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| U.S. President Joe Biden, and North Korea leader Kim Jong-un / Korea Times file |
Team Biden would seek coalition with allies, but outcome not promising
By Robert A. Manning
I knew Pyongyang's quiet couldn't last. Through U.S. President Joe Biden's impressive flurry of Asian diplomacy ― unprecedented Quad summit, 2+2 ministerial meetings, first with Japan, then South Korea, and meeting with Beijing on U.S. soil ― North Korea didn't steal the show.
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| Robert A. Manning |
This was, of course, accompanied by harsh, threatening words, first by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister, Kim Yo-jong, warning the U.S., "If it wants to sleep in peace for coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink at its first step." Then by Ri Pyong-chol, a top general, warning, "If the U.S. continues with its thoughtless remarks without thinking of the consequences, it may be faced with something that is not good."
Biden and his experienced Asia team, just completing a North Korea policy review, have tried to not rise to the bait and let Kim manufacture another pseudo-crisis aimed at extracting concessions. Yet whether considered provocations or not, the problem won't go away. Pyongyang needs to test its missiles, especially, new Hwasong-16 inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) and its solid fuel submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). It is the only way to know if their missiles are reliable. There are already signs that Kim may be readying an SLBM test.
But Biden's effort to fashion a North Korea policy comes not only in the aftermath of former U.S. President Donald Trump's two failed summits, absurd political theater (remember "love letters") and assorted other mistakes, but also 26 years of failed U.S. diplomacy, underscoring that the North Korea nuclear conundrum is indeed, a "problem from hell."
Further complicating the situation, Pyongyang, mired in its worst domestic economic crisis since its famines in the 1990s, has doubled down on what is best understood as its "Porcupine Strategy." Domestically, ravaged by floods, typhoons destroying large swathes of cropland, and COVID-19 concerns, Kim sealed his borders and banned travel, self-imposed sanctions perhaps even more effective than U.N. economic sanctions. Trade with China, which has accounted for 90 percent of the DPRK's commerce, has dropped by more than 80 percent, and estimates are North Korea's economy experienced a minus 10 percent growth in 2020, and is facing more negative growth in 2021. At the eighth congress of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea in January, Kim admitted economic policy implementation failures, fired top officials, and adopted a strategy to increase state control of the economy ― apparently at the expense of tolerated private markets.
Kim also made it clear at the party congress that denuclearization was off the table ― at least for now ― that the U.S. was his "main enemy," and that he was ramping up his "strategic and predominant goal" of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons development. Kim said the DPRK was a "responsible nuclear weapons state," that the U.S. had no choice but to deal with. And for good measure, Kim revealed a laundry list of new "ultra-modern tactical nuclear weapons," solid fuel ICBMs and even hypersonic missiles he plans to develop.
This situation adds up to a dangerous new chapter in the North Korea saga, where the bad and very bad options become still worse. So how will Biden's North Korea policy address this predicament? Month-long efforts by Team Biden to explore talks with Pyongyang were slapped down by Kim. This reinforces Biden's preference for multilateral diplomacy.
First, it will be centered on coalition politics, which is why South Korea and Japan were invited to Washington for talks to forge enhanced bilateral and trilateral cooperation. There will likely be an effort to increase "maximum pressure." Some advocate an all-out effort to suffocate the North Korean economy. But with U.S. relations with both China and Russia cold and in a downward spiral, this is highly unlikely to be achieved even if it was a policy goal. Instead, the U.S. will keep pressure as much as the political traffic will bear. And this will be accompanied by U.S.-led measures to strengthen and update deterrence to adapt to Pyongyang's new and emerging capabilities.
There is a growing sense in Washington that while verified denuclearization of North Korea remains an aspiration, it is not possible in the near-term. Among many Asia-hands, a new generation of arms controllers and often history-challenged policy wonks, there is growing enthusiasm to instead seek an arms control deal to cap and freeze Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs.
It would likely start with what was left on the table at the Hanoi Summit ― the partial dismantling of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facilities. This will inevitably be described as an "interim deal" or a "first phase." It is worth exploring, but with great caution. For Kim Jong-un, the goal is to be accepted as a nuclear weapons state and a normal nation like Israel or Pakistan. North Koreans have been telling diplomatic and think tank interlocutors this for a number of years. So, however a possible "cap and freeze" deal is packaged, the reality is that it would likely be the final outcome ― as long as the Kim family dynasty remains in power.
But if the past is a prologue any negotiations would founder on the critical issues of transparency, which has unraveled past deals ― the 1994 Agreed Framework and the 2005 Six Party Agreed Statement, for example. The two principal transparency issues are: 1) a full declaration of Kim's nuclear weapons program; and 2) full verification and monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ― including challenge inspection rights. If we don't know exactly what their nuclear weapons program consists of, we can't know if we have frozen all of it. And absent IAEA verification and monitoring we can't know if they are complying. Then there is the question of what price the U.S. is willing to pay: is it prepared to legitimize the DPRK as a weapons state?
Such difficult question are why a credible cap and freeze deal is unlikely to be realized. Diplomats who have engaged with North Korea (I was on two of the five working groups of the six party talks) also fear getting sucked into the rabbit hole of endless negotiations with North Korea. The concern is that Pyongyang would salami slice concessions at the various stages of talks.
With all those caveats, expect that some effort at nuclear diplomacy will be one result of Biden's North Korea policy review. But judging by Pyongyang's escalating threats and looming missile tests it will be a wild ride of mini-crisis after mini-crisis. At the end of the day this new chapter in the North Korea story is more likely to be about how to live with a de facto "Nuclear North Korea."
Robert A. Manning is a senior fellow of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. He was a senior counselor to the undersecretary of state for global affairs from 2001 to 2004, a member of the U.S. Department of State Policy Planning Staff from 2004 to 2008, and on the National Intelligence Council Strategic Futures Group from 2008 to 2012. Follow him on Twitter @Rmanning4.
