The correct U.S. foreign policy construct now is not another crossroads where Pyongyang just might take the wrong direction by miscalculation or accident. Rather, the approach should be to remove obstacles from the road already chosen. What is maddening, especially for conservatives in South Korea's opposition Grand National Party and conservatives in the U.S. Congress, is the slow progress of the North's leadership in entering into and executing balanced, verifiable political, military and economic agreements leading to peaceful coexistence. These changes also lessen tensions across the Demilitarized Zone where, for a half-decade, war could have started by accident or miscalculation at times of high tension. Yes, North Korean reciprocity is painfully slow, but patient diplomacy should remain the name of the game, especially if one understands as I think I do basic reasons why the North Korean leadership is so slow.
Fundamental ideas die hard and slowly.
Even if North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and his senior confidants with access to the Western media and Internet are changing their minds, the military and civilian people who have to negotiate and implement policy remain locked in the mental concrete of Juche. All the North Korean agreements and negotiations referred to above have put an enormous strain on the North Korean government bureaucracy. Unlike their counterparts in Tokyo and Seoul, they simply do not have many thousands of people educated at western universities in such areas as free-market business and economics, in western contract law, or in the technicalities of arms control negotiations. The South Korean Government understands all this fully. In private meetings I had in Seoul with President Kim last July, and in similar meetings in November with the Minister of Defense and Minister of Unification, there was agreement on these general reasons for the slow pace of Pyongyang's movement toward and execution of agreements, but consensus also on their personal contacts with their North Korean counterparts.