Outfoxed by North Korea
By LEON FUERTH
Editorial
The New York Times
January 1, 2003
WASHINGTON — We're beginning the new year in a deep fix.
The Bush administration's decision to refer North Korea's revival of its nuclear-weapons program to the United Nations is a reasonable, but transparent effort to sidetrack the issue in hopes of avoiding another military crisis on the eve of war with Iraq. It is unlikely the United Nations will take meaningful action in this situation, since no power other than the United States possesses the means to back up words with action.
Even if the administration's strategy of isolating North Korea works, at best it would amount to a partial tightening of sanctions against a country whose economy is already moribund. The only additional threat available is the denial of food aid for the people of North Korea, an act that would take the United States into new moral territory.
The administration now is in the awkward position of choosing to give war with Iraq priority over the most serious threat to stability in Asia since the last North Korean nuclear crisis a decade ago. Moreover, the North Koreans are moving to develop their nuclear stockpile with such dispatch that the administration's delaying tactics appear to have little chance to succeed. With the last of the international inspectors ejected yesterday and the possibility of a mothballed plutonium reprocessing facility coming back on line in the next month or two, North Korea is giving itself the means to produce ever-greater numbers of nuclear weapons, and no subsequent agreement will be able to reverse that fact.
There is still a lingering hope that all this will turn out to have been an attempt by North Korea to get the Bush administration to make major concessions. If that's the case, either the United States or North Korea will have to give way. Unfortunately neither of these scenarios looks likely. And absent either outcome, North Korea is on course to becoming a nuclear power. The consequences of their success are severe.
North Korea already is in a position to provide nuclear technology to other states or to terrorist groups. In any event, we should expect that it will continue to develop the ability to deliver nuclear weapons by ballistic missile. And no long-term comfort can be found from the relatively limited capabilities of North Korea's current missiles, which can still threaten our allies, including Japan. What's more, North Korean weapons engineers can gradually develop longer-range rockets and lighter warheads, giving the country true intercontinental ballistic-missile capability.
While it's uncertain how far North Korea's missiles will be able to travel, it is certain that the Bush administration now faces an immediate loss of credibility. Its report on National Security Strategy, released in September, claims the right of pre-emption as a means to deal with the type of threat that Iraq is said to represent by virtue of its efforts to build weapons of mass destruction. There is no sign, however, that the administration plans to use this doctrine against North Korea, which poses a danger to the vital interests of the United States by virtue of what it has already accomplished.
The administration's special addendum to its National Security Strategy, the "National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction," published in December, states on its opening page that: "We will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes and terrorists to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." But there is no sign that this new unconditional doctrine will be directed against North Korea. Another line in the addendum states that "Effective interdiction is a critical part" of the American strategy to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the missiles that deliver them. But, again, the administration, after seizing a North Korean vessel in the act of smuggling North Korean ballistic missiles into Yemen, elected to release the ship and its cargo. American officials cited reverence for international law, but such a justification, so unusual during the administration's first weapons-proliferation case, takes the teeth out of its tough pre-emption policy. With what lesson for North Korea?
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So on the way to war with Iraq, the United States has been caught out by North Korea — which apparently saw its opportunity in our distraction and seized it. This drama is far from over, but with each day North Korea moves closer to its goal of either forcing the administration to negotiate or of enhancing its ability to produce weapons of mass destruction.
Either way, the balance of power in the Far East is likely to be upset. If the president negotiates, he will send a message that the key to respectful attention from his administration is blackmail. If he can't stop North Korea from pursuing its nuclear ambitions, the only effective remedy would be military action.
War on the Korean Peninsula is almost too horrible to contemplate, although the Clinton administration certainly confronted it when dealing with North Korea's nuclear program in the early 1990's. (Then, as now, the North Koreans were preparing to begin a process that would give them enough plutonium to build nuclear weapons serially.) If North Korea proceeds today, we would then be faced with a ruthless government in a position to increasingly threaten its region. This threat could cause a number of states, including South Korea and possibly Japan, to question whether American security guarantees are still the most reliable means for their defense and survival.
One political reminder from this episode is the danger that can come from tough talk. When using words as weapons, a leader must be prepared to back up his rhetoric with force. The president's nomination of North Korea as a member of the "Axis of Evil" in his last State of the Union message now looks like a bluff that is being called. And the outcome of the administration's diplomacy is that we are preparing to fight a war with a country that might eventually acquire nuclear weapons, while another country is closing in on the ability to go into mass production.
Like it or not, the administration needs to test the theory that North Korea is trying to force the United States into negotiations. That would be bitter medicine for the administration to swallow, but in view of the alternatives it would be wise for the administration to reverse course and engage with North Korea. However, if such a process doesn't stop the North Korean nuclear enterprise, and quickly, then the administration must either accept a monumental blow to the security of the United States, or prepare for a second major military enterprise in Korea — one that would take place simultaneously, or nearly so, with action against Iraq.
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Leon Fuerth, national security advisor to Vice President Al Gore from 1993 to 2000, teaches international relations at George Washington University.
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