Six Myths About Dealing With Pyongyang
http//www.nautilus.org/fora/security/0102C_Sigal.html
By Leon V. Sigal

This essay is by Leon V. Sigal, Director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council and author of "Disarming Strangers Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea." Sigal argues that the proposed US missile defense system is too far off to protect the United States from a possible DPRK missile attack, and, therefore, it is in the US interest to conclude a deal to terminate the DPRK's missile program. Sigal outlines six myths, which he argues have prevented the conclusion of such a missile deal.

Following this essay is a reply by Aidan Foster-Carter, in his critique of critique of Leon V Sigal's "Six Myths About Dealing With Pyongyang." Aidan Foster-Carter agrees with Sigal's conclusion that dialogue with North Korea, not isolation, is required. But the fear is that one-sided "dove" arguments like this will only confirm to US hawks that liberals need a reality check. (Feb 27) Dove myths no better than hawk myths http://www.atimes.com/koreas/CB28Dg02.html

A deal to shut down North Korea's missile program would greatly benefit U.S. security because it will take at least six years to deploy any defenses to protect against the launch of a North Korea missile while a verifiable end to Pyongyang's missile threat can be concluded in just months. Critics who decry such a deal are perpetuating six myths that have impeded negotiations with Pyongyang. Myth one is that Washington is yielding to blackmail in dealing with Pyongyang. North Korea's threats have been widely misconstrued. For the past decade, Pyongyang has been playing tit-for-tat, not blackmail. It has cooperated when Washington cooperated and retaliated when Washington reneged. Experience taught the previous administration what the critics have yet to learn -- that reciprocity works in bargaining with Pyongyang.

Myth two is that the United States is giving North Korea what it wants without getting anything in return. In fact, the October 1994 Agreed  Framework shut down North Korean nuclear plants that could have generated enough plutonium to make at least 60 nuclear warheads by now. In talks last October with Secretary of State Albright in Pyongyang, North Korea's Kim Jong Il offered not only to halt all missile exports, but also to freeze all testing, production, and deployment of his No-Dong and Taepo-Dong missiles and eventually eliminate them. He has also expressed readiness for talks to reduce his artillery, tanks, and troops. Those talks can defuse the armed standoff in Korea that nearly led to war in June 1994. Pyongyang wants to put its troops to more productive use in the civilian economy, but can do so only if Seoul and Washington reciprocate. Talks cannot begin in earnest until the allies work out a common negotiating position.

Myth three is that Pyongyang's aim in these talks is to get all U.S. troops out of Korea. Yet Pyongyang has been telling Washington since 1992 that so long as the United States remains its enemy, U.S. troops are a threat and must go, but once the relationship is no longer hostile, U.S. troops in Korea could remain in a new role, that of peacekeepers, while still allied with the South. That would provide a rationale for continued U.S. presence, now that deterrence against the threat of invasion is no longer as politically compelling to many South Koreans.

Myth four is that Pyongyang's emergence from self-imposed isolation this year was sudden change of heart -- a death-bed conversion. In fact, North Korea has tried to reach out to the United States, South Korea, and Japan since the late 1980s -- well before its economic decline and famine -- in  hopes of ending its lifelong enmity with all three. Suspicious of Pyongyang's intent and determined to keep it isolated in hopes of compelling it to stop nuclear-arming, Washington initially impeded Seoul and Tokyo from improving ties. It also discouraged Israel, Italy, and others from normalizing diplomatic relations.

Myth five is that until Pyongyang reforms its economy, aiding it would be wasteful. Yet aid is the price for achieving U.S. security goals and a tool for changing North Korea. Sure, the North's economy is so depressed that any aid or investment would help it revive, reform or no reform, but outside  assistance will also bring potential agents of change into North Korea, so long as they play by its rules. Washington will get nowhere by insisting that Pyongyang first open up or pass Econ 101.

Myth six is that Pyongyang is desperately trying to extort money to forestall economic collapse. In return for giving up missile exports, tests, production, and deployment, Pyongyang does seek compensation in the form of aid and investment from the outside, including having another country launch its satellites. Its primary concern, however, is its security. It sees an end to enmity with Washington as the only way to ensure that. That is why it wanted President Clinton to come to Pyongyang and why President Bush should go when a missile deal is ready for signing.

 

A critique of Leon V Sigal's "Six Myths About Dealing With Pyongyang"
By Aidan Foster-Carter

In his wittily titled 1998 book, Disarming Strangers, Leon V Sigal gives a valuable blow-by-blow account of US nuclear diplomacy with North Korea. He also has a case to make, and an ax to grind. The way to go with rogue states is dialogue, not isolation. Engagement works.

I agree with Sigal's conclusion, but not his premises. As Churchill long ago said, jaw-jaw is better than war-war. Inept US policy toward Pyongyang nearly led to a second Korean war in 1994. At a time when one of Sigal's chapter headings, "The Bushmen Go on the Warpath" (that was George Bush, Sr) once again seems ominously apt, there are few more important political tasks than to convince the new US administration to continue to engage with North Korea. That will be Kim Dae-jung's main challenge when he visits Washington in a week's time.

In this crucial cause, I find Sigal's latest contribution unhelpful. Most of his so-called "six myths" seem to me to be truths. In opposing them, he creates a mythical beast of his own: a Pollyanna Pyongyang, ready for peace if only others would respond. Alas, it just isn't that simple. Sigal's doveishness - Jonathan Livingston Sigal? - is the mirror image of the hawks he opposes. Neither gives us a properly nuanced picture of a knotty reality.

On the specifics:

1. If breaking your obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, then demanding (successfully) to be paid to stop what you shouldn't have been doing in the first place, isn't blackmail then I surely don't know what is. This doesn't mean you either can't or shouldn't do deals with North Korea. But sup with a long spoon, and call behavior by its real name.

2. True, the 1994 Agreed Framework defused (but did not resolve) a crisis. But the wider claim here - that Kim Jong-il is simply offering to disarm - is disingenuous, to put it mildly. On missiles, as with nukes, Pyongyang again demands to be paid to stop; and there are thorny problems of verification. On conventional forces, it has not yielded an inch: either in the four party talks - where Seoul and Washington do have a "common negotiating position", pace Sigal - or since last year's summit, refusing even the South's request for a military hotline.

3. On the contrary, North Korea's consistent publicly expressed position is "US troops out." Witness its efforts to make this the priority agenda in the four party talks. True, we also get odd nods and whispers hinting they don't really mean it. Kim Dae-jung keeps saying that at the summit he convinced Kim Jong-il that US troops should stay to preserve the regional balance of power. If so, we need to hear this from the Dear Leader's own lips - or better yet in writing.

4. North Korea "has tried to reach out" to its foes "since the late 1980s"? An interesting way to describe the rocket it fired over Japan without warning in August 1998; or the bombing of 115 South Koreans on KAL 858 in 1987. And in between, they say they want peace. Hmm. Sigal seems blind both to Pyongyang's vicious streak and its frequent U-turns, as in 1986 and 1992 when promising dialogues with South Korea and (latterly) Japan were abruptly ended.

5. Here I partially agree. Aid is a vital change agent. Some kinds - infrastructure, medicine, food - will work even on North Korea "as is". But China-style dynamism requires markets. And by its own rules, for the World Bank to lend does mean Pyongyang must pass Econ 101.

6. Of course North Korea is "trying to extort money". To get without giving has been their game (its name is juche) since way back. Ask the Russians, or the many Western banks who were conned in the 1970s. Both are still owed billions. Sure, Pyongyang also has security concerns. But most are of its own making, after decades of playing the belligerent maverick.

Despite these criticisms, policy-wise we are on the same side. The last thing Korea needs is a macho Kim Jong Bush, kicking butt as per Iraq (a real success, huh?). To win this argument means convincing milder Republicans like Colin Powell to keep talking to Kim Jong-il. My fear is that one-sided op-eds like Sigal's will only confirm to hawks that liberals need a reality check. North Korea should not be treated as a stranger - but in no sense is it yet disarming.