All Options on North Korea Should Include Diplomacy
In light of the growing threat from North Korea, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States would take a “new approach” to this long-standing challenge. There has been little clarity regarding what that new approach might be, but Tillerson suggested in Seoul that the administration saw little value in diplomacy and would instead focus more on sanctions, stating that “20 years of talks with North Korea have brought us to where we are today.” There’s certainly truth to that, but perhaps not in the way that Tillerson intended.
While diplomatic efforts have not resulted in North Korea’s denuclearization, its nuclear and missile capabilities would likely far exceed what they are today in the absence of past diplomatic agreements, especially the 1994 Agreed Framework. Concluded during a crisis in which North Korea was preparing to extract plutonium for nuclear weapons, that agreement ultimately froze North Korea’s plutonium production for nearly a decade. It also resulted in North Korea scrapping the construction of two additional nuclear reactors which, if completed, would have increased the number of nuclear weapons Pyongyang could produce each year by more than ten-fold. Although the agreement broke down in 2003 for a number of reasons — most importantly North Korea’s pursuit of a parallel but nascent nuclear weapons effort — U.S. officials involved at the time say that the alternative to the deal was a war that would likely kill many tens of thousands.
The lesson from those experiences is not that diplomacy has only ended in failure, but that diplomatic agreements can produce outcomes beneficial to our security even if they do not fully resolve the matter. Halting North Korea’s nuclear and missile progress can be a worthwhile goal on the path to denuclearization and shouldn’t be taken off the table — for the right price.
It is the price that’s the real problem. A freeze of the North’s nuclear and missile activities has been a precondition for the United States to resume multilateral talks on Pyongyang’s denuclearization. The reasoning is sound: North Korea needs to clearly demonstrate a rededication to its denuclearization commitment of 2005 because we are wary of easily reversible promises from North Korea in exchange for tangible benefits. But Pyongyang is aware of the value that such a freeze might have, and there is little prospect that it will be willing to implement one for nothing, especially one involving international inspectors.
China’s proposal of freezing North Korean nuclear and missile activities in return for halting U.S.-Republic of Korea (ROK) exercises is a non-starter; the ROK is not just threatened by the North’s nuclear and missile capabilities. However, a freeze could be worth concessions that do not significantly harm the military readiness of our allies, even if it includes re-calibrating or scaling back our annual exercises.
Any other costs that we might need to bear in a negotiation will depend on the extent to which we can impact North Korea’s own cost-benefit calculus through bolstering sanctions and increasing Pyongyang’s political isolation. And there is plenty of diplomatic spade-work to be done on that front as well.
Strengthening sanctions isn’t just a matter of imposing new ones; it also means making sure existing measures are enforced. North Korea is able to fund the expansion of its nuclear and missile programs because it is still able to find state customers around the world willing to risk sanctions violations in order to purchase North Korean goods and services. The North can pursue such trades by shipping goods through countries that are unable or unwilling to clamp down on North Korean trafficking.
Moreover, many countries still do not have laws on the books to implement current international sanctions, or they lack the means to enforce their already adopted restrictions. This deficiency can be seen readily by the dearth of required national reports to the UN Security Council on steps countries are taking to implement the sanctions on North Korea.
U.S. leadership remains critical to improving this picture. In practical terms, that means the Trump Administration will need to ensure the Departments of State and Treasury have the appropriate tools and staffing to impress upon countries the need to enforce sanctions and, in some cases, to provide the legal and technical assistance necessary for them to do so. Working closely with our allies, including through joint demarches, we will also need to step up pressure on North Korea’s arms clients in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia to stop their ongoing violations of UN sanctions — possibly even by offering alternative arms supply deals.
Of course, China’s unique, relationship with North Korea makes it of vital importance when it comes to ensuring sanctions have an impact. This is especially true as the most recent UN resolutions have sought to impose economic costs on North Korea. China has traditionally been reluctant to use any economic leverage on Pyongyang out of concerns, both real and exaggerated, that doing so would lead to instability and an influx of North Korean refugees into China.
With the downturn in Sino-North Korean relations following the advent of Kim Jong Un’s rule, Beijing has been more willing to agree to increasingly stringent international sanctions. For example, China approved a UN resolution in November that capped coal imports from North Korea, a key source of revenue. But since then, China has repeatedly exceeded the UN-mandated monthly caps on coal, and in February, Beijing had to halt any further North Korean coal imports for 2017 because it was already approaching this year’s limit.
As President Trump meets with President Xi this week, the Trump Administration is reportedly considering stepping up “secondary sanctions” against North Korea-linked Chinese banks if Beijing does not agree to use its leverage with Pyongyang. Such a step is likely necessary, but it is not without cost — China often retaliates against U.S. sanctions by withholding cooperation in other areas. And an overreliance on the U.S. ability to cut states out of the U.S. dollar-based international financial system could incentivize states, over time, to seek alternatives to the dollar.
Though the details of any changes to U.S. policy on North Korea remain vague, Tillerson assured that “all options are on the table.” This type of statement is most often used as a euphemism for military action, but it would do the administration well to keep open the possibility of negotiations with North Korea, including on a potential freeze. After all, sanctions alone won’t dismantle a single weapon, and if the risk of military action was too high in 1994, consider how that was prior to North Korean nuclear weapons.
Peter Crail is a former Department of State Senior Advisor on nonproliferation and a Security Fellow with Truman National Security Project. Views expressed are his own.
