Contents

pageAngelika VIETS(Secretary General, JDZB)

Foreword ............................................................................................................. 5
Sebastian HARNISCH(Chair for International Relations and Foreign Policy, Trier University)

Soldiering On: North Korea as a Nuclear Weapons State.................................. 7

Comments to Sebastian Harnisch’s Presentation by
Selig S. HARRISON ............................................................................................ 16(Director of the Asia Program, Center for International Policy, Washington DC)

MURATA Koji .................................................................................................... 19(Associate Professor, International Security Studies, Department of Political Science,
Doshisha University, Kyoto)

Heinrich KREFT ................................................................................................. 21(Vice Director, Policy Planning and Advisory Stuff, Federal Foreign Office, Berlin)

IZUMI Hajime(Professor of International Relations, University of Shizuoka, Tōkyō)How to Solve the Conflict: Suggested Roles of Japan ...................................... 24
Kay MÖLLER
(Senior Research Associate, German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), Berlin)

The PRC and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis ................................................ 27
Nicholas Eberstadt(American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington DC)

Some “Scenarios” and Endgames in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis
An American Perspective .................................................................................. 34
Conference Program ......................................................................................... 57

Foreword

The JDZB’s activities address a wide range of subjects, dealing with issues of current
interest but also seeking to cover areas of long-term relevance. One of the main topics
in 2004 has been German-Japanese regional security cooperation.
This conference on “Security Threats and Strategies of a Regional Security Policy
in North East Asia” jointly organized with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation intends toserve as a forum in which the security situation in most likely one of the most complex
and potentially dangerous regions can be debated and a policy-relevant analysis be
stimulated.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, “the variety andmagnitude of the strategic dangers and dilemmas emanating from North East Asia areformidable. The region is replete with historical animosities and unsettled legacies of
the Second World War, the Chinese Civil War, the Korean War and the Cold War.
Power balances within the region are in state of flux. There are strong US-centricbilateral defense alliances and security agreements, but no formal overarching
multilateral security institutions to inspire confidence or consensus. The region is alocus for the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.”
North Korea’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons have indeed presented North
East Asia, Japan and the international community with a serious security challenge. In
2003 it became the first country to leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Policy options
discussed to deal with North Korea range from diplomacy and limited engagement toisolation and containment.
In the spring of 2004 I had the opportunity to accompany the Vice Speaker of ourFederal Parliament, Dr. Antje Vollmer, on her visit to South Korea and Japan. We
arrived in Seoul on the eve of the parliamentary elections. Two days of intensive discussions with a wide range of representatives from all walks of life left a vivid impressionof a society seemingly almost evenly divided over its North Korea policy, one half of
our interlocutors favoring containment leading to collapse, the other half hoping forslow changes through dialogue and economic cooperation. We left, however, with thevivid impression that some kind of quiet reconciliation process seems to be in progress.
It will be interesting to check this impression against the view of renowned experts participating in this conference and to whom I would like to express our gratitude.
The JDZB has a long history of cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation,
namely in the field of foreign and security policy. So it was a great pleasure to jointly
organize this conference. The FES has set up a program on „Security in a globalized
world“. Its goal is to support the process involved in shaping and formulating public
options on security policies in different regions of the south and to feed back the relevant positions and political developments into the German and European debates aswell as into the process of the United Nations. In June 2004 the FES has organized aconference in Shanghai on „regional security architecture and multilateralism“ dealing
with the security policies in north East Asia. I would like to thank the Friedrich Ebert
Foundation, especially Ms. Anne Seyfferth, for the successful cooperation.
Angelika VIETS
Secretary General
Japanese-German Center Berlin

Soldiering On: North Korea as a Nuclear Weapons State
Regional and International Implications

Sebastian HARNISCH *University of Trier

1 Introduction

Thank you, Ms. Chairwoman, and thanks to the organizers for this timely opportunity to
discuss the regional and international implications of the security situation on the
Korean Peninsula. I was asked to give you a broad overview of the security situation
linking economic, political and security related aspects of the regime crisis in North
Korea. Since there are sessions dealing with the roles of different actors as well as a setof distinguished experts on the economic and political situation I will focus my remarkson the following three areas: the interdependence between economic, political and security dynamics, the status of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
programs (emphasizing the nuclear and delivery system issues), and the prospects for apeaceful resolution of the crisis after the U.S. presidential elections.
To begin with, let me briefly outline the argument before I delve into these threeareas more deeply: First, I posit that today it is probable that North Korea is the ninth
nuclear weapons state, which has accumulated enough weapons grade plutonium for asignificant arsenal, i.e. 6 to 8 warheads, and mastered the necessary techniques toweaponize this material into deliverable nuclear devices. Second, I hold that this weapons program, and other WMD programs as well, has been driven and condoned by bothinternal and external dynamics. The internal driving forces are economic considerations(trade in threat reduction), political (regime survival, stabilization of power position
within the regime) and security considerations (nuclear weapons as strategic equalizers).
External factors, which facilitate regime stabilization and the advancement of the weapons program, are the willingness of the international community to accept nuclear
ambiguity under the Geneva Agreement and its inability/unwillingness to commit to aplausible negotiated resolution. Third, and based on the assumption that ending the
WMD programs requires a substantial change in the internal structure of the regime andthe external security situation on the Peninsula I argue that assisted regime transformation that includes an end to all WMD programs is desirable and (still) possible, but that
this course of action is also not very probable. Hence, the short-term prospect is that thecurrent North Korean regime will soldier on as a nuclear weapon state and that con* Dr. Sebastian HarnischDept. of Political Science
University of Trier
54286 Trier
Tel.: +49-651-201-2164
Fax: +49-651-201-3821
E-Mail: harnisch@uni-trier.de
Web: http://www.sebastian-harnisch.de7Sebastian HARNISCH

cerned (regional) actors are obliged to manage the already visible effects of this development.
I will proceed as follows: First, I tackle the internal and external dynamics that led
to the current situation. Second, I will assess the current state of the North Korean
Nuclear programs. Third, I will surmise from my analysis the prospects for a peacefulsolution.

2 Implosion, Explosion, Proliferation: Internal and External Dynamics?

When talking about regime change it is important to distinguish between different levelsof change, i.e. the policy, the regime and the state level. Whereas a status quo situationrefers to a continuation of existing policies by the ruling regime, system modificationentails either the pursuit of new policies by an existing regime (i.e. the Chinese model
under Deng) or new policies in combination with a new regime type (i.e. a militarydevelopmental dictatorship, Park Era). Collapse can then be defined as either the forceful end of a political regime or the demise of a sovereign state as such. In this scenario
the collapse of political structures can originate within a state (Romanian model), be
imposed from outside (the Iraqi model) or feature a confluence of both factors that
result in a de facto rule by an outside power (trusteeship) for an extended period of time
(Moon 2004).
With regard to North Korea, most analysts probably agree that during the 1990s
the governing regime under both Kims faced a severe and sustained regime crisis thatmight well have led to a forceful implosion (regime change) or explosion, that is anoffensive military campaign by North Korea resulting in a subsequent regime change.
However, as Marcus Noland in a recent study suggested, the probability of regimechange today is low (Noland 2004). That does not mean that the country and its people
do not suffer enormously from the structural deficits of the command economy andpolitical repression. What it does mean is that Kim Chông-il has been able to cope.

2.1 The Political Economy of Regime Stabilization under Kim Chông-il
Since the severe crisis in the mid-90s, Kim Jong-il has been able to consolidate his ruleand to stabilize the food supply through a two-pronged strategy: He has increasingly
relied on the military as a source of power and legitimacy, and he has opened up thecountry to international exchange, that is to extracting resources from the international
community. This has led to the somewhat schizophrenic situation where Pyongyang is
the largest recipient of U.S. aid in Asia and its most ardent enemy.
The two-pronged strategy had two contradictory effects: First, the more theregime relied on the military domestically the less it was able to neglect the military’s
interest in powerful weapons systems internationally. Second, the more the regime
opened up internationally thereby learning about the structural defects of its command
economy, the less it was able to sustain its concept of self-reliance.
Facing this two-fold dilemma the regime has modified its policy both in style andname. In 1998 it revised the constitution. In summer 2002 it introduced more far8

Soldiering On: North Korea as a Nuclear Weapons State

reaching reforms that centered around the asymmetrical increase of wages and prices forbasic goods, but also included macroeconomic measures such as the partial abolition of
the rationing system, of exchange coupons and an increase of the autonomous distribution rate of agricultural products (Frank 2003, Beal 2004; Gey 2004). While the jury is
still out on the substance of the reform, it is already obvious that the reforms have led to
substantial inflationary pressures and a widening gap in income distribution, thereby
intensifying the existing inequalities. It also appears that the government had to devaluate the won as well as issuing “People’s Life Bonds” to extract additional resources forthe state (Noland 2004a), and it has been further suggested that the reforms are beginning to shift the balance between the official economy (which is contracting), the military economy (which is stagnating), and the private economy (which is growing)(Lee/Yoon 2004). As a consequence of these substantial changes in the economic makeup of the country, a clear shift in the ideological posture can be discerned: In March andApril 2003 the Rodong Shimun proclaimed a new “Military First Doctrine” that holds
that the military precedes the working class, which loses its privileged status as theleading revolutionary group in North Korean society (Frank 2003a).
In sum, what we see in North Korea today is system modification on a policy
level that has some potential for more substantial change on the regime level. Contradictions in the economic reform process may well lead to an ever-widening gap between
different groups in North Korean society so that the function of the military as an
instrument to quell social unrest may grow. This prospect does not bode well for anegotiated end to WMD programs, because the political leadership, i.e. Kim Chông-il,
will have to convince his generals, on whom he increasingly depends that they can live
and prosper without WMD (Quinones 2004).

2.2 External Regime Stabilization: The Failure to Resocialize the “Rogue”
By now it is clear that the international effort to moderate North Korean security policy
behavior, in particular its quest for WMD and their export, through engagement has
failed to some degree. Let me be clear about this: Engagement is still our best option!
However so far engagement has failed to resocialize, that is to change the basic foreign
policy outlook of North Korea in congruence with international norms so that it does
not need WMD for extracting foreign aid to pep up its failed economy or to ensure
regime survival internally or externally. This may not be surprising because some policy
makers in the U.S., Asia and elsewhere thought that the Korea Energy Development
Organization (KEDO) would not have to deliver the two light-water reactors because
North Korea would collapse in the meantime. While I do not think that this is an accurate description of the thinking of the time, I hold that the United States, its Asian andEuropean allies plus China failed to signal that they were prepared to peacefully change
the regime by addressing the underlying structural causes.
Let me briefly sketch out what I mean by this: Starting with China I think it isobvious that Beijing preferred a policy of benign neglect that focussed on regime stabilization before engaging in serious diplomatic negotiation in 2003, because it felt that amore or less predictable status quo was better than an unpredictable future (Ming 2004).
Still, today I do not see any Chinese effort to facilitate the necessary concerted initiativethat would provide for a plausible scheme of peaceful regime change, possibly along thelines of the Chinese model. With regard to South Korea and Japan my sense is that9

Sebastian HARNISCH

domestic considerations have pulled apart their approaches towards North Korea in thelast two years: The Roh administration has at times used policy differences with Washington to bolster domestic support; the Koizumi government and the LDP in particularhave used the abduction issue for domestic purposes. Since the Bush Jr.-administration
has come into office both governments have undertaken several independent initiatives
to jump-start serious bi- and multilateral negotiations. But Seoul and Tôkyô have failed
so far in launching a concerted initiative including China that would provide for a viable
alternative to the U.S. plan of June 2004. Instead, Washington’s Asian allies neither
publicly endorsed nor criticized the U.S. Plan so that Pyongyang could infer that thisplan would certainly not be the last word (Niksch 2004).
When it comes to Washington’s complicity in stabilizing the Kim regime European and Asian commentators tend to argue that we have seen too much U.S.
hegemonic behavior. My own feeling is that we have seen too little! For different
domestic reasons the U.S. executive over the last ten years has been unable or unwillingto provide a plausible and comprehensive diplomatic solution for the North Korean
problem. Having said this, the U.S. should be credited for at least trying to come up
with such a solution while other nations including the European Union have undertaken
only partial and mostly uncoordinated efforts to do so.
As a consequence, our best hopes reside with the U.S. executive learning from thepast failure and being vigorously supported by its allies. The crucial question is thus:
What went wrong? First, the Clinton administration was right in setting up the KEDO
process to forego an immediate and significant nuclear weapons capability. However,
the Clinton administration got it wrong when it underestimated the necessity to engage
Congress preemptively to ensure sustained U.S. compliance with the Geneva Agreed
Framework. Also the Clinton team, despite the initial rogue-state rhetoric, failed toaddress the whole range of deviant North Korean behavior, most importantly missile
production and exports, so that Middle Eastern countries denied their support for the
Geneva agreement through oil shipments. When the Perry Process started in 1998 thatoffered a more comprehensive tool to facilitate peaceful regime change, the Agreed
Framework was already in deep trouble (Harnisch 2003). By then, as we now know, but
as we knew from open sources in March 1999, the North Koreans had already started
procurement for their uranium enrichment program. Second, and even more obviously,
the Bush administration has been a dysfunctional hegemon with regard to North Korea(and Iran for that matter), because different factions within the administration could
neither agree on a plausible negotiating position nor on a plausible containment or
strangulation strategy (Harnisch 2002). What we got in the last four years from Washington was policy cacophony that sent two important signals to Pyongyang: First, even
if there is willingness on Pyongyang’s side to strike a deal and stick to it, it is not clear
whether the Bush administration (or a Kerry administration with a Republican Congress
at its throat) is able to uphold its commitment. Second, given the rhetoric from parts of
the administration and given its policy vis-à-vis Iraq, it is better to prepare for the worst.
Let me be crystal clear on this point: I am not suggesting that the Bush administration
caused North Korea to develop nuclear weapons, this was started long before. What I
am saying is that certain actions and rhetoric made it rational for the regime to quickly
advance and publicly acknowledge their (weapons) existence.
Now, this is a serious allegation. Therefore I want to give you a concrete example:
In a news conference on September 16, 2002, Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld,
pointed out, that the administration has come to view the three member states of the10

Soldiering On: North Korea as a Nuclear Weapons State“axis of evil” differently when it comes to preemptive strikes. Rumsfeld indicated that
the U.S. military may take preemptive military action only to prevent countries from1
getting nuclear weapons, but will not attack them if they already have them. Given thetiming during the run-up to the Iraq intervention this statement could, and in fact I
believe was, as evidenced by North Korea’s subsequent behavior, interpreted inPyongyang as an invitation to arm itself and talk about it.
To sum up this argument about the internal and external dynamics: Internal factors
explain why North Korea developed WMD and will probably continue to do so. External factors explain why engaging North Korea stabilized the regime and quickened its
extension.

3 The State of the North Korean Nuclear Weapons and Missile Programs and Their
Regional and Global Implications

The question of the state of the North Korean nuclear arsenal has always been a tricky
one: During the 1990s, estimates from various countries ranged from weapons grade
plutonium for 1 to 2, to 1 or 2 crude nuclear devices or for even 4 to 5 fully functioning
nuclear war heads (Niksch 2003, Squassoni 2003; Kim 2003; Norris/Kristensen/Handler
2003). Against the background of the Iraq experience some analysts suggest that recent
U.S. estimates of DPRK capabilities may be overstated too (LaMontagne 2004). As aconsequence, the easy answer would be, we just don’t know. My answer is: When it
comes to predicting how actors may behave in the future, more important is what policy
makers believe to be the North Korean potential rather than what actually materiallyconstitutes this capacity. Thus, with due respect for the uncertainties concerning data on
North Korea and WMD, I base my judgement on the following criteria: 1) What does
the U.S. government or rather intelligence community claim to constitute the North
Korean nuclear weapons capacity; 2) What does the North Korean government claim tohave; 3) What kind of material and circumstantial evidence do we have in open sources;
4) What is the rational course of action given the diverse motives for the program
derived from the previous analysis.
Based on these criteria, North Korea has more probably than not advanced its
plutonium weapons capacity from 1 to 2 (crude) nuclear weapons (up to 2003) to 6 to 8
nuclear weapons since reprocessing the 8017 fuel rods from January to June 2003. It has
a running 5-megawatt reactor and an operational reprocessing plant. These facilities
could, under optimal conditions, produce material for one additional nuclear warheadeach year. Additional reactors (50 and 200-megwatt) are in a bad state of repair so that itis difficult to estimate when they could become operational. If so they have a huge
potential for additional weapons grade material. In sum, the plutonium program has amoderate growth rate if those two reactors stay offline and no additional material isimported. However, from a military and proliferation point of view its status has turned
from an ambigious to a significant status, which means that North Korea now has the1

Cf. DoD News Briefing – Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Pace, September 9, 2002, <http://www.
defenselink.mil/news/Sep2002/t09162002_t0916sd.html>; Rumsfeld Indicates Nuclear Status Key to
Pre-Emption Policy, September 19, 2002, <http://www.stratfor.com/fib/fib_view.php?ID=206276>.
11

Sebastian HARNISCH

capacity to deploy these weapons and to export some of them without loosing deterrence capacities.
In addition to the plutonium program, North Korea has probably a uranium
enrichment program. That means that so far there is not sufficient evidence to prove theexistence of a highly enriched uranium program (HEU) to produce weapons grade
material (cf. Harnisch 2003; personal communication with U.S. intelligence official).
This is significant in two respects: Depending on the state of the program a disclosure of
the related activities could show that North Korea has not violated the letter of its international nonproliferation obligations, although it most likely violated the intent of thoseagreements. Second, even if the program became operational as a HEU program by
mid-decade as a CIA estimate assessed in November 2002, this program has a (much)
lower growth rate and potential than the plutonium program from today’s perspective.
However, from a proliferation point of view this assessment changes somewhat. As you
all know, North Korea has been part of a clandestine Proliferation Network that centeredaround A.Q. Khan that may not have become totally dysfunctional after Khan’s withdrawal in 2003 (Albright/Hinderstein 2004; Kampani 2004). Since uranium enrichment
technology and related weapons design has been traded in this network with North
Korea on the receiving end and with Pakistan gone as the primary supplier, it is plausible to deduce conjecture that North Korea may try to take the place as the supplier for
2
uranium material, enrichment technology and weapons design.
North Korea has been the primary proliferator of ballistic missile technology formore than a decade. It has reportedly exported systems or components to Pakistan, Iran,
Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria (Bermudez 2000; Harnisch 2002a). As for the range of
operational and thus exportable systems it is more plausible than not to assume that the
program has not exceeded 1,500 km at this stage. While North Korea test-fired anintermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM), the Taepo-Dong I, in 1998 — the test failed— it is now reportedly working on another IRBM system (based on Russian technology,
the R-27), that could be launched both from land-based launchers or submarines(Bermudez 2004). If accurate, these reports may indicate that the DPRK tries to put thecontinental U.S. within range of prepositioned submarine or ship-based IRBMs in addition to, or as a substitute for advancing the intercontinental ballistic missile system
Taepo-Dong II. However, it is plausible to assume that North Korea would use unconventional delivery means in a crisis situation (such as special forces, agents or commercial ships) to position unconventional weapon systems on foreign territory beyond therange of its operational but inaccurate missile force.
In sum, North Korea’s nuclear weapons program advanced significantly over thelast twelve months, but its prospective medium-term growth (until 2007) is moderate. Itis plausible to argue that this advance does not fundamentally change the deterrence
situation on the Peninsula or in Northeast Asia. However, if successfully tested thisadvanced program will have significant political repercussions. In addition, from a nonproliferation perspective this advancement entails a significant export potential if acustomer is found. North Korea’s history of exporting missile technology and its
involvement in the A.Q. Khan network lend credibility to this scenario.
2

A 2004 report by David Sanger that the DPRK had already sold uranium hexafluoride to Libya in
2002 (David SANGER/William BROAD: “Evidence Is Cited Linking Koreans to Libya Uranium,”
NYT, 23.05. 2004). However, there are questions as to the validity and plausibility of these claims, cf.
Brent Choi, A Blunder from the NY Times?, http://nkzone.typepad.com/nkzone/2004/06/brent_choi_
on_n.html [20.10. 2004].
12

Soldiering On: North Korea as a Nuclear Weapons State

4 Prospects for a Peaceful Solution after the U.S. Presidential Elections

To begin with, the North Korean leadership has persistently offered to negotiate an end
to its plutonium program, to its missile program and to dispel concerns about its
uranium enrichment activities. In the last several weeks there have been indications that
Pyongyang may be willing to return to the 6-party talks after the November elections.
By now it should be obvious that I am sceptical as to the ability of the political leadership to convince the military leadership to abandon these formidable deterrence weapons and instruments which bolster the military’s standing in the political system. North
Korea is the most militarized country of the world, its military eats up about 20% ofGDP, WMD technology export, and illicit trade (counterfeiting, drugs etc.) is a major
source of foreign currency and a primary source of military technological innovation.
As a consequence, any negotiated solution must address this internal dynamic quest for
WMD technology of a full-blown garrison state.
Of course, Kim Chông-il’s leadership should be tested with regard to striking adeal and implementing it. As I have argued, the United States and its allies have nottried hard and consistently enough in the past. Instead, as I see it, especially America’s
Asian allies have quietly condoned North Korea’s nuclear advancement. So far thisstrategy has worked, but it may well “explode into the public” if a nuclear test occurs in
the North. Then, policy makers will be under tremendous pressure “to do something”
about this advancement. While I still think that it is unlikely that this will initiate a“nuclear chain reaction” in Northeast Asia, I would argue that we can already detect a“secondary ripple effect” of North Korea’s nuclear advancement in Northeast Asia. The
deterioration of the nuclear crisis under the Bush administration and the changing
domestic political environment in South Korea have led to a widening perception gap in
the U.S.-ROK alliance which in turn has fuelled calls for a more independent South
Korean defense policy. In contrast, the growing North Korean potential has drawn Japan
closer to the US leading to TMD cooperation, more congruence in strategic thinking andoperations (preemption and foreign deployment). As a consequence, both bilateral
military cooperation between Japan and South Korea has not prospered as in the past,and trilateral coordination in TCOG has suffered considerably (IFPA 2004).
Finally and coming to the prospects for a negotiated solution after the U.S. election next week I would argue the following. If there is a Bush II administration and a
Republican Congress much depends on whether those who still see room for a negotiated solution can dominate the policy process both in the State Department and the
National Security Council. If this were to happen, the Vice Presidency and neo-conservatives in the Pentagon could be marginalized by a coalition of the willing including
Japan and South Korea. In comparison, a Republican Presidency has a better chance of
implementing a negotiated solution under a Republican Congress than a democratic
one. If Kerry wins, it will depend on whether he can also tip the balance in Congress,
which seems unlikely. While Kerry seems more inclined to vigorously pursue a negotiated settlement much depends on whether he can gather the necessary congressional
support for any comprehensive deal. Last but not least, if European nations turn out tobe able to negotiate a feasible end to suspicious Iranian enrichment and reprocessing
activities in the coming days and weeks, this may well have a positive spill over effectin Asia. Thus, Europe may indirectly initiate a peaceful settlement in Korea, but it will13

Sebastian HARNISCH

most likely play only a supportive role when it comes to funding and facilitating thenecessary peaceful regime transformation in North Korea.

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ALBRIGHT, David/HINDERSTEIN, Corey (2004): Uncovering the Nuclear Black Market: Working Toward Closing Gaps in the International Nonproliferation Regime. Paper prepared
for the Institute for Nuclear Materials Management (INMM) 45th Annual Meeting
Orlando, FL, July 2, 2004.
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BEAL, Tim (2004): Pyongyang Goes to Market: Marketization of the North Korean Economy.
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LAMONTAGNE, Steve: Déjà Vu All over Again: How Reliable is U.S. Intelligence on Korea’s
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Soldiering On: North Korea as a Nuclear Weapons StateNIKSCH, Larry (2004): North Korea’s Kill Strategy Toward the U.S. June 23 Proposal: How It
Happened and Why It Is Important. PACNET No. 39 (September 10, 2004).
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July 29, 2003), (CRS Report RS 21391), Washington: CRS for Congress.

15

North Korea: Implosion, Explosion, Proliferation

Selig S. HARRISON
Center for International Policy, Washington DC

We have been asked to discuss two topics today. First, will North Korea explode,implode or collapse? Second, will North Korea become a nuclear weapons power?
On the first, I see little or no prospect of an explosion or implosion or of the collapse of North Korea as a state. There used to be facile comparisons with East Germany
and predictions that North Korea would be absorbed by the South. But these comparisons ignored history. The two Koreas fought a fratricidal war. There’s so much distrustthat both sides want to go slowly with economic and social contacts. They’re not readyyet for the intensity of the contacts that developed under Ostpolitik. In any case, North
Korea is much more insulated from outside influences than East Germany and the other
East European satellites were — no penetration from outside TV, no short-wave radio
and no cassettes from the South except for a very tiny elite.
Of course, there might be changes in the system, but the state itself won’t collapse
because the armed forces will continue to hold the real power and they will continue tobe in charge whatever happens. Kim Jong-il is not a charismatic leader with absolutepersonal authority like his father Kim Il-sung. He came to power with the help of key
military leaders who saw an opportunity after Kim Il-sung’s death to take over effective
power. For all practical purposes, North Korea has had a bloodless military coup: Kim
Jong-il has collaborated with the armed forces to create a new constitutional structure inwhich the military supplants the Workers Party as the focus of political authority andprovides his personal power base. For the present, the armed forces need Kim Jong-il asa legitimizing symbol of continuity with the era of his revered father. But even if heeventually outlives his usefulness, they will continue to provide the power based for his
successor.
Kim has rewarded his loyal military supporters by giving them profitable positions in his personal network of conglomerates and trading companies. Powerful generals now control the trading firms, which handle most of North Korea’s illicit opium
trade as well as commercial exports of zinc, anthracite, gold, and other mineral
resources. This could lead to conflicts within the armed forces over the spoils of power,
leading to destructive factionalism. Scenarios of a popular revolt generated by economic
privation are much less plausible.
Even when outside influences begin to creep in, the North Korean political fabricis likely to prove resilient for deeply rooted historical reasons. One often-cited factor isthe powerful Confucian tradition of political centralization and obedience to authority,
which dates back more than six centuries in Korea and was skillfully appropriated by
Kim Il-sung. But North Koreans are more than obedient: Six years after the death of the“Great Leader,” most of them are still fervent supporters of a nationalist ideology often
called “Kim Il-sungism.” The Kim Il-sung mystique grew initially out of his role as aguerilla leader fighting Japanese colonial rule, but its durability lies primarily in vivid
historical memories of shared sacrifices under his leadership during the Korean War.

16

Selig S. HARRISON

Nationalism, in the final analysis, is the psychological cement that holds North Korea
together.
Now, will North Korea become a nuclear weapons power?
I will begin by considering why North Korea is developing nuclear weapons. It isnecessary to answer this question at the outset in order to assess whether they areprepared to give up the nuclear option and in order to assess what terms would be
required for a settlement.
There are some observers who argue that North Korea wants nuclear weapons forbargaining leverage. Leverage in dealing with South Korea. Leverage in dealing with its
nuclear-armed neighbors, China and Russia, and with another neighbor that could go
nuclear overnight, Japan. Some observers believe they want nuclear weapons for
economic reasons — to reduce the need for costly conventional forces and thus permit a
reduction of military spending. Both of these reasons have no doubt figured in North
Korean calculations. But if either or both of these are the governing reasons for their
nuclear weapons program, then North Korea would not be likely to give up the nuclear
option.
Based on my many discussions with North Korean leaders, I do not believe thatthese are the governing reasons. The underlying reasons are fear and insecurity. This is
not acknowledged by most American officials, but former Defense Secretary William
Perry did acknowledge it when he returned from his first visit to Pyongyang. In a TV
interview on September 17, 1999, he was asked why North Korea is trying to develop
long-range missiles with nuclear warheads. Here is what he said: “Their primary reason
is security, is deterrence. Whom would they be deterring? They would be deterring theUnited States. We do not think of ourselves as a threat to North Korea, but I fully
believe that they consider us a threat to them.”
Why do they consider the United States a threat?
We have to keep history in mind, particularly the traumatic impact of the Korean
War. When you go to Pyongyang you are constantly reminded that the scars left by thatwar were particularly deep in the North. The South suffered greatly but not as much as
the North. The North used relatively little close air support in its operations south of thethirty-eighth parallel. By contrast, the United States inflicted three years of heavy
bombing on the North in addition to the Yalu offensive on the ground. This has left adeep-rooted siege mentality that still dominates the North Korean psyche.
Pyongyang was bombed until almost no buildings were left standing, and an
entirely new capital had to be built after the war. The North Korean people are of course
constantly reminded about all of this on television and in other propaganda. Today, fifty
years after the Korean War, there is still no peace treaty, and the United States maintains enough conventional and nuclear forces in and near Korea to destroy the North
Korean regime with a preemptive strike. They’re particularly afraid of U.S. air superiority – F-16s, F-4s and the latest in intelligence and command and control capabilities
against their obsolete Migs. The reason North Korea keeps forward-deployed conventional forces on the Demilitarized Zone is to deter a U.S. preemptive strike and make it
too costly.
Until 1991 the United States had tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea. It is
now well-established history that the North Koreans started their serious efforts todevelop nuclear weapons and long-range missiles as a direct response to the deploymentof U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in the South for more than three decades. President
George H. W. Bush removed those tactical nuclear weapons from the South in 1991.
17

North Korea: Implosion, Explosion, Proliferation

But the United States still has nuclear weapons close to North Korea in the Pacificcapable of hitting them. And of course George Bush the Younger has announced a new
U.S. strategic doctrine saying we have the right to stage a preemptive strike against any
country the U.S. regards as a potential threat. Iraq persuaded the North Koreans thatBush is serious. So did his interview with Bob Woodward in the book, Bush at War, inwhich The President said he “loathed” Kim Jong-il and would like to “topple” hisregime.
In short, North Korea is developing nuclear weapons as a deterrent, and a definitive nuclear settlement is not likely until North Korea believes that the United States has
given up its goal of bringing about regime change through military or other means. Thiscannot be accomplished with mere paper security assurances of the type envisaged in
the current negotiations. It requires a reversal of the overall policy of the United States
so that steps toward the normalization of economic and political relations are linked
directly with North Korean steps toward denuclearization.
Such a reversal would mean that the final stages of normalization would occur
when complete denuclearization is achieved. But the existing reality is that U.S. policy
rules this out. The U.S. proposal for a settlement presented to North Korea in the
Beijing negotiations on June 24, 2004, explicitly states that even after denuclearization,
normalization could not occur until North Korea also makes other concessions relating
to human rights, missiles, chemical and biological weapons, and conventional force
dispositions. By contrast, South Korea is pushing a proposal in which the normalizationof U.S. and Japanese relations with North Korea would follow the final dismantling of
nuclear weapons capabilities.
In North Korean eyes, the normalization of U.S. diplomatic and economic relations must logically be accompanied by a peace treaty ending the Korean War. This has
become a realistic objective following a major shift in the North Korean position on
May 6. Previously, North Korea has insisted on a treaty limited to the United States andNorth Korea, but on May 6, it offered to conclude a tripartite peace treaty includingSouth Korea. The Pentagon fears that a peace treaty would generate pressures for U.S.
force withdrawals from South Korea. But normalization would not be meaningful without a formal end to the Korean War, and without normalization, complete denuclearization is unlikely.
The normalization of U.S. — and Japanese — relations with Pyongyang would
not only improve the prospects for step-by-step denuclearization, linked to step-by-stepaid. It would also help to liberalize and open up the repressive North Korean system.
It’s clear that our present policy makes it harder for Kim Jong-il’s economic reforms to
succeed. There’s a lot of talk in the United States and Europe about the human rights
situation in North Korea, and much of it is on target. But the way to liberalize North
Korea, indeed the only way, is to open it up through normalization. There’s a supreme
irony here. The people who talk the loudest about the gulags in North Korea — as areason for opposing a nuclear deal — are actually helping to prolong the repressive
system there.

18

North Korea: Implosion, Explosion, Proliferation (Comment)

MURATA Koji
Doshisha University

Anti-American sentiments, in particular anti-G. W. Bush sentiments, have spread allover the world, including Japan. In face of the U.S. presidential election, however, atleast, at governmental and policy-elite levels, pro-Bush sentiments were stronger thananti-Bush sentiments in Japan.
There are several reasons. First, Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichirô has established strong personal ties with President Bush. Their ties are often referred to bestronger than the Ron-Yasu relationship between Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro
and President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Second, as was Richard Armitage, Deputy
Secretary of State, the first Bush administration hired many of senior officials who havestrong ties with Japanese policy elites. Third, Asian policies of Senator John Kerry,
Democratic presidential candidate, were uncertain for many Japanese.
Especially, many Japanese have become more and more concerned about North
Korean issues. The Korean Peninsula has been of great importance for Japanese security
for a long time. After the end of World War II, however, due to domestic factors, theJapanese government has been very reluctant to express its security concerns about thepeninsula. Tôkyô has occasionally indirectly expressed its security concerns about thepeninsula only in the context of the U.S.-Japan relations. 1
Now, North Korea’s nuclear and missile development is, however, a serious direct
security concern for Japan. While Japan is trying to develop a Missile Defense (MD)system with the United States, so far, it does not have any effective counter measuresagainst North Korea’s missiles. Also, the kidnapping issues are very emotional issues
among the Japanese. Although Prime Minister Koizumi visited North Korea twice inorder to solve these issues and, probably, to improve public support to his cabinet, now
Japan’s North Korea policy seems to be kidnapped by the kidnapping issues.
As for the nuclear and missile issues, on the one hand, Japan had no other choicethan keeping the Six Party Talks, maintaining the sound alliance relationship with theUnited States. At the same time, however, Japan is concerned about the U.S. tougher
stances toward North Korea. On the other hand, over the kidnapping issues, Japanesepublic wants tougher stances towards North Korea. Japan needs to make clear the priority over the North Korean issues, and politicians must educate the public on thecomplexity of these complicated issues. For example, Japan’s unilateral economic
sanction against North Korea, if it should be severe, might damage the framework of theSix Party Talks.
The future of North Korean issues will highly depend on the future of Iraq.
If the United States is faced with more difficult situations in Iraq after the generalelection of January 2005, North Korea will become less willing to cooperate with theUnited States and Japan. But if the United States can overcome current difficult situations in Iraq in the near future, it will take a tougher stance towards North Korea. The
1

MURATA Koji: The Origins and Evolution of the Korean-American Alliance: A Japanese View.
Discussion papers, Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University, August 1998.
19

Koizumi cabinet has already dispatched the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to Iraq, andextended the dispatch one more year. According to recent public opinion polls,
however, about 60% of the Japanese are opposed to this decision.
As the National Emergency Act was made with the support of more than 80% of
National Diet members, mainly thanks to North Korea’s repeated provocation andChinese military build-up, Japan is going to establish consensus over territorial defense
issues. As is seen in the divided public opinion about Japanese cooperation with theUnited States over the Iraq issues, however, the Japanese have not yet reached consensus over international security issues beyond their own territorial defense issues. 2 Japannow is somehow like West Germany during the Cold War era. When West Germany
dispatched its troops outside of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) area
during the Gulf War, it was a breakthrough for West German postwar security policy.
Japan’s dispatch of the SDF is an equivalent breakthrough for Japan’s postwar security
policy. Still, Japan is more than ten years behind Germany.
Also, while the Japanese tend to feel the fear of abandonment by the United Statesin terms of their own territorial defense and regional security in East Asia, they also
tend to feel the fear of entrapment by the United States in terms of international security
affairs such as the fight against international terrorism. 3
Japan should overcome the gap between territorial, regional, and international
security issues. In order to do so, first, Japan should further promote trilateral security
cooperation with the United States and South Korea. Second, it should further actively
participate in multilateral security efforts such as the Proliferation Security Initiative(PSI). Third, Japan should adjust its national defense program in accordance withchanges in the U.S. overseas military presence and the Revolution in Military Affairs(RMA). The improvement of information and intelligence capabilities and counterterrorism activities are essential among others.

2

3

20

WATANABE Akio: “Nihon wa Rubicon wo watattaka?” [Has Japan Crossed the Rubicon?]. Kokusai
Anzenhoshô [The Journal of International Security], December 2003.
NAKANISHI Hiroshi: “Kyôfu to sensô no jidai” [The Age of Fear and War]. Chûô Kôron, June 2004.

North Korea: Implosion, Explosion, Proliferation—What Can We Expect?
Heinrich KREFT 1
German Foreign Ministry in Berlin

Before looking at the topic in greater detail, allow me to say that I am delighted to see
so many Asia hands here. In contrast to Bonn, we seem to have a broad and diverse
group of foreign and security policy experts in Berlin. That is exactly what we need,particularly in the light of Germany’s greater role in international affairs in the future.
Let me now turn to the subject. I would like to join Selig Harrison in applauding Mr.
Harnisch for his excellent overview. 2
I admit I belonged to those in the mid-1990s who thought that North Korea’s implosion
was unavoidable and advised all those involved in North Korean issues to do whatever
possible to prepare for this event.
The most important lesson to be learnt for Korea from German unification—
which captured the imagination of so many Koreans in the 1990s—was that a collapse
could come very rapidly and the pressure of events could build up so quickly thatdrastic measures would be necessary.
This is history: The South Korean Ministry of Unification recalled its last envoy
from the Embassy in Bonn. Since then, Kim Chong-il has managed to get a firm grip on
power and he has succeeded in stabilizing the regime with the economy and state functioning at a very low level.
Economic conditions are harsh, even among the middle class. There is someevidence of change, but there are serious doubts that this is a well thought throughprocess of reform aimed at opening up the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea(DPRK) to market forces.
The few reform efforts have, without doubt, been motivated by the desire tounderpin the regime, both in financial and political terms.
And it has to be said that many of the measures have done little more thanacknowledge the existing mechanisms, how ordinary Koreans try to cope with thesituation, how they try to survive.
It is difficult to see how this can lead to real development. This will not be possible without a massive influx of foreign capital and know-how to rebuild the economic
infrastructure.
But how can foreign direct investment be attracted under the current circumstances inNorth Korea that are:
- A poor economic infrastructure- North Korea’s culture of secrecy
1

2

The author is Deputy Head of the Policy Planning Staff of the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin. He
expresses here his personal views.
See page 7 in this volume.
21

Heinrich KREFT- The continuing lack of access to modern communications, including the Internet; themobile phone network was recently shut down
- The lack of a proper legal framework- The lack of a consumer market given the very low purchasing power of the people
There is no doubt that the regime will continue to manipulate and exploit the economy
to help ensure its own survival. There is little evidence that North Korea could follow
the example of China or Vietnam, which have opened up their regimes and whose
communist elites are still in power. In such a closed and controlled environment and in
the absence of measures to stimulate real economic growth, the overall economy islikely to contract—though some observers see the economy growing at a very low level.
Reasonable harvests in recent years and food donations, particularly from Japanand South Korea, have papered over the fact that the humanitarian situation is still serious and may worsen in the absence of a stronger economy.
Let me now turn to the proliferation issue.
Ever since India and Pakistan opted for open nuclearization, the nonproliferation regime
has been in deep trouble.
The terrorist attacks of September 11 as well as the paradigmatic shift in U.S.
foreign and security policy, which they brought about, have put the nonproliferation
issue at the top of the agenda. The fear, particularly in the U.S., but also in Europe andother parts of the world, that international terrorists could actively seek and get hold of
weapons of mass destruction has energized foreign policy. U.S. policy on Iraq is one
example, as are the policies on Iran and North Korea.
North Korea has a record of proliferation of missile technology and was animportant part in the A.Q. Khan nuclear network, while Iran was only on the receivingline of proliferation of WMD. North Korea has actually actively threatened to proliferate nuclear weapons and technology in the future. And this threat is real. North Korea
now has the capacity to deploy nuclear weapons and export some of them without
losing its deterrence capacity.
Bad as this situation already is, the nightmare for the security environment of thewhole of Northeast Asia would be if North Korea were to successfully test its nuclear
devices. How would Japan react to that?
It is understandable why North Korea reactivated its nuclear program, given thelikely internal power shift towards the military and the international security environment as seen from Pyongyang after the axis-of-evil-speech made by U.S. President
George W. Bush in January 2002.
But given its consequences for the security environment in Northeast Asia and thethreat of proliferation, we need an all-out effort by all parties involved to end the North
Korea nuclear program.
The Six-Party Talks and the engagement of North Korea are still the best option.
Holding the next round of the talks in September was unrealistic as everyone islooking towards November 2, the elections in the United States.
The election of John Kerry, which is at least possible, would make a fresh start in
U.S.-DPRK relations much easier. Kerry has stated that he would be willing to engage
in bilateral talks with North Korea, but at the same time keep the Six-Party framework.

22

North Korea: Implosion, Explosion, Proliferation—What Can We Expect?

China is willing to continue its active role. It could step up pressure on North
Korea. Japan agreed during the recent visit by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to
put pressure on Pyongyang to agree to an early next round of the Six-Party Talks,
although China in particular would apparently like to see us—the Europeans—play amore active role. This was clear during my visit to Beijing last week. Of course, no-one
knows if the efforts will be successful. It is very unlikely that Pyongyang will give up
its last trump card in its maneuvers to hold onto power for a price lower than a guarantee of regime survival.
I think it is at least relatively safe to say that for the next few years to come North
Korea will most likely continue to be the last playground for an endangered species,
namely Kremlinologists.

Literature (author’s works on this object)

Die USA und die schwelende nordkoreanische Nuklearkrise. In: Patrick KÖLLNER (Hrsg.):
Korea 2004, Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft. Institut für Asienkunde, Hamburg 2004, S.
263–275
Die USA und die zweite nordkoreanische Nuklearkrise. In: Patrick KÖLLNER (Hrsg.): Korea
2003, Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft. Institut für Asienkunde, Hamburg 2003, S. 1–10
Deutschland, Europa und die Öffnung Nordkoreas. In: Patrick KÖLLNER (Hrsg.): Korea 2001,
Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft. Institut für Asienkunde, Hamburg 2001, S. 274–282
Die Beziehungen zwischen der EU und Südkorea: Enge wirtschaftliche und beginnende politische Kooperation. In: Patrick KÖLLNER (Hrsg.). Korea 2000, Politik, Wirtschaft,Gesellschaft. Institut für Asienkunde, Hamburg 2000, S. 141–155
Unification and Beyond on the Korean Peninsula: A German Perspective. In: The Korea
Economic Institute of America (ed.): Korea Approaches the Millennium. Washington
D.C. 1999, S. 19–23
Machtpoker in Nordostasien. Hektische Betriebsamkeit um Nordkorea. Internationale Politik,
1/1999, S. 59–65
Lösung der offenen koreanischen Frage nach deutschem Vorbild? Außenpolitik 1/98, S. 53–63

23How to Solve the Conflict: Suggested Roles of JapanIZUMI Hajime
University of Shizuoka

People thought in the past that North-South reconciliation was the most importantelement to build up peace on the Korean peninsula and, once reconciliation wasachieved, military tensions on the peninsula would go down by a considerable degree.
These ideas are bygones now. There was a certain reconciliation on the Korean
peninsula, but peace is not definite, nor have military tensions been decreased yet. The
Conflict structure on the peninsula still exists.
A kind of reconciliation is certainly in progress between the North and the South.
No one could imagine ten years ago that dialogue and cooperation, as well as interpersonal exchanges in cultural and sports areas, would go so frequently.
During the four years after the first North-South summit in June 2000, there havebeen ministerial talks and red cross talks periodically and railroad and road connections
have been established. The construction of the Kaesong Industrial Complex also stepped
forward.
The North and the South are truly in process of “maintainable and stable relational
improvement” as President Rho Moo-hyun stated. This is a big change of situation,
considering that much attention once went to the question of how to realize a dialogue
between the North and the South.
The easing of North-South military tensions, on the other hand, has made little
progress. The reasons for it are mainly on the part of North Korea. The North has turned
its position and came to facilitate dialogues, exchanges, and cooperation with the South.
It no longer rejects economic assistance from South Korea. However, it has neverconcurred with South Korea on the matters of arms control and disarmament.
After all, what North Korea fears most may be the military power of the UnitedStates. No matter how its relations with South Korea are improved, North Korea is not
likely to move towards reducing its military forces unless its relations with the UnitedStates are improved and the U.S. military threat is reduced.
The military forces of North Korea rather have increased in the past ten years. The
North’s ballistic missile capability went up steadily, and Pyongyang resumed thenuclear weapons program in December 2002. The weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
capability of North Korea has certainly been upgraded.
Interestingly, during this time, there was a gradual change in South Korea in therecognition of military threat from North Korea. That is, fears about the North’s military
threat were slightly on the decline on the part of the South, and an atmosphere for a
relatively stable “peaceful coexistence” with the Northern half of the peninsula wascreated in the South Korean society.
However, the WMD capability of North Korea is no doubt a threat to the peaceand security of Northeast Asia. Unless the North gives up WMD, especially the nuclear
ambitions, permanent peace will not come in Northeast Asia. Even if the North and theSouth maintain their "continuous and stable relational improvement," there will be nopermanent peace on the Korean peninsula as long as North Korea holds on to WMD.
24

How to Solve the Conflict: Suggested Roles of JapanFor the peace of the Korean peninsula, the North’s abandonment of nuclear weapons is the most important issue to be tackled.
North Korea obviously has a limited nuclear capability, and Pyongyang continues
to develop this nuclear capability with the 5-megawatt nuclear reactor in Yongbyon. Ifthey reload the fuel and reprocess the spent one, they can obtain an amount of plutonium enough to add one more nuclear weapon in a few months, although the North isbelieved to have one or two nuclear weapons already plus an accumulation of weapongrade plutonium potential for producing more than six or seven nuclear weapons.
All the countries in Northeast Asia including Japan, South Korea, China, andRussia and the United States have implicitly accepted the fact of North Korea’s limited
capability and have decided to live with a “nuclear armed North Korea” for the time
being. The strategic environment of Northeast Asia has been changed by North Korean
nuclear development.
What are the challenges that we face with? In order to stop North Korea’s nuclear
program, we find some clues in the Libyan model. The regime of Muammar al-Qadhafi
opened up a path to engagement with the international community by undertaking toeliminate its WMD. We should seek the same kind of resolution about North Korea, andJapan and the United States hold the key to this.
Achieving such a resolution requires a mix of policies. There could be a pressurebased approach and an incentive-based approach, and all the involved countries shouldcome together to consider the best mix of pressure and incentive policies.
Because China and South Korea regularly provide aid to North Korea, they bothcan bring pressure on the North by reducing or stopping their aid projects, in the light ofNorth Korea's increasing dependence on assistance.
It is Japan and the United States, on the other hand, that can give incentives to
North Korea, for these are the two countries from which North Korea can expect things
that it wants but does not yet have. No matter what other countries say, commitments
like a security guarantee are worthless from Pyongyang’s perspective unless they areendorsed by the United States. And Japan is meanwhile the only possible country in thisworld for North Korea to get the large-scale economic assistance that it wishes for. That
is why Japan and the United States should become the countries to offer North Korea
incentives.
I believe that the approach I have just outlined is the best available mix of policies
in line with multiple considerations. But in practice both sets of countries are doing the
opposite of what I have described.
The countries with the leverage to apply pressure prefer to provide incentives.
Neither China nor South Korea would take kindly to the suggestion that they shouldswap their carrots for sticks. On the other hand, Japan and the United States, the countries that could offer incentives, decline to do so and are inclined to apply pressure
instead. That is why the current setup has not worked.
However, a new prospect is now opening up with regard to Japan. Breaking freefrom the spell of the abductions and tackling the nuclear issue may finally enable Japan
to use the incentives at its disposal. This has not been possible so far because theabduction issue has overshadowed everything else. However, since Prime Minister
Koizumi’s second visit to Pyongyang in May 2004 made progress on the abduction
issue, Japan can reopen negotiations with North Korea and use its leverage to achieve
progress on the nuclear issue and in other areas of concern.
The close bond between Japan and the United States offers another way to provide
25

IZUMI Hajime

incentives. When trying to persuade North Korea to stop its disruptive behavior, Japan
should make comprehensive demands. It should tell North Korea that it must yield on
all the points demanded by Japan and the United States: nuclear development, missiles,
abductions—everything.
As the comprehensive resolution advocated by Tôkyô is also advocated by
Washington, Japan can tell North Korea that such a resolution would, at the very least,
enable it to normalize relations with Japan and that a huge economic aid package would
be available following normalization. At the same time, Japan is the only country thatcan offer to persuade the United States that it should move to normalize relations with
North Korea.
All the countries involved should work together to find the best blend of pressure
and incentives, but since this is basically impossible, it is up to Japan to tackle this task.
Giving incentives to North Korea continuously through normalization talks while
pushing forward the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and the Illicit Activity Initiative (IAI) positively will have a great significance in solving the North Korean nuclear
issue.

26

The PRC and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis

Kay MÖLLER
German Institute for International and Security Affairs

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Democratic People’s Republic of(North-) Korea (DPRK) are each other’s last remaining allies. Their Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance of July 11, 1961, obliges both sides to makemilitary and other assistance immediately available in the case of an armed aggression
directed against either of them. According to the South Korean government, Peking
virtually relinquished this obligation when normalizing relations with the Republic ofKorea (ROK) in 1992. 1 In 1995, a speaker of the PRC’s ministry of foreign affairs said
that China did not conceive of the treaty as a basis for the dispatchment of troops. 2
More recently, however, officials from the South Korean defense ministry speculated
about Peking sending some 400,000 troops in the event of war. 3
At the same time, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the North Korean
People’s Army (KPA) have maintained close relations since the time of the Korean War(1950–1953), and the Chinese press has been instructed to refer to the DPRK as “ shieldfor our strategy in Northeast Asia.” 4 During the 1990s, the ally occasionally served as aproxy for Chinese missile technology exports to the Middle East and South Asia. In
2003, the PRC provided about 40% of North Korea’s immediate food needs and 90% of
its needs of oil. 5 Since Pyongyang’s provisional withdrawal from the Nonproliferation
Treaty (NPT) in March 1993, Peking has prevented Security Council sanctions against
the DPRK. More recently, China has opposed President Bush’s Proliferation Security
Initiative (PSI), which it views as a means to economically strangle Pyongyang.
According to U.S. government sources, however, the PRC since 2003 has in several,albeit not all cases prevented the export of dual use items to North Korea that could be
used in the production of weapons of mass destruction. 6 Contrasting with the U.S.,
China has not demanded that the DPRK must renounce the civilian use of nuclear
energy. 7

1

2
3
4

5

6

7

ROK Foreign Minister Kong No-myung speaking to parliament on October 10, 1995. Yonhap,
October 10, 1995, as quoted in Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/2432/D/6, October 12, 1995.
Yonhap, November 14, 1995, as quoted in ibid., FE/2461/D/3, November 15, 1995.
Yonhap, October 5, 2004, as quoted in Napsnet Daily Report, October 5, 2004.
CPC Guidelines for press reporting as quoted in Choung-il CHEE, “South Korea’s Security in the Ageof the New World Order,” Korean and World Affairs, Vol. 14, No. 1 (spring 1992), pp. 82–98 (89).
Matthew FORNEY, “Family Feud,” Time Asia Magazine, Vol. 160, No. 24 (December 23, 2003,) pp.
5–7 (5).
The South China Morning Post, June 4, 2004 (online). In 2004, the DPRK reportedly asked the PRC
to provide fuel that could be used in combustion experiments. The request was turned down. Kyodo,
July 13, 2004, as quoted in Napsnet Daily Report, July 13, 2004.
At the same time, China’s top nuclear official in September 2004 ruled out cooperation with North
Korea in the field of atomic energy because of the nuclear crisis. Reuters, September 1, 2004 as
quoted in Napsnet Daily Report, September 1, 2004.

27

Kay MÖLLER

Following earlier behind-the-scenes attempts to prevent the nuclear crisis fromescalating, China since August 2003 has participated in multilateral efforts to resolve
the issue and has been credited by the Bush administration for its role. This paper analyses the PRC’s impact by examining (1) recent developments in Peking-Pyongyang relations, (2) China’s role in the nuclear crisis, and (3) the PRC’s strategic motives forassuming the part of a moderator/mediator.

Bilateral Relations with North Korea

During the 1990s, China regularly downplayed the scope of its diplomatic influence on
Pyongyang, and the Deng Xiaoping reforms had certainly caused an estrangement withthe unreformed neighbor (in 1993, Deng allegedly refused to invite DPRK President
Kim Il-song to Peking. 8 ) When Hwang Chang-yop, the supposedly pro-Chinese secretary of the North Korean Worker’s Party, escaped to the South in 1997, his faction was
thoroughly purged. On the other hand, there was hardly any other country at the timewith the same number of agreements signed with North Korea and the same frequencyof high-level officials visiting North Korea.
In the early 1990s, both Moscow and Peking normalized relations with Seoul andtold North Korea to forthwith pay for oil and other goods in hard currency. Bilateral
trade declined from U.S.$ 560 million in 1989 to U.S.$ 486 million in 1995, representing just about 5% of Sino-South Korean trade in the same year. Over the following
years, the DPRK economy shrank by an average of 5% annually. Amidst this backdrop,
and encouraged by its Chinese ally, Pyongyang entered into a dialogue with the ROK
while calling on Washington to replace the 1953 armistice agreement with a bilateralpeace treaty. Subsequently, there were several incidents in the Demilitarized Zone
(DMZ,) followed by a fruitless attempt made by both Koreas, the U.S., and China in
1996/1997 at providing their relationship with a new institutional framework.
During these years, the DPRK constantly tried to keep China at arm’s length by,for instance, offering itself to Washington as a counterweight to the PRC 9 or sporadically entering into contact with the Taiwan government. 10 When Four Party Talks on
the armistice regime were launched in 1996, Pyongyang was initially reticent to have
China included.
Since the beginning in 1996 of the North Korean famine, between 140,000 and
300,000 refugees have escaped to the PRC. 11 Whereas most of them have been hiding
8
9

10

11

28

Le Monde, March 16, 1990, p. 6.
In July 1995, a North Korean official told a delegation of the New York Council on Foreign
Relations: “If you want to balance against China’s growing power, you should establish relations withus.” Far Eastern Economic Review, December 21, 1995, pp. 17ff.
In April 1995, Pyongyang invited members of the Taiwan parliament to a sports and culture festival.
The following month, the DPRK authorized two charter flights to Taiwan. There were signs of acloser economic relationship. North Korea also signalled support for Kaohsiung as host of the 2002
Asian Games. Chungang Ilbo, May 7, 1995 as quoted in Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/2297/D/1,
May 8, 1995; ibid., May 27, 1995 as quoted in ibid., FE/2315/D/3, May 29, 1995.
Numbers provided by the South Korean humanitarian group “Good Friends” as quoted in Far Eastern
Economic Review, March 6, 2003, p. 14–7.

The PRC and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis

among the two million strong Korean minority in Northeast China’s Jilin and Liaoning
provinces, some of them with the help of South Korean and other NGOs made their way
to foreign missions and institutions in Peking to be later resettled in the ROK. Seoul has
been playing down the phenomenon, yet the publicity has considerably damaged the
PRC’s international reputation, as Peking does not acknowledge the refugee’s politicalstatus. 12 Furthermore, if the PRC continues to function as an economic “safety valve”
for North Korea, the latter faces few incentives to reform. Whenever possible, China
thus has returned the refugees to the DPRK where they frequently were imprisoned andforced into hard labor. 2004 witnessed increases in PRC border controls and an intensified search for North Korean defectors within China. 13
Destabilization in North Korea could stir nationalist passions among the PRC’s
ethnic Korean population on the 1,400 kilometer-long border. When Peking and Seoulin 2004 entered into a controversy over the sovereignty of a kingdom that had straddled
the present North Korean frontier 1,500 years before, a sudden light was shed on thepossibility of future border disputes between the PRC and a united Korea. 14
The DPRK leader Kim Chong-il has visited China three times (in May-June 2000,
January 2001, and April 2004) since assuming responsibility. 15 Apart from the nuclear
issue, each visit was used to some extent to explore prime examples of the PRC’s
economic opening in places such as Shanghai. It remains unclear whether this reflects areal interest. (Some observers believe that the DPRK’s market-style economic reformsof July 2002 were suspended in 2004 because of high inflation. 16 ). However that be,
China in 2004 significantly increased its investment in North Korea to benefit from low
labor costs while facilitating a gradual evolution towards the market and more interdependence. 17 In the meantime, a 2002 controversy over the PRC’s arrest on corruption
charges of Chinese-Dutch businessman Yang Bin, who had been appointed governor of
the Sinuiju Special Administrative region, was silently buried.

12

13

14

15

16
17

In 1996, UN representatives reported that China had built a large refugee camp on the border in Yanji.
Sankei Shimbun, August 30, 1996, as quoted in Far Eastern Economic Review, October 10, 1996, p.
26–30.
The Korea Times, August 30, 2004, as quoted in Napsnet Daily Report, August 30, 2004. In
September 2004, China replaced its border police with 150,000 regular soldiers. In addition to thedeployments, new military facilities were constructed in Hanchun, Tuman, Kaishan, and Sanhe,whereas airforce assets were also transferred to Yanji. In June 2004, China and North Korea signed amilitary agreement on border security. Hindustan Times, June 30, 2004, as quoted in Asia-PacificIntelligence Brief, June 30, 2004.
Also in 2004, South Korean members of parliament launched another debate on territories ceded by
Japan to the former Chinese Qing dynasty. Among the unsettled border issues between the PRC andthe DPRK are a couple of uninhabited islands in the Yalu and Tumen rivers, almost all of which havebeen occupied by the DPRK, Chinese access to the Sea of Japan, the Yellow Sea maritime boundary,
and a 33 km section of the Mount Paektu border. Daniel Gomà PINILLA, “Border Disputes between
China and North Korea,” China Perspectives, No. 52 (March-April 2004,) pp. 64–70.
After having be named his father’s successor-designate, Kim’s first foreign visit in 1983 was to the
PRC where he was afforded a red carpet treatment.
Chosun Ilbo, August 19, 2004, as quoted in Napsnet Daily Report, August 19, 2004.
Donga Ilbo, August 24, 2004, as quoted in Napsnet Daily Report, August 24, 2004.

29

Kay MÖLLER

China’s Role in the Crisis

China first assumed the role of a go-between for Pyongyang and Washington in 1987,
when it conveyed the Reagan administration’s readiness to normalize relations with the
DPRK. When Kim Il-song officially visited the PRC during that year, he was urged byhis hosts to accept the offer. 18 In December 1988, low-level negotiations on technicalissues were held in the Chinese capital by the U.S. and North Korea.
When Pyongyang in March 1993 threatened to withdraw from the NPT, China
contributed to the signing the following year of the U.S.-DPRK “agreed framework” byindirectly signaling a continued commitment to the security of North Korea while
equally indirectly threatening Pyongyang with economic sanctions. 19 When delinking
China’s most-favored-nation status from human rights considerations in 1994, President
Bill Clinton among other things mentioned “shared interests” in a nuclear weapons-free
Korean Peninsula. 20 Peking nevertheless refused to institutionalize its role and did notparticipate in the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) charged
with implementing major elements of the “agreed framework.” In December 1994,
China followed Pyongyang’s lead and withdrew from the military armistice commission.
Following the outbreak of the nuclear crisis, Peking resumed oil exports to the
DPRK on a credit or barter basis (between 1992 and 1993, exports had dropped from
1.2 million barrels to 550,000 million barrels, 21 a level that has since been maintained.)
Since 1996, the PRC has also exported large quantities of rice and other staples to a
North Korea struck by famine. 22 China remains Pyongyang’s major trading partner andprobably continues to play a major role in assisting the KPA with both hard- and software. 23 As late as 1999, then PRC Premier Zhu Rong-ji stated that “North Korea is asovereign nation, and it has nothing to do with us whether North Korea develops guided
missiles or nuclear weapons.” 24
In October 2002, Pyongyang sabotaged the “agreed framework” by confessingthat it had an ongoing highly enriched uranium (HEU) program and later offering a new“freeze” in exchange for formal U.S. security guarantees and an end to all economic
sanctions. On January 10, 2003, North Korea finalized its withdrawal from the NPT.
Preoccupied with war in Iraq, President Bush twice called his Chinese counterpart Jiang
Zemin over the phone and asked China to exert its influence.

18
19

20
21

22
23
24

30

Xinhua, May 23, 1987, as quoted in Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/8576/A/3/1, May 25, 1987.
Commitment to the DPRK’s security was signaled by large military manoeuvres held along the North
Korean border in 1994. The previous year, China had closed the border for two weeks and threatened
Pyongyang with a boycott of its ports of Rajin and Chonjin. International Herald Tribune, April 13,
1993, p. 4; Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 19, 1993, p. 8.
U.S. Policy Information and Texts, May 26, 1994.
Yonhap, February 22, 1993 as quoted in Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/1624/A/2 of February 27,
1993.
PRC rice exports had been suspended in 1988.
Far Eastern Economic Review, March 6, 2003, pp. 12–4.
Quoted from ZHU Feng, “China’s Policy on the North Korean Nuclear Issue,” China Strategy(Washington, Center for Strategic and International Studies), No. 3 (July 20, 2004), pp. 5–10 (5).

The PRC and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis

In early 2003, the PRC, in the midst of a major leadership transfer, and criticizedby the U.S. for its passive role in Korea, 25 adopted a more proactive policy on the North
Korean issue. In January, Jiang Zemin, in another phone conversation with Bush, for the
first time declared that China “does not support North Korea’s withdrawal from the
NPT.” 26 In February, China accepted a demand by the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) to defer the new nuclear issue to the Security Council and transmitted
more than fifty messages between Pyongyang and Washington. 27 Behind the scenes,
North Korea was warned to stop “playing with fire,” and a cross-border oil pipeline wasclosed for three days on “technical” reasons. 28 In April, Peking not only hosted Three
Party Talks but actively participated, although the DPRK had initially asked for a bilateral meeting with the U.S. 29 Following the occupation of Baghdad by coalition troops,
North Korea in July 2003 accepted Six Party Talks including Japan (China and South
Korea had tried to exclude Tôkyô and only accepted after Washington had approved a
Russian participation. 30 )Since then, it has been Peking’s foremost concern to keep the talks going, if
necessary with the help of new promises of assistance made to the Pyongyang regime. It
has also transpired that under certain circumstances the PRC would participate in theinternational guarantee of a negotiated solution. 31 A coordination of anti-terrorist strategies apart, it was this cooperation that in September 2003 prompted U.S. Secretary ofState Colin Powell to refer to the “best U.S.-China ties” since 1972. 32
At the same time, Peking has kept its distance on the U.S. and Japan on questionsof principle such as discussing missiles, human rights, or the kidnapping issue in the Six
Party framework. Furthermore, the PRC basically adopted a DPRK proposal whensuggesting, in November 2003, that Pyongyang should receive security guarantees prior
to the dismantlement of its facilities. The suggestion was turned down by the U.S.,
Japan, and South Korea. 33 Since October 2002, China has expressed its scepticism
regarding American assertions on North Korea’s HEU program and has suggested that
this issue will not be directly addressed. 34 In September 2004, the PRC’s foreign minister cast doubt on Pyongyang’s claim that it had “weaponized” plutonium from 8,000

25
26
27

28
29

30
31
32
33
34

Far Eastern Economic Review, March 6, 2003, pp. 12–4.
ZHU, “China’s Policy on the North Korean Nuclear Issue,” p. 5.
“New Formula to Solve the North’s Nuclear Issue,” Vantage Point, Vol. 26, No. 5 (May 2003,) pp. 2–
9 (6).
Ibid.
Andrew SCOBELL, “China and North Korea: The Limits of Influence,” Current History, Vol. 102, No.
665 (September 2003,) pp. 274–78 (275.)
Far Eastern Economic Review, August 28, 2003, p. 8.
ZHU, “China’s Policy on the North Korean Nuclear Issue,” p. 7.
People’s Daily English edition, September 7, 2003 (online).
Agence-France-Presse, December 3, 2003, as quoted in Napsnet Daily Report, December 3, 2003.
Reuters, February 27, 2004, as quoted in Napsnet Daily Report, February 27, 2004. Peking remained
sceptical when U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney relayed Pakistani information during a visit to China
in April 2004. Ibid. At the same time, Chinese interlocutors have unofficially accepted the South
Korean view that the HEU issue would be central to any negotiated solution. Yonhap, August 2, 2004,
as quoted in Napsnet Daily Report, August 2, 2004. According to Japanese reports, Peking has
confirmed that North Korea at least tried to enrich uranium. The Korea Herald, October 4, 2004, asquoted in Napsnet Daily Report, October 4, 2004.

31

Kay MÖLLER

spent nuclear fuel rods and played down reports about North Korea preparing for a new
missile test. 35
On December 7, 2003, the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, in a speech to the
UN General Assembly, said that North Korea’s security interests should be taken into
consideration. Wen claimed that the DPRK “for the time being” was not interested inhaving nuclear weapons and pronounced himself in favor of a nuclear weapons free
Korean Peninsula. 36

Strategic Motives

Until the end of the Cold War, China’s relation with North Korea had fallen into thegeneral framework of Peking’s anti-Soviet policies. 37 And whereas the DPRK previously had been rather successful at playing Moscow against Peking and vice versa, thisgame rapidly lost its interest in the post-Gorbachev era.
Since 1993, the PRC’s approach to the North Korean issue has betrayed a desire
to prevent its sudden collapse from within or under U.S. military pressure. This has not
ruled out a concern about (mostly horizontal) proliferation – with September 11, 2001,
and Bush’s “preemptive strike” doctrine further complicating the calculus – but due tointelligence of its own or actual Pyongyang assurances, China has downplayed this risk
while encouraging North-South détente at the expense of Washington. It was thus that
the ROK ambassador to Peking in 1993 mentioned an “equidistant diplomacy” between
the PRC and the U.S. with China holding “the key to the reunification” of the peninsula. 38 As far as Peking was concerned, the objective was even more ambitious.
According to a 1993 internal party document‚ the normalization of relations with Seoul
had been in the interest of both peoples and would make it possible for South Korea tofree itself from the influence of the U.S. and Japan. Once China and South Korea hadestablished diplomatic relations, “it became impossible for the U.S. and Japan to keep
China in check with the help of the Korean issue.” 39 Today, the PRC is the ROK’s mostimportant export market and the ROK one of the most important investors in China.
After Pyongyang in October 2002 had raised the stakes again, Peking saw noother way than adopting a more proactive stance. On the one hand, China could notpredict what the Bush administration would decide to do after the fall of Baghdad. On
the other hand, Taiwan appeared encouraged by the seemingly swift coalition victory in
Iraq to further explore its international margin of manoeuvre, 40 and subsequent Peking
35
36
37

38
39

40

32

Reuters, September 29, 2004, as quoted in Napsnet Daily Report, September 29, 2004.
The New York Times, December 8, 2003 (online).
In this context, the PRC until about 1965 participated in the early stages of North Korea’s nuclear
weapons program and otherwise supplied the DPRK with conventional weapons, albeit in muchsmaller quantities and at a lower level of sophistication than the Soviet Union. Österreichische
Militärzeitschrift, No. 3 (1994,) pp. 300–304; Yong-Sup HAN, “China’s Leverages over North Korea,”
Korean and World Affairs, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Summer 1994,) pp. 233–49.
Yonhap, April 12, 1993, as quoted in Deutsche Welle Monitoring Service, April 14, 1993.
Yomiuri Shimbun, January 26, 1993, as quoted in Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/1597/A2/6,
January 27, 1993.
Taiwan also appeared likely to benefit from the U.S.-Japanese missile defense program.

The PRC and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis

attempts to link China’s cooperation on North Korea to U.S. concessions over Taiwan
have come to nothing. Lastly, North Korea’s return to self-isolation would imply steadily increasing amounts of PRC assistance while causing strain on the South Korean
economy and driving Seoul back into Washington’s embrace.
Peking’s new diplomatic activism has thus been more defensive than betrays theeye. At the same time, the Six Party format has to a certain extent isolated Washington
rather than Pyongyang, and turned into a regional organization it could contribute to thegradual reshaping of the Northeast Asian power balance that China desires. 41 For that tohappen, the PRC has constantly supported South Korea’s policies of détente and has
accepted regional roles to be played by Moscow and Tôkyô in the conviction thatneither of the two will be able to deny China a leading role in the long term. 42 Whatremains is the almost traditional unpredictability of the U.S. and the latently suicidal
tendencies of the North Korean leader. In the short term, Peking thus finds itself caught
between a rock and a hard place with both Washington and Kim Chong-il requiring
reassurances. Whether the short-term can be prolonged depends not least on the PRC’s
own internal stability and delicate balancing act between economic growth and nationalism. 43
China’s margin of manoeuvre therefore remains limited. By basically privileging
DPRK proposals over the U.S. demand for a “complete, verifiable, and irreversible”(nuclear) disarmament (CVID,) Peking has tied its hands on the HEU issue that not only
Washington, but also Tôkyô and even Seoul have qualified to be crucial. At the sametime, any negotiated solution will leave Pyongyang time to stabilize by either building
more nuclear weapons or gradually opening its economy to the outside world. Given its
own experience and its support for peaceful gradualism, China would certainly prefer
the second option.

41

42

43

According to reports, China has suggested to institutionalize the Six Party Talks. ZHU, “China’s
Policy on the North Korean Nuclear Issue,” p. 7.
By contributing to a loosening of the U.S.-ROK alliance, however, the PRC risks to encourage aparallel strengthening of U.S.-Japan military ties.
Incidentally, Liaoning and Jilin provinces where the Korean minority lives are part of the PRC’s
industrial “rust belt” that has witnessed a great number of social unrest in recent years.

33

Some “Scenarios” and Endgames in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis:
An American Perspective

Nicholas EBERSTADT
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

Why “Scenarios?”

This paper presents some alternative “scenarios” for future outcomes for what by now
seems to have become a perennial feature of the Korean geopolitical landscape: thenuclear proliferation threat posed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea(DPRK, or North Korea).
The nature and method of the “scenario-building” exercise stand in fundamental
distinction to those of the detailed strategic assessment.
Whereas the latter relies upon an intensive and careful review of what are often
minutiae to discern state actors’ capabilities and intentions, the former posits those same
intentions and capabilities, describing them in broad and deliberately stylized strokes.
Where detailed strategic assessments attempt to indicate the range of possible
outcomes, and to assign at least implicit probabilities to these alternatives, scenariobuilding is meant to be insensitive to outcome probability. 1
The purpose of this necessarily speculative approach, instead, is to focus uponplausible outcomes, irrespective of their seeming likelihood, in the hope of stimulating
further thought about, and increased attention to, under-contemplated strategic problems
and opportunities (including underappreciated linkages, dynamics, and constraints that
may affect the motion of state actors in currently unfamiliar circumstances).

A Précis of Motivations and Objectives in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis:
The Principal State Actors

If constructing the scenarios for the ongoing North Korean nuclear drama is in somesense an act of controlled creative fiction, it is then incumbent on us to identify anddescribe the indispensable dramatis personae.
In this particular drama, the principal actors are state actors—specifically, all six
governments currently engaged in the so-called Six Party Talks. Other characters may
134

As one past master of the genre has explained, “This type of scenario planning relies not on
probability but on qualitative causal thinking.” Kees VAN DER HEIJDER, Scenarios: The Art ofStrategic Conversation, Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 1996, p. 3. The art of “alternative futures”
scenario-building for geostrategy is usually traced back the innovate work of Herman KAHN and hiscolleagues in the late 1950s and 1960s (and especially to his 1967 study Year 2000: A Framework forSpeculation on the Next 33 Years), and today is often associated today with the approach encouraged
by Andrew W. Marshall and the U.S. Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment.

Some “Scenarios” and Endgames in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis: An American Perspective

also be imagined to play roles—the European Union and the United Nations (broadly
construed) come particularly to mind in this regard—but their parts are under mostplausible storylines distinctly smaller and less important than for the six main leads.
Designing scenarios forces us to simplify—indeed, to oversimplify—the motivations, objectives, and strategies of the actors in our drama. Yet so long as these simplifications are explicitly outlined and born readily in mind, their schematic value to clearer
thinking can outweigh their inescapable violence to real-life subtleties and nuances.
The overall strategic situations facing the six state actors discussed below, and the
grand strategies of each of these states (to the extent each can be seen as operating under
the influence of such a design) are matters we will not address here in any detail. The
précis below, instead, attempts to highlight some of the particular considerations thatshould be kept in mind as we attempt to anticipate the behavior of the principal characters in possible future chapters of this North Korean nuclear drama. We will introduce
our actors in what we believe to be ascending order of their importance to the drama:
The Russian Federation, today and over the foreseeable future, views the North Korean
nuclear question through the context of Moscow’s immensely reduced post-Cold War
circumstances, and the state’s efforts, over the course of what has proved to be a
prolonged and difficult domestic transition, to maintain or regain international
influence.
In the early 1990s—in a total reversal from arrangements over the previous five
decades—Russia was almost completely frozen out of Great Power diplomatic andsecurity deliberations over Korean questions. Russian governments—today and in all of
our imagined future scenarios—will view it as imperative to reintroduce Russia as a“player” in Korean affairs, not simply to protect Russian interests in what objectively
qualifies as a high-tension and potentially volatile spot on the country’s border, but also
to gain leverage in Moscow’s dealings with Tôkyô, Beijing, and Washington.
We will presume that Russia’s approach to Korean security problems will continue to be colored by its newfound post-communist ideology of “multipolarity,” as has
been the case during the last half of the presidency of Boris Yeltsin and all of the tenureof Vladimir Putin. Under such thinking, the essential importance of countering U.S.
international power (“unipolarity”) dictates the making of tradeoffs and the taking ofrisks that would not seem to make sense in a less America-phobic calculus.
The imperative of returning to the Korean stage, and the desirability of offsetting
or compromising U.S. predominance, help to explain otherwise curious aspects ofRussia’s Korea policy over recent years: the distasteful and highly public cultivation by
President Putin of a personal relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Chong-il; thebizarre Russian proposal to “solve” the North Korean nuclear missile problem bylaunching North Korea’s “peaceful satellites” from third countries; the Russian
government’s episodic declarations that it does not believe the DPRK has nuclear capabilities; and the reported under-the-table Russian payment of $10 million to Pyongyang
to attend the February 2004 round of the Six Party Talks. We will assume that such
behavior will continue to characterize Russian diplomacy in the Korean Peninsula. But
we will also assume that Russian influence in the drama will be conspicuously limitedby the state’s lack of economic and military resources.
Japan, today and through the foreseeable future, will regard North Korea as its mostpressing security problem, and the North Korean nuclear issue as the most acute of the35

Nicholas EBERSTADT

many problems that Pyongyang poses to it. Despite its immense wealth and tremendous
industrial power, however, Tôkyô’s options for dealing with this potentially direct threat
remain extraordinarily limited, for historical reasons that need not be detailed here.
Although we will presume that Japan continues to progress toward what we mightcall “normal nation status,” that journey in our scenarios will continue at its familiar andpainfully slow pace, and the destination will not be reached in our imagined futures.
Instead, Japan will remain fundamentally dependent upon its relationship with UnitedStates for military protection and international security. This will remain true even if
Japan continues to develop more robust national defense capabilities, and evidences agreater degree of assertiveness in its still-timid defense and security policy. The reason
this awkward arrangement has been able to work—and we assume, will continue towork through the foreseeable future—is that, on the whole, Japan’s international security interests actually coincide quite closely with those of the United States (far moreclosely, indeed, than with Japan’s other Pacific Great Power neighbors).
Although the proposition that Tôkyô currently operates under a grand strategy
would seem highly debatable to many observers, there is much less contention about
Japan’s security tactics—and in particular, Japan’s proclivity for “security hedging.”
Given what Tôkyô often perceives as an asymmetry between U.S. and Japanese nationaland security interests, Japan often attempts to minimize its international exposure to risk
by diverging from its presumed “follower” role in the U.S.-Japan alliance, while at thesame time emphasizing the importance of that alliance and Washington’s obligations
under it. This “hedging while moving toward normal nation status” approach is exemplified in Japan’s dealings with North Korea: In recent years, for example, Tôkyô hasfor the first time since the end of World War II fired shots in anger (at unmarked North
Korean vessels penetrating Japanese maritime boundaries) and has moved forward on astill-controversial theater missile defense (TMD) initiative, but Prime Minister JunichirôKoizumi has also made “surprise” visits to North Korea (unbeknownst to Washington
during their planning phases) in search of breakthroughs in Japan-DPRK relations.
The Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea) is arguably the state for which stakes arehighest in the North Korean nuclear crisis, given on the one hand the precarious natureof the long Korean War armistice and the proximity of so many South Korean targets(not least the capital city of Seoul) to North Korea’s diverse offensive military forces,and on the other the still widely cherished hope of an eventual peaceful and voluntary
reunification of the divided Korean nation.
By some measures—for example, economic diplomacy (aid, trade, and envisioned
investment projects)—South Korea would also seem to be more deeply engaged with
North Korea than any other government in the contemporary world. Yet despite theobvious importance to Seoul of defusing the North Korean nuclear crisis and the considerable resources the government is applying to its North Korea problem, South Korea
stands today as a country without a coherent strategy for coping with its North Korea
problem. 2
2

36

The strategic incoherence of the sunshine approach was highlighted by inconvenient revelations in thewake of the historic Pyongyang Summit of June 2000—the first-ever meeting for the heads of state ofdivided Korea, a watershed event that purportedly underscored the promise of the sunshine policy. For
one thing, it turned out that the South Korean government had in fact secured the summit throughsecret and illegal transfers of South Korean taxpayer funds to Kim Chong-il’s overseas bankaccounts—a transaction not exactly in keeping with the public proclamations that the sunshine policy

Some “Scenarios” and Endgames in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis: An American Perspective

The immediate explanation for this lacuna is the ROK’s embrace—or rather its
misapplication—of the “sunshine theory” of reconciliation with the DPRK since its
promulgation in 1998. (The “sunshine” policy has gone by a succession of officialnames since 1998, but the underlying premises have remained essentially unchanged.)
In practice, merchandizing the sunshine theory in an open and competitivedomestic political environment has made it necessary for “sunshine governments,” andthe political parties supporting them, to argue that the DPRK is becoming progressively
less threatening to South Korean interests—but this assertion naturally invites skeptical
scrutiny of Seoul’s close military alliance with the United States, insofar as that treaty
relationship is formally premised upon, and structured to defending against, a presumptive North Korean threat.
By substituting such wishful thinking for actual strategic calculation, the sunshine
theory has consequently at one and the same time failed to generate any tangible security concessions for Seoul from Pyongyang, while straining Seoul’s vital security alliance with Washington.
At this writing, Seoul’s capacity to calculate strategically about its North Korea
options looks to be impaired still further by two inchoate but nonetheless tangible andpossibly thickening strands of popular and policy sentiment.
The first is minjok or “race” thinking: the notion that South Korea’s ties ofconsanguinity with brethren in the North is so fundamental a bond that it should betaken into account everywhere, even in the formulation of national security policy. (Byimplication, minjok-thinking counterposes the presumed identity of North and South
Korean interests against what might be called the nonethnic and thus presumptively
contingent “elective affinities” of shared political values that join the United States andthe ROK in their alliance.)
The second is the rise of the slogan of “independent defense policy”—on its face,an entirely unobjectionable notion for any sovereign government, but in its current
context, code language for “less defense cooperation with Washington while stillinsisting on Washington’s obligation to defend us.”South Korean society appears to be very deeply—and almost evenly—divided
over North Korea policy. These deep fissures, 3 and the internal contradictions of thesunshine policy, suggest the possibility of big changes of approach for South Korea
during the period under consideration in our scenarios.
China will be assumed to regard the North Korean nuclear crisis through the overlapping but distinct lenses of long historical memory, Great Power ambition, and competing domestic political interests—although not necessarily in that order.
By historical tradition and imperial logic of the old East Asian order, the Korean
Peninsula was within the Chinese tributary system; the forcible wrenching of Korea outof that system in the late 19th century proved to be not only a fateful revelation of3

was enticing Pyongyang into new ways of thinking and acting. Moreover, as we now know, during theyear 2000 heyday of the sunshine euphoria, the DPRK was also furtively pursuing a highly enricheduranium (HEU) program for the development of nuclear weapons—a program that had been made thatmuch easier to finance thanks to South Korea’s illicit official summit-purchasing subventions.
“Sunshine” arguably was indeed transforming the North—but not in the manner the architects of thepolicy envisioned.
Which seem to run along generational and educational fault lines.
37

Nicholas EBERSTADT

China’s terrible weakness at that time, but an omen of further misfortunes and humiliations that would befall the nation over the following generations.
Thousands of years of memory weigh on Chinese thinking about Korea. And in
China, the lesson this history is believed to teach is that the Middle Kingdom is safer
when the peninsula is within Beijing’s orbit. 4
Over the past decade and a half, China has managed to situate itself more advantageously in Korean affairs than at any point since the 19th century. China maintains
diplomatic relations with both governments in divided Korea, and both Korean states
vie for China’s attention and goodwill. While South Korea provides investment, technology, and foreign markets for China’s dynamic and evolving economy, North Korea
provides a socialist buffer along China’s northeast border—and also confers China withboth strategic and operational depth in its competition with the United States. This
“strategic depth” helps China to limit U.S. influence in Northeast Asia by forcing
Washington to concentrate on North Korea problems. China also gains “operational
depth” from the DPRK insofar as the U.S. military must immediately face a millionstrong army equipped with weapons of mass destruction in a territory that separates the
U.S. forces in the ROK and Japan from the Chinese border on the Yalu River.
At the same time, Beijing’s exposure to risk from North Korean nuclear program
is considerable—vastly higher, for example, than Russia’s. North Korea’s nuclear
program threatens to undermine Chinese strategic, diplomatic, and economic gains—potentially quite severely. Consequently (and much to its evident displeasure) Beijing
finds itself obligated to support the DPRK through ongoing annual aid transfers. And
the “lips to teeth,” “blood to blood” relationship forged with North Korean leadershipduring the Korean War has little resonance on Beijing today: in terms of both personnel
and interests, that was a different North Korea—and a very different China. Although
Chinese military and security circles may still harbor some loyalty to DPRK leadership,
China’s business interests are more likely to view the Kim Chong-il circle and its
nuclear adventures with cold detachment—if not as an unalloyed liability to theirinterests.
For now China’s leadership seems to have embraced a “muddle through”
approach to the North Korean nuclear crisis—a path that permits the deferral of many
important but difficult decisions, at least for a while. Given the contending
considerations, decision-making centers, and policy objectives that animate the complex
evolving polity that is contemporary China, we may expect Beijing’s approach to theNorth Korean nuclear crisis to be constrained, cautious, and somewhat contradictory—
or at least to be so until events force that posture to change. But we may also expect the
Chinese approach to the nuclear crisis to be characterized by a bit of “better Washington
should fail a bit” sentiment—sometimes even when the consequences of acting uponsuch sentiment seem to be inconsistent with China’s own immediate goals.
The United States brings more force to bear in the North Korean nuclear drama than any
other actor—and would likewise seem, at least on paper, to have most freedom tomaneuver. These assets and advantages, however, require a strategy if they are to be
utilized—and as remarkable though it may be, there is little reason today to believe the438

Indeed, the recently revived claim of Chinese suzerainty over “Koguryo,” the ancient territory
encompassing most of modern-day Korea, now echoing through Chinese cultural and academic
circles, should be understood as immensely revealing of Chinese long-term attitudes toward the Korea
question.

Some “Scenarios” and Endgames in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis: An American Perspective

United States has developed any coherent and consistent strategy for dealing with theNorth Korean nuclear crisis since September 11, 2001.
There is, to be sure, good reason to think that the September 11 attacks haveprofoundly altered America’s international threat perception and security posture. In theongoing global war on terror, the United States has demonstrated a newfound inclination to strike preemptively at clear and present dangers—and a willingness to do sounilaterally, or even in opposition to the sense of the international community, if needbe.
A lower threshold for security response, nevertheless, cannot substitute for security strategy itself. While Washington has evidenced an unmistakable attitude toward
Kim Chong-il and his nuclear designs (e.g., unfavorable), its envisioned strategy for
dealing with North Korean troubles is rather less obvious.
Although the administration of George W. Bush has made clear its disdain for the
conciliatory approach to Pyongyang taken by President Bill Clinton, it has offered very
little indication of what should replace it. To date, the Bush administration’s most
proactive response to the North Korean nuclear crisis has been the creation of a multinational Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) for interdicting DPRK contraband abroad(an effort, it should be noted, that South Korea has declined to join).
Otherwise, the administration’s record on North Korean affairs has a reactive,
almost passive-aggressive mien: it has almost defiantly resisted pressure for bilateralnegotiations with Pyongyang; affected an attitude of unconcern about North Korean
threats to proceed with plutonium processing; conspicuously changed the Clinton
administration terminology for North Korea from a “state of concern” to a member ofan “axis of evil;” and announced the transfer and eventual redeployment of roughly one
third of the current U.S. forces in South Korea over the coming years.
Although opprobrium may fall on the George W. Bush administration for thisstrategic lacuna, we would argue the failing is not specific to one White House alone—
and thus by implication amenable to easy electoral correction. Whereas the previous
administration did have a North Korea policy (actually, at least four of them 5 ) none ofthem succeeded in reducing the real existing North Korean nuclear threat. 6 It is not self
evident that a lack of strategy is inferior to a bad strategy. North Korean nuclear proliferation proved a thorny problem for successive U.S. administrations because there do
not seem to be any low-cost solutions to it. We assume this reality will continue throughthe foreseeable future.
The DPRK, of course, is the actor at the very center of this drama. Accurately approximating Pyongyang’s thinking about its nuclear weapons programs and their uses istherefore an issue upon which the entire utility of this exercise turns. Yet we must notethat the DPRK remains a remarkably poorly understood state in the world beyond its
borders: not least due to Pyongyang’s own longstanding efforts to deprive the outside

5

6

Nicholas EBERSTADT, “North Korea: Beyond Appeasement,” in Robert W. KAGAN and William
KRISTOL, eds., Present Dangers: Danger and Opportunity in American Foreign Policy, New York:
Encounter Books, 2000.
The architects of the Clinton administration’s policies toward North Korea, it should be noted, argue
strongly to the contrary. See Madeline ALBRIGHT, Madame Secretary, New York: Miramax, 2003;
Joel S. WIT, Daniel B. PONEMAN and Robert L. GALLUCCI, Going Critical: The First North Korean
Nuclear Crisis, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004.
39

Nicholas EBERSTADT

world of the information by which independent analysts could draw their own conclusions about that government’s capabilities, vulnerabilities, and intentions.
That being said, we can venture to describe the perimeters that bound Pyongyang’s outlook on its own nuclear effort by mentioning some of the distinguishing facts
that characterize this government’s unique polity:
First: the North Korean system is unquestionably the most nearly successfulattempt at complete totalitarian rule on the planet today.
Second, the North Korean system fuses a Stalinist administrative control structure
to an Asian-style dynastic structure affirming hereditary succession, proclaiming theinfallibility of the ruler through a suffocating cult of personality, and enforcing its
survival and success internally through the most pervasive security control system yet
known to man.
Third, the North Korean centrally planned economy is badly broken, and has been
in a severe slump since the cessation of Soviet bloc aid and subsidized trade with theend of the Cold War, but North Korean leadership has resolutely refused to embracepotentially revitalizing economic reform measures on the explicit rationale that such“ideological and cultural infiltration” led to the downfall of Soviet and Eastern European socialism. 7
Fourth, the DPRK operates as a hyper-militarized society and economy, champions a policy of “military first politics,” and officially insists that military strength is the
key to achieving national wealth.
Fifth, evidence suggests the North Korean government has been doggedly pursuing its nuclear weapons program for nearly four decades—since the mid-1960s—andthat the program has a sufficiently high priority that it was funded even during the great
North Korean famine of the mid-1990s, when hundreds of thousands of North Koreans
perished because their government failed to allocate resources to emergency food relief.
Finally, although outsiders often discount such talk, the DPRK continues toproclaim that its highest goal is the reunification of the Korean nation under an “independent” state—and continues to denounce the South Korean system as a illegitimate
police state under the thumb of “imperialist” (U.S.) forces.

Pyongyang’s Nuclear Quest: A Permanent “Unstable Equilibrium” Scenario?

“Scenario building” requires us, at the outset, to take some measure of the dynamics ofthe phenomenon under consideration. For our purposes, the very first question to beconsidered should be: why can’t the North Korean nuclear crisis go on forever?
7

40

Some students of the DPRK economy argue that the new economic measures Pyongyang
implemented in July 2002 may presage a conscious and deliberate movement toward significant andsystemic economic reform. For cautiously optimistic assessments in this genre, see Marcus NOLAND,“West-Bound Train Leaving The Station: Pyongyang On The Reform Track,” October 2002;
Ruediger FRANK, “A Socialist Market Economy In North Korea? Systemic Restrictions and A
Quantitative Analysis,” unpublished paper, Columbia University, 2003, and Ruediger FRANK, “North
Korea: ‘Gigantic Chance’ and a Systemic Change,” NAPSNET Policy Forum Online PFO 3–31, May
9, 2003. Others, however, offer a more skeptical interpretation of the portent of recent economicchanges in North Korea; see, for example, Nicholas EBERSTADT, “The Persistence of North Korea”,
Policy Review, November/December 2004.

Some “Scenarios” and Endgames in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis: An American Perspective

While Pyongyang’s current nuclear drama may be heavily freighted with potentially far-reaching strategic consequence for Northeast Asia, the greater Asian-Pacificregion (or even, as some would argue, for the entire world stage), and while the DPRK
has been notorious since at least June 1950 (i.e., its launch of the Korean War) for its
heavy reliance on strategic deception in defense and foreign policy, it would be difficult
for any observer to maintain that the North Korean nuclear crisis bears any of thedefining characteristics of a classic “strategic surprise.”
Quite the contrary: The DPRK’s quest to acquire nuclear weaponry, and theconfrontations with the international community that have arisen in the course of thatquest, are not exactly “breaking news.” International claxons have been sounding over
the North Korean nuclear program for well over a decade—since at least March 1993,
when Kim Chong-il first announced the intention to withdraw from the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty and mobilized the military into a declared “semi-state of war”
to underscore the seriousness of the announcement. And international nuclear negotiations with North Korea have been under way for nearly a decade and a half—sinceSeoul’s Nordpolitik-inspired 1990 premier-level talks with Pyongyang that culminatedin the year-end 1991 North-South Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the
Korean Peninsula.
Looking back at this continuing spectacle from the vantage point of late June
2004—after the third and most recent round of Six Party Talks between China, Japan,
Russia, South Korea, the United States, and the DPRK that was convened to negotiate a“breakthrough” to the DPRK nuclear impasse—one may be struck less by the sudden
shocks in the unfolding saga than by its almost plodding continuities. To be sure: Thesaga has included moments of unexpected revelations and distinctly unpleasant shocks
for most of the state actors involved in the tale. More than once it has looked as if theNorth Korean nuclear crisis would escalate into a military confrontation—presaging thepossibility of strategic discontinuities of the first order in the immediate region, andbeyond. And yet, as of this writing, North Korea’s prolonged dispute with the outside
world over the DPRK quest for nuclear options can be seen as marked a sort of regularity—almost a predictability—and characterized by some gradual but unmistakablestructural trends.
Over the course of roughly a decade and a half of intermittent negotiations andbared-fang face-offs, the DPRK has, slowly but systematically: (1) unburdened itself of
all international treaty and diplomatic commitments that might restrain its emergence asa declared nuclear state; (2) developed multiple and thus redundant programs for the
production of fissile material (irrespective of any formal obligations to the contrary); (3)pressed those programs forward for the continuing secret accumulation of weaponsgrade plutonium and highly enriched uranium; and, (4) not least important, succeeded inenmeshing all the state actors in the region in a negotiating process that to date established a de facto exchange of foreign economic resources for a slowdown, or suspension, of the DPRK nuclear effort (but not the elimination of the program itself).
The relative steadiness of these trends in DPRK nuclear proliferation are all themore noteworthy when one considers the changes in the international environment that
North Korean leadership faced over these years. The North Korean nuclear crisis has
thus far played out on the watch of three different presidents of the United States andfour separate presidents of the Republic of Korea. Those administrations exhibited
strikingly varied dispositions toward the North Korean state, and an almost experimental diversity of attitudes for dealing with the North Korean nuclear problem. And the41

Nicholas EBERSTADT

fact that North Korea’s greatest nuclear advances to date have occurred under the aegis
of the George W. Bush administration—arguably the U.S. government most explicitly
hostile to Pyongyang’s international policies and purposes of any yet elected—should
underscore the fact that North Korea’s achievements in this ongoing “crisis” have notbeen adventitious.
To this writing, in other words, it is possible to argue that the North Korean
nuclear crisis has actually been a continuing, but highly delicate, balance—“an unstableequilibrium” whose primary operational condition (and perhaps also whose necessary
first condition) has been the progressive expansion of DPRK room for nuclear maneuver. If this is indeed the case, why couldn’t this unstable equilibrium continue foranother 15—or for that matter, another 50—years?
We cannot dismiss the proposition the North Korean nuclear drama may continue,
in fits and starts, more or less along the by now familiar trajectory for some time tocome—perhaps even for years into the future. What seems entirely implausible,
however, is to imagine that modus operandi as a final outcome in and of itself, rather
than a transitional phase on the way to an endgame or outcome.
There are a number of general factors that could decisively unsettle the existing
unstable equilibrium demonstrated in the overall process, and thereby move the North
Korean nuclear crisis into a new and qualitatively different phase:- One would be a dramatic internal change within the North Korean system—a shiftthat altered the state’s objectives, or cohesion, or both. A non-exhaustive list of suchvariants would include the sudden unexpected death of “Dear Leader” Kim Chong-il;
a coup or putsch that transferred power out of the hands of the Kim dynasty; an open
power struggle among different elements of North Korea’s leadership, including
military leadership; a breakdown in the authority of the leadership over portions of
the government or regions of the nation; or full-fledged state disintegration orcollapse.
- Another would be reactions or interventions by outside actors, prompted directly by
the changing circumstances of the ongoing DPRK nuclear drama. Here the most
likely potential actors would be the five neighboring states already involved innuclear negotiations with Pyongyang—Washington, Beijing, Seoul, Tôkyô, andMoscow—although one cannot rule out the possibility that other governments (suchas the European Union) or nonstate actors (the International Atomic Energy Agency,
World Bank, UN Security Council) might be in the forefront of action. Twocompletely different “paths” of reactions/interventions could be envisioned forending the North Korean nuclear crisis, as we have known it to date. The first pathmight be described as “successful appeasement diplomacy:” it would entail theoffering of incentives and benefits to Pyongyang in return for a voluntary, credible,
and sustained denuclearization. The other path could be seen as “successful coercive
diplomacy:” this one would entail penalties and pressures—including possibly
military pressures—that would eliminate the DPRK’s nuclear options, with or without Pyongyang’s acquiescence.
- Still another factor that could move the North Korean nuclear crisis into a fundamentally new phase would be Pyongyang’s own tightly embraced nuclear security
strategy. Presumably North Korea’s costly, defiant, and unrelenting effort to acquire42Some “Scenarios” and Endgames in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis: An American Perspective

nuclear weapons has been informed by something more profound than the perceived
ornamental value of these devices. A credible nuclear option alters the realm of thepossible in a government’s relations with other states—and an increasingly credible
nuclear option extends those boundaries progressively. With a gradual accumulationof nuclear assets, the North Korean government might be emboldened to press forpreexisting international and peninsular objectives with less restraint and moreabandon. It is also possible to imagine that once some particular notional threshold of
nuclear arsenal holdings is achieved, the North Korean government would no longer
perceive itself as being deterred by the deterrence policies of the United States andher allies—inviting a new set of gambles that could set in motion major changes inthe security terrain of Northeast Asia.
The factors identified above are by no means an all-inclusive itemization of phenomenathat might propel the North Korean nuclear drama into a new phase (although theseadduced examples arguably illustrate some of the most plausible ways in which thesemi-stability of the ongoing nuclear crisis might be derailed). They should, however,underscore the fact that the DPRK nuclear crisis cannot be viewed as an indefinite, selfperpetuating status quo—not least because the gathering weight of events generated bythat crisis ineluctably tends to undermine the very dynamics that have made for semistability and semi-permanence on this ongoing drama. The North Korean nuclear crisis,
in other words, is better understood as a process than as an outcome. In the following
pages, we will consider some of the outcomes the process could presage.

A Negotiated Settlement to the Nuclear Crisis?

If the status quo does not continue indefinitely, unquestionably the most desirable
family of scenarios, from the standpoint of Pyongyang’s Six Party interlocutors, would
be a negotiation process that resulted in a credible permanent dismantling of the North
Korean nuclear weapons program, perhaps in exchange for financial, diplomatic, or
security incentives.
Variants of this family of scenarios would entail a bargaining process with one ormore of North Korea’s neighbors (with the United States as the indispensable partner on
the other side of the table), and Pyongyang trading pledges for a verifiable opening,
shutdown, and ultimate scrapping of the diverse components of its nuclear development
portfolio in return for some—or perhaps all—of the following: (1) direct financial aid(including possibly trade credits) from some or all of North Korea’s neighbors, andmaybe other bilateral aid as well (e.g., the EU); (2) entry into and grants or concessionalloans from such international financial institutions as the Asian Development Bank, theWorld Bank, or the International Monetary Fund; (3) aid-supported infrastructuredevelopment projects for the DPRK in such illustrative sectors as power, transport, andmining; (4) normalization of diplomatic relations between Pyongyang and Washington(and perhaps Tôkyô); and (5) some variant of a security assurance for Pyongyang fromthe United States and its allies.
An even more expansive scenario could envision a comprehensive settlement ofother security problems posed by North Korea in one grand bargain. Other items that43

Nicholas EBERSTADT

might be included here would be Pyongyang’s other programs for weapons of mass
destruction, or WMD (biological, chemical, ballistic missile); pullback and build-downof the enormous forward-deployed North Korean People’s Army; a formal peace treaty
to end the Korean War; and diplomatic cross-recognition by the DPRK and the ROK. 8
The allaying of these additional Western security concerns would presumably beexchanged for additional international concessions—security, financial, or diplomatic.
Although the distribution of costs and benefits among North Korea’s five neighbors would of course depend upon the particulars of the deals envisioned, the family ofnegotiated settlement scenarios is one in which all of Pyongyang’s Northeast Asianneighbors “win.” That is to say, for all the countries in the region, the security environment becomes immediately less risk, and the business environment becomes immediately more attractive.
Major projects to integrate the regional and global economy—such as the oftdiscussed Korean spur to the Trans-Siberian Railway or possible energy pipelines linking Russia, Korea, and Japan—suddenly would become commercially viable, withpotentially enormous positive spillover effects. Credible North Korean denuclearization
would also presumably result in a peace dividend due to lower defense expenditures on
defense sufficiency criteria. From a financial standpoint, even if the payoff to Pyongyang were astronomical—in the tens of billions of dollars (more than the estimatedannual output of the DPRK)—the “deal” could easily pay for itself.
To be sure, there are a number of more complicated longer-term issues thatemerge from this family of scenarios. For one thing, a buyout of an inveterate and defiant proliferator would surely make the task of enforcing nuclear nonproliferation inother regions more problematic: Given America’s global role and responsibilities, thatcost would fall most heavily on Washington. A North Korean nuclear settlement would,
similarly, cast a spotlight on Japan’s theater missile defense program: Chinese authorities might well inquire whether Tôkyô was continuing with the program despite the endof the North Korean nuclear threat—and if so, why? And of course the resolution of theNorth Korean nuclear threat—a problem of common (but not identical) concern toBeijing and Washington—would necessarily bring the U.S.-China strategic competition
for influence in the Korean Peninsula into sharper and more immediate relief, begging
in particular the question of the viability of the U.S.-ROK military alliance.
All of these subsidiary consequences of the best-case family of outcomes deservemuch more consideration than they have been accorded to date. Yet when all is said anddone, a negotiated final settlement to the North Korean nuclear crisis improves theimmediate- and medium-term security environment for all of the DPRK’s neighbors,
almost irrespective of the price exacted for the deal.
This may help to explain why a negotiated solution to the nuclear drama looks so
attractive to the five states that have coaxed Pyongyang into the Six Party Talks. The
problem with the scenario, however, is not the appeal of a win-win formula for
Moscow, Tôkyô, Seoul, Beijing, and Washington, but rather the hardly trivial questionof why the real existing North Korean government should ever agree to a full, credible,
and permanent end to its longstanding quest to become a nuclear power. Although a8

44Many but not all of these additional components were imagined as elements of an overall security
resolution for the Korean Peninsula in schemas advanced by the South Korean and U.S. governmentsin the late 1990s, under the sunshine policy and the “Perry process,” named after then Secretary of
Defense William Perry.

Some “Scenarios” and Endgames in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis: An American Perspective

genuine nuclear settlement may be in the interest of all of North Korea’s neighbors, thecalculus may look rather different from Pyongyang’s vantage point.
Western-schooled diplomatists and game-theory seminarians, for beginners, posit
the desirability of win-win solutions. Yet it is by no means obvious that North Korea’s
leadership regards win-win solutions as superior to “win-lose” solutions. Quite thecontrary: the DPRK’s penchant for “we win while you lose” outcomes is long evident ina variety of forums—not the least of these being international business negotiations,where North Korean bargainers have long behaved as if leaving a single penny of profit
on the table for the other side is a mark of shame against their nation. 9
Beyond Pyongyang’s evident distaste for win-win bargaining, there is the pregnant question of why Pyongyang should ever consider an outcome that deprives its
leadership of nuclear weapon capabilities and the attendant options of nuclear diplomacy as a “win,” no matter what the price exacted in exchange.
Nuclear weapons are a great equalizer in international relations—a point the North
Korean leadership has surely learned from first-hand experience during its past decadeand more of nuclear negotiations with the Great Powers that surround it. If the DPRK
did not have nuclear weapons (or the potential to acquire them), the country’s international importance would more closely conform to its economic significance—hardly anappetizing proposition for North Korea’s rulers. Forswearing nuclear weapons, furthermore, would be tantamount to relinquishing Pyongyang’s last material instrument foreffecting a Korean unification on its own terms; voluntarily surrendering the goal of“independent Korean reunification” might not only seem despicable to North Korea’s
leadership, but positively subversive of its own domestic authority. Trading away the
nuclear option, to make matters worse, would be to raise the specter of financing the
DPRK’s international accounts on the basis of ordinary commercial intercourse insteadof international military extortion—and since Pyongyang appears to view globalization
as fundamentally destabilizing to the regime, such a transaction would, according North
Korean doctrine, verge on the suicidal.
For these many reasons, the family of scenarios involving a peaceful and voluntary negotiated settlement to the North Korean nuclear crisis—despite the seeming logic
and allure of such an outcome—must also be seen as basically implausible. The trouble
is that international negotiations must engage the real existing Pyongyang leadership—
not a dreamworld North Korean government imagined into existence for our own
comfort and convenience. Unless and until there is a change of government in Pyongyang, the family of negotiated solution scenarios must be treated as fantastically remoteendgames for the North Korean nuclear crisis.
The family of negotiated settlement scenarios highlights a particularly important
aspect of the current North Korean nuclear crisis. Without overstating the case, it would
appear that none of the governments negotiating with North Korea today have developed a fallback strategy in the event that they are unable to reach a peaceful settlementwith Pyongyang. North Korea, on the other hand, may be the only government in the
nuclear drama with a coherent strategy—and part of that strategy may be to make negotiations for voluntary and peaceful denuclearization fail.

9

While contemporary Western sensibilities are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with “win-lose”
negotiations, there is nothing intrinsically irrational or unethical in that posture: indeed, if one regards
one’s adversaries as dangerous and evil, it might be foolish, or even immoral, to insist on anythingother than “win-lose” outcomes!
45

Nicholas EBERSTADTThis is a striking and portentous asymmetry—and one that confers surprisingadvantage upon the DPRK, a state that one would ordinarily expect to find severely
hobbled by its own myriad shortcomings in any international contest.

Some Alternative Scenarios for the North Korean Nuclear Crisis

If the status quo is unlikely to continue indefinitely and a peaceful voluntary negotiatedsettlement is even less plausible, we may consider some alternative scenarios for possible futures. Without at all presuming to be comprehensive, we can illustrate a range ofalternative outcomes by concentrating upon four kinds of scenarios:
1) DPRK “virtual nuclear breakout;”
2) Full-fledged nuclear ballistic “breakout;”
3) North Korean internal regime collapse;
4) DPRK nuclear diplomacy leading to military conflict with one or more neighbor.
While recognizing that these four families of scenarios are not entirely distinct andindependent from one another—alternative (1), for example, could progress on to alternative (2), and then to alternatives (3) or (4)—there is some merit in considering eachseparately.

Virtual Nuclear Breakout
In this family of scenarios, North Korea agrees to episodic discussions or negotiation
sessions with its Northeast Asian neighbors and perhaps other actors, but it continues toreprocess plutonium and to process highly enriched uranium, and while adopting a“neither confirm nor deny” line on its nuclear capabilities, increasingly assumes the
stance of a state that can utilize nuclear diplomacy—and even issue nuclear ultimatums.
Many variations of this general scenario could be envisioned. To spin out just one:The North Korean government, after several more rounds of inconclusive andcontentious Six Party Talks, declares that the talks are failing because Washington
wants them to fail—and Washington wants them to fail because it is has its own
hidden agenda, a preemptive strike against the DPRK. Pyongyang warns that it
has been working feverishly on its own “peace deterrent” to protect Koreans—
North and South—precisely against these sorts of reckless machinations—andreminds audiences in South Korea and Japan that no spot used as a staging baseby the United States in its aggressive adventures will go unspared from theresulting devastation. Pyongyang further identifies a number of particular U.S. airand C4I units in South Korea as the designated instruments of the planned U.S.
surprise attack, and warns that unless these are removed and returned to theUnited States, it will be forced to take all necessary measures for the nation’s selfdefense. Being peace-loving and patient, Pyongyang explains, it will give Wash46

Some “Scenarios” and Endgames in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis: An American Perspective

ington a chance to agree to remove the offending units on its own—but if the
DPRK does not receive a positive response, it will have to underscore the gravityof this “American-manufactured crisis” through “a demonstration of the fearsome
defensive power of our people’s forces.”
This family of scenarios, we should note, comports closely with the “unstable equilibrium” already described above—while this set of alternative futures looks more liketransitional stages than like stable outcomes, it is useful to explore nonetheless.
From this family of scenarios, the overarching outcome (that is to say, the mostimportant tendency emerging virtually irrespective of particular scenario variants) is the
corrosive strain inflicted on the U.S.-ROK military alliance by a North Korean postureof aggressive nuclear ambiguity. In the face of a gradually accumulating DPRK nuclear
capability and an escalating North Korean campaign of implied nuclear menace—butabsent any concrete proof of hostile intent toward the South through acts of violence oraggression—a South Korean populace already deeply divided over the question ofwhether Pyongyang truly presents a security threat will be impelled to focus on the
shortcomings of the security relationship with the United States—and in particular, on
the asymmetries in that relationship that may seem to expose South Korea to disproportionate risks from forces beyond the ROK’s control (i.e., the U.S.-DPRK standoff). A
prolonged and intensified war of nerves over the DPRK nuclear program, in short, could
plausibly be expected to degrade public support in South Korea for the Mutual Defense
Treaty and the U.S. forces in Korea still further. Indeed, although this may not necessarily be the most likely outcome, it is by no means implausible to think of an alternative future in which the North Korean nuclear crisis serves as a driver for the dissolutionof the U.S.-South Korean military alliance.
The response in Japan, on the other hand, is likely to be quite different. With amounting North Korean nuclear threat and a fraying U.S.-ROK alliance, “hedging”
becomes a national security tactic of increasingly dubious utility. Virtual nuclear breakout, instead, could plausibly be envisioned under any number of subsidiary scenarios topress Tôkyô and Washington closer together—to mold the relationship into something
more genuinely resembling an alliance—while at the same time encouraging an evolution in Japan’s own defense and security policy in the direction of greater capabilities
and fewer unique self-imposed post-World War II constraints. We can imagine that theJapanese government’s, and the Japanese public’s, attention to cultivating the U.S.Japan security partnership and augmenting the nation’s own defense efforts would be
affected by the country’s North Korea threat perception—but it could be affected independently, and perhaps even more acutely, by a severe downturn in the state of the U.S.ROK military alliance.
Moscow and Beijing’s roles in this family of scenarios are less central to the main
action, and—at least in the case of China—possibly more ambiguous. Under the thrallof multipolarity, the Russian Federation might be plausibly expected to affect an air ofdetachment to a DPRK virtual nuclear breakout: for this not-entirely-disinterested
bystander, a weakening of the U.S.-ROK relationship and a “harmless” ratcheting up of
North Korean nuclear tensions might be reckoned to present more opportunities thandrawbacks. For China, the calculus may be more complex. It is easy enough to see
Beijing’s appreciation of a scenario where the U.S.-ROK military relationship cameunder mounting stress from nonviolent DPRK nuclear diplomacy: China’s immediate47

Nicholas EBERSTADT

influence as a crisis broker would almost necessarily increase, and its prospects forenhanced longer-term authority in the Korean Peninsula might also be strengthened.
An outright rupture of the U.S.-ROK military alliance, by contrast, could present
Beijing with some surprisingly unattractive options and choices. Absent the U.S.-ROK
military alliance, China would be almost impelled to shoulder a much heavier and more
conspicuous obligation with respect to restraining and deterring North Koreanadventurism—forcing China toward a more formal opposition to Pyongyang’s external
policies and sharply reducing Beijing’s room for maneuver on the Korean Peninsula. A
breakdown in the U.S.-ROK military alliance—especially a sudden breakdown—would
likely have pronounced adverse economic reverberations throughout the Northeast Asia
region; it is hard to imagine how China would manage to avoid the consequence of suchshocks. From Beijing’s standpoint, a North Korean war of nuclear nerves that enervates
the U.S.-ROK alliances may be desirable, and would require no countermanding
Chinese initiatives; but a crisis that threatens to destroy that alliance might argue for
remediating Chinese initiatives.
For Pyongyang, finally, the virtual nuclear breakout scenario would seem to offer
the prospect of relatively high rewards for relatively low risks. For the DPRK, in otherwords, the path to virtual nuclear breakout looks relatively attractive—a fact that may
help to explain why North Korea to date has evidently embraced a game plan consistent
with this family of scenarios.

Full-Fledged North Korean Nuclear Breakout
In this family of scenarios, the driving event is an unambiguous North Koreandemonstration of its nuclear capabilities—for example, the underground detonation of a
nuclear device. The context of the nuclear test would also seem to be important tooutcomes from this family of scenarios: that is to say, whether the explosion occurred at
a moment of heightened peninsular tensions or in a period of relative calm; whether the
DPRK issued declaratory threats after the detonation, or simply let outside observers
uncover the event and parse its implications; whether Sino-U.S. relations were relatively
cooperative or relatively disputatious; and so on.
Unlike the virtual nuclear breakout family of scenarios, plausible scenarios for afull-fledged North Korean nuclear breakout would not appear to be closely bounded. To
the contrary, the set of plausibly written alternative futures triggered by this driving
event would appear extremely wide, and indeed wholly discontinuous. On the one hand,a storyline could be written whereby a North Korean nuclear test is followed by rancorous and recriminatory U.S. deliberations with other members of the Six Party Talks,and sets in motion a cascade of events (entailing both diplomatic interactions and local
political manifestations) that bring the U.S.-ROK alliance to an end. On the other, aplausible scenario could also be devised in which a North Korean nuclear test catalyzes
North Korea’s neighbors into cooperatively embracing a policy of containment andisolation toward North Korea, with denuclearization or regime change in North Korea
set as the policy’s objectives.
The sharply divergent outcomes that might be envisioned under this family of
scenarios reflect the wide range of plausible responses for three of the crucial actors in
the drama: Seoul, Beijing, and Washington:48

Some “Scenarios” and Endgames in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis: An American Perspective(1) Although the ROK has been wedded to what amounts to an appeasement
policy toward Pyongyang since 1998, South Korean public sentiment about this policy
is deeply divided—and a shocking unilateral display of menacing North Korean behavior could, under certain conditions, decisively discredit both the sunshine approach andthe political leadership that championed it.
(2) Beijing, for its part, could be envisioned acquiescing in and accommodating to
the advent of a nuclear North Korea (ending today’s muddling-through approach to theNorth Korean nuclear drama in denouement), or, alternatively, reacting sharply andforcefully to contain the damage of this hazardous new development on the Chinese
border. In this group of scenarios, three considerations for Beijing could weigh strongly
toward the latter: (a) the degree to which a North Korean nuclear event is perceived as a
failure for Chinese policy and a setback to Chinese regional credibility; (b) the degree towhich a North Korean nuclear test, and other states’ responses to it, are perceived asdegrading China’s own security environment; and (c) the magnitude of the anticipatedfinancial costs that the Chinese economy would suffer due to regional and internationalanxieties over the breakout.
(3) As for Washington, while the most likely response to a North Korean nuclear
test might seem to be a revitalization of what is now a largely dormant North Korea
policy, it is also possible to imagine scenarios where the U.S. response is minimal—or
is widely judged to be inadequate. (In such scenarios the United States might be preoccupied by other threats or problems in its ongoing global war on terrorism—oralternatively, it might actually be deterred by North Korea’s “peace deterrent.”) But by
raising questions about the value of America’s security commitment, an inadequate U.S.
response to North Korean nuclear breakout would place the U.S.-ROK military allianceunder tremendous—perhaps unbearable—pressure, and might have insidious consequences for the U.S. alliance with Japan as well.
From North Korea’s standpoint, the breakout scenario could lead to great strategic
returns (including a seriously weakened U.S. presence in Northeast Asia and a more
vulnerable and tractable South Korea), but it could also result in a vastly more menacing
constellation within its neighborhood, with none of the five neighboring states willing tosupport the regime and several newly committed to the regime’s demise. Although adecision to “go nuclear” would pose serious difficulties to all of North Korea’s neighbors, the high risk/high reward nature of that gamble suggests that it might be a difficult
choice for the DPRK regime as well. Unless the regime were quite confident that it
would face little chance of adverse reactions from Seoul, Beijing and Washington,
opting for “breakout” over “virtual breakout” would look to be a strategic miscalculation.

DPRK Internal Regime Collapse
In this family of scenarios, currently existing but significantly intensified tensions andcontradictions within the DPRK itself would bring the North Korean system to abreaking point, where the Kim Chong-il regime was no longer in control of the territoryof the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Here the driver is regime disintegration—some permutations of which have already been described above.
For obvious reasons, the outcomes in this family of scenarios comport closelywith alternative futures other analysts have sketched out in thinking out Korean
49

Nicholas EBERSTADT

unification. 10 (With North Korean regime collapse, indeed, most storylines end with anabsorption of northern Korea by the ROK and an eventual Korean reunification: thevariations here many involve just how violent, turbulent, and costly the path fromcollapse to unification turns out to be.) In all of these scenarios, however, end of theNorth Korean state means the end of the North Korean nuclear crisis, insofar as thepresumptive legatee, the Republic of Korea, is a committed signatory to the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty and has publicly forsworn the possibility of developing nuclear
weapons.
The specifics of the regime collapse storyline, furthermore, could presage a multiplicity of plausible post-DPRK security environments in Northeast Asia. Very different
sorts of outcomes, for example, would be envisioned for a North Korean regime
collapse where the United States and China worked closely together to minimize attendant regional security risks—or where instead friction and mutual mistrust seriously
limited the scope of coordinated Sino-U.S. cooperation. Analogously, the post-DPRK
security environment in Northeast Asia could be starkly colored by (1) the extent towhich North Korean regime collapse involves a military conflict among warring Korean
Peoples’ Army (KPA) factions; (2) the extent of spillover from such fighting intoneighboring countries; (3) the level of military force (and military losses) that North
Korea’s neighbors were obliged to sustain to restore calm in northern Korea, and (4) thequestion of whether elements in the collapsing North Korean regime threatened the useof nuclear weapons—or actually attempted the use of nuclear weaponry—during theendgame.
Depending upon the answers to these particulars, the security and development
architecture for a post-DPRK Korean Peninsula could look surprisingly promising—or
it could seem dangerously bleak.
Under the most auspicious of circumstances, we might envision a North Koreanstate collapse that involved little in the way of organized violence; that was met by aswift and deliberate peacekeeping response by the United States and its Northeast Asian
allies in consultation with China; that demobilized KPA military forces in an orderly
manner and fully accounted for the erstwhile DPRK’s nuclear assets; that set in motion
the legal and administrative process under which northern Korea would join the
Republic of Korea under Articles 2 and 3 of the ROK constitution; that maintained andstrengthened the U.S.-ROK-Japan political-military alliance; and that prepared the way
for market-oriented economic reconstruction of the northern part of Korea. Such a
scenario would replicate—as closely as might be imagined under contemporary Northeast Asian conditions—the remarkably successful reunification of divided Germany in
1989–90.
But many less happy, more complicated and no less plausible alternative futures canalso be devised within this basic schema. To offer just one:
Kim Chong-il’s sudden and unexpected death leads to a power struggle within theregime, with key figures in the military and the security services unwilling tosubmit to the court-in-waiting that will govern for only-partly-groomed heirapparent Kim Jong Chul. The struggle cannot be resolved politically within theconfines of Pyongyang, and within a week devolves into a military contest
1050See, for example, Jonathan D. POLLACK and Chung Min LEE, Preparing for Korean Unification:
Scenarios and Implications, Santa Monica: RAND, 1999, ch 4.

Some “Scenarios” and Endgames in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis: An American Perspective

between Kim dynasty loyalists and the rebels over battlefields within North
Korea. As this fast-moving spectacle unfolds, North Korea’s neighbors nervously
watch but carefully avoid any actions that might be interpreted as intervention in
Pyongyang, inviting some retaliatory response by the vestiges of the KPA
command. China, however, quickly mobilizes a major military cordon sanitairecontingent along the Yalu without informing the United States, its allies, orRussia. In a fateful incident whose actual events historians are still trying toreconstruct, warring KPA units in Chagang province seem to have accidentally
launched a barrage that hit a Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army unit, resulting in
numerous deaths. China responds by returning fire; soon Chinese forces havebegun to enter North Korea. Beijing announces that it has entered North Korea toprotect Chinese citizens from the intolerable dangers the North Korean situation
now poses and to restore order in the DPRK. The Chinese government also lets it
be known that it has informed both sides in the North Korean civil war that any
nonconventional assault on China’s peacekeeping operation will be met by a more
massive response of the same nature. As Chinese forces move into North Korea
and toward Pyongyang, confusion and chaos within northern Korea spread; transportation routes are clogged with migrants and refugees. Fearing total loss ofcontrol of their state, both sides in the civil war warn Washington, Seoul, andTôkyô that a Western incursion will invite a nuclear response. The nuclear threat
triggers an emergency conference between top leaders in the three countries; theyagree the situation has become too dangerous to wait any longer. U.S. airpower islaunched to suppress forward-deployed KPA artillery and SCUD missile positions; other strikes incapacitate the DPRK’s known Nodong and Taepodong
missile sites. With U.S. assistance, ROK army units leapfrog to Pyongyang, which
is secured after some bitter fighting. Seoul is hit by conventional artillery, causingmass casualties. A U.S. base in Japan and a Japanese city are also hit by nonnuclear Nodong missiles, causing little damage, but creating temporary mass
panic. At the end of the month, ROK and U.S. forces (with Japanese overseas
support) have secured approximately two-thirds of northern Korea; Chinese forces
occupy another fifth, with the remainder still a sort of no man’s land. U.S.-ROK
intelligence believes the DPRK may have as many as a dozen nuclear devices andhalf a dozen surreptitious nuclear facilities; they have, however, come intopossession of just two of the former and three of the latter. The Kim family andcourt have fled to China, where they have been accorded the perquisites of a statein-exile. The United States, ROK, and Japan have adopted the position that the
DPRK is no longer a government, and that all northern Korea is legally thedominion of the Republic of Korea. China however insists that the DPRK is still asovereign state, and that international law impels recognition of Kim Cong-chul as
its leader. Moscow helpfully suggests that the matter should be decided by theUnited Nations. From Rome, the World Food Program announces that North
Korea is on the verge of another mass famine.
Military Conflict between DPRK and Neighbors Due to DPRK Nuclear Diplomacy
As we have just argued, one possible outcome of a North Korean collapse scenario
could be a military conflict in the Korean Peninsula. This should underscore the simple
fact that a military conflict in and around Korea might be directly precipitated by51

Nicholas EBERSTADT

progressive escalations in Pyongyang’s nuclear diplomacy, but there are other plausible
paths that lead to armed conflict in and around North Korea as well. Nevertheless, amilitary conflict triggered by North Korean nuclear brinkmanship constitutes a nightmare scenario for all of Pyongyang’s Northeast Asian neighbors. It is well then to
consider some of the implications that emerge from this set of nightmares.
A veritable panoply of distinctive permutations could be developed within thisfamily of scenarios, depending upon context (e.g., the way in which hostilities erupt andthe state actors become embroiled). Many of these diverse contingencies, however,might be more appropriately drawn out through war games than the present exercise,since their lessons and insights may be more relevant to military tactics and doctrine
than to geostrategy.
Two renditions from this large family of scenarios, nonetheless, may be used here
to illustrate some of the alternative futures for the North Korean nuclear drama that may
be worthy of further contemplation.
A) A U.S. Preemptive Strike. Is U.S. preemptive military action a plausible alternative
future for the North Korean nuclear crisis? Let us try to devise one:
In this variant, the U.S. government gathers what is judged to be highly reliable
intelligence that Pyongyang has secretly agreed to sell components of a small
nuclear device to an international terrorist organization. (The reported deal
follows another round of acrimonious nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang—this
one terminated by dark comments from Pyongyang’s representative about the
DPRK’s “sovereign right” to continue nuclear development and the dire consequences for “imperialist forces” if the war blockade against North Korea should
continue.) The intelligence reports that the plutonium core of the device will be
loaded into a particular vessel docked in Nampo harbor within 24 hours.
The U.S.-ROK military alliance is under strain, and political relations
between the two capitals are marked by mutual frustration and mistrust. In
Washington highly placed officials are confident that Seoul and Tôkyô do not yet
have access to this time-sensitive intelligence, and they deliberate the pros andcons of sharing it. A heated argument ensues, in which a forceful case is made fornot sharing the information with the allies—in particular Seoul. The unilateralist
line carries the day: The talking points being that America must not let theopportunity to “cancel” the sale slip away; that the Blue House will try to veto theoperation; and that in any case the South Korean national security team cannot be
trusted to keep this information confidential since their group is riddled by North
Korean sympathizers. U.S. leadership decides to launch a preemptive strike on
Nampo, destroying the targeted vessel and neutralizing the transport facilities
from the harbor. When the operation has commenced—minutes before theattack—the U.S. president telephones the ROK president and the Japanese prime
minister to inform them of the operation. The vessel is destroyed, as is Nampo
harbor. North Korea retaliates with a devastating artillery barrage on Seoul and a
missile attack on U.S. bases in South Korea and Japan. A general war on the
Korean Peninsula ensues, despite U.S.-ROK military superiority; casualties(civilian and military) are massive. At the end of the conflict, the KPA has been
defeated; North Korea is completely occupied by ROK forces; and the all
elements of the North Korean nuclear program have been identified and neutral52

Some “Scenarios” and Endgames in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis: An American Perspectiveized. Subsequent information indicates that the U.S. intelligence about the nuclear
sale and transfer to the terrorist group via the vessel at Nampo was accurate inevery respect.
Chilling, perhaps—but is it plausible? Although the scenario is framed in a manner
seemingly favorable to a preemptive U.S. action (“red line” proliferation, accurate
intelligence on the transaction, time sensitivity), the scenario itself glides over some of
the thorniest issues that would arise from a unilateral U.S. strike against North Korea:
namely, the consequences for America’s relations with its Northeast Asian allies and therest of the international community. A U.S. attack against North Korea, undertaken
without the knowledge or consent of the South Korean government, would very plausibly signal the end of the U.S.-ROK alliance—and the same could be imagined for the
U.S.-Japan alliance as well. Among the myriad casualties for cosmopolitan Seoul in this
scenario, moreover, would be untold numbers of civilians from China, Russia, theEuropean Union, Australia, Canada—and the United States.
Even if Beijing and Moscow regarded the U.S. strike as casus belli, the diplomatic
fallout from the devastation could be unlike anything the United States had previously
faced: the possibility that America could be a pariah state at the end of this adventure
does not look entirely fanciful. None of this is to suggest that U.S. preemptive action in
the North Korean nuclear drama should be regarded as entirely unthinkable; it is insteadto emphasize the extraordinarily grave costs that would be expected from unilateralpreemptive U.S. action.
B) A Preemptive North Korean Strike. Half a century of U.S. military policy in the
Korean Peninsula has been devoted to deterring North Korea from military action—but
is it possible that the North Korean nuclear drama will afford Pyongyang an option for
deterring Washington? Herewith a script for just such a scenario:
Some time in the relatively near future, Pyongyang calculates that the UnitedStates will no longer be capable of retaliating against a show of KPA force against
the U.S.-ROK alliance. The DPRK has amassed an arsenal of two dozen nuclear
weapons and several hundred Nodongs capable of hitting any U.S. base in Northeast Asia; Pyongyang has also tested an experimental Taepodong theoreticallycapable of reaching the continental United States. U.S. intelligence has an accurate assessment of these capabilities. The U.S.-ROK relationship, meanwhile,
continues to hit new lows. A public opinion poll in South Korean reports that 70%
of voting age citizens and 85% of college students see the president of the UnitedStates as a greater threat than Kim Chong-il to South Korean international security. Mistrust and tension seem evident at all levels of the official U.S.-ROK
relationship, and now is even apparent in some aspects of U.S.-ROK militaryinteroperation. Late one hot August night, huge explosions resound from the
DPRK’s Yongbyon nuclear facility. Almost immediately thereafter, North Korean
media go into emergency broadcast mode, declaring that Yongbyon has been hit
by a U.S. attack. Just minutes after the announcement, a salvo of several hundred
artillery shells lands on and around the U.S. 8th Army Yongsan Garrison in theheart of Seoul. Within fifteen minutes of the Yongbyon explosions, a statementfrom North Korean leadership is broadcast through all North Korean media:
Imperialist aggressors have struck our Yongbyon nuclear complex—and we have53

Nicholas EBERSTADT

in response destroyed the imperialist headquarters that authored the aggression.
The nation is now mobilized against the imminent imperialist invasion—and wewill meet the aggressors’ attacks blow for blow. The enemy should know it has norear area that is safe from the North Korean People’s Army. Panic sweeps South
Korea. As the confusion subsides at UNC/CFC headquarters, the facts of thesituation become clear: DPRK has staged its own explosions at Yongbyon; the“retaliatory” DPRK artillery barrages were tightly trained on Yongsan, causing
serious damage to the base, but relatively little in surrounding civilian areas.
Almost all of the casualties from the salvo are Americans or South Koreans in theemploy of the U.S. military. North Korea’s KPA stands at full war mobilization
but does not initiate any additional engagements. U.S. forces are ordered to holdfire pending further orders from the commander in chief. In South Korea rumors
are sweeping the media that the Yongbyon explosions were the first phase of asecret U.S. preemptive “regime change” operation against North Korea; someinternet reports assert that Washington’s secret plan has discounted a possible
North Korean nuclear strike on Seoul as an acceptable risk for the plan. The Blue
House remains in constant communication with the White House, and remains in
steady contact with other capitals as well; the ROK National Assembly goes into
emergency session with steady closed-door briefings and updates. As the day
progresses, the ROK president delivers a brief nationally televised speech inwhich he categorically assures the country that there is not a shred of evidence tothat the Yongbyon incident was a U.S. strike—but rather, that every bit ofevidence about this catastrophic tragedy leads to Pyongyang’s own door. Twentyfour hours after the assault on Yongsan, both South Korean and international
public opinion is moving toward a recognition of the true facts of the case; many
international leaders, including the governments of China and Russia, aredenouncing DPRK for its deceptive surprise attack. But U.S., ROK and Japaneseleaders are faced with a dilemma: how to respond? A military reprisal against the
DPRK might well lead to escalation—and at every level of potential surgicalreprisal, the KPA command is capable of an equivalent, or more punishing,counterattack. The U.S.-allied response could easily lead to a general war on thepeninsula—and though the United States and its allies are likely to prevail in relatively short order, the collateral (mainly Korean) causalities from the onslaught
would be horrific. U.S. decision-makers also have to bear in mind the expected
U.S. homeland casualties from a nuclear-tipped Taepo Dong missile, aimed for amajor West Coast metropolitan area (after discounting the odds that missile
defense systems will intercept it before impact). Failure to respond, on the other
hand, would expose the utter hollowness of the U.S. security guarantee to South
Korea (and Japan)—and would indicate without ambiguity that North Korea had
indeed totally deterred the United States and its Asian allies from reacting to an
incident of indefensible aggression. From then on, the credibility of the alliancewould be fundamentally shattered; a U.S. force presence on Asian soil might seemto be more of a liability than an asset.
In this scenario, North Korea succeeds in establishing escalation dominance over theUnited States: it strikes at U.S. forces precisely because it calculates that the UnitedStates cannot afford to retaliate against a nuclear North Korea. To make matters evenmore interesting, a U.S. failure to respond would undermine the U.S. alliance structure54Some “Scenarios” and Endgames in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis: An American Perspectivein East Asia. Just how plausible this scenario may seem, of course, is for the reader todecide.
***All in all, the discordant and discrepant variety of outcomes suggested by this exercise
emphasizes the importance of attempting to think options through in advance, so as tomaximize the chances of avoiding undesirable results and achieving preferred ones.
There is as yet all too little evidence that careful consideration of this nature has been
accorded to the alternative futures for the North Korean nuclear crisis that still lie before
us—not by U.S. policy analysts, and certainly not by U.S. decision-makers.

55

Program for the symposium

Security Threats and Strategies of a Regional Security Policy in North East Asia
October 26 and 27, 2004

Tuesday, October 26
Angelika VIETS (JDZB)

Welcome Remarks

Session 1: The Security Situation in Northeast Asia
Chair: Petra ERNSTBERGER (Member of Parliament, Foreign Affairs Committee)
North Korea: Implosion, Explosion, Proliferation—What is to be Expected? An Overview
Dr. Sebastian HARNISCH (Chair for International Relations/Foreign Policy, Trier University) Trier
Comments: Selig S. HARRISON (Center for International Policy, USA) Washington D.C.
Prof. Dr. MURATA Koji (Doshisha University) Kyôto
Dr. Heinrich KREFT (Federal Foreign Office, Policy Planning) Berlin
Discussion

Session 2: How to Solve the Conflict?—The Roles of the Different Actors
Chair: Frank UMBACH (Asian-Pacific Program of the German Council on Foreign Relations) Berlin
Suggested Roles of Japan
Prof. IZUMI Hajime (University of Shizuoka) Shizuoka
The PR China and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis
Dr. Kay MÖLLER (German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Research Unit Asia) Berlin
Some “Scenarios” and Endgames in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis—An American Perspective
Dr. Nicholas EBERSTADT (American Enterprise Institute) Washington D.C. (main points presented by F. UMBACH)EU
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Wichard WOYKE (Münster University, Institute of Political Science), Münster
Discussion, Final Remarks

Wednesday,October 27 (Public conference)Roundtable on Regional Security Strategy in North East Asia
Chair: Dr. Theo SOMMER (Editor-at-large, DIE ZEIT) Hamburg
Welcome: Pia BUNGARTEN (FES)
Key-note: Dr. Rolf MÜTZENICH (Member of Parliament, Foreign Affairs Committee) Berlin
Panelists: Prof. IZUMI Hajime (University of Shizuoka) Japan
Selig S. HARRISON (Center for International Policy, Washington D.C.) USA
Ambassador Doris HERTRAMPF (Embassy Pyongyang) North Korea
Tomasz KOZLOWSKI (Head of Task Force Asia, Council of European Union) Brussels

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