North Korea policy

When most policymakers think of North Korea the first thing that comes to mind is the country's nuclear program. It strikes fear deep in the heart of many people and convincing Pyongyang to give up its nukes has become the primary goal of the Bush Administration in its Korea policy. Indeed, the U.S. has even tried using peer pressure via the six party talks to try to persuade the North to halt its effort to develop nuclear weapons, the latest edition of which is scheduled to meet early next month in China.

However, I would submit the following:

• If North Korea is truly intent on building nuclear weapons there is little to nothing we can do to stop it short of full-scale invasion. The country is home to thousands of caves and other places where the North could easily conceal its activities. It would be impossible for inspectors to fully canvass the country if North Korea would even agree to their presence, which is unlikely. They can develop weapons without our knowledge.

• Any agreement signed with them is worthless. North Korea has little problem with diplomatic niceties or going back on its word. This isn't a treaty with Canada or Denmark, it's freakin' North Korea. Kim Jong Il is an international pariah already that doesn't get invited to the cool international conferences anyway so I doubt he really gives a damn about his reputation.
  

• It's not our problem. Why are we trying so hard to solve a problem that has far more to do with China, Russia, South Korea and Japan? China, which shares a long border with the country, seems pretty disinterested in the whole affair. Yes, we have troops in the region, but there is a solution there too: withdraw them. South Korea has a larger GDP and population than North Korea, let them defend themselves.

• Even if North Korea gets nuclear weapons their usage is doubtful. Look, Kim Jong Il does not fit the cartoonish buffoon image that many hold of him. The irrational and the insane typically do not have long holds on power. He has no reason to use nuclear weapons, as they would assure his annihilation. He leads a pretty nice life, why would he want to mess that up? After all, nuclear weapons serve him much better as a tool with which to extract concessions from the U.S. and South Korea as he is currently doing. Use of nuclear weapons would be signing his own death warrant.

Talking about nukes with Kim Jong Il is a great deal for him. He gets to pretend that he is genuinely interested in peace. He gets to extract concessions and various forms of aid that help to prop up his regime. He gets another excuse to keep his people living in a state of fear that the evil American/Japanese imperialists are out to get him.

Now, defenders of the current approach may argue that by getting the other countries on board with the process that we can further isolate Pyangyang and exert more pressure. To that I say, get real. Isolating North Korea is like throwing Br'er Rabbit into the briar patch. After all, this is a country that loves international isolation, with their juche philosophy of self-reliance the basis of their entire political system. The North Koreans saw what happened when the Soviets and Eastern Europeans were exposed to Western influences and were determined not to make the same mistakes. If the truth about North Korea and its horrendous living conditions ever make its way to its own people it could spell doom for the government.

Indeed, in an excellent piece Andrei Lankov notes North Korea's apparent determination the shut down the Kaesong Industrial Park. Although it provides Pyongyang with much needed hard currency Lankov theorizes that North Korea seems willing to forgo that because of fears that interactions between the North Korean workers and their South Korean managers could compromise their political indoctrination:

The North Koreans not only learn modern technical skills, they also have ample scope to look at their southern compatriots and see that they do not behave like South Koreans are supposed to, according to North Korean propaganda. Cautious political discussions can't be ruled out, which in the long run could have a great impact on the internal situation of North Korea.

This must have been a crucial consideration for Pyongyang, as the survival of the North greatly depends on maintaining the myths about the South, such as it being a starving US colony, a "living hell, land of destitution and despair".

In recent years, the spread of smuggled South Korean videos has made this propaganda line unsustainable. Now, North Koreans are told that the South, while probably affluent, has lost its true national identity, so its inhabitants are full of admiration towards the spiritual purity of their Northern brethren. The southerners, the propaganda claims, also badly want to purify themselves under the wise guidance of the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il (allegedly a cult figure in both the South and the North).

The leaders in Pyongyang do not want this myth exposed, and for North Koreans to see how badly the North fares in comparison to the prosperous and free South - something about which the leaders themselves have no doubts.

If Lankov is correct -- and I suspect he is -- it would seem to suggest that our policy should be predicated on engagement instead of isolation. Very simply, I would argue that the best U.S. policy would be to approach Kim Jong Il and tell him that we are lifting all embargoes on his country and that he should do as he pleases, with the one caveat being that if we ever catch him selling nukes to sworn enemies of ours such as Al Qaeda that we will make every effort to personally kill him. I suspect that this would scare the bejeesus out of him (and the Castro brothers as well if we adopted a similar stance towards Cuba). There is nothing that Kim would hate more than Hollywood-made DVDs and other U.S. goods making their way into the country, which would instantly undermine almost his every utterance about both the worker's paradise and the militaristic intentions of Washington.

I imagine that many North Korea hawks would respond with disgust to such a policy, saying that this amounts to letting Kim Jong Il off the hook not only for his nuclear activities but also for his monstrous police state in which tens of thousands languish in concentration camps. It's a fair point, but we come no closer to bringing those people freedom by punishing them through sanctions.

I defer to no one in my intense loathing of Kim Jong Il and have read enough material to make me fully aware of the horrors of life in modern day North Korea. That said, policy must be based on helping the millions of ordinary North Korea rather than punishing their leader, who will always be the last to suffer.