The Race to De-Nuclearize North Korea

While speculation over Kim Jong-Il's health has dominated headlines, the real issue in North Korea (also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK), remains the country's nuclear program. It's possible to end the DPRK's ability to produce plutonium in a matter of months. Policymakers in the U.S. and North Korea can either act now to make a decisive deal that will support the long-term interests of both countries or let the months of effort invested in the nuclear deal go down as another in a long line of missed opportunities to improve security in Northeast Asia.

Tangible progress toward a deal came on October 11 when the United States, having successfully negotiated an agreement with North Korea over a verification regime for the country's nuclear program, removed the country from the list of terror-sponsoring nations. This deal broke an impasse that had left the Six-Party Talks — the United States, China, Russia, Japan, and the two Koreas — near death for several months.

While an important breakthrough, the compromise over verification is a small step in a very long process. It remains to be seen if the commitment to allow personnel to inspect sites "as mutually agreed" by the United States and North Korea will prove feasible in practice. Furthermore, the negotiations have yet to resolve bigger questions about the future of the fissile material and nuclear weapons already reprocessed by the North, the incentives the United States and the North's neighbors will offer in terms of energy and economic assistance, and the process of diplomatic normalization of U.S.-North Korean relations. Many of these questions will not be addressed until a new administration takes office in Washington in January.

In short, the diplomatic process cleared a significant hurdle with the agreement on a verification regime. But there's a long way to run before the finish line is even in sight. With the baton being passed to a whole new team — and given the effort required to take each step forward — this won't be the last stumble in the race to denuclearize North Korea.

Down, then Up

North Korea's announcement in August that it intended to restart the Yongbyon nuclear facility marked a downturn in the rollercoaster ride that has characterized the last eight years of negotiations over the country's nuclear program. When President George W. Bush took office in early 2001, the fissile material at the Yongbyon reactor site was locked in storage containers and monitored by IAEA inspectors. Since the Agreed Framework collapsed in 2002, on-again, off-again negotiations between the United States, North Korea, and the other countries in the region have struggled to reach an agreement that could satisfactorily contain the country's nuclear program.

Finding terms agreeable to both North Korea and the United States has been an obstacle in the negotiation process, but perhaps more vexing has been the inability of policymakers within the United States to agree on a negotiating strategy. Administration officials have been divided between hard-line and more pragmatic forces. The hard-line officials believe that any agreement with North Korea isn't worth the paper it's written on, and attempted to use a combination of economic and political pressure to induce the collapse of the regime. More pragmatic officials, on the other hand, believe that the need to barter away North Korea's nuclear program outweighs any benefits that the regime might gain from the bargain. This conflict over policy resulted in a faux-negotiation, as the United States offered a series of diplomatic non-starters at the talks while North Korea happily used the time to reprocess plutonium and make nuclear weapons.

In February 2007, after North Korea tested missiles and a nuclear device (to which the United States responded with sanctions), both parties reached a tentative agreement to disable the reactor in exchange for energy aid and improved diplomatic relations, including the removal of North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. The agreement offered both sides a win. The United States could make tangible process toward denuclearizing North Korea, while aid and increased contact with the international community offered North Korea potential relief from the food shortages and rotting infrastructure that present internal threats to the security of the state.

North Korea is eager for a deal. It faces severe food shortages, decaying infrastructure, and uncertain current leadership. The World Food Program indicates that the harvest last year was the worst since the floods and famine of the 1990s. While the harvest for this year appears to be relatively good, the food crisis is far from resolved. Deforestation and soil erosion have left North Korea vulnerable to floods and mudslides that can damage the country's food production capability. The suspension of fertilizer shipments from South Korea has also decreased crop yields. Worse for North Korea, the grim food supply is resulting in increasing unrest in the country. China has reported an active grain smuggling business across the Sino-DPRK border, as well as several clashes between police and North Korean traders in large markets in the North.

Compounding the poor harvest, North Korea's infrastructure is approaching the breaking point. Even in relatively upscale areas of the capital the electrical grid is dangerously close to failing. If the grid collapsed, there would be little to prevent North Koreans from freezing in their homes. Finally, Kim Jong-Il's stroke is a stark reminder that the leadership of the country is aging, with no clear strategy to transfer power and ensure the state's stability. While most assessments agree that North Korea is currently stable, the country faces a grim future unless it is able to transform its relationship with the outside world.

Verify, but Trust?

These factors provided strong motivation for North Korea to reach an accord with the United States over its nuclear program and secure its removal from the U.S. list of terror-sponsoring nations. However, distrust of the United States hampered progress on the nuclear deal. The North Koreans saw demands for a verification regime to be an extra condition that wasn't part of the initial deal with the United States, thus eliciting concerns that the United States will keep raising the bar to force North Korean non-compliance.

Issues such as counterfeiting or the North's missile program still have the potential to hijack the talks. When Washington stresses the need for information on North Korean-Syrian nuclear collaboration, Pyongyang flashes back to its 2002 summit with Japan when the disclosure of North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens derailed the then-pending normalization process between the two countries. Finally, North Korea sees the U.S. demand that the DPRK allow foreign inspectors to conduct on-the-spot inspections of any site at any time as an intolerable loss of sovereignty. In the current compromise, North Korea will transfer this concern into the attempts to come to "mutual agreement" with the United States over specific locations to be inspected.

As North Korea continues to balk at the nuclear deal, the United States becomes increasingly frustrated. The struggle over policy between hardliners and pragmatists in the Bush administration resulted in many of those with direct experience in negotiating with North Korea leaving the administration. Thus, after winning the leeway to negotiate with the North, the pragmatists within the administration are rapidly losing patience. The verification issue is not the only topic on which the United States and North Korea fail to see eye-to-eye. While the removal of the North from the list of terror-sponsoring nations allows the Six Party Talks to proceed, it is only a matter of time before the countries reach another deadlock that will again test the faith of the U.S. negotiating team in their North Korean partners.

Next Term

The U.S. presidential elections won't resolve this stalemate. Both major candidates have endorsed the need for a complete verification regime in the North. John McCain has expressed concern over the removal of North Korea from the list of terror-sponsoring nations and is likely to push for a harder line on the North. The Arizona senator has called on the United States to make North Korea's missile arsenal, human rights record, and abduction of Japanese citizens issues at the talks. Barack Obama called de-listing North Korea a "modest step" but has also demanded a very robust verification regime and threatened to suspend energy assistance and impose new sanctions if the North refused to comply. The Democratic nominee has publicly noted his willingness to increase bilateral contact with the North, but would be under considerable political pressure to maintain a firm line with regimes like North Korea. Ironically, the best deal Kim Jong-Il could hope to get for his country's nuclear program is from the current U.S. president, who "loathes" him and has called him a "pygmy."

After the election, the new administration must act quickly to break the ice with North Korea and keep the political transition in Washington from allowing talks to stall. An effective way to do this would be to engage Kim Jong-Il directly. In 1994 Jimmy Carter had tremendous success in meeting directly with Kim Il-Sung. Today a team of Carter and George H.W. Bush could consolidate the gains made so far and accelerate the process of denuclearization. Sending these two former U.S. presidents would engage Kim Jong-Il directly at the presidential level. Kim Jong-Il would be very hard pressed to refuse them, given Carter's connection to his father. Secondly, it would demonstrate the demand for verification of the North's nuclear program is a bipartisan issue supported by both Democrats and Republicans. Finally, these envoys would require a meeting with Kim Jong-Il personally, which would provide and excellent opportunity to verify rumors of the Dear Leader's condition.

Having come to an agreement on a verification regime, the United States and North Korea must now capitalize on that momentum and take the next steps in the negotiating process. The first priority is to complete the disablement of the Yongbyon nuclear facility and end the North's ability to produce plutonium. After that, the six nations in the nuclear talks must begin negotiations on the much more difficult issues of nuclear weapons material and the assistance the North will demand for their surrender.

Although difficult, these negotiations could yield an outcome with significant value for both countries. To secure its future, North Korea must build relations with the United States and other nations to dilute China's influence, reform its economy to access international development aid, and barter its nuclear weapons for a reconstructed economic and energy infrastructure. The Bush administration can make history by ending the ability of North to reprocess plutonium and set the stage for the next administration to negotiate a full denuclearization of the North. Both nations have an opportunity to take a significant step toward securing both North Korea and the region if they have the political will to proceed.