The Task Force on U.S. Korea Policy, composed of 26 U.S. experts on Korean Peninsula issues, has released a set of policy recommendations (in .pdf form) to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue. Some big names involved in this project — Selig Harrison, Carter Eckert, Donald Gregg, James Laney, Don Oberdorfer, Charles Pritchard, Ken Quinones, Leon Sigal, David Steinberg… oh yeah, and Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Cumings.
Anyway, definitely read through it. I need to digest it before passing comment, although my first reading didn’t leave me terribly impressed. Some fine minds went into composing it though, so it does deserve attention.
(Hat tip to NKzone)
5 Comments
Fine minds indeed. Anything that got that list of individuals (and not just those Marmot mentions) to sign the same piece of paper is reason enough to wanna read.
It all sounds very similar to this:
1. The South and the North shall not test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons.
2. The South and the North shall use nuclear energy solely for peaceful purposes.
3. The South and the North shall not possess nuclear reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities.
4. The South and the North, in order to verify the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, shall conduct inspection of the objects selected by the other side and agreed upon between the two sides, in accordance with procedures and methods to be determined by the South-North Joint Nuclear Control Commission.
5. The South and the North, in order to implement this joint declaration, shall establish and operate a South-North joint Nuclear Control Commission within one (1) month of the effectuation of this joint declaration.
6. This Joint Declaration shall enter into force as of the day the two sides exchange appropriate instruments following the completion of their respective procedures for bringing it into effect.
Signed January 20, 1992
Old wine, new bottles…
And with folks like Selig Harrison and Bruce Cumings on board, it’s the closest thing we can get in America to having Kim Jong-il help in the drafting.
Having read the report, I’ll summarize for everyone. Basically, their recommendation is to return the Agreed Framework, with one important exception: North Korea would have to comply with intrusive nuclear inspections anywhere and anytime. At least they included this provision. Without it, this report would have no credibility.
But here are some deficiencies with their plan:
1. It is unrealistic to think North Korea will accept these types of inspections. Never in their history have they agreed to anything like this. It is polar opposite of “juche” philosophy - self reliance, no foreign intrusions, and all that.
2. There is no role for China in this report. Since China provides North Korea with most of their oil, Pyongyang has little incentive to make a deal without pressure from China.
3. The recommendation calls for normalization of relations (peace treaty, liaison offices, trade, etc. etc.) between the U.S. and North Korea. Given the stark ideological conflict between the two countries, I don’t see how this is possible. This is like the U.S. normalizing relations with Krushchev.
4. The plan is not much different than what the Bush administration is proposing right now. And after one three-way talk and three six-way talks, discussions have gone nowhere. If North Korea is not interested in the Bush proposal, why would they be interested in this deal? Because it has Bruce Cuming’s name attached to it?
This is one of the reasons North Korea signed the Agreed Framework, the deal was one-sidedly in their favor. This is also why it didn’t work.
And this statement from the report was a real howler:
“The Clinton Administration made significant progress toward negotiating an agreement to end missile exports and long-range missile development.”
In the real world, Pyongyang’s missile/missile technology exports and missile development accelerated under the Clinton administration. This was one of the great flaws of the Agreed Framework. It didn’t address the missile issue - just those 8,000 fuel rods, a small part of their weapons program.
For about 50 years, the U.S. was able contain North Korea so they couldn’t be a threat to the free world. But with the export of missile and nuke technology, containment has become increasingly difficult. Iran already has a missile cabable of hitting southern Europe thanks to the Norks. North Korea won’t launch a first-strike against the U.S., but sharing nuclear material with a terrorist organization/nation is a real possibility. There is no way the U.S. should live with this threat. It’s time for regime change in North Korea and it’s time to rebuild North Korea into a normal liberal democracy.
The attitude in the report is that a giant love fest with Kim Jong-il will get him to turn around, but this is naive. 2-3 million North Koreans have already perished under his wise tutulege in the last 15 years, and there are no signs he’s lost grip on power. So why would North Korea make any drastic changes now? Why would he make liberalizing reforms that would threaten his power?
Asia by Blog
Asia by Blog is a twice weekly feature, usually posted on Monday and Thursday, providing links to Asian blogs and their views on the news in this fascinating region. Previous editions can be found here. This edition contains China-Japan tensions, the f…