North Korea

By Jamie Fly 

In 1947, after George Kennan, writing under the pseudonym "X," published his famous article on "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" in Foreign Affairs, he quickly found that his concept of "containment" was distorted in the public discussion about his article that ensued. In his new book, The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War, Nicholas Thompson writes that Kennan went so far as to draft a letter to columnist Walter Lippman arguing that "containment meant propaganda and aid, not pistols and tanks." He ended up not sending the letter because Secretary of State Marshall requested his silence.

The Obama administration now appears to be faced with a dilemma similar to that confronting George Kennan in 1947. Containment is a nice term to throw around, but what does it actually mean in practice? In this case, the country to be contained is North Korea.

North Korea was supposed to be one issue where the Obama administration promised to be tougher than their predecessors. After the North disrupted the president's April 5 disarmament speech by firing a Taepodong-2 missile and followed that with a nuclear test on May 25, David Sanger of The New York Times wrote an article quoting a senior Obama advisor who said that the administration intended to "break the cycle" of provocative actions by Pyongyang, leading to payoffs and an agreement that later falls apart, only to lead to more crises and more payoffs.

Sanger described the new policy as "containment," although he noted that many in the administration were reluctant to use the term. As Stephen Hayes points out on The Weekly Standard's blog, the administration's rhetoric after North Korea's provocations in the first half of the year were much stronger than the follow-through.

This Obama version of containment was to rely on the newly passed United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1874, and supposed U.S. efforts to interdict illicit North Korean shipments. They indicated their seriousness about this task through a series of leaks to the press about the U.S. Navy's following of one specific ship headed to Burma, which supposedly turned around and returned to North Korea. The administration also followed up the new UNSCR with several designations of additional North Korean entities involved in proliferation, but they stopped short of implementing more extensive Section 311 actions against Asian financial institutions doing business with the North, the very measure that brought North Korea to the negotiating table in the past after the U.S. Treasury Department froze the assets of Banco Delta Asia.

Unfortunately, this tough talk and new sanctions have now given way to the traditional focus on negotiations which have repeatedly failed to bear fruit.  President Obama announced on Wednesday that he is sending U.S. Special Representative Stephen Bosworth to Pyongyang next month in an attempt to lure the North back to the Six Party framework.

While U.S. efforts behind the scenes to interdict illicit North Korean shipments undoubtedly continue, the president's announcement about Bosworth's trip effectively means that any effort to contain the proliferation problem posed by North Korea is now going to be put on the back burner because of concerns that provocative U.S. actions will destroy any chance that the North Koreans will be willing to talk.

Despite the White House listing North Korea as one of the key issues to be discussed at just about every stop of Obama's Asian trip, he seems to have  made little progress. We should not expect much assistance from China -- they are happy to maintain the status quo as long as Kim Jong Il does not act out too frequently. The president's stops in Japan and South Korea, however, appear to have been lost opportunities, as he could have used his discussions in both countries to strengthen defense cooperation between the United States and Japan and South Korea and to discuss increased cooperation on missile defense and nuclear planning. Such an effort would make clear to the Chinese the cost of their inaction on the issue.

Some may argue that the reason the Obama administration can return to the failed policies of its predecessors on North Korea is that while troubling, we have bigger challenges to face in the region and the world.  North Korea is a problem to be managed, not resolved.  Such an argument overlooks North Korea's role in the construction of Syria's secret nuclear reactor at Al Kibar, built while the North was supposedly negotiating in good faith with the successive U.S. administrations, as well as its ongoing assistance to the missile programs of rogue regimes such as Iran and Burma. North Korea may appear to be manageable only until the next case of nuclear technology transfer from the North is discovered, but the next time it may be too late.

As George Kennan found out, talking about "containment" is easy, but defining and implementing it is the difficult part. 

Photo: KNS/AFP/Getty Images

By Michael Green

Surprises?

The biggest (most pleasant) surprise on Asia has been the Obama administration's willingness to use pressure on North Korea. After campaigning on a promise to meet with the leaders of nations like North Korea without conditions, the Obama White House has turned out to be quite hard line vis-à-vis Pyongyang.

Of course, it would be difficult to miss the obvious failure of Ambassador Chris Hill's conciliatory negotiating style at the end of the Bush administration -- let alone the fact that North Korea responded to President Obama's initial promises of engagement by detonating a second nuclear device. Still, in the case of North Korea the administration seems to have embraced the premise that there must be consequences for proliferators.

The administration has moved forward smartly with implementation of sanctions under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 (unlike the Bush administration's decision not to implement UNSCR 1718 after the first nuclear test) and thus far the Special Envoy for North Korea has refused to sit down with the North Koreans until they first agree to return to the Six Party Talks. Even the visit of former President Clinton to Pyongyang was done with most of the administration holding its nose and limiting the mission to the humanitarian goal of bringing home two American journalists taken by the North. We will see how long this holds, but for now the administration looks pretty tough.

Praiseworthy?

The Obama administration deserves praise for its selection of an Asia team. There were more than 60 "advisors" on Asia to the Obama campaign (close to the total number of advisors for the entire world working with McCain). Most of these advisors were calling for wholesale changes in Asia policy, echoing the usual canards about the Bush administration's "unilateralism" and "militarism." But in the end, the top jobs in NSC, State and Defense were filled by non-partisan centrists and pragmatists who recognized the successes of the Bush administration's Asia strategy and wanted to tweak rather than redefine the U.S. approach to the region. Better yet, the top officials at State, NSC and DOD are associated with the successes of the Clinton administration's Asia policy, including the revitalization of the U.S.-Japan alliance and the successful negotiations to bring China into the WTO. The team is professional, knowledgeable and very reassuring to the region.

Constructive Criticism?

The administration deserves criticism on two fronts. The complete lack of a trade strategy leaves the United States without any tools to counter the growth of exclusive regional economic arrangements within Asia. This will become obvious when Obama travels to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in two weeks and calls for an open and inclusive architecture like his predecessors -- only his predecessors actually were bringing something to the table in terms of trade liberalizing agreements with Korea and other countries in the region. The second area of criticism would be the administration's willingness to pull punches on human rights and democracy. The president's decision not to meet the Dalai Lama in Washington in August (the first rebuff to the Tibetan Spiritual Leader by a U.S. President in recent memory) was particularly problematic.

Predictions?

The Obama administration will grow tired of China. Obama expanded the Bush administration's Strategic Economic Dialogue into a Strategic and Economic Dialogue and raised expectations of progress with Beijing on everything from climate change to Iran and North Korea. But in the wake of the financial crisis Beijing sees itself as externally stronger and internally more vulnerable. That is not a recipe for more cooperation with Washington. Chinese support for North Korea's economy is increasing in the wake of Pyongyang's nuclear test and China will be relying on coal for 80 percent of its energy no matter how well discussions of climate change cooperation go (and they are not going that well). Then there is the unyielding PLA position on the South China Sea, cyber-security and a host of other security problems that will vex the Obama administration's China policy over the coming years. Usually, new administrations come into power in Washington having talked themselves into a tense relationship with Beijing during the election campaign and then they adjust to a more centrist and stable relationship with China (true of Regan, Carter, Clinton and G.W. Bush). The Obama administration came in without having engaged in a contentious debate over China policy with McCain, but may now find itself under increasing pressure to be tough with Beijing.

Photo by Korean Central Television/Yonhap via Getty Images

By Christian Brose

Below is a bloggingheads.tv that I recorded yesterday with Rob Farley, a very sharp scholar and decent guy who, along with a few other folks, keeps a wide-ranging, smart, and quite funny blog called Lawyers, Guns, and Money. Rob also has great headwear! We discussed Iran and North Korea.

By Christian Brose

It seems the Obama team is doing a big rethink of North Korea policy, in light of the Hermit Kingdom's recent missile launches, nuke test, journalist incarceration, and all-around clenched-fist-shaking:

In France on Saturday, Mr. Obama referred to the same string of broken deals, telling reporters, "I don't think there should be an assumption that we will simply continue down a path in which North Korea is constantly destabilizing the region and we just react in the same ways." He added, "We are not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation."

While Mr. Obama was in the Middle East and Europe last week, several senior officials said the president's national security team had all but set aside the central assumption that guided American policy toward North Korea over the past 16 years and two presidencies: that the North would be willing to ultimately abandon its small arsenal of nuclear weapons in return for some combination of oil, nuclear power plants, money, food and guarantees that the United States would not topple its government, the world's last Stalinesque regime.

Now, after examining the still-inconclusive evidence about the results of North Korea's second nuclear test, the administration has come to different conclusions: that Pyongyang's top priority is to be recognized as a nuclear state, that it is unwilling to bargain away its weapons and that it sees tests as a way to help sell its nuclear technology.

This reminds me of the Bush administration's talk circa 2001 and 2002. So will Obama break with the assumptions of the past 16 years and adopt what sounds like a more hard-line policy toward North Korea? Color me skeptical. At this point, I think the administration's talk tells us more about what they want their policy not to be, rather than what it will be.

Just work through the math. The administration is going to get tough with North Korea. OK, but to what end? Squeezing Pyongyang harder is not a policy in and of itself. It's a tactic to advance a broader goal. And if the Obama team now believes that the old assumptions of Clinton and Bush no longer hold, and that the North Koreans won't negotiate away their nukes, then what's the new goal of a new policy?

Presumably, the administration is not assuming that it can just turn the screws ever tighter on the North Koreans, eventually making them cry uncle and hand over their weapons. It would be great if they did, but by the administration's own logic, there is no reason to believe that Pyongyang is now willing to surrender the one card it has, and there is every reason to believe that the regime will just continue passing all of the extra pain we impose onto its starved, broken, and beleaguered population.

So does that mean Obama is moving toward a policy of regime change in North Korea? After all, that would seem to be the logical conclusion to which the administration's recent statements would lead them: The North Korean regime won't change its behavior because it's the regime itself that is the problem; therefore, if you want to solve the problem, you have to get rid of the regime. That has been the conservative argument all along. But Obama isn't saying that is the goal either. It would be pretty hard to square a policy of regime change in North Korea with Obama's pledge of unconditional engagement with anyone and a renaissance of U.S. diplomacy.

Another option is simple containment (or quarantine): assuming the North Koreans won't change their behavior, try as best we can to keep a lid on the problems they cause. The assumption here is that we've been living with a nuclear North Korea for a few years already, and we can go on living with it; we just need to limit the worst repercussions, like proliferation. But there's the risk: We won't catch everything (like, say, a nuclear reactor in Syria), and it's a matter of time before a purely containment policy gets attacked as ineffective. At that point, if the administration is talking to North Korea, it will be urged, both at home and in the region, to be more accommodating (sounds familiar, right?); if it is not talking to North Korea, it will be pilloried for dismissing diplomacy as ... well, let's just say Obama will have all his words read back to him.

But of course, Obama has not foresworn either bilateral or multilateral engagement with North Korea. Nor will he. To do so would undermine the entire narrative of his presidency. Indeed, by every indication the administration has given thus far, the purpose of getting tougher with North Korea now would be to enhance U.S. leverage at the negotiating table later. But then, aren't we right back to the same old process with the same old goal that the administration now says it is dispensing with -- trying to push North Korea to give up its weapons and change its behavior, with both the lure of carrots and the prod of sticks? And it would be naive to assume that this time it would all be different, that the North Koreans would not be up to all their same old tricks again: salami-slicing agreements, missing deadlines, blustering and blackmailing, walking away from talks and then demanding payment to return, etc.

If this is where the administration ends up, which it seems quite likely is where they will end up, it's hard to imagine how this policy will look any different than the diplomatic dog and pony show of the past 16 years -- and with much the same result.

By Peter Feaver

The rapid deterioration of the situation on the Korean peninsula has collapsed President Obama’s North Korea policy (arguably before the Obama team even decided on a North Korea policy), and this has got me thinking about Iraq. What does Iraq have to do with North Korea? Well, as Bob Woodward relates in his book, one of the key arguments deployed against the surge strategy option in late fall 2006 involved North Korea, specifically the need for the United States to retain a strategic military reserve so as to maintain a full range of military options should the situation in North Korea deteriorate.

Precisely how the North Korean situation might deteriorate or what military options the United States would need at the time or even how large the strategic reserve needed to be so as to assure those options was not specified. Yet it seems reasonable to view the current unraveling as a fair approximation of the kind of concern that was envisioned and that had to be weighed. So it is reasonable to ask what the current crisis suggests about the strategic calculus that President Bush made in late 2006 when he decided, against the advice of most experts, to commit “all in” on the Iraq War.

On a superficial level, recent events might seem to vindicate the anti-surge position. As was argued, the United States is a global power with global security interests and, as was warned, a burgeoning crisis far removed from the Iraq theater has commanded the attention of the president’s national security team. Moreover, as was argued, our military options are somewhat more limited because essentially the entire ground combat power of the United States is committed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (either in Afghanistan/Iraq now, reconstituting after an Iraq/Afghanistan tour, or scheduled for and preparing for deployment to Afghanistan/Iraq). Of course, there are forces available for very limited missions like a Non-combatant Evacuation Operation, but we probably could not maintain the current and scheduled OPSTEMPO in Afghanistan/Iraq and also simultaneously play a lead ground role in another war on the Korean peninsula. Bush effectively committed the strategic reserve of the United States to reverse the tide in Iraq and this has affected the options Obama has available in North Korea.

But dig a bit deeper and the case of those who were arguing for a strategic reserve and against the surge collapses. The advisors who made that argument were willing to risk defeat in the war we were in so as to be better prepared for a war we were not in. Would we in fact have more options in the Korean peninsula today if Bush had decided against the surge? Almost certainly not. The situation in Iraq likely would have deteriorated sharply into the full-blown civil-war that was then only in nascent form. The Iraqi Security Forces likely would have been split asunder by the sectarian violence, and we would have opted for one of three horrible choices: either U.S. forces would have hunkered down on the Forward Operating Bases while “Srebrenica on steroids” boiled around them, a humanitarian catastrophe eclipsing anything that had preceded it in the region; or U.S. forces would be fully engaged in the civil-war with beleaguered MNF-I commanders desperately calling for reinforcements; or, most likely and perhaps most catastrophically of all, U.S. forces would have retreated in defeat.

At the broader strategic, political, and psychological levels the situation would have been bleak in the extreme. The United States would have been a defeated power, and our position in the region would be in jeopardy. Assume for the sake of argument that the situation only reached moderate-case proportions, not the worst-case scenarios that would be all-too-plausible. Assume, therefore, that the United States would merely be scrambling to reassert deterrence against a rising Iran, reassure our oil-rich allies, and honor defense commitments to Israel -- set aside more dire situations like a region-wide Sunni vs. Shia conflagration.

In that world, would Obama actually have a richer menu of military options in North Korea now? Would he have the political will/capital to commit the recently defeated U.S. ground forces in the very place where the “America mustn’t fight land wars in Asia” strategic lesson was first forged? Or, to be fair to the original argument, would he at least have more leeway than he has now?

I don’t see it. On the contrary, I see him as having slightly more options now for dealing with North Korea than he otherwise might have precisely because Bush reversed the trajectory in Iraq. To be sure, the progress in Iraq is still fragile and reversible -- and there are ominous signs of that reversibility with the uptick in violence in the months since Obama codified a rigid withdrawal timeline. But the success of Bush’s surge strategy (crediting, of course, the courageous efforts of General Petraeus, General Odierno, and Ambassador Crocker, not to mention the brave men and women deployed in Iraq, who actually implemented the strategy) has gone some way to restoring America’s global strategic leverage. At a minimum, it seems to me inarguable that our strategic leverage is greater now than it would have been if we continued on the old trajectory.

It was walking through precisely this strategic calculus at the time that persuaded me that the surge was the best option and that those who were unwilling to commit the strategic reserve to Iraq were wrong on prescription, even if they had some sound points on diagnosis.

The truth is that the availability of U.S. ground forces is at most a secondary factor in limiting our options in North Korea. The South Korean army provides all of the ground forces needed to defeat North Korea, but only at horrific cost -- a cost that probably no South Korean leader would ever choose unless North Korea launched its own unprovoked invasion. Without an active and willing South Korean ally committed to the fight, there is no viable ground-based option for the United States. In other words, our military options for North Korea are air-based and our air options are not as constrained by the Iraq (and now Afghan) surge.

More fundamentally, our options are shaped by the broader geopolitical situation and the domestic political situation. Both are far more favorable to the projection of U.S. military power abroad because Bush opted for the surge. As we had hoped, the surge expanded -- significantly in some regions and at least on the margins in others -- the strategic menu that Bush’ successor enjoys. That was the strategic goal for the surge, and so far it is one of its most important legacies.

By Dan Twining

North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests, new threats of war against its declared enemies, and the predictable results of these developments -– expressions of concern at the UN Security Council, U.S. offers of more unconditional talks, China’s ambivalent response –- suggest that we remain in the “Groundhog Day” cycle of crisis and response that has characterized U.S. policy towards Pyongyang since 1994. In fact, new dynamics on the peninsula and in the region, and the fresh opportunity provided by what can now clearly be judged to be years of failed policy on denuclearization and disarmament, present an opportunity for a creative rethink about U.S. policy options. To clarify a way forward, it’s worth considering how the playing field has shifted (I see five ways that it has), and how this may create a different set of possibilities for the United States and our allies vis-à-vis the North Korean regime -– one that breaks decisively from the past and offers real hope for change.

1. Regime transition in North Korea

The current crisis cycle with North Korea dates to the leadership transition from Kim Il-sung to Kim Jong-il in 1993-4, when the U.S. embraced a set of policies centered around bilateral negotiations and fuel supply to induce North Korean cooperation on our disarmament objectives. With the exception of the “axis of evil” period from 2001-03, the Bush administration largely continued these policies within the framework of the Six-Party Talks. Following Kim Jong-il’s apparent stroke last year, we are now in the midst of the second leadership transition in North Korean history, that from the Dear Leader to his youngest son, Kim Jong-un (demonstrating that dynastic politics trumps communist ideology). 

This transition creates serious risks, including the empowerment of the North Korean military as a political constituency that the leadership in Pyongyang must appease (for instance, by testing nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles). But it also raises the possibility of a new cycle in Washington’s relations with North Korea, one that could include exploiting newly apparent fissures in its regime and creating a different incentive structure for the emerging leadership’s decision-making on ongoing nuclear and missile programs.  

2. Political realignment in South Korea

Since the election of Kim Dae-jung in 1997 and the administration of his successor Roh Moo-hyun, the Achilles’ heel of U.S. efforts to wield sticks as well as carrots towards North Korea has been South Korea’s opposition to tough measures in favor of a “sunshine policy” of unconditional engagement. For a decade, Seoul effectively elevated inter-Korean comity over its U.S. alliance relationship, reducing any leverage the United States and partners like Japan sought to bring to bear on the North. In turn, fundamental differences in style and strategy between Washington and Seoul enabled Pyongyang to drive a wedge between the allies and isolate Japan. The United States turned to China as its key partner on North Korea, with questionable results.

The election in South Korea of conservative president Lee Myung-bak in 2008 changed the equation. Lee has spoken out forcefully about the abuses of Korean people’s rights under Pyongyang’s totalitarian rule and ended the provision of unconditional food aid, which independent monitors judge to have mainly benefited the North’s ruling elite. Washington now has a like-minded partner in Seoul committed to greater realism and toughness in containing the insecurity emanating from Pyongyang, again creating new possibilities for North Korea policy going forward.

3. A new security environment in Northeast Asia

Pyongyang has now declared that it will no longer observe the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War and has threatened South Korea with military attack. Though Pyongyang has a history of shrill and alarmist declarations, it would be a mistake to assume that an unstable regime in the midst of a leadership transition and now possessing nuclear weapons will never act on its own discourse. These moves create a new security environment on the Korean peninsula –- one that requires the United States to demonstrate its commitment to the defense of core allies Japan and South Korea, including through heightened readiness and deployment of offensive weaponry as well as enhanced missile defenses. 

Pyongyang is testing our new president, and he would do well to surprise it on the upside -– just as President Clinton surprised Beijing during the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis by deploying multiple aircraft carrier battle groups to the region, leading China to stand down after bracketing Taiwan with missiles. Indeed, President Obama could consider the advice of Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry and senior Pentagon official Ash Carter to signal a willingness to “strike and destroy” North Korean missile launch sites to deter -- or preempt -- further North Korean mischief. As Philip Zelikow points out, such a move could also strengthen the president’s diplomatic hand on Iran.

Signaling to allies is as important as signaling to adversaries, and Japan and South Korea will be watching the U.S. response carefully. Japan is also debating a more robust military role in light of the North Korean tests: the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is debating the adoption of what former Defense Minister Nakatani calls “active missile defense,” or preemptive strikes against North Korean missile launch sites. A Japanese doctrinal and political decision to deploy offensive ballistic missiles against North Korea would transform the East Asian strategic environment and enhance American deterrence and compellence capabilities vis-à-vis Pyongyang.

4. New possibilities for quarantining North Korea

This week, South Korea joined the Proliferation Security Initiative -– a decisive move that will make it a key partner rather than the missing link in a strategy to quarantine North Korean proliferation. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is considering the imposition of additional multilateral sanctions, including targeted sanctions against North Korean leaders and companies that have proven effective in the past. Indeed, U.S. sanctions against Banco Delta Asia proved so effective in squeezing the regime’s supply of hard currency that Pyongyang made the release of a mere $25 million a condition for the resumption of Six-Party negotiations during the Bush administration.

In reality, the U.S. debate over what mix of carrots and sticks to employ against North Korea misses a key point: America and its allies have never pursued a genuine quarantine strategy against North Korea. Such a strategy would interdict North Korean air and maritime traffic to disrupt its global trade in missile and nuclear components (a trade which continued lucratively throughout the Six-Party negotiations); end provision of food and fuel assistance to the North; and limit Pyongyang’s access to international finance through multilateral banking, corporate, and leadership sanctions. Its purpose would be to squeeze the regime in ways that would create fissures within it, coercing a change in external behavior and perhaps the rise of new leadership less committed to confrontation.

5. China’s diminishing influence –- or interest –- in North Korean compliance

In building the Six-Party Talks around a Sino-American axis, the Bush administration made a bet that China was more likely to be part of any solution on North Korean denuclearization than part of the problem. Two nuclear weapons tests, multiple ballistic missile tests, and a shredded war armistice later, it appears that Beijing is either unable or unwilling to coerce better behavior from what Chinese analysts admit is an uncontrollable client state. At the same time, the Sino-American axis within the Six-Party talks may no longer be dominant: South Korea has again become a like-minded partner, Bush administration officials’ disregard for the legitimate concerns of our Japanese ally is a historical relic, and Russia, eager to preserve the sanctity of the UN Security Council as a vehicle for its own international leadership as a declining power, has called for a robust international response to North Korea’s latest weapons tests. 

Beyond securing our people and our allies against blackmail or attack, America’s long term goal must be positioning our country to be a decisive player in a unified Korea governed from Seoul and aligned with Japan and the United States in East Asia. Both North Korean leaders -- who have in the past sought a special relationship with the United States to balance Chinese influence -- and South Korean leaders identify a Chinese design to enjoy privileged influence on the Korean peninsula, in part for defensive reasons related to competition with Japan and the United States. If our Korean friends, whose sense of danger derives from centuries of living in a neighborhood of giant, predatory powers, believe that China and the United States are engaged in a fundamentally competitive rather than cooperative relationship on the peninsula, Washington may wish to move beyond reliance on Beijing to deliver Pyongyang on denuclearization in favor of an allies-first strategy to induce strategic change on the Korean peninsula.

By Philip Zelikow

An appropriate policy toward North Korea should quarantine and limit the threat the state can pose to the United States and its allies. U.S. diplomacy, properly conceived, should always have had two goals. First, to offer -- in good faith -- a genuine opportunity for the North to make a constructive strategic choice for the future.  Second, to strengthen U.S. and allied ability (political as well as military) to defend themselves if the North made a different choice.

Some people tend to emphasize only the diplomatic track; others only emphasize the defensive measures. The key point, which former Secretary Rice and former Deputy Secretary Zoellick understood very well, was that the first track is a necessary enabler for the second one. So in 2005, the United States reinvigorated the Six Party process to make the first track real. And in 2005, the United States took steps that effectively destroyed a Chinese bank in Macau, the Banco Delta Asia, illustrating America's readiness to pursue the other track as well.

This dual strategy heightened tension, culminating in North Korea's nuclear test of 2006. Yet the international response in 2006 displayed unanimity and firmness that had not been seen since 1953, evident in UN Security Council resolution 1718. The result was a fresh diplomatic opening, a promising agreement in February 2007, and a further test of North Korean intentions, one so specific and unequivocal that the results were bound to be revealing.

North Korean behavior in 2007 was indeed revealing. Despite some great pictures for CNN, North Korea failed adequately to account for its past nuclear trade, including possible transfers of enriched uranium to Libya and possible transfers of nuclear fuel (as well as much other help) to Syria. Although the known plutonium production facility was temporarily disabled, possible uranium enrichment facilities remained. Of course, the possible Libyan and definite Syrian choices were made in the past. But it was (and is) essential for the United States and its allies to develop some reasonable understanding of how that proliferation path worked -- and was funded -- to have adequate confidence that the path is gone.

Thus, during 2007, the United States and its allies could conclude that they would not be able to achieve a critical, realistic objective: a verifiable cap on North Korea's capacity to build nuclear weapons and produce weapons-usable nuclear material. Such a concrete objective would have been worth the candle -- a good prelude to a further, comprehensive phase of Korean diplomacy that would include the attainment of complete denuclearization, as required by UNSC 1718 and as pledged by North Korea in 1992, 2005, and 2007. Attainment of even that preliminary objective was in even greater doubt, though, given the evidence of 2007.

Nonetheless, the United States helped construct a further agreement (Beijing, October 2007) to keep the diplomatic process afloat rather than move it to a new phase. Why? I don't know. Today's Wall Street Journal editorial listed me as first, ahead even of Chris Hill and Condi Rice, in persuading President Bush to make the October 2007 decision to keep that diplomatic track alive and take North Korea off the terror list. That rank ordering in supposed infamy is especially bizarre, since I had left the administration at the end of 2006. (Perhaps someone wanted to sling something at me because of my stance on terrorism issues, and this was the only available clod of mud.)

The pros and cons of the October 2007 decision are hard for me to judge. I'm certainly inclined to give President Bush and Secretary Rice the benefit of doubt. Perhaps the moves to destroy the plutonium facility seemed so encouraging; the uranium enrichment concerns seemed wispy; and forcing the North to admit a past it could not acknowledge would seem merely backward-looking and punitive, rather than future-oriented and constructive.

Yet there were large downsides of keeping the process afloat with the October 2007 Beijing agreement, and they grew, especially as the Beijing agreement proved hollow. The uranium enrichment issues had been spotlighted by the new evidence on Libya and Syria ties and did not seem to be getting addressed. The coalition-building benefits with South Korea were diminishing, especially as the South Korean people repudiated the policy direction of the late president Roh Moo-hyun. The already-strained relations with Japan had to carry a heavier burden of mistrust. The bonds with China remained strong, but there was a danger of short-sightedness. As China effectively took on more responsibility as North Korea's protector and guarantor in the diplomacy, Chinese action or inaction on this topic could become another potential issue in an utterly vital connection: Chinese relations with Japan.

In any case, the United States definitely went the extra mile in its diplomacy. Now Washington can credibly offer coalition leadership in developing appropriate defensive measures of all kinds.

1. Sanctions?  It would be nice to enforce fully the ones already on the books in UNSC 1718.

2. Instead what is needed is international action by interested parties to redress the violation of UNSC 1718 with suitable defensive measures under Chapter VII. Either the UN should expressly authorize that, or note that this will happen, or the Security Council should remain silent. It set the international norm in 2006 and did so under Chapter VII.  The norm has been violated. Unless a further resolution is suitably empowering, silence might be best. The Security Council should not limit what can be done by specifying it.

3. The United States must now treat the North Koreans as having crossed the "red line" of proliferating nuclear material and, based on our analysis of how they did this, do everything possible to disable this capability.

4. Also, as I wrote in this space a few months ago, the United States should take necessary preparations with its allies to limit North Korean development of the ballistic missiles they could marry with their nuclear (or biological or chemical) payloads.

5. Keep in mind that all of this is a curtain-raiser for the Obama administration's still too-be-determined policy on Iran.

Certainly any measure that confronts North Korea carries risks of escalation. The North Korean government made the decision to act beyond its borders.  The United States should prepare with its allies to address these risks. Evidence of that preparation is the best way to reduce the risk. And our Chinese and Russian friends can judge for themselves how best to manage the risks they see arising from this cancer across the Yalu.

By Mitchell B. Reiss

North Korea's recent launch of its rocket over the Pacific no doubt served multiple agendas for Kim Jong-il: demonstrating toughness to a domestic audience at a time when some may be questioning his life expectancy, retaliating against both South Korea and Japan for perceived and real slights, enhancing the country's marketing strategy for foreign missile sales, and raising the price for any possible buy-out should the Six Party Talks reconvene. Not a bad day's work for the leader of a poor, dysfunctional, friendless country.

Obama administration officials, after having warned (and failed to dissuade) the North not to launch, are now blustering about how Pyongyang's action violated UN Security Council 1718 (a pretty strained reading of the resolution), further isolated the North (as if that was possible) and should now be punished by additional UN sanctions (not going to happen). 

So what can the United States do? Let's review the options.

Military action is not viable, especially with the United States already committed to two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Short of a second Korean war, military options have priced themselves out of the market, as indeed they have for the past fifty-plus years.

Economic sanctions have been ineffective in shaping Pyongyang's behavior, even when there has been rare agreement in the UN Security Council.  (Enforcing compliance is another matter altogether. Despite past UN resolutions banning luxury items, there appears to be no shortage on fine cognac and fancy electronics in Pyongyang.) China and Russia have already stated publicly in the past few days that they are not willing to impose additional UN sanctions. The United States, Japan, and South Korea could unilaterally adopt commercial and other trade sanctions. But the reality is that these countries' leverage is limited due to their relative lack of interaction with the North, Pyongyang's willingness to allow its people to suffer hardship and, perhaps most important of all, China's unwillingness to allow the North to collapse. 

Diplomatically, that leaves the Six Party Talks (6PT). During the past few years, the Bush administration staked out untenable positions only to capitulate after the North raised tensions, whether over the Banco Delta Asia accounts in Macau or the October 2006 nuclear test. Predictably, rewarding North Korea's misbehavior only encouraged more misbehavior. By repeatedly telegraphing its eagerness to return to the Six Party Talks, the Obama administration now appears to be making the same mistake. 

So what to do? I would advocate a policy of what might be termed "malign neglect." The starting assumption is that the North Koreans will now play hard to get, using their reluctance to return to the Six Party Talks as leverage for an easing of sanctions, provision of additional food aid, a resumption of energy assistance, or other benefits. And no doubt the Obama team will try to appease the North's desires and ease them back to the negotiating table.

This would be a mistake. Although it is possible for the United States to bribe the North back to the negotiating table (we have done it before), this would be mistaking process for substance. The goal of the Six Party Talks is not to get to the North Koreans to the bargaining table. It is for the North Koreans to want to come to the table to investigate whether it makes sense for them to abandon their nuclear weapons programs and forge a fundamentally new relationship with the United States and the region. The United States and the other 6PT members cannot make this calculation for Pyongyang and they should stop trying to do so.

Instead, the Obama administration should do three things:

First, it needs to state that it is prepared to resume the Six Party Talks whenever the North is ready to do so -- and then say nothing else. There is really not much more to say, anyway. For once, we should at least try to be as patient as the North Koreans.

Second, the United States needs to repair relations with our two major allies in Asia, Japan and South Korea. Both relationships have been bruised in recent years and Seoul and Tokyo are anxious about whether the new team in Washington will fully consult and coordinate on its North Korea policy. In this sense, the North Korean nuclear issue is not about North Korea at all. It is about the United States preserving alliance relations. After all, we can't control what the North does, but we can control what we do in relation to Seoul and Tokyo. 

Third, we ought to welcome South Korea's joining the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and encourage China to do so. These actions should be part of a clear and unequivocal message sent to Pyongyang that the international community will not tolerate the North's export of any nuclear technology or ballistic missiles. In addition to enhancing global security, this would choke off a source of hard currency to the regime.

These modest steps, forming a policy of "malign neglect," may be unsatisfying to many. But they have the merit of placing the burden for progress in the negotiations on North Korea, where they should be, on playing to U.S. strengths in our alliance relations in the region, and on aligning our nonproliferation interests for the Korean peninsula with those of the international community.