A
Matter of Timing: Thoughts on North Korea
March
12, 2003
By Fritz W. Ermarth
The
arguments advanced by critics of the Bush Administration’s current
policy for dealing with the nuclear challenge from North Korea are
fundamentally flawed. Only
the assumption that they will miss no apparent opportunity to bash Bush
explains why such otherwise intelligent and experienced people miss the
essentials of this grave and delicate confrontation, which make matters of
time and timing of the utmost importance.
Leave
aside the irony that many of the critics who demand that the United States
"go it alone" in bargaining with Pyongyang, just as Pyongyang
demands, are the same voices insisting that the US must not go it alone
against Iraq. It was
Pyongyang that called this showdown.
The President’s “axis of evil” speech, his
on-the-record “loathing” of Kim Jong-il to Bob Woodword, and his
dispatch of Jim Kelly last fall to "out" the North Koreans on
their uranium enrichment program may have contributed
to the timing of their decisions. We
shall have to await access to Pyongyang’s archives to determine this.
But it was the strategic and political logic of the situation that
surely governed. North Korean
nuclear ambitions and activities have a long history.
They were perhaps delayed, but not suspended, and much less
jettisoned, by the 1994 Framework Agreement.
To play the role the Kim wants them to play, indeed desperately
needs them to play, in intimidation, extortion, profit making, and
deterrence of punishment for his excesses – all crucial in his eyes to
his regime’s survival – his nuclear capabilities extant and potential
had to be explicitly avowed sooner or later.
And he had every incentive to time the initiation of this campaign
of brinkmanship when the United States was visibly preoccupied elsewhere,
namely with Iraq.
The critics contend
that this preoccupation represents the wrong priorities and that North
Korea is the more dangerous threat. The
latter point is very true and very important to getting the matter of
strategic timing right. But
as a practical matter, in a gang fight it makes sense to engage the
nearest opponent first, especially when he is the more easily subdued.
The critics contend
that the Bush administration is “merely” playing for time. This is exactly what the administration is and should be
doing. Playing for time
is exactly the right strategy in a situation like this one.
Such a strategy requires good answers to two questions:
First, how much
time is there to play for?
This is a function
of the rise curve in North Korea’s plutonium separation, uranium
enrichment, weapon fabrication, and delivery system efforts.
This author is no expert on these matters; and even the best
official intelligence seems to leave a good deal of uncertainty.
It is clear we are already in or entering the first phase of North
Korea’s nuclear status, when it has one, two, then several nuclear
weapons. From this posture
the DPRK can project a frightening image and attempt risky extortionist
policies. The next phase
comes when the North has upwards of, say, ten nuclear weapons mated to
reliable delivery systems of varying range, accurate enough to strike
military infrastructure in the ROK, Japan, and maybe farther away, and
survivable enough to be available for a second or third strike.
This posture will be far more dangerous because Pyongyang will
believe it lowers the risk entailed by its own aggressive behavior.
This is the situation which must be averted. In this situation the DPRK will aggressively seek and
probably get the payoffs of nuclear blackmail, keep and enlarge the means
of nuclear blackmail, have enough extra to sell to the most dangerous
buyers, and ever more brazenly seek to extort benefits.
This scenario is highly likely to lead to war on the Korean
peninsula, either from Pyongyang overplaying its hand, or because the US
cannot allow it to continue. But these conditions are some time, perhaps
years, down the road.
The second question
to answer when playing for time is: What are you doing with the time?
Part of the answer
is suggested by the deployment of B-52s and B-1s to Guam.
One should always seek to improve ones military options.
The North has called this threatening.
I, for one, am glad they see it that way.
One would hope it has the sobering effect intended.
It is a hedge against the failure of diplomacy.
But it is also contributing to the conditions for diplomacy.
One of the necessary conditions for diplomacy to bring this
confrontation to a remotely tolerable conclusion is that the hammer of
U.S. military deterrence and enforcement in Korea be in the best possible
shape. This will require time
and the successful conclusion of the confrontation with Iraq.
The other
requirement for success also needs time: The construction of a lock-step
consensus among the US, the ROK, Japan, Russia and China, on the
conditions of bargaining and the content of bargains (carrots and sticks)
with Pyongyang. Secretary
Powell’s trip to the region demonstrates that the Bush Administration is
working on that at the highest level and priority (while recognizing that
the Chinese are the biggest problem).
When and how this kind of a lock-step coalition can be created are
uncertain. But it is an absolute requirement for a peaceful settlement
in which the DPRK is verifiably denuclearized or rendered tolerable as a
“semi-nuclear” state because it is reliably deterred, contained, and
quarantined.
Paradoxically,
North Korea is also playing for time, or rather against it. One might think that time is on the side of the DPRK.
But this is not so, except in the longer run and only if we (and
others) are passive. As Kim
appears to see it, he must try his utmost to extract a critical “win”
in terms of political recognition, security assurances, and economic
tribute while Washington and half of America’s Army divisions are
focused on Iraq and our needed partners are divided by the Iraq issue.
After Iraq, Kim’s window of opportunity is likely to be closed by
the U.S. military recovery faster than it is opened by his nuclear
buildup.
The great danger
now is that Kim might overplay his hand from a sense of urgency, that time
is running out, forcing us to drop on him the hammer that we now have in
place (which nonetheless is big enough to assure, shall we say, regime
change).
Making political
concessions to the blackmailer now when conditions are bad and the real
threat is some way down the road would be a big mistake. Opening formal, bilateral negotiations on security assurances
and aid is the first concession the North Koreans demand, the first of
many. We should probably make
this concession eventually. But
it should only be made when political-diplomatic and military conditions
are better and make the prospects of a tolerable, peaceful solution at
least plausible.
Bush Administration
critics should stop yelling at him and start whispering to Kim:
“Calm down! We are
working up a salad of carrots and sticks that you’ll have to eat.
But you’ll love it!”
Fritz W. Ermarth is Director of National Security Programs at the Nixon Center. He is also a part-time Senior Analyst in the Strategies Group of Science Applications International Corporation. He served several tours on the NSC staff, served as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council (1988-93,) and retired from the CIA in 1998.