However, whether America is forced to act on this pledge depends on North Korea. Nuclear North Korea. Talk of denuclearization is from a bygone era. With the DPRK on course to build hundreds of nuclear weapons, the notion of complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement/denuclearization (CVID) is a fantasy.
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It is time to accept reality and adopt an arms control approach to the North that seeks to limit Pyongyang’s arsenal in return for sanctions relief, improved relations, and security assurances. The latter strategy offers no guarantee of success—the Kim dynasty has ruthlessly played a weak hand well for decades—but provides more hope than the administration’s policy, begging for talks over denuclearization, which the North’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un has explicitly rejected on multiple occasions.
Waiting for a miracle is not an option. Kim heralded the new year calling for an “exponential increase” in nuclear weapons production. He also insisted on improvement in the DPRK’s “preparations to mobilize for war” and “actual war-fighting capabilities.” This is not mere rhetoric. Most of the nearly 100 missiles launched last year and some twenty so far this year, concluded the Carnegie Endowment’s Ankit Panda, “are parts of military exercises. They are rehearsing for nuclear war. And that, I think, is the big picture this year.” The longer the U.S. waits to seriously engage by refusing to talk to Pyongyang about what it wants to talk about, the closer the North will come to possessing the capability to target the American homeland.
Although Washington is largely bereft of anyone who believes that North Korea is prepared to give up its nuclear arsenal—only South Africa has ever yielded actual bombs—proposals to recognize the obvious and act accordingly cause wailing, gnashing of teeth, and rending of garments on a biblical scale. But why continue to follow today’s failed course?
Coercion is not a serious alternative. Despite President Donald Trump’s consideration of a “bloody nose” strategy, any military action would be mad, risking full-scale war on the peninsula. What little we know about North Korean decision-making suggests that the regime would respond violently. What would have been merely catastrophic three decades ago when considered during the Clinton and Bush administrations would be suicidal today, given the North’s nuclear and missile arsenal.
Sanctions are a dead end. China and Russia won’t help, and Pyongyang survived even after effectively sanctioning itself, closing its borders in response to Covid-19. All that is left is negotiation, which appears impossible if the U.S. continues to demand denuclearization.
Unfortunately, endlessly repeating past arguments won’t convince Kim Jong Un that he is better off entrusting his security to U.S. promises than North Korean nuclear weapons. After Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Syria, Ukraine, and especially Libya—remember Muammar Gaddafi’s ugly fate—North Korea’s nukes will have to be pried out of Kim’s very cold and dead fingers after he takes the lives of thousands or perhaps millions of people.
Some analysts appear to hope for a miracle. Maybe Kim or a successor will rise one morning and decide to give up his dearly bought arsenal. They also might close the prison camps, schedule elections, and fly to the Hague to turn themselves in for committing crimes against humanity. But not likely. Unfortunately, waiting for denuclearization would effectively foreclose negotiations to limit armaments. Yet almost anything would be an improvement over the Kim regime’s apparent plans for an unlimited nuclear building program.
Indeed, arms control could move along a path that would yield denuclearization if the stars align. Freezing the DPRK’s program would be the logical first step of any denuclearization plan, which would be complicated and take months or even years if agreed to by the North. The U.S. need not drop CVID as an aspiration. Rather, it should stop demanding that Pyongyang agree to CVID.
Perhaps the strangest criticism of pursuing arms control is that the North cannot be trusted to live up to any agreement. Of course, that is why verification is required. If an arms control agreement could not be enforced, then neither could a denuclearization agreement. If Pyongyang would cheat on arms limits, then it would cheat on denuclearization. Enforcement would be difficult whatever program was negotiated but starting small is more likely to yield a workable, verifiable agreement.
Would switching to arms control undermine U.S. relations with Seoul and Tokyo? They undoubtedly would complain, but neither has offered a plausible means to achieve denuclearization. They just want America to be willing to sacrifice its cities on their behalf. Waiting for the lion and lamb to lie down together, when Kim will surrender and Pyongyang will fortuitously disarm, is no strategy. The larger North Korea’s nuclear arsenal grows, the greater the danger to both South Korea and Japan.
Some analysts are determined to uphold the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Alas, it is too late for the world to regain its nuclear virginity. None of the original nuclear powers have shown the slightest interest in fulfilling their obligation to move toward denuclearization. Moreover, Washington has accepted Israel, India, and Pakistan as nuclear weapons states. Anyway, ongoing U.S. threats will only impel the DPRK to build an even larger and more sophisticated arsenal that more ostentatiously undermines nonproliferation. A continuing unsuccessful denuclearization campaign, leaving the North as a full-fledged medium nuclear power, would leave the NPT even weaker than conducting a successful arms control campaign.
Still, critics worry, deemphasizing denuclearization could accelerate regional proliferation, increasing South Korean support for building an independent deterrent, which would trigger a debate in Japan about doing the same. Taiwan and Australia might not be far behind. This specter confuses cause and effect. CVID is not the issue. North Korea’s nuclear program is the issue. In pursuit of CVID or not, political pressure will grow in the South to respond to an expanding DPRK arsenal. Acknowledging the obvious is unlikely to be an important independent factor.
The most important coming challenge for the U.S. is the policy of extended deterrence. Once Pyongyang is capable of targeting American cities, does it make sense for Americans to risk everything defending a country not vital to their own defense? Deciding no—the only sensible if controversial answer—would provide a major impetus to friendly proliferation. The latter might be a second-best solution, but there are only second-best solutions in addressing the North.
Yoon has returned home and the hard work remains. Washington must focus on bringing the North into negotiations, which requires abandoning denuclearization as the formal objective of any resulting talks. Only by admitting the obvious does Washington have a realistic hope to prevent the worst. Today the DPRK is a nuclear state. Tomorrow will determine how powerful a nuclear state it becomes.