With the conclusion of the U.S.-North Korea (DPRK) talks in Berlin this past week, the United States averted another potential crisis with the irascible North Koreans. This pattern of negotiation and brinkmanship, dating back to the 1994 Agreed Framework, has become familiar, albeit no more comforting, as the outcome always remains uncertain.
Nevertheless, we have learned some new things about dealing with this reclusive regime. First, North Korean threats are not based on bluffs. While many saw Pyongyang’s softened rhetoric and expressed openness to negotiating a solution to the missile standoff in a positive light, the clear subtext was that the North was prepared to negotiate only after they were ready to demonstrate their long-range missile capability. Thus, calling North Korea’s "bluff" (as some have advocated) would have been a disaster.
Second, policy coordination among the allies worked. What was different about this round of interaction with the North compared with the past was Washington, Seoul and Tokyo’s coordinated and transparent messages to the North of the punitive consequences of a missile launch. This confounded any North Korean hopes of leverage by driving a wedge between the allies. The U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral coordination and oversight group, created by the Perry policy review, was the primary instrument of policy coordination and will be among the most important accomplishments of this congressionally-mandated review.
Is the Clinton administration guilty of "rewarding" DPRK rogue behavior? This is difficult to calculate because negotiation with North Korea has become metaphysical. We gained a "nonevent" in terms of an informal moratorium on North Korean missile launching and they gained the "symbolism" of the U.S. taking the first proactive step toward a more normal relationship with Pyongyang.
Nevertheless, for those who keep score, the U.S. did not "give up" anything new at Berlin, as the lifting of sanctions was a task already specified in the Agreed Framework. The North on the other hand offered concessions on the new issue of missiles, something mentioned, but not explicitly linked to the 1994 agreement. The North’s true motivation may be the potential for cash emerging out of Japan-North Korean talks opened by the Berlin agreement, but that will be subject to a more formal DPRK moratorium on missile testing.
What is to stop the North from manufacturing a crisis later to extort more concessions? Nothing. The U.S. can rescind the lifting of sanctions if the North again plays the missile card, but if the North does not value this carrot, then there is very little deterring them from doing this again anyway. This is why current U.S.-South Korean engagement strategies have to be "enhanced" by additional measures that hedge against and act as a future deterrent to DPRK backtracking from Berlin. The central element of such an enhancement strategy is South Korean participation in theater missile defense.
The South Korean government has expressed little interest in participating in U.S.-led TMD. Strategically, Seoul argues that TMD is unnecessary given the threat of North Korean artillery, not ballistic missiles. The cost and technology requirements for participation are beyond South Korea’s means.
In addition, South Korean officials informally cite China’s strongly expressed antipathy to TMD as another major reason. In short, Seoul argues that TMD is too expensive, upsetting to others and irrelevant to its security needs.
This is not a well-thought out position. What it does not take account of is that TMD can strengthen the credibility and success of engagement strategies vis-a-vis North Korea. Engagement is most effective when it is: 1) is undergirded by robust defense capabilities; and 2) communicates clearly that engagement is a choice of the strong and not an expedient of the weak. Supporting TMD is one way of effecting an "enhanced" engagement strategy. Cost and technology requirements may limit the extent of South Korean participation to lower-tier defense systems ( PAC-3 batteries), but even this would serve a number of U.S.-South Korean interests.
First, it would strengthen the credibility of engagement; second, it would be least upsetting to China as lower-tier PAC-3 defense is stationary and does not threaten to be employed elsewhere (i.e., on Aegis cruisers in the Taiwan Strait). Moreover, the North Korean threat to South Korea’s security is not just artillery. The likely strategy of a second invasion from the North would be to deny with chemical attacks access to logistical nodes and ports in the South and in Japan, thereby delaying U.S. reinforcements long enough for North Korean forces to overtake Seoul and replenish forces. This means that TMD defense against North Korean missiles is as much a South Korean concern as that of the U.S. and Japan.
South Korean beliefs that it could rely on the U.S. for such a contingency are badly misguided. A minimally effective defense would require 22 PAC-3 batteries— far less than what the U.S. supports. The South Korean rationales for nonparticipation in TMD architecture studies therefore do not take into account both the strategic realities and the potential for "enhanced" engagement with North Korea. Such participation would only strengthen, not undercut or contradict, engagement.
Victor Cha teaches international security at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University and is author of "Alignment Despite Antagonism: The US-Korea-Japan Security Triangle" (Stanford University Press, 1999). He was the 1999 Edward Teller National Fellow for Security at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
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