Strategic Patience or Back to Engagement? Obama's Dilemma on North Korea

Abstract

IntroductionAre the days of hope for North Korea's nuclear denuclearization over once and for all? North Korea's recent disclosure of its uranium enriched program (UEP), in addition to its plutonium-based nuclear arsenal, the possible instability of power succession from North Korea's top leader, Kim Jong Il, to his son Kim Jong Un, and the North Korean leadership's blind reliance on its nuclear program as the ultimate guarantor of its regime survival, all point to a pessimistic assessment that it would be impossible to persuade North Korea to negotiate away its nuclear program for whatever rewards might obtain from the United States and the international community.Admittedly many people hoped for some sort of breakthrough on the nuclear front as the Obama administration took office in January 2009, expressing its willingness to engage North Korea. Although he didn't mention North Korea by name, President Obama pledged in his inaugural address to reach out to isolated regimes. As Democratic presidential candidate, Obama also expressed an active interest in engaging North Korea in a presidential debate in September 2008 when he criticized the Bush administration's lack of diplomatic engagement with North Korea, and supported "sustained, direct and aggressive diplomacy" to resolve North Korean nuclear issues.2Obama's criticism was clearly directed against the Bush administration's non-engagement policy toward North Korea during its first term. In fact, such an approach was inevitable, given the Bush team's fundamental distrust of the Pyongyang regime that had failed to keep its promises despite a series of previous nuclear pacts with the United States, including the Agreed Framework in 1994. The Bush administration avoided any further nuclear deal with North Korea during its first term, determined not to accept any demands from Pyongyang because "doing so might leave them open to comparison with the Clinton administration." Its North Korea policy was even described as the "ABC (Anything but Clinton) policy."3However, the Bush team's hawkish stance began to crumble when North Korea carried out its first nuclear test in October 2006. Tension was already rising since Washington made a big issue of Pyongyang's secret uranium enrichment program (UEP) in October 2005. North Korea initially acknowledged its presence, but has denied it ever since. Hard pressed by the urgent need to keep North Korea's unfettered nuclear pursuits at bay, chief U.S. negotiator Chris Hill hastened to pull off a series of nuclear deals with North Korea, with the full support of President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. North Korea froze its plutonium activities and finally submitted its nuclear declaration in 2009, for which it received political benefits from the United States, including being removed from the U.S. terrorism list. However, the previously uneventful nuclear talks stalled when both sides failed to iron out the differences on verification of North Korea's nuclear declaration.It was against this backdrop that many people expected some sort of breakthrough in the stalled nuclear talks when the new Obama administration came in. However, such expectations were shattered by North Korea's unexpected provocations right from the beginning of the Obama administration. On April 5, 2009, North Korea launched a l ong-range ballistic missile that, it argued, was the satellite Kwangmyongsong-2, intended to be put into orbit through a space launch vehicle, Unha-2. The strong U.S. condemnation, followed by the unanimous UN Security Council Resolution 1874, prompted North Korea to embolden rather than change its behavior. In defiance of the UN resolution, the North conducted its second nuclear test in May 2009, which dealt a fatal blow to the Obama administration's efforts for engagement. The second nuclear test unequivocally demonstrated once again Pyongyang's intention of not giving up its nuclear program despite a series of nuclear pacts with the previous Bush administration. …