the United States cannot place more reliance on the Responsive Force, and less on operationally deployed forces. Even zero operationally deployed nuclear warheads is not an unreasonable goal.

India and America, their new strategic partnership apparently sealed by a deal to cooperate in civil nuclear programs, are the obvious candidates to champion a new nonproliferation contract. Not so long ago, India's leaders and America's leaders were in the forefront of those who saw nuclear weapons as immoral. Today, their own self-interest in preventing a nuclear disaster should encourage these two countries and others to spearhead an effort to negotiate a new contract before it is too late to stave off the nuclear nightmare that is becoming increasingly likely.

Authors

James E. Goodby

Publication: PacNet

Creating a Peace Regime in Korea

James E. Goodby — Tue, 30 May 2006 00:00:00 -0400

The Bush administration reportedly is considering an offer to join in talks with North Korea, South Korea, and China to create a "peace regime" on the Korean Peninsula. But, what exactly is a "peace regime"? It has been described as a peace treaty, but it is not to be confused with the task of liquidating the machinery of the 1953 Armistice Agreement that ended the shooting in the Korean War. That could be done through a legal document something like the treaty that surrendered quadripartite rights in Berlin and Germany as a whole in 1990.

No, a peace regime is not just about ending an outdated arrangement. Rather, it involves a whole range of state-to-state and people-to-people relationships, all designed to promote security and cooperation on the Korean Peninsula. And yet a peace regime is not the same as full reconciliation and peaceful reunification of the two Koreas. In the long run, democratic institutions and practices throughout the Peninsula is what will keep the peace and unify Korea. A peace regime is but a step in that direction, but it must include features that would promote that outcome.

The best approximation of what a peace regime might look like is the 1992 Basic Agreement between North and South Korea, long considered a dead letter but still a reliable blueprint for a political settlement. Chapter 1 of that agreement is about reconciliation. Chapter 2 speaks of phased reductions in armaments including the elimination of weapons of mass destruction. Chapter 3 speaks of freedom of intra-Korean travel, cooperation in the international arena, and in journalism and the media, as well as economic cooperation. What the Basic Agreement lacks is a mechanism to involve other countries – specifically the United States and China – in supporting and reinforcing the provisions of the Agreement. Talks on a peace regime should be held in parallel with the Six-Party Talks because it will help to resolve the nuclear weapons issue with North Korea; changes on North-South relations are taking place anyway.

The negotiating process for a peace regime could unfold in essentially two ways: one would amount to a formal negotiation between governments, designed to arrive at a comprehensive political settlement. This is what the declaration between Presidents George W. Bush and Roh Moo-hyun last November envisaged. They spoke of "discussions on a peace regime? amongst directly related parties in a forum separate from the Six-Party Talks." This is what the administration is reportedly now considering.

The alternative is a piecemeal approach: small steps which, through the process of accretion, begin to create a de facto peace regime. And this is what already is happening in Korea. This is the way regimes often are created, rather than through elaborate negotiations. The U.S.-Soviet restraint regime during the Cold War was created in this way. It is an "organic" approach in the sense that small advances permit additional advances, rather like the process through which coral reefs are built.

The growing economic and travel ties between North and South Korea offer examples of this approach. The process is at odds with the U.S. approach to North Korea, but this incremental regime-building process will probably continue in the absence of more formal talks. Other countries, China and Russia among them, are joining in this process.

The Bush administration is well advised to try to establish a framework in which the United States would be formally and continuously engaged in reaching a political settlement on the Korean Peninsula, and the other relevant parties would be wise to seize this opportunity as well.

The incremental process cannot advance beyond a certain point. Major unresolved security issues, such as the North Korean nuclear weapons program, will place real impediments in the way of North Korea's full integration into the regional and global economy. Parallel talks on a peace regime and the nuclear issue make good sense.

Presidents Bush and Roh also agreed in a Nov. 17, 2005 joint declaration "to make common efforts to develop a regional multilateral security dialogue and a cooperation mechanism so as to jointly respond to regional security issues." Any regime-building process, no matter how it is done, needs to be buttressed by a multilateral support system. Korea's long history shows how much the safety and well-being of the Korean people depend on relations with their neighbors. Northeast Asia is one of the very few regions of the world that lacks an organization to promote security and cooperation among the nations of the region – and it shows.

Now that the administration seems ready to engage in serious negotiation, it is not too early to begin consultations on what such a mechanism would do and how it would relate to a peace regime.

Authors

James E. Goodby

Publication: PacNet

Chart New Course for Lasting Peace

James E. Goodby — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 00:00:00 -0500

The Bush administration's rhetoric about bringing freedom to the people of North Korea and the Middle East is intended to sow the seeds for a future democratic peace in both regions. But the soil remains infertile. As we have seen recently in Palestine, Iran and Iraq, free elections do not automatically lead to democracy.

A new tone – and strategy – are needed. This starts with a more realistic appreciation of the forces that drive regional powers to arm and threaten their neighbors – namely, strident nationalism, racial ideology and volatile borders.

The issue is not whether the leaders of these countries are wicked or misguided, whether democracy is a superior form of government or whether America should champion freedom around the world.

Rather, the central problem for today's diplomacy is the very practical one of finding a way to prevent armed conflict while eliminating over time the political, social and economic sources of internal unrest. The two aims always have been closely connected, but their interplay is more consequential than ever in today's globalizing world.

Fortunately, we have been here before. The great achievement of the late 20th century was an interdependent, democratic and prosperous Europe, at peace with itself and the rest of the world.

The long, difficult process of building a stable 20th–century peace after 1945 witnessed a good deal of rhetoric about liberating the world from godless communism, to be sure. But that was accompanied by several measures that transformed a tenuous balance of rival powers into a genuine security community. In Western Europe, NATO and the European Union created the conditions for a stable peace. It was only natural that this system grew to embrace nearly all of Europe.

One of the most significant contributions to a Europe whole and free was made by the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, which established the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Now known as the OSCE (the "conference" became an "organization" in 1995), this mechanism has served both America and Europe very well over the decades. Beginning as a charter reaffirming the sanctity of borders and human rights, the OSCE today continues to provide a stable context in which to settle disputes, air differences and make tradeoffs on a regional basis.

Northeast Asia and the Middle East desperately need a similar arrangement. Of course, both are very different from Europe, and the OSCE cannot, and should not, be replicated there. But the principle behind it is relevant to both these other regions. Each lacks anything like a permanent security mechanism required to forestall national rivalry. The pattern of relationships there is not too different from the one that characterized Europe at the turn of the 20th century. We all know where that led.

There are several proposals on the table in both regions that would include designated nuclear–free zones in Korea and in the Persian Gulf area, including Iran. The South Koreans and Saudis, in particular, have each recently offered innovative ideas for comprehensive regional security communities.

The United States should be giving its enthusiastic endorsement to these ideas. If it did, much could be accomplished by transformative diplomacy. But this is badly lacking. Rather, we have ceded diplomatic momentum – not to mention popular legitimacy – to reactionary movements such as Hamas, the multiple parties opposing our mission in Iraq and China's backers of the status quo.

Charters for security cooperation in these regions should include provisions for military transparency, elimination of weapons of mass destruction, the free movement of people and ideas, and energy-sector cooperation. Beyond that, the substance of the charters should be determined by the realities on the ground.

And here we must remember that the process may be just as important as the outcome. The more regional powers begin to work with one another instead of relying upon the intervention or the jawboning of outsiders, the safer they – and we – will be.

Authors

James E. Goodby

Publication: The Baltimore Sun

Linking Europe and Northeast Asia

James E. Goodby and Markku Heiskanen — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 00:00:00 -0500

The Korean War did not end when the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. Only the shooting stopped. The effects of that war still stand in the way of a stable peace in Northeast Asia.

In Washington, on that same July day, those European countries that sent troops to the Korean War under the U.N. flag signed a joint declaration pledging that they would resist any new armed attack. That declaration is still legally valid and it serves as a reminder that any major military conflict or crisis in Korea would cause immediately serious consequences for the international system, not just Northeast Asia.

The involvement of the European Union in security issues in Northeast Asia is not likely or desirable at present. But the EU had an active role in the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization. KEDO supported the U.S.–North Korean agreement that froze North Korea's plutonium production for several years.

The EU has been a major donor of humanitarian aid to North Korea. EU economic and humanitarian activity in the region already has contributed to peace and security and improved the lives of ordinary North Koreans. Much more can be done.

The visit to China of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, high–lighted the overriding role of economics in the Northeast Asian equation. Integrating North Korea into the global economy would provide more effective leverage than isolating the country. But this process is unlikely to go very far except in the context of a broad political settlement in Korea.

It is unimaginable that a fully functioning peace regime could be put in place while the nuclear question is still unresolved. But definitively solving the nuclear problem in the absence of finally ending the Korean War also is unimaginable.

The two Koreas do not need to start from square one. The Basic Agreement, signed between them on Dec. 13, 1991, has all the elements of a peace system. It was never carried out because the nuclear crisis intervened but it remains on the books. Reviving and implementing the Basic Agreement, or its equivalent, in all its aspects would finally end the Korean War.

To make a peace regime enduring, it would have to be buttressed by the support of other nations. And here is where the EU should have a role. Formal acceptance of commitments undertaken by the two Koreas regarding levels and types of armaments, for example, may be needed. What clearly will be needed will be support for economic programs they may adopt.

Meanwhile, events are already changing the familiar landscape of the region and altering the environment within which the EU can exercise influence. Trade between North and South Korea surpassed $1 billion for the first time at the end of 2005. The joint North-South Korean industrial park in Gaesong, North Korea, is showing promising results.

Energy cooperation is high on the agenda for Northeast Asia. Less well known are the possibilities in transportation infrastructure. Two inter-Korean railway corridors are now waiting for the first test trains to cross the demilitarized zone, for the first time in half a century.

The EU supports the "Iron Silk Road" – – the initiative of former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung to connect the Korean peninsula to Europe through a Eurasian railway network. This initiative is expected to be on the agenda of the ASEM summit meeting of Asian and European political leaders in Helsinki during the Finnish EU Presidency in September 2006.

The project is moving closer to reality. A land bridge between Europe and Northeast Asia could have significant economic and geopolitical consequences. It would also underscore the need to settle the Korean War once and for all.

Finland introduced during its previous EU Presidency in 1999 the "Northern Dimension," a cooperation program in the Baltic Sea and Arctic Sea regions also including parts of Russia. This year, a "Eurasian Dimension" would be in order. It could make a solid contribution to peace in Northeast Asia.

Authors

James E. Goodby
Markku Heiskanen

Publication: Ohmy News

Changing Course in Northeast Asia

James E. Goodby — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 00:00:00 -0500

No issue is more timely or more consequential for the long-term peace and security of the world than the creation of a new framework to promote regional stability in Northeast Asia. Three major wars involving the United States were fought in Asia in the middle decades of the last century. Currently the likelihood of war in the region is very low but the peace is still conditional. Cold War structures live on in the form of the U.S.-Korea and U.S.-Japan security treaties, and these still serve important security needs. Something that might augment these arrangements, in particular, a multilateral organization for security and cooperation in Northeast Asia has been discussed for years. Both liberal and conservative administrations in South Korea have pushed the idea, seeing it as a way of forestalling a repeat of the tragedies that have afflicted the nation in centuries past when Korea became the victim of its powerful neighbors. But the dream has remained beyond their grasp.

In the meantime, nationalism is on the march. China and South Korea are as one in denouncing Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro's visits to a shrine and museum that depict Japan's role in World War II in a favorable light. Minor territorial disputes are becoming magnified. Japanese public opinion, in response, is becoming more critical of its Asian neighbors. While Japan seeks closer relations with Washington to offset the rise of China, China and Russia are collaborating to reduce U.S. influence in Asia. These trends are still moving at relatively superficial levels but they are omens of more serious conflicts ahead. A multilateral organization is not a panacea: many sensitive issues will continue to be handled through other channels. But over time it could encourage a different pattern of relationships to evolve. The present pattern is clearly not sufficient to lead the nations of the region to a stable peace.

Launching a new organization for security and cooperation is not an easy thing to do or it would have been done already. The process has been hampered, among other things, by the absence of a final settlement of the Korean War. The war lingers and continues to create tensions. The armistice signed in 1953 brought an end to the shooting but left a genuine peace to the wisdom of succeeding generations, who have not been equal to the task. This situation is not just another remnant of untidiness from past wars: it is directly relevant to the North Korean nuclear threat. Experience suggests that while negotiations focusing narrowly on nuclear weapons programs may yield transitory success, the agreements are not sustainable over the long run, and that a broader context will be necessary to buttress them.

The U.S. is better positioned than any of the regional powers to take the lead in changing the geopolitical context in Northeast Asia. America's geography and its history, not to mention its immense power, render it relatively free of the historical and cultural baggage carried by Asian nations. Until very recently the Bush administration has not seen fit to exercise this unique role. But unnoticed by most of the world, in recent weeks evidence has appeared that suggests that this reluctance may be giving way to an awareness of the vast potential the U.S. has for bringing a stable peace to Northeast Asia.

On Sept. 19, the administration accepted a statement in the Six-Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear program that went far beyond its usual stance. That statement was the first in many years — perhaps ever — to imply that there might be a common political, economic, and security agenda that would link China, Japan, Russia, the two Koreas, and the U.S. It opened the door to a permanent organization for security and cooperation in the region and it also called for a separate forum to negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.

These policy beachheads were expanded during President Bush's recent trip to Asia. President Bush and President Roh of South Korea agreed on Nov. 14 that "discussions on a peace regime [in Korea] should take place amongst directly-related parties in a forum separate from the Six-Party Talks." They also agreed "to make common efforts to develop a regional multilateral security dialogue and a cooperation mechanism, so as to jointly respond to regional security issues." Tangible results from these commitments may take time to materialize. But one thing is clear: issues that could fundamentally change the political and security landscape of the region are now inscribed on the international agenda.

Northeast Asia is one of the few regions of the world where there is no multilateral organization dedicated to enhancing security and cooperation. South Asia and the Middle East are two other examples and the recurrent violence that afflicts those regions is precisely what Northeast Asian nations should want to avoid. The absence of a mechanism that makes cooperation a habit among nations is also one of the reasons why Northeast Asia remains infected by the poisonous legacies of the Cold War, and even of World War II, as can be witnessed almost daily.

What would a mandate for a permanent security mechanism in Northeast Asia look like? The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is certainly not a blueprint for how things should be done in Asia, but the experience from another time and another place does offer some insights. One of them is that a comprehensive agenda provides a context within which disparate problems can be solved, partly because it encourages tradeoffs among diverging national interests. The predecessor of the OSCE, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was a mechanism created in 1975 in Helsinki by 35 European and North American nations. These nations agreed on very little but each of them saw advantages for themselves in a comprehensive charter called the Helsinki Final Act. The charter included security, economics, and the human dimension and it launched the process that helped to end the Cold War in Europe. A charter for security and cooperation in Northeast Asia could include agreements not to use or threaten force in the mutual relations of its members; to enhance transparency in military affairs; to cooperate in developing the energy and transportation infrastructure in Northeast Asia; to work for the improvement of human welfare everywhere; to develop cultural and historical awareness; and to encourage the freer movement of people, information, and ideas across borders. The latter was one of the key components of the Helsinki Final Act. All of that is a tall order and the nations interested in this project should lose no time in doing the homework necessary to make it a reality. It took the NATO members about three years of hard work before they were ready even to begin the talks about what became the Helsinki Final Act of 1975.

The idea of a peace settlement in Korea is more advanced conceptually than is that of a regional security forum. A remarkable agreement between South and North Korea that came into effect in February 1992 defined a peace settlement about as well as it could be in an agreement limited to North and South Korea. It came to be known as the "Basic Agreement" because of its wide-ranging commitments. The agreement called for ceilings on the armed forces of the two sides and for military confidence-building measures. It called for economic cooperation. And it included provisions that resemble those in the Helsinki Final Act as regards freer movement of people, information, and ideas. Unfortunately, this agreement was never implemented. The blame for that lies mainly with North Korea, but South Korea has rarely made an issue of this, perhaps regarding the agreement as a relic of the past or a trophy of a previous administration.

Before consigning the Basic Agreement to the limbo of failed experiments, its relevance to today's problems should be re-examined. First, this agreement was approved by the founder of the North Korean state, Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994. That must mean something to his son, Kim Jong-il, the current leader of North Korea. Second, a peace settlement of the type envisaged by Presidents Roh and Bush in their joint statement would almost certainly be the functional equivalent of the Basic Agreement, even if a long process of re-negotiation were conducted. Third, the element that is missing in the Basic Agreement to make it a true peace settlement is the selective engagement and commitments of other nations, most notably the U.S. The Bush-Roh commitments give this North-South agreement a second chance to form the core of a peace settlement that would supersede the Armistice Agreement of 1953. It would furnish a context in which to solve both the nuclear issue and improve the desperate condition of the people of North Korea. Washington should challenge North and South Korea to revive the Basic Agreement and should offer to make the commitments and take the actions necessary to support that agreement and to convert it into a true peace settlement.

Whether the recent welcome shifts in the administration's policies will convince North Korea that it should cooperate in the Six-Party Talks is uncertain. It would be a tragedy for everyone if it did not. Vice President Cheney was right in a broader sense than he probably intended when he remarked in April 2004 that "time is not necessarily on our side." He was speaking of North Korea's nuclear programs, but he could have been speaking of other dangers, as well.

It is possible that North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-il, has decided that his state must be at least a "virtual" nuclear weapons state no matter what inducements it is offered or what pressures are placed upon it. If that proves to be the case, a peace settlement will not be possible but the U.S. and its friends would be foolishly short-sighted to give North Korea a veto over the creation of a permanent institution to enhance security and cooperation in Northeast Asia. This would be needed more than ever if North Korea insisted on retaining a nuclear deterrent.

One of America's diplomatic advantages has been its ability to leverage its own power through rule-based multilateral organizations that are transparent and that require steady commitments. In its first term, the Bush team sacrificed this advantage. But now the president has the opportunity in Northeast Asia again to be "present at the creation," as Secretary of State Dean Acheson called the institution-building period at the end of World War II that ushered in the "long peace" in Europe. The policy shifts made by the administration recently in Asia are encouraging but they will need top-level attention and serious follow-through. This will not be easy.

Authors

James E. Goodby

Publication: PacNet

Enlarge the North Korean Problem

James E. Goodby — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 00:00:00 -0400

Some of South Korea's most influential policy advisers met for five hours last Friday with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il. The Bush administration's initial reaction was dismissive.

Tone deafness is not unusual in this administration but, in this case, the problem with Washington's approach is more fundamental. What began as an exercise in arms control has been superseded by a much bigger issue: the future security structure of Northeast Asia. The administration seems to be unaware of this. South Korea is not.

There is much talk in Seoul of a Northeast Asian community. Washington's friends are on to something: The nuclear issue can only be resolved within a framework that is as large as the strategic issue of which it is a part. Some years ago, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld published "Rumsfeld's Rules," one of which declares that "if you can't solve a problem, enlarge it." This happens to be very good advice in this particular case.

Quite apart from the nuclear issue, it should be a U.S. policy imperative to head off conflicts within the system of nations whose interests intersect and sometimes collide in Northeast Asia. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has used the term zero-sum thinking to describe a struggle for advantage in which one nation's gain is seen as another's loss. Such thinking is on the rise in Northeast Asia. Absent some mechanism to moderate the trends now gathering force, the long-term outlook for peace is bleak. Can we forget that three major 20th century wars involving the United States began in Asia?

The six nations that have participated in talks on North Korea need to enlarge the scope of their discussions. They need not change the general purpose of the original six-party talks nor should they wait any longer for those talks to be successful. In parallel with those talks, or independently if the talks are not resumed, they should work out a mandate for a permanent mechanism to promote security and cooperation in Northeast Asia. This region is one of the few that does not have the organizational infrastructure to encourage multilateral cooperation.

Interest in a security community is growing. If Washington drops the ball, some other nation is likely to pick it up and shape the outcome to its liking.

The mandate for a security community should be as broad as that of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It should include a joint commitment not to use or threaten force in the mutual relations of the participants; regulation of conventional armaments and transparency in military operations; cooperative programs to develop the energy and transport infrastructure of Northeast Asia; programs to deal with improvements in the welfare of individual citizens; and cultural exchanges. Regular consultations among governmental leaders should be mandated.

The fundamental purpose of a permanent security mechanism would be to prevent virulent competition and military confrontation between nations. And it is precisely within such a framework that the problem of devising a sustainable agreement to end North Korea's nuclear weapons program also can be found. It is argued that this approach would delay the efforts of the original six-party talks. But, in fact, parallel talks on a broader agenda would more likely expedite a positive outcome of the nuclear talks.

The original six-party talks should, if possible, continue to discuss the technical aspects of nuclear roll-back, including the ideas about phasing, dismantlement procedures and verification that the United States proposed in June 2004, the last time the six-party talks met. The "Libya model"—parallel and reciprocal actions taken without benefit of a treaty after long behind-the-scenes negotiations—should also be pursued.

There is no way to predict whether North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, would agree to embed the six-party talks in a larger exercise in institution-building, but his government should be invited to do so.

This proposal is not a device for isolating North Korea but rather for including that country in a Northeast Asian security community where gradual reform of the North's authoritarian system would be encouraged. The door should always be open to North Korea if its government is willing to make a commitment to peace, including nuclear disarmament. But if Kim Jong Il refuses to join in this effort the other five should proceed without him. They need this multilateral mechanism for their own reasons, not all of which are connected to North Korea. They would be unwise to allow progress toward a Northeast Asia security community to be held hostage to the outcome of the current six-party talks.

Authors

James E. Goodby

Publication: International Herald Tribune

From Six Party Talks to a Regional Security Mechanism

Donald G. Gross and James E. Goodby — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 00:00:00 -0500

North Korea is a weak and isolated country, but it recently rebuffed demands by the United States, Russia, Japan, China, and South Korea to return to the Six Party Talks on eliminating its nuclear weapons program. North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, says Pyongyang might participate in these negotiations "when conditions are suitable."

What's going on? It is one thing for North Korea to supply nuclear weapons to rogue states or terrorist groups; it's another for it to say "no" to the most powerful nations on earth. The time has come for these five countries to act together to contain the immediate North Korean threat and address other threats that are emerging in Northeast Asia.

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Authors

Donald G. Gross
James E. Goodby

Publication: PacNet

Down to Basics in North Korea

Donald G. Gross and James E. Goodby — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 00:00:00 -0500

A deep and abiding mutual distrust between North Korea and the United States lies at the heart of the impasse which is blocking any real progress towards eliminating North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The outlines of a deal to end the weapons program have become increasingly clear, but the leading protagonists in the negotiations—North Korea and the United States—bear so much enmity toward each other that they cannot bring themselves to start the process of accommodation.

To Washington and Pyongyang, acting rationally in their own self-interest means engaging in a zero-sum game—an advance for one must be a defeat for the other. This attitude will not be changed within the narrow framework of the six party talks on nuclear issues. External events, not directly related to the substance of the nuclear discussions, will be required to change the mind-sets on both sides.

Last year, the U.S. Congress passed and the president signed the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004. It was designed to promote human rights and to encourage humanitarian support for North Korean citizens. Because the original inspiration for this bill came from the theory that encouraging massive refugee flows from North Korea would result in regime change there, the North Korean Government is deeply suspicious of the legislation. But on its face, the law encourages the U.S. administration to take a different tack in its relationship with North Korea – to focus on improving the well-being of ordinary North Koreans. The opportunity should be seized.

The single area where the Bush administration has shown the beneficent face of the United States to North Korea is in its ongoing contributions of humanitarian aid. Though President Bush labeled Pyongyang a charter member of the "axis of evil" in January 2002, his administration has continued to provide North Korea with large quantities of humanitarian food assistance.

When North Korea suffered a terrible rail disaster last spring, killing hundreds of civilians, mostly children, the administration responded with a statement of sincere sympathy and a donation of relief funds. On more than one occasion, President Bush has expressed his heartfelt concern for the plight of North Korean people who continue to suffer from poverty and hunger. It is hard to exaggerate the suffering caused by the horrendously poor medical care.

If the Bush administration were to announce a program of substantial medical assistance to North Korea—to provide desperately needed medical equipment, supplies, and medicine as well as to improve the delivery of health services, Pyongyang would be hard put to accuse the U.S. once again of maintaining a "hostile policy" in the face of this expression of American good will. If direct U.S. involvement is too much for North Korea to swallow, non-governmental organizations or U.N. agencies could manage the program. The key will be to negotiate monitoring procedures that assure that medical assistance gets to those who need it.

For its part, despite repeatedly denouncing the United States' plans for an invasion, Pyongyang has pursued ongoing efforts to repatriate the remains of U.S. servicemen who were unaccounted for at the end of the Korean War. North Korea regularly guides U.S. military officials to remote sites where U.S. soldiers died and helps recover their remains and personal effects.

If North Korea were to announce a considerable increase in manpower and resources to assist the United States in this area, it would be perceived by a majority of Americans as a friendly and forward-looking gesture. The U.S. administration would undoubtedly react with an expression of sincere appreciation and gratitude.

North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, also has another chance to change the atmosphere at practically no cost. This is to come clean about the fate of Japanese citizens kidnapped in the 1970s and held in North Korea ever since.

Taken together, these mutual gestures by the United States and North Korea could have the effect of changing the zero-sum game mind-set in which both governments are caught. This, in turn, could have a positive effect on the atmosphere of the six party talks, without either side having to offer premature concessions on security issues.

At the end of the day, the United States and North Korea, as well as the other participants in the six party talks—South Korea, China, Russia and Japan—have much to lose if this multilateral negotiating forum proves unable to advance a solution to the North Korea nuclear issue. The chance of a military confrontation in Northeast Asia will grow and the six party talks, which could form the nucleus of a future regional security system in the volatile Northeast Asia region, will self-destruct.

If the six party talks succeed as a diplomatic structure and process for addressing the North Korea nuclear issue, the participants will be able to take up other issues in the future that affect the prospects for war or peace in Northeast Asia. The likelihood of achieving this goal will be immeasurably enhanced if the U.S. and North Korea make reciprocal unilateral gestures of friendship and good will toward each other at the outset of the New Year.

Authors

Donald G. Gross
James E. Goodby

Publication: JoongAng Daily

The 'Libya Model' Could Help Disarm North Korea

Donald G. Gross and James E. Goodby — Fri, 03 Sep 2004 00:00:00 -0400

The upcoming round of six-party talks in September will be the last chance before the U.S. elections to test whether diplomacy can roll back North Korea's nuclear programs. Few expect them to succeed. Meanwhile, North Korea is moving steadily toward a full-fledged nuclear arsenal, including long-range ballistic missiles.

The Bush administration has chosen diplomacy, but the administration dithered for so long that its partners in the talks—China, Russia, Japan and South Korea—began to take matters into their own hands. Faced with losing control, in June the administration finally started talking specifics. That didn't break the logjam, but it was a step in the right direction.

The six-party talks shouldn't be written off and a modest amount of hope is even justified. If the statements of the parties are taken at face value, there is some convergence on long-term goals: A Korean Peninsula that is permanently free of nuclear weapons; a peace system that replaces the 1953 armistice agreement; normal diplomatic relations between all the six parties, including the United States and North Korea; an intention not to use force in their mutual relations; elimination of all barriers to trade to facilitate the economic development of North Korea; establishment of a permanent regional security mechanism.

Several difficult obstacles will have to be overcome to begin making progress toward these goals. Negotiating an elaborate treaty would take time. Yet in this nuclear crisis, time is not on anyone's side.

A better approach than seeking a formal treaty at the outset would be to agree at the next round of six-party talks on a statement of common goals and to adopt the model the Bush administration relied on to eliminate Libya's nuclear programs. The administration has favorably cited this model as a basis for making diplomatic progress in North Korea.

The essence of the Libya model is to proceed through "reciprocal unilateral measures"—independent actions taken by parties to the negotiations to reach their shared objectives. A formal treaty is not a requirement. This process leaves to each participant some discretion in what it actually does. It is the model the Bush administration preferred in the case of Russia, as well as Libya.

The flexibility of this method is both its strength and its weakness. It can be a process for building confidence and, conversely, it can be a dead end. It can cut through years of enmity and suspicion that may be preventing the parties from reaching a conventional written agreement. Unless the process of taking reciprocal unilateral measures gathers momentum, however, the parties may never reach an ultimate settlement. At a time when North Korea presents a real nuclear threat and the six-party talks are faltering, this diplomatic process ought to be given a chance.

What reciprocal unilateral measures might be involved? The discussions in the six-party talks suggest the following steps, over time:

North Korea would: 1) dismantle all its nuclear facilities and place constraints on its missile programs, agreeing to monitoring measures; 2) acknowledge and end all technical programs that could be used to enrich uranium; 3) withdraw troops from the Demilitarized Zone and reduce its forces.

The United States would: 1) reduce its deployment of troops on the Korean Peninsula, as it is now doing; 2) provide security assurances; 3) eliminate remaining trade barriers; 4) normalize diplomatic relations with North Korea; 5) provide energy and economic aid.

South Korea would: 1) implement the economic assistance it has promised to North Korea for ending its nuclear programs; 2) initiate confidence-building measures to lower tensions on the peninsula.

Japan would: 1) provide North Korea with promised reparations; 2) take actions to foster economic development in North Korea.

China and Russia could undertake additional measures in response to North Korea's decision to dismantle its nuclear facilities.

North Korea's nuclear programs are more advanced than Libya's and piecemeal dismantlement may be the only practical way to proceed.

If a denuclearized Korean Peninsula is truly accepted as a common strategic objective, Kim Jong Il should be able to begin the process by taking some significant action, while reciprocal unilateral actions by other participants would keep the ball rolling toward achievement of the goal. By forming a permanent oversight group at the earliest possible date, the parties would maintain pressure and help build momentum for the negotiations.

Authors

Donald G. Gross
James E. Goodby

Publication: International Herald Tribune

America and South Korea: An Alliance That Needs to Be Mended

Donald G. Gross and James E. Goodby — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 00:00:00 -0400

From its disastrous first summit meeting with then President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea, to its recent unilateral decision to cut U.S. troop numbers on the Korean Peninsula by one-third, the Bush administration has undermined the U.S.-South Korean alliance. It will be up to Senator John Kerry to fix this serious problem if he is elected president in November.

Back in March 2001, President Kim came to Washington seeking to reaffirm the U.S.-South Korean relationship and Seoul's policy of engagement with North Korea. Despite providing a few nice photo opportunities, President George W. Bush denigrated the value of negotiations with North Korea and severely weakened Kim politically, while generating high anxiety in Seoul about the Bush administration's policy.

Just last month, in spite of the courageous decision by President Roh Moo Hyun to send several thousand South Korean troops to support the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, the United States unilaterally announced that 12,500 troops would be withdrawn from South Korea by the end of next year. Even the most conservative supporters of the alliance in Seoul were taken aback.

Seoul has long pleaded with America to negotiate seriously with North Korea. Yet neoconservatives in the Bush administration have treated South Korea's entreaties with contempt, delaying the administration's first detailed proposal for resolving this issue until late last month. Only after Japan endorsed South Korea's engagement policy—leading Washington to fear that it would be isolated at the six-party talks—did the administration introduce a serious offer.

Even now, by all accounts, Bush administration hard-liners regard the recent U.S. offer to North Korea as a tactical retreat and are bent on denying U.S. diplomats the necessary flexibility to make the next round of six-party talks in September a success. The Bush administration's neoconservatives favor "regime change" in North Korea, a policy that is alienating South Korea and causing lasting harm to the alliance. By disregarding Seoul's fundamental security interests and by showing that it does not regard its ally with respect, the Bush administration is driving Seoul toward greater accommodation with China—and eventually a policy of neutrality in the region.

A Kerry administration would need to restore the U.S.-South Korean alliance by placing it on a sounder basis of shared interests. This will not be easy. After parliamentary elections in April, a new generation of South Koreans is shaping Roh's policies. This generation does not feel deeply the sense of shared sacrifice, dating from the Korean War, that has traditionally underpinned the alliance, and resents what it sees as a pattern of American arrogance. The Bush administration's actions have fueled this resentment.

A strong and mature alliance depends on treating Seoul as an equal partner. America once supported South Korea's own aspirations, in addition to protecting the country from attack. This must once again become the rationale for the alliance.

A Kerry administration should also reinforce the important tension-reduction measures that South and North Korea negotiated last month. The six-party talks can be a basis for an evolutionary process of building a multilateral security system in East Asia. Mutual security assurances, routine high-level consultation about security issues in the region, military-to-military cooperation and other tension-reduction measures should all become a part of a permanent security mechanism in the area.

Finally, a Kerry administration should negotiate a diplomatic resolution of the nuclear issue with North Korea, recognizing that the nuclear issue will not go away until there is a settlement of outstanding political and security issues on the Korean Peninsula. The 1953 Armistice Agreement and a series of ad hoc improvisations are not an adequate basis for bringing a permanent end to recurring nuclear crises.

By peacefully settling the broader political and security issues through diplomacy, a Kerry administration would demonstrate its deep appreciation for South Korea's fundamental security interests and for its national aspirations, thus strengthening the U.S.-$ South Korean alliance in the long term.

Authors

Donald G. Gross
James E. Goodby

Publication: International Tribune Herald

The U.S. is Losing Ground on Korea Talks

James E. Goodby — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 00:00:00 -0400

In a striking understatement about North Korea's nuclear weapons development programme, Dick Cheney, US vice-president, said in April that time was "not necessarily on our side". Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, put it more bluntly—and accurately—this month, remarking: "Needless to say, time favours North Korea." And that was before news of Pyongyang's successful test of the main engine of its long-range ballistic missile.

The Bush administration has responded in strangely inapposite ways to this gathering threat. It plans to withdraw a third of the US military forces based in South Korea; and it intends to deploy a ballistic missile defence in Alaska. There are reasons for this gap between awareness of the dangers and willingness to act on it. Mr Rumsfeld wants to reorganise US force deployments while he is still in office. The reorganisation is proceeding with Washington's customary insensitivity to the opinions of old allies, in Europe as well as in Korea. The administration's failure, meanwhile, to move aggressively to negotiate a settlement over North Korea can be attributed to a mix of divided counsel, ideology, the "anything but Clinton" syndrome and heavy US commitments to Iraq, all wrapped in the hope that North Korea can be kept on the back burner until after the US elections in November.

Meanwhile, Congress is planning its own version of a Korea policy. Two bills, if passed, would maintain trade sanctions and block humanitarian and other aid to North Korea until Kim Jong Il, the country's ruler, changes the way he treats his people. No one could disagree with the objective, but one bill, as drafted, would undercut chances for a negotiated settlement. The other would allow a presidential waiver, recognising that many US interests are in play. The people of North Korea, tragically, would be the victims of well-intended policies that merely reinforce the wall around them.

With Washington increasingly out of step with its partners in north-east Asia, Mr Kim has been busy wooing public opinion on reunifying the nation. Many South Koreans and nearly every western visitor to the North have recently credited him with initiating economic reforms. Seoul's engagement policy with Pyongyang, meanwhile, has resulted in expanded contacts and economic relations. But the South Korean government is also facing divisive questions about the future role of US forces in Korea, even while Washington is pressing it to deploy Korean troops to Iraq. Many South Koreans are beginning to look to China as a more reliable, long-term strategic partner.

The stakes for the US are much higher in this region than they were in Iraq. But a sense of resignation appears to have set in, despite Mr Rumsfeld's pointed remark. Quite apart from North Korea's growing nuclear capability, two other ominous developments are under way. First, Pyongyang is improving its ability to sell nuclear technology and materials through clandestine networks. Second, the US is losing the whole-hearted support of its other Asian partners in the six-party negotiations on denuclearising the Korean peninsula. Japan, while still loyally following the US lead in the negotiations, is moving toward economic relations with North Korea. Inevitably, US policies of economic sanctions and isolation of North Korea are becoming more difficult to adhere to.

China's diplomacy has kept the talks going. Beijing is reported to be willing to use its negotiating capital to do that much, but tougher measures are unlikely. Incredibly, North Korea, despite its weak hand and arrogant behaviour, has improved its position in north-east Asia while the US has lost ground. No single action by the Bush administration can reverse this trend. But it would help greatly if Washington could show it is serious about dealing with the gathering threat.

At the forthcoming plenary meeting of six-party talks on North Korea, the US could strengthen its position by proposing specialised working groups to deal separately with issues such as a nuclear weapon-free Korean peninsula; forms of security assurances; and improving the economic welfare of both South and North Korean people.

Opponents of a comprehensive approach to the North Korean issue say the urgency of the problem requires a narrow focus on nuclear issues. We have tried that before without success. Time, indeed, is not on the side of peace and stability in north-east Asia. We have a right to expect something better from the key parties in the negotiations.

Authors

James E. Goodby

Publication: Financial Times

Nuclear Talks will Test Six Nations in Beijing

James E. Goodby — Tue, 24 Feb 2004 00:00:00 -0500

Tomorrow, senior officials from six nations will meet in Beijing to test whether there is any hope of a diplomatic solution to the gathering nuclear threat in North Korea. A breakthrough is not on the cards, but limited progress may well be. In this business, that would be very good news.

Ahead of the talks, the diplomats talked about setting up one or more semi-permanent working groups of experts. If the negotiators in Beijing could agree on that, it would be an important development. Procedural agreements often foreshadow the nature of substantive agreements yet to come.

Verification is an especially ticklish issue, but one that might yield to technical analysis in a working group. The issues concern the 50-year-old technology of the nuclear fuel cycle: the processing of basic elements that provide the energy for nuclear power plants—or for atomic bombs.

U.S. intelligence believes Pyongyang started a centrifuge-based uranium enrichment programme a few years ago. The Bush administration says it will not engage in a cat-and-mouse game about this with Pyongyang. Indeed, the model should not be Iraq, in any respect. The North Koreans ought to declare all their nuclear fuel cycle activities, including related research and development, both for plutonium and uranium.

The main task of the Beijing talks remains that of defining the goal and deciding how, step by step, to move towards it. The chances for success are less than 50 per cent, but substantially more than zero. The U.S. has insisted on an up-front commitment from North Korea to dismantle all its nuclear programmes "completely, verifiably, and irreversibly". North Korea's neighbours, without exception, also want a Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons. North Korea has offered to freeze its plutonium-producing activities at Yongbyon as a first step. But it wants a high price in return.

In Washington, opinion on the negotiations is divided along familiar lines. The regime-changers expect—and frankly hope—the talks will strengthen the case for tightening the noose around the neck of the North Korean regime. But last Friday, Colin Powell, U.S. secretary of state, likened any freeze to stopping a speeding train before putting it in reverse.

Mr. Powell's negotiators will want to know whether a freeze would include all North Korean activities related to the nuclear fuel cycle and how firmly connected it would be to a commitment to dismantle those activities. Such an agreement is what most delegations will be seeking. And that would be a pretty good deal.

What assurance can there be that an incremental approach would not be just as illusory as previous agreements with North Korea? The answer may lie in a favourite tool of negotiators, a comprehensive road map. A road map should provide time limits for dismantling North Korea's nuclear programmes and should include a six-nation enforcement mechanism. The involvement of all North Korea's neighbours is a new and important feature of these talks, for which the Bush administration can claim credit. The administration should take full advantage of it.

Will North Korea accept anything like this? North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, may be determined to acquire a nuclear arsenal at all costs. But there is also a chance he will see his country's future, and his survival, in economic reform.

Another U.S. innovation is the Nunn-Lugar programme, which helped Russia dismantle its nuclear forces. The other participants in the six-party talks can provide economic help to North Korea if Mr. Kim agrees to dismantle all his nuclear weapons programmes. The special US contribution could be providing support for conversion of North Korean military activities to civil applications, especially toward improving the country's pathetic healthcare system. The globalisation of the Nunn-Lugar programme for such purposes now has political support in the US.

An international co-operative threat-reduction programme, applied in North Korea, would open the door to settlement of the Korean crisis. But all this depends on whether North Korea is headed toward reform or intends to remain mired in repression. The alleviation of human suffering, whether it be hunger, unjust imprisonment or the pain of divided families, always has been a moral imperative. It is inseparable from relations between states. The issue will sit squarely on the conference table in Beijing, whether acknowledged or not.

Authors

James E. Goodby

Publication: Financial Times

Negotiating With a Nation That's Really Gone Nuclear

James E. Goodby — Sun, 15 Feb 2004 00:00:00 -0500

No one, perhaps not even North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il, knows whether that country can boost itself into the status of a nuclear weapons state, or even a quasi-nuclear weapons state, within the next year or so. Making a nuclear weapon and the missile to deliver it, even if the essential raw materials are at hand, is not an easy task. But the stakes are very high, and it would be foolish to discount the possibility that the North Koreans can accomplish what they have openly said they plan to do. North Korean engineers recently showed a visiting U.S. scientist a chunk of metal that they said was plutonium, one of the basic ingredients of an atomic bomb. Maybe they were exaggerating their progress to maximize the deterrent effect on the United States. It is safer, however, to assume that where there's smoke, there's fire.

The cold political realities of Northeast Asia starkly reveal the limitations of a preventive war doctrine. President Bush recognized that conflict last week when he announced a new proliferation policy that belatedly places more emphasis on diplomacy and international cooperation. Negotiations are not an assured way of rolling back North Korea's nuclear ambitions but they are the only way that has a real chance, short of a serious war. Six-party talks among North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States began last August. They ended in acrimony, and diplomats have been busy trying to re-start them. It now looks as though the discussions will resume Feb. 25 in Beijing.

The negotiators will have a tough time overcoming the legacy of suspicion that surrounds North Korea's nuclear intentions. It was reinforced by North Korea's admission in October 2002, in response to a U.S. accusation, that it had been covertly developing a uranium enrichment plant using centrifuge technology—another means of acquiring fuel for a nuclear weapon. That was the death knell for the Agreed Framework, a 1994 pact negotiated between North Korea and the United States during the Clinton administration.

The Agreed Framework stopped North Korea's plutonium production program. But the revelation of a covert weapons program led to a cascading series of actions and counter-actions that left the agreement in shreds. North Korea ostentatiously threw out international inspectors who had been monitoring the implementation of the agreement, and declared that it would begin separating plutonium from the 8,000 irradiated fuel rods that had been stored under international supervision. The North Koreans claim that they have performed that task and are in possession of a nuclear deterrent. But, in a curious twist, they now deny that they ever had a uranium enrichment plant or had ever suggested that they did. That story will be difficult to sell since the man known as the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program seems to have confirmed that Pakistani scientists provided centrifuge assistance to North Korea.

China's diplomats had hoped to negotiate a mandate for the Six-Party talks, to provide a framework for focused discussion. That effort failed. The United States wanted an upfront commitment that North Korea would dismantle its nuclear weapons programs "completely, verifiably, and irreversibly." The North Koreans insisted on the principle of "simultaneous action," meaning that they wanted the United States to give up something tangible at the outset, too. North Korea proposed a first-stage package deal, under which it would agree not to manufacture, test or transfer nuclear weapons and to freeze its peaceful nuclear power industry in return for energy assistance, the lifting of U.S. sanctions and security assurances. The United States has been willing to talk about multilateral security assurances, but the administration will need some move by North Korea to clear up the uranium enrichment issue. There's a wide gap between the sides, but at least they're talking. Will the faint signs of a dialogue mature into a real negotiation? The present posturing is little more than Potemkin-village diplomacy.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has succeeded—just barely—in re-opening the door to U.S. engagement with North Korea. There are skillful negotiators and wise counselors in Washington, and among the other negotiating partners. But they are hobbled because the Bush administration is deeply divided over Korea policy. One camp believes that only regime change can remove the security threat that clearly exists. It wants to strangle the North Korean regime, preferably by methods short of war. The other camp believes, or hopes, that transformation can be induced through engagement, primarily economic, leading to a moderation of North Korea's harsh system and to the beginning of reconciliation with its neighbors and the United States.

Each argument has its flaws. The engagement approach can prop up a failed regime that cannot or will not conform to minimum standards of international behavior. The regime-changers have been predicting the collapse of North Korea's government for years. It hasn't happened, and most experts think that Kim has a firm grip on power.

The logic of the situation argues against policies that require lots of time, as a strangulation policy certainly would. North Korean diplomats tell Americans that time is not on the American side and, even though they say it, a look at the probable sequence of events over the next few years suggests that they have a point. Kim has three options, any one of which may be within his power to carry out.

Option 1: Negotiate away his nuclear programs and nuclear weapons, if he has any. This would be the best outcome for all concerned. Of course, the United States and its friends would have to pay a hefty price to achieve that, and Kim can be counted on to drive a hard bargain.

Option 2: Keep North Korea's nuclear weapons program in its current ambiguous status. That was essentially the status of India and Pakistan before they carried out nuclear tests in 1998. Those tests radically changed the situation in Asia, and so would a North Korean test. North Korea in its present status is better than if it were a nuclear weapons state. But ambiguity is inherently an unstable arrangement: It would generate tensions, which probably would lead to conflict sooner or later.

Option 3: Join the ranks of the de facto nuclear weapons states by testing one or more devices and then moving to production of nuclear weapons, including long-range missiles. If the phrase "crossing the red line" means anything in Korea, this is where it is. That's why the administration should wage peace in Northeast Asia with the same intensity that it waged war in the Middle East.

If Kim decides to make North Korea a full-fledged nuclear weapons state, the aftershocks would be felt throughout Asia. Japan would develop nuclear weapons to deter North Korea; China would add to its modest nuclear stockpile to offset Japan; India would move to match China; Pakistani and Iranian leaders could be expected to reevaluate their options. Nuclear restraints, such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty, could not survive in such an environment. The conditions that helped the world avoid a nuclear catastrophe during the Cold War will not prevent a new nuclear arms race.

North Korea is a textbook case of a "gathering threat," the apocalyptic image that President Bush must have had in mind when he proclaimed his doctrine of preventive war. North Korea's response has been that it has a right to develop a nuclear deterrent, and expects to go on doing so until the United States ceases threatening it and removes obstacles to its economic development. In fact, North Korea has practically demanded to be recognized as a nuclear weapons state.

But the administration has chosen diplomacy for now. This is good news because war on the Korean peninsula would be devastating, certainly for Koreans in both the North and South, and possibly also for the Japanese. American forces would almost certainly suffer heavy casualties in extended combat. The bad news is that the administration is not making a diplomatic effort comparable to the high stakes involved. It has chosen neither war nor peace, and has ceded too much of the initiative to others.

The record of the past is replete with defiant rhetoric and nonnegotiable declarations. Meanwhile, the North Koreans are steadily moving into a position from which they might be able to fabricate several atomic bombs in the year ahead. The outlook for 2004 does not have to be more of the same, or worse, but that is what it will be unless Kim decides to take a chance on real negotiations, and unless President Bush finally lets Colin Powell try for a settlement.

Authors

James E. Goodby

Publication: The Washington Post