A Way Forward in the North Korea Crisis
Kim Jong Un
There is nothing the US can do to North Korea that will lead to its renunciation of its nuclear weapons program. That is because North Korea already holds US allies hostage to violence we cannot controlâand may already or will soon pose a similar threat to the US homelandâand thus presents an unacceptable risk of retaliation for any American offensive military action. There is nothing the US can do for North Korea that might induce it to denuclearize  because keeping North Korea on a war footing vis-Ã -vis the US keeps  the regime of Kim Jong Un  in power. There is nothing the international community  including China  can do to North Korea by enforcing sanctions  or for North Korea by relieving it of sanctions  that would convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons because  the regime  is convinced  with some reason  that it is only the threats it poses to others that keep it from suffering regime change. Nevertheless  the US cannot tolerate or co-exist with a North Korean nuclear capability; that is because such a capability would deter the US from protecting its allies were they threatened  extorted or attacked by North Korea. This result would risk dissolution of the American-Pacific alliance and the rapid proliferation of nuclear weapons to former allies that had become intensely nationalistic and anti-American. There is however one option that has yet to be considered and that has some promise.
Itâs true that North Korea used to seek financial assistance in exchange for promises to restrain its weapons programs.  Kim  has changed all that. This isnât because of  his  ferocious and aggressive personality so much as it arises from the evolution of the North Korean regime and its political role in the world.
That role has developed in an ominous new direction since 1989. When Russian subsidies to North Korea disappeared in 1990  the resulting famine killed up to 10% of the North Korean population  but North Korea neither collapsed nor moderated its policies. In fact  we can now see that the development of a nuclear weapons program was a crucial part of  the regimeâs  domestic survival strategy after 1989 precisely because this program provokes US hostility and concern.
During the Cold War  North Korea and South Korea had comparable economic development  and South Korea had a series of highly authoritarian if not totalitarian governments. With the end of the Cold War  South Korea enjoyed a booming economy and a very promising democracy. Internationally  communist governments were collapsing everywhere. But the response of Kim Jung Il was to increase its reliance on military force and put the nation on a war footing for an imminent US invasion. Consumer shortages  famine  rationing were all justified in order to maintain an immense militaryâits active duty army is the fourth largest in the world. The external threat also justified political oppression to identify and destroy traitors. B. R. Myers  a North Korea scholar at Dongseo University in South Korea  has suggested that the famine âmay have strengthened support for  the regime  by [animating a] sense of ethnic victimhood.â Myers concluded in a 2010 book  âit is  the regime âs awareness of a pending legitimacy crisis  not a fear of attack from without  which makes it behave evermore provocatively on the world stage.â Thus US reactions tend to consolidate power in North Korea; and there is nothing we can do to ease the threat to North Korean legitimacy in the long run because the threat to  the regime  derives from global trends that are weakening the domestic hold on power of all industrial nation-state regimes (though  as we shall see  there are steps that can ease  Kim âs domestic anxieties in the near term.)
Moreover  North Korean weaknessâas to which their aggressive foreign policy is a compensationâalso tends to limit US options. I suppose it might be said  âWhen you ainât got nothing  you got nothing to lose.â But it is true with respect to all states that while sanctions can force small foreign policy changes  they cannot effectuate changes that fundamentally threaten the stability and continuity of the government. North Korea sees its weapons as essential to its survivalânot only by keeping its enemies at bay (this is the lesson of Saddam Hussein  Mouammar Khadafy and the Ukraine)âbut nuclear weapons are also essential to the internal stature of  the regime . It is a feature that is not often appreciated of sanctions that they work  or can work  quite successfully  only within a rather narrow sphere because that is their utility. People who say  âSanctions donât work â donât appreciate that if sanctions could result in the kind of policy changes that are wrought from military action  a military response would ensue. Itâs their very limitation that makes sanctions useful.
This suggests that the Chinese  who cannot be indifferent to the proliferation of nuclear weapons to South Korea and Japan  ought to be willing to pressure North Korea into denuclearization. And indeed  pressuring the Chinese to pressure the North Koreans is the substance of current US policy. There are risks in pursuing this policy; China would probably insist on the withdrawal of the THAAD systems from South Korea because they not only protect South Korea from North Korea but also degrade the effectiveness of the Chinese deterrent (even if only marginally). But more important than this is the fact that China really has very little leverage over North Korea. Indeed it should be noted that  Kim  has steadily weakened Chinese influence by purging pro-Chinese North Korean officials. Moreover  there is no negative pressureâcutting off fuel supplies or reducing an already modest trading relationshipâthat could force  the North Korean regime  to change course because  as has been remarked  one does not commit suicide for fear of death. Thus I have concluded that there is nothing the US or China can do to North Koreaâno coercive acts at an acceptable cost to the USâthat will yield the denuclearization of the North Korean arsenal.
But that doesnât mean that there is no conceivable way out of this crisis. On the contrary  one can already see the outlines of a possible negotiation. What follows is a rather radical proposal that has many counterintuitive aspects but which  I have come to believe  represents the best way out of a rapidly deteriorating position. This option would be to induce a nuclear guarantee for  the North Korean regime from China âan instance of Chinese extended deterrence.
Jang Song Thaek  Kimâs uncle  was North Koreaâs principal interlocutor with China. His arrest and executionâas well as the removal of dozens of other officials associated with closer ties to Chinaâmarked a turning point in Kimâs rejection of a foreign policy that attempted to promote economic growth in favor of a âmilitary firstâ policy. His truculent indifference to Chinese sensibilities was confirmed when he ordered the assassination in February of his brother  Kim Jong Nam  who had been living in Macao under Chinese protection. Then earlier this month  Kim Jong Un pointedly chose the week of Xi Jinpingâs BRICS summit in Beijing to detonate a nuclear test. So one mustnât oversell the chance of success for this proposal.
But if the policy I propose is the least bad for the US to pursueâif it is imperative that we at least try this new option before resorting to war or accepting defeatâis it not also the least bad option for North Korea in light of the certain decline of its long-term security in the face of advancing US first-strike technology? Remember that it was  Kim âs awareness of a crisis in legitimacy that drove  him  to the âmilitary-firstâ policy. The integration of China into the international system  rather than the collapse of the Soviet satellite regimes  could show a new path toward the domestic legitimation of  Kimâs regime . Our aim must be to re-orient  Kim âs paranoia  making  him  more afraid of losing an attractive opportunity for security in the eyes of  his  own people than  he  is afraid of dependence on China.
No one will take this radical proposal seriously unless we stop deluding ourselves about the incentives we can realistically employ to compel  the North Korean regime . There is no chance that anything short of an ironclad guarantee of their preservation as a dynastic regime free from outside intervention will modify their behavior. They will starve their people and run almost incalculable risks because they have no other credible choice. And no guarantee that the US gives is credible to the North Korean leadership.
This observation leads one to draw a couple of further conclusions that are sometimes absent in the public debate. The first is that as our alliances are what are actually threatened  we should move swiftly to shore these up. Consultations with our allies in Tokyo  Canberra and Seoul are paramount. What do they want to see from us? How can we avoid embarrassing them in front of their own publics without hamstringing the protection of our legitimate security interests? Second  we should not make threats that validate Kimâs rhetoric by making it appear that we are planning to punish him for his rhetoric. That there is a plot by the Americans to destroy  his regime  is the fundamental premise of his domestic propaganda as well as his thinking.
In summary  economic sanctions  and/or threats of our military action can push  Kim  towards negotiations but in the end those negotiations will be highly likely to founder on  his  need for nuclear guarantees. We need to prepare for the fact that a resolution of the current crisis will likely require a PRC guarantee. Are we prepared to support that? I think we should be. The course I propose is not without costs: it might increase the risk of a Chinese-US confrontation  and it would link Chinese nuclear strategy to a surrogate state that is inclined to get into conflicts. It is  however  a more promising option than any being canvassed at the present. And time  at this juncture  is not on our side.
There is nothing the US can do to North Korea that will lead to its renunciation of its nuclear weapons program. That is because North Korea already holds US allies hostage to violence we cannot controlâand may already or will soon pose a similar threat to the US homelandâand thus presents an unacceptable risk of retaliation for any American offensive military action. There is nothing the US can do for North Korea that might induce it to denuclearize  because keeping North Korea on a war footing vis-Ã -vis the US keeps  the regime of Kim Jong Un  in power. There is nothing the international community  including China  can do to North Korea by enforcing sanctions  or for North Korea by relieving it of sanctions  that would convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons because  the regime  is convinced  with some reason  that it is only the threats it poses to others that keep it from suffering regime change. Nevertheless  the US cannot tolerate or co-exist with a North Korean nuclear capability; that is because such a capability would deter the US from protecting its allies were they threatened  extorted or attacked by North Korea. This result would risk dissolution of the American-Pacific alliance and the rapid proliferation of nuclear weapons to former allies that had become intensely nationalistic and anti-American. There is however one option that has yet to be considered and that has some promise.
Itâs true that North Korea used to seek financial assistance in exchange for promises to restrain its weapons programs.  Kim  has changed all that. This isnât because of  his  ferocious and aggressive personality so much as it arises from the evolution of the North Korean regime and its political role in the world.
That role has developed in an ominous new direction since 1989. When Russian subsidies to North Korea disappeared in 1990  the resulting famine killed up to 10% of the North Korean population  but North Korea neither collapsed nor moderated its policies. In fact  we can now see that the development of a nuclear weapons program was a crucial part of  the regimeâs  domestic survival strategy after 1989 precisely because this program provokes US hostility and concern.
During the Cold War  North Korea and South Korea had comparable economic development  and South Korea had a series of highly authoritarian if not totalitarian governments. With the end of the Cold War  South Korea enjoyed a booming economy and a very promising democracy. Internationally  communist governments were collapsing everywhere. But the response of Kim Jung Il was to increase its reliance on military force and put the nation on a war footing for an imminent US invasion. Consumer shortages  famine  rationing were all justified in order to maintain an immense militaryâits active duty army is the fourth largest in the world. The external threat also justified political oppression to identify and destroy traitors. B. R. Myers  a North Korea scholar at Dongseo University in South Korea  has suggested that the famine âmay have strengthened support for  the regime  by [animating a] sense of ethnic victimhood.â Myers concluded in a 2010 book  âit is  the regime âs awareness of a pending legitimacy crisis  not a fear of attack from without  which makes it behave evermore provocatively on the world stage.â Thus US reactions tend to consolidate power in North Korea; and there is nothing we can do to ease the threat to North Korean legitimacy in the long run because the threat to  the regime  derives from global trends that are weakening the domestic hold on power of all industrial nation-state regimes (though  as we shall see  there are steps that can ease  Kim âs domestic anxieties in the near term.)
Moreover  North Korean weaknessâas to which their aggressive foreign policy is a compensationâalso tends to limit US options. I suppose it might be said  âWhen you ainât got nothing  you got nothing to lose.â But it is true with respect to all states that while sanctions can force small foreign policy changes  they cannot effectuate changes that fundamentally threaten the stability and continuity of the government. North Korea sees its weapons as essential to its survivalânot only by keeping its enemies at bay (this is the lesson of Saddam Hussein  Mouammar Khadafy and the Ukraine)âbut nuclear weapons are also essential to the internal stature of  the regime . It is a feature that is not often appreciated of sanctions that they work  or can work  quite successfully  only within a rather narrow sphere because that is their utility. People who say  âSanctions donât work â donât appreciate that if sanctions could result in the kind of policy changes that are wrought from military action  a military response would ensue. Itâs their very limitation that makes sanctions useful.
This suggests that the Chinese  who cannot be indifferent to the proliferation of nuclear weapons to South Korea and Japan  ought to be willing to pressure North Korea into denuclearization. And indeed  pressuring the Chinese to pressure the North Koreans is the substance of current US policy. There are risks in pursuing this policy; China would probably insist on the withdrawal of the THAAD systems from South Korea because they not only protect South Korea from North Korea but also degrade the effectiveness of the Chinese deterrent (even if only marginally). But more important than this is the fact that China really has very little leverage over North Korea. Indeed it should be noted that  Kim  has steadily weakened Chinese influence by purging pro-Chinese North Korean officials. Moreover  there is no negative pressureâcutting off fuel supplies or reducing an already modest trading relationshipâthat could force  the North Korean regime  to change course because  as has been remarked  one does not commit suicide for fear of death. Thus I have concluded that there is nothing the US or China can do to North Koreaâno coercive acts at an acceptable cost to the USâthat will yield the denuclearization of the North Korean arsenal.
But that doesnât mean that there is no conceivable way out of this crisis. On the contrary  one can already see the outlines of a possible negotiation. What follows is a rather radical proposal that has many counterintuitive aspects but which  I have come to believe  represents the best way out of a rapidly deteriorating position. This option would be to induce a nuclear guarantee for  the North Korean regime from China âan instance of Chinese extended deterrence.
Jang Song Thaek  Kimâs uncle  was North Koreaâs principal interlocutor with China. His arrest and executionâas well as the removal of dozens of other officials associated with closer ties to Chinaâmarked a turning point in Kimâs rejection of a foreign policy that attempted to promote economic growth in favor of a âmilitary firstâ policy. His truculent indifference to Chinese sensibilities was confirmed when he ordered the assassination in February of his brother  Kim Jong Nam  who had been living in Macao under Chinese protection. Then earlier this month  Kim Jong Un pointedly chose the week of Xi Jinpingâs BRICS summit in Beijing to detonate a nuclear test. So one mustnât oversell the chance of success for this proposal.
But if the policy I propose is the least bad for the US to pursueâif it is imperative that we at least try this new option before resorting to war or accepting defeatâis it not also the least bad option for North Korea in light of the certain decline of its long-term security in the face of advancing US first-strike technology? Remember that it was   [TGT]  âs awareness of a crisis in legitimacy that drove   [TGT]   to the âmilitary-firstâ policy. The integration of China into the international system  rather than the collapse of the Soviet satellite regimes  could show a new path toward the domestic legitimation of  Kimâs regime . Our aim must be to re-orient   [TGT]  âs paranoia  making   [TGT]   more afraid of losing an attractive opportunity for security in the eyes of   [TGT]   own people than   [TGT]   is afraid of dependence on China.
No one will take this radical proposal seriously unless we stop deluding ourselves about the incentives we can realistically employ to compel  the North Korean regime . There is no chance that anything short of an ironclad guarantee of their preservation as a dynastic regime free from outside intervention will modify their behavior. They will starve their people and run almost incalculable risks because they have no other credible choice. And no guarantee that the US gives is credible to the North Korean leadership.
This observation leads one to draw a couple of further conclusions that are sometimes absent in the public debate. The first is that as our alliances are what are actually threatened  we should move swiftly to shore these up. Consultations with our allies in Tokyo  Canberra and Seoul are paramount. What do they want to see from us? How can we avoid embarrassing them in front of their own publics without hamstringing the protection of our legitimate security interests? Second  we should not make threats that validate Kimâs rhetoric by making it appear that we are planning to punish him for his rhetoric. That there is a plot by the Americans to destroy  his regime  is the fundamental premise of his domestic propaganda as well as his thinking.
In summary  economic sanctions  and/or threats of our military action can push  Kim  towards negotiations but in the end those negotiations will be highly likely to founder on  his  need for nuclear guarantees. We need to prepare for the fact that a resolution of the current crisis will likely require a PRC guarantee. Are we prepared to support that? I think we should be. The course I propose is not without costs: it might increase the risk of a Chinese-US confrontation  and it would link Chinese nuclear strategy to a surrogate state that is inclined to get into conflicts. It is  however  a more promising option than any being canvassed at the present. And time  at this juncture  is not on our side.