Chun Yungwoo (Chairman of The Korean Peninsula Future Forum)
2014 한국정치학회 국제학술회의
Twenty Years After the Geneva Agreed Framework
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Twenty Years After the Geneva Agreed Framework:
What have we learned?
Chun Yungwoo(Chairman of The Korean Peninsula Future Forum)
1. A reality check
z Over the past twenty years, the five nations participating in the 6PT, which together possess more than enough power resources to determine the fate of NK, have invested a non-trivial amount of diplomatic capital in denuclearizing NK. However, they have miserably failed to defuse an unacceptable challenge to their common security presented by one of the most impoverished states struggling with an existential crisis.
z NK has been resourceful enough to successfully fool and outmaneuver the international community in almost every step of the way and has been able to build up its nuclear capabilities and develop long-range means of their delivery.
z Over the past twenty years, the situation has become from bad to worse.
And the goal of denuclearization seems more elusive than ever.
2. Why have we failed?
z First, NK's single-minded determination for nuclear armament has far outweighed the combined determination of the international community to halt and roll back NK’s nuclear programs.
- The North Korean leaders attach a sacrosanct value to nuclear weapons as the holy grail of the regime and a source of salvation from their existential crisis and an ultimate insurance policy for survival.
- Their commitment to nuclear armament is such that they have been willing to pay any price short of a regime collapse and even sacrifice economic
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development and the most basic needs of life for the ordinary people in pursuit of their overriding goal.
- On the contrary, the US and other partners have been committed to denuclearization to the extent possible primarily through diplomacy backed by promises of uncertain political and economic incentives. They were unable to muster the political will to impose sanctions harsh enough to change NK’s strategic calculus in favor of denuclearization.
z Secondly, the lack of coordination among the key stake-holders also played a crucial part in the collective failure.
- The five nations participating in the 6PT may be united in their goal of denuclearization. However, they have been pursuing different approaches and priorities which often turned out to be mutually destructive.
- For instance, China attaches a higher priority to the stability of the North Korean regime than to denuclearization and thus would object to any sanctions that can really bite NK. It would be most generous in giving lip service to the virtues of denuclearization and technically comply with the toothless and boneless Security Council sanctions it supported, while undermining any effectiveness of the sanctions in place by drastically expanding trade with NK in areas not covered by the Security Council through denuclearization. But don’t worry about the consequences if you
Twenty Years After the Geneva Agreed Framework
19 don’t. We will do no harm to your regime stability even if you should continue building up your nuclear arsenal.”
z Last but not least, mistaken policy choices and consistencies of policies on the part of the US and other partners are also to blame.
- In my view, it was a mistake for the US to liberate NK from the constraints of the Agreed Framework when Pyongyang was caught cheating in 2002. It would have been smarter to keep NK on the hook and contain its plutonium program while dealing with its clandestine enrichment program. Letting NK loose for cheating made a dramatic turn for the worse.
- Another mistake for the US was to take a fundamentalist approach to the provision of light water reactors as part of the deal with NK. While the Bush Administration’s visceral aversion to the LWR is understandable given the inherent proliferation risk of LWR, denuclearized NK with light water reactors is less dangerous than a nuclear-armed NK without light water reactors. The 6PT could have a better chance of making a deal with NK if the US could exercise greater flexibility.
- When the best is unavailable, we can sometimes benefit from the flexibility of settling with the second best rather than giving full freedom to NK to go about building its nuclear capabilities without impediments. By taking a perfectionist approach, the US ended up making the best the enemy of the good.
- The lack of consistency and changing priorities of the ROK administrations has enabled NK to secure significant financial resources from the South to fund its nuclear programs and withstand international pressure for denuclearization.
3. Pyongyang’s game plan
z Kim Jung-un is openly committed to the “Byungjin” policy of pursuing economic development and nuclear armament in parallel.
z Ambitious as these twin mutually destructive goals may be even under the best of circumstances, Kim Jung-un has a chance of success if only
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two of his strategies work.
z One is to resume the 6PT and make a deal with the US, whereby NK would be allowed to retain its existing nuclear capabilities on condition that it foregoes any further buildup or upgrading of its nuclear arsenal and long-range missiles.
- In return for the nuclear freeze, NK would seek easing or lifting of sanctions, economic assistance and abandonment of US “hostile policies” in the form of a peace treaty and normalization of bilateral relations.
- If only NK succeeds in obtaining the easing and partial suspension of the sanctions, it can count on a drastic turnaround in external environment conducive to progress in the twin goals.
- In order to resume the 6PT, NK should convince the US and other key stake-holders that capping its nuclear capabilities is more urgent and practical than clinging to the seemingly elusive goal of full and complete denuclearization. To this end, NK has every reason to demonstrate its unwavering determination to build up and upgrade its nuclear arsenal. In this respect, it helps to make believe that it is ready to conduct another nuclear test and a long-range missile launch at any moment, while playing up its uranium enrichment program.
z Another goal is to induce the change of the ROK’s policy toward NK. The most immediate objective for NK is to obtain the repeal of the May 24th sanctions enacted in response to NK’s torpedoing of the ROKS Cheonan.
- Once the May 24th sanctions are lifted, NK can count on additional cash earnings of roughly $500 million USD annually, enough to provide a breakthrough to NK’s twin goals.
4. A way forward
z We are running out of good options.
z Strategic patience is not an ideal option. It may have outlived its utility. It is only better than allowing NK to return to the 6PT on its terms and thus begin negotiations on condition that its existing nuclear arsenal is kept out
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21 of the agenda.
z A prerequisite for the resumption of the 6PT is NK's commitment to denuclearization. Without NK's strategic decision to abandon its nuclear ambition once and for all on the basis of the September 19 Joint Statement, the 6PT will go nowhere. It would become nothing more than a talk shop where NK would keep playing games, while demanding the repeal of the sanctions and treatment as a de facto nuclear weapon state until they find a pretext for the fourth nuclear testing.
z NK should demonstrate its commitment to denuclearization and seriousness about the 6PT through minimal confidence building measures, including voluntary declaration of its clandestine enrichment facilities and monitored shutdown of its known nuclear facilities.
z Given the sacrosanct value Pyongyang attaches to nuclear weapons, the chance of denuclearization is close to zero even under the best of circumstances.
- Under the current circumstances, NK has no reason to abandon its nuclear ambition. The insurance premium NK is to pay in the form of pro forma sanctions is still a bargain given the utmost value they attach to nuclear weapons as an ultimate insurance policy for survival.
z However, I do not agree with those who argue that NK will never give up its nuclear capabilities at any price under any circumstances. There still remains a chance only if the five parties can change NK's strategic calculus.
- If the international community can muster their collective political will to raise the insurance premium to the point of threatening the regime stability, it still has a chance of changing Pyongyang’s strategic calculus in favor of denuclearization.
z Sanctions are not a panacea. However biting they may be, the sanctions by themselves cannot denuclearize NK. All we can expect from tightened sanctions is to strengthen the hand of diplomacy.
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z Finally, those countries threatened by the combination of NK's nuclear and missile capabilities should work together to effectively counter and defend against NK's threats. Such water-tight military preparedness against NK's threats will help in convincing the North Korean leadership that all the scarce resources they have invested in destructive capabilities and the sacrifices they had to endure in the wellbeing of the people have been in vain and ended up making NK less secure.