The Case for Engaging North Korea
A version of this paper was published in the March/April 1999 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
by David C. Wright
In the past decade, North Korea has made headlines and gained the reputation of being an "outlaw" state. In particular, reports of its programs to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles have caused international concern.
In the early 1990s, evidence surfaced that North Korea was secretly producing weapons-grade plutonium. Tensions between the United States and North Korea over the nuclear issue nearly erupted into war in the spring of 1994. A negotiated settlement--the Agreed Framework of October 1994--stopped the plutonium production and tamed the war talk, but remains controversial in the United States.
In the 1980s North Korea began to build copies of the Soviet Scud-B missile, which had a range of about 300 kilometers, along with an improved version with a 500-kilometer range. It sold hundreds of these missiles to states in the Middle East, especially Iran and Syria.
In 1993, North Korea tested a new missile, the Nodong, with a reported range of 1,000-1,300 kilometers with a one-ton payload, which it apparently sold to Pakistan. It also has reportedly helped Iran develop a similar missile.
And last August, it tested a three-stage missile, the Taepodong 1, that carried a small payload several thousand kilometers. Conducting the test over Japan without notification struck almost everyone as provocative.
Moreover, North Korea's bombastic and threatening rhetoric toward the outside world and its history of sending miniature submarines and spies into South Korean territory have compounded concerns about its hostile intentions. Further, North Korea remains a closed society, and the outside world has a poor understanding of its policy-making process.
The good news is that the United States may be able to play a significant role in reducing this threat if it chooses to, since North Korea seems to see its relationship with the United States as pivotal.
Containment or Engagement?
What, then, should the United States do?
Some argue that the United States should increase North Korea's political and economic isolation in an attempt to further weaken the country and either force reform or hasten collapse of the current regime. In the meantime, the United States would plan to deter or if necessary repel any military attacks by North Korea.
Proponents of this approach maintain it would be effective since they believe, with the end of massive aid following the split-up of the Soviet Union, North Korea is on the brink of collapse. Indeed, its economy is in desperate straits, declining by more than five percent a year since the early 1990s and famine is widespread.
The considerable support in the United States for this approach grows out of the bitter history between the two countries and the continuing military threat that North Korea poses on the Korean peninsula. The United States and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations and formally remain in a state of war because no treaty ended the Korean War. The United States keeps 37,000 troops, and until recently nuclear weapons, in South Korea. Since the late 1980s, the United States has designated North Korea as a "terrorist country," and has imposed economic sanctions that prohibit essentially all trade between the countries, except for humanitarian aid.
Moreover, it is commonly believed in the United States that North Korea's leaders see increased military strength as vital to their survival. And they are seen to be reckless, unpredictable, and perhaps irrational. How then could anyone expect to deal with them in other ways?
But this approach has serious shortcomings. Despite the failing economy, the North Korean regime appears capable of limping along for a long time. Further steps by the west to isolate North Korea or threaten it militarily may actually strengthen the hand of hardliners in North Korea and push its policy in exactly the wrong direction.
And collapse carries severe risks. North Korea's neighbors worry about floods of post-collapse refugees. And they worry even more about the possibility that a regime pushed to the brink might strike out militarily in its death throes.
An alternate approach is to try to engage North Korea politically and economically, to create incentives for it to cooperate with the international community. The goal would be to reduce the military threat North Korea poses, not just deter and contain it, and to do so in a cooperative, verified way.
Indeed, the economic crisis and famine may make North Korea more receptive to carrots than sticks. Indeed, key North Korean officials may have come to believe that normalizing relations with the United States and dealing with North Korea's economy is more important for the long-term existence of the state than is its military power.
There is, of course, no guarantee that engagement would work. But despite North Korea's heated rhetoric and frustrating actions, there are intriguing signs that it might respond to this approach. It is an approach that policy-makers need to give a serious try.
There is now a window of opportunity to successfully engage North Korea with the Kim Dae-Jung government in South Korea. Kim has advocated engagement with the North, unlike the previous South Korean leaders, and he even asked the United States to ease sanctions when he addressed Congress in June 1998. But political support within South Korea for engagement could erode if no progress is made on improving relations.
Engagement over Nukes: The Agreed Framework
Perhaps the most important example of engagement with North Korea was the negotiation of the Agreed Framework of October 1994. This agreement remains controversial, largely because of the provision to build two nuclear power reactors in North Korea in return for the dismantling of North Korea's existing nuclear reactors. But North Korea agreed to stop production of weapons plutonium and has done so under verification at its Yongbyon nuclear facility. The United States says that it has no evidence of production at other sites.
The United States says it has no evidence of production at other sites, although construction at an underground site at Kumchang-ri that US intelligence believes may be nuclear-related has added to the controversy. Talks to give the United States access to this site are making progress.
North Korean actions prior to signing the 1994 accord may also be revealing. From 1992 to 1994, North Korea could have pulled fuel rods from its reactor and extracted weapons plutonium, but it did not. Some U.S. analysts and officials involved in the negotiations interpreted this apparent self-restraint as a sign of North Korea's interest in negotiating limits to its nuclear program.
This restraint--if that is what it was--as well as the signing of the Agreed Framework would be unlikely actions if a country's top priority was the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction.
Engagement over Missiles: The Israeli Experience
A second example of North Korea's interest in engagement occurred five years ago, when North Korea negotiated with Israel over limits on its missile program.
North Korea reportedly initiated the contact by requesting Israeli economic assistance and help in managing its gold mines. The deputy director of Israel's Foreign Ministry then visited Pyongyang in October 1992 to discuss the aid--and to protest North Korean sales of missiles to Syria and Iran. Subsequent contacts apparently led Israel to offer a package worth an estimated $1 billion, which included buying a North Korean gold mine near Unsan and supplying thousands of trucks. In return, North Korea would stop selling missiles to Middle Eastern countries.
Under U.S. pressure, Israel backed away in March 1993, after Pyongyang announced it was pulling out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
But in June 1993, after North Korea suspended its decision to withdraw from the NPT, Israel resumed negotiations--motivated, perhaps, by concerns over North Korea's test of a Nodong missile in May 1993 and reports of a visit by an Iranian delegation in April to arrange for the purchase of 150 Nodongs.
In August of that year, Israel again bowed to U.S. pressure and backed away. (At the time, the United States was negotiating with North Korea on nuclear issues, and it believed that Israel's initiative might compromise its efforts.)
By March 1994, however, reports surfaced of continued Israeli meetings with North Korean officials and of an agreement in which Israel would help raise $1 billion from Jewish business leaders in the United States for civilian projects in North Korea. In return, North Korea would not ship Nodong missiles to Iran.
But that spring, U.S. concerns over the North Korean nuclear program peaked, and the United States apparently stepped in to block any North Korean-Israeli missile deal.
The history of the Israeli-North Korean negotiations seems to show that Israel believed North Korea was negotiating in good faith, and that it would be possible to reach an agreement limiting missile sales to countries such as Iran.
In addition, North Korea has taken a number of smaller but unprecedented steps in the past several years-such as allowing joint searches with the United States for the remains of soldiers from the Korean War-that suggest it is rethinking its relation to the rest of the world.
Today North Korea presumably has a number of incentives for negotiating limits on its missile program.
A decade ago, missile sales reportedly brought North Korea significant income and supplies of oil from the Middle East, but this is apparently no longer true. Persistent reports that North Korea's sales of missiles and missile technology bring in upwards of $500 million annually appear to hark back to several years in the 1980s, when the Iran-Iraq war resulted in high demand for Scuds.
North Korea may now see that the greatest value of its missile program lies in its value to the United States and other countries in negotiations. Pyongyang undoubtedly sees its nuclear and missile programs as two of the few things it can use to bargain for an easing of sanctions and significant amounts of economic assistance.
Moreover, North Korean leaders presumably recognize that to improve relations with other countries in an attempt to improve its economy, they must reduce international concerns about North Korean weapons programs.
What Should the Goals of Missile Talks Be?
As part of a threat-reduction package, the United States should seek a complete ban on the sale or transfer of technology for all ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as a ban on technical assistance for such systems.
History suggests that monitoring of missile transfers can be done reasonably well. Verifying an end to technical assistance will be more difficult, but it is important to build into any agreement clear prohibitions on these activities.
Ultimately, in addition to ending missile transfers, the goal should be to stop future development of North Korean missiles and require the destruction of existing missiles and facilities for missile development and production, at least for missiles with ranges greater than a given threshold. A first step would be to negotiate a ban on the flight testing of missiles, which could be readily verified by U.S. satellites.
An agreement that banned further flight testing of missiles would, from a Western perspective, place a meaningful limit on the future development of North Korean missiles. It would leave the Taepodong-1 missile with a single flight test, and the longer-range Taepodong-2 with none.
A flight-test ban could be combined with other measures intended to restrict missile development, such as shutting down missile research and development facilities and banning ground tests needed to develop new engines. While satellite monitoring could help verify some of these activities, additional verification measures would have to be negotiated.
If North Korea insists on a two-phased agreement, first dealing with missile sales and only later with tests, the United States should insist on a moratorium on North Korean flight tests while talks proceed.
Measures to freeze deployment would allow North Korea to retain its existing missile force for the time being. Such an agreement would therefore have the character of the Agreed Framework: first, freeze the program; then attempt to roll it back.
A Credibility Gap
North Korea's credibility in abiding by its agreements is frequently questioned in the United States. But from North Korea's point of view, the Agreed Framework has led to a serious credibility problem for the United States as well.
North Korea has seen that many members of Congress are hostile to the agreement. As a result, the Clinton administration is now in technical violation of the agreement since it is behind schedule in providing the heavy fuel oil the United States is obligated to supply, even though it represents only a relatively modest amount of money ($30-40 millions annually). Further, there have been repeated congressional calls for cutting all funding for the accord.
Moreover, North Korea apparently believed the Agreed Framework was the beginning of a process of engagement with the United States, and would lead to an easing of sanctions, which has not happened. It now sees the United States as interested only in capping North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Further, from the perspective of North Korea, the United States lacks the political will to significantly change the relationship between the two countries. This may be leading to North Korean cynicism about negotiations and about U.S. intentions or ability to deliver on future promises of political normalization and economic assistance.
Thus, North Korea may believe that without its ability to threaten, to make headlines, the prospects for U.S. engagement or assistance would remain small. Indeed, some of North Korea's actions may be directed at creating crises intended to refocus U.S. attention on diplomatic engagement.
The activity around the suspected nuclear site in Kumchang-ri may be, in part, a reaction to perceived lack of U.S. commitment to the Agreed Framework. It may be designed to raise the priority of the issue and get the U.S. re-engaged. Thus, this issue might best be resolved by including it as part of a set of broader discussions about strengthening controls on nuclear materials and limiting missile capabilities.
Similarly, the missile test in August was widely reported, in part, as an attempt to focus U.S. attention on the missile issue increase the pressure for negotiations.
While there have been several meetings between U.S. and North Korean negotiators on North Korea's missile program, the United States has apparently not tried to put a broad package on the negotiating table. North Korea seems unwilling to negotiate in earnest on its missile program until it believes the United States is serious about constructive engagement on a wider scale.
The United States should put high-level political support behind a policy of engagement and put together a negotiating package that conveys to North Korea a commitment to the negotiating process. Only then can the United States begin to determine whether such an approach may work.
Late last year, the Clinton administration took a step in the right direction by appointing former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry as U.S. Policy Coordinator for North Korea. Perry could help the administration develop a unified policy position and generate high-level support for an engagement policy.
The Package
The U.S. negotiating package should consist of a set of phased and linked measures that would create strong incentives for North Korea to abide by the terms of the agreement. (The ideas presented here for the package were developed in a meeting last October organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists. A report on that meeting can be found at www.ucsusa.org.)
A key part of the package would be political. According to experts on North Korea, such as Tony Namkung of the Atlantic Council, the North Korean desire to be treated with respect and to begin a process of normalizing relations with the United States is even greater than its desire for economic assistance. To be sure, it is also concerned about its economy and its ability to feed its people, and measures that would help in these areas would be needed in a negotiation package. But political normalization with the United States is the key issue that ultimately must be on the table.
Last June, North Korea publicly said that it was willing to discuss limiting missile development, not just sales, "after a peace agreement is signed between the DPRK [the Democratic People's Republic of Korea] and the United States and the U.S. military threat is completely removed."
It may be significant that North Korea conditioned this limit on signing a "peace agreement," not a formal peace treaty, and on removing the "U.S. military threat," not U.S. troops. This wording suggest some flexibility. Indeed, there are signs that North Korea wants the United States to remain engaged in the region to play a stabilizing role.
To emphasize the political aspects of the package, a high-level U.S. envoy, such as Bill Perry, should travel to North Korea and declare a U.S. desire to end the era of adversarial relations. The United States should also declare its readiness to open a liaison office in Pyongyang and to have North Korea do so in the United States. (The latter step was expected to occur by the end of 1998, but the plan was scuttled by North Korea's missile launch in August.)
Beyond that, there are a number of measures that could be part of a package--although, given the present mood on Capitol Hill, measures that would require Congress to appropriate funds may be difficult to offer.
- Some amount of hard currency may be necessary for an agreement banning missile sales. North Korea has said that its "missile export is aimed at obtaining foreign currency"; to end exports, it said, the United States would have to lift its economic embargo "as early as possible" and compensate North Korea for its foregone sales. (North Korea is reportedly seeking $1 billion a year for three years.)
Israel has in the past shown an interest in providing hard currency to North Korea as well as assisting in lining up trade and foreign investment as a way of stopping North Korean missile sales to the Middle East. The United States should urge Israel to provide such assistance as part of a U.S. package for North Korea.
Compensation, however, could take other forms, including some of those discussed below.
- The United States could waive all sanctions associated with the Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA), an action the president can take. This would open U.S. markets to North Korean companies or companies doing business there. Easing sanctions would be an important sign of a U.S. commitment to the process of political and economic normalization.
Further, dropping TWEA sanctions would be important even it if does not initially lead to a significant opening of direct U.S. trade and investment.
It would allow the United States, for instance, to grant North Korea an annual textile quota and permit South Korean and other foreign investors now being courted by Pyongyang to export textiles and other products made with low-wage North Korean labor to the U.S. market. That would allow North Korea to earn foreign exchange and it could encourage further opening of North Korea to foreign investment.
- The United States could make a major contribution to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) initiative intended to help North Korea grow more of its own food through measures such as the repair of irrigation systems, assistance with fertilizer, and the like.
The program was developed with North Korea's participation, and would cost $300 million over three years. The United States could also help solicit funds for the program from a number of countries, which would like to see an alternative to making substantial food contributions for the indefinite future. South Korea, the European Union, China, and perhaps eventually Japan would likely contribute.
- The United States could also make a commitment to help North Korea improve its mining sector. Minerals are one of North Korea's main potential resources for foreign exchange. The United States could help establish a minerals development fund to assist North Korea in developing its mining technology and infrastructure. In turn, this might encourage private capital to help develop the mining sector.
Pragmatic Approach
The experience with Iraq highlights the difficulties of trying to limit weapons development in an uncooperative state. Fortunately, there is evidence that an approach based on incentives and cooperation might work with North Korea.
Incentives to foster cooperation have certainly been seen as legitimate and useful in other contexts, such as the recent offer of $3 billion to the Palestinian Authority by the international community, of which the United States contributed $500 million.
Ultimately, of course, the United States may conclude that a strategy of containment and isolation is the best it can do. But it makes no sense to start with such a strategy.
A hard-nosed, pragmatic approach to national security demands that the United States seriously pursue a policy of engagement with North Korea to find out if it will work.
