A Comprehensive Approach To North Korea

Since the Agreed Framework (AF) was signed by the United States and North Korea on October 21, 1994, the security situation on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia has changed qualitatively for the worse. The discovery last year of a suspect North Korean nuclear site and the August 31 launch of a Taepo Dong missile have combined to raise fundamental questions about Pyongyang's intentions, its commitment to the agreement, and the possibility of North-South reconciliation. These developments also raise profound questions about the sustainability of current U.S. policy toward the Korean peninsula.

Since the Agreed Framework (AF) was signed by the United States and North Korea on October 21, 1994, the security situation on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia has changed qualitatively for the worse. The discovery last year of a suspect North Korean nuclear site and the August 31 launch of a Taepo Dong missile have combined to raise fundamental questions about Pyongyang's intentions, its commitment to the agreement, and the possibility of North-South reconciliation. These developments also raise profound questions about the sustainability of current U.S. policy toward the Korean peninsula.

"In describing their comprehensive proposal for negotiations with North Korea, O'Hanlon and Mochizuki exhibit the strategic creativity and analytical depth badly needed by United States policy makers dealing with this strange, dangerous place." --Ash Carter, former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Ford Foundation Professor of Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University IN EARLY 2002, in his fateful state of the union address, President Bush described North Korea as being a member of the "Axis of Evil." Since then, the U.S. has gone to war with Iraq, and the world now wonders what the future of Bush's preemption policy will bring. Many of the nation's top experts feel that North Korea is a more imminent threat than Saddam's Iraq was. They have a nuclear program, a million-man army, and missiles to deploy and export. In Crisis on the Korean Peninsula, Michael O'Hanlon, a Senior Fellow at Brooking and visiting lecturer at Princeton, and Mike Mochizuki, endowed chair in Japan-US Relations at G.W. University, not only examine this issue in detail but also offer a comprehensive blueprint for diffusing the crisis with North Korea. Their solution comes in the form of a "grand bargain" with North Korea. Accords could be negotiated step-by-step, however they need to be guided by a broad and ambitious vision that addresses not only the nuclear issue but also the conventional forces on the hyper-militarized peninsula and the ongoing decline of the North Korean economy.

The Korean peninsula remains one of the world's most dangerous places. While North Korea has an army of 1.2 million troops and holds Seoul hostage with its missiles and artillery, Pyongyang is in desperate straits after a decade of economic decline, food shortages, and diplomatic isolation. In 1998, former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry traveled to Pyongyang to propose increasing outside aid from the United States, South Korea, and Japan in exchange for North Korea's promise to reduce military provocations. The third in a series of influential Task Force reports on Korea policy, this study argues that, in spite of tensions, the United States should continue to support South Korea's engagement policy and keep Perry's proposal on the table. The Task Force recommends that, should North Korea increase tensions by testing long-range missiles, the United States and its allies should take a new approach to Pyongyang, including enhancing U.S.-Japan and South Korean deterrence against other North Korean threats, suspending new South Korean investment in North Korea, and placing new Japanese restrictions on financial transfers to the North. By suggesting the possibility of gradually reducing the danger on the Korean peninsula, this report represents a crucial addition to the discussion of U.S.-North Korean economic relations.

This book explores the state of play on the Korean peninsula, where old conflicts remain latent. Regarding security on the Korean Peninsula, however, this book challenges the belief that the internal affairs of states should be discounted and posits that to have a fuller perspective of comprehensive peacebuilding on the Korean Peninsula, all aspects of the security spectrum should be considered from the perspective of both challenges to building peace and opportunities for doing so. In particular, the internal governance functioning of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) regime will be considered, as well as the intersection between regime security, economic development and distributive justice, and South Korean perceptional, ideational, and bottom-up approaches to peace on the Korean Peninsula. Hence, this book will be of interest to scholars of the region, journalists and peace-makers.

Recent revelations that North Korea has maintained its nuclear weapon program in violation of prior international agreements highlight the adversarial relationship between Washington and Pyongyang. For 50 years, American foreign policy has tried to co-opt or shun North Korea, usually without success. Prior U.S. attempts at engagement have been halfhearted at best, often being nothing more than an opportunity for Pyongyang to extract concessions from the West. The United States should re-evaluate its approach toward North Korea and implement a comprehensive and integrated strategy that offers tangible incentives for cooperation backed by substantial costs for non-compliance. Such a strategy is presented in part one of this paper. U.S. objectives toward North Korea are identified and prioritized; the effectiveness of diplomatic, economic, information, and military means toward North Korea are presented; and a plan for implementing these options is developed. Part two assumes that peaceful options for attaining U.S. goals in North Korea fail and that Washington must resort to military force. Capabilities, constraints, and goals of the antagonists are identified and assumptions made about their likely courses of action. From this framework a military strategy is presented that provides a viable alternative for the United States.

Recent revelations that North Korea has maintained its nuclear weapon program in violation of prior international agreements highlight the adversarial relationship between Washington and Pyongyang.1 For 50 years, American foreign policy has tried to co-opt or shun North Korea, usually without success. Prior U.S. attempts at engagement have been halfhearted at best, often being nothing more than an opportunity for Pyongyang to extract concessions from the West. The United States should re-evaluate its approach toward North Korea and implement a comprehensive and integrated strategy that offers tangible incentives for cooperation backed by substantial costs for non-compliance. Such a strategy is presented in part one of this paper. U.S. objectives toward North Korea are identified and prioritized; the effectiveness of diplomatic, economic, information, and military means toward North Korea are presented; and a plan for implementing these options is developed. Part two assumes that peaceful options for attaining U.S. goals in North Korea fail and that Washington must resort to military force. Capabilities, constraints, and goals of the antagonists are identified and assumptions made about their likely courses of action. From this framework a military strategy is presented that provides a viable alternative for the United States.