Feb. 4, 2003

FROM THE AIRWAVES
The Crux of the North Korean Conflict

"From the Airwaves" is a transcript of “The GW Washington Forum,” the weekly public affairs radio program produced by GW, hosted by Richard Sheehe, and broadcast on WWRC-AM 1260 in Washington on Sunday’s at 9 am. This conversation with Kirk Larsen, the Korea Foundation Assistant Professor of History and International Affairs in the Elliott School of International Affairs, comes from a recent program.

Richard Sheehe: Before we get into the nuts and bolts, why don’t you tell me what the Korea Foundation is and why that’s part of your title.

Kirk Larsen: The Korea Foundation is a South Korean government-funded organization whose main purpose is to promote Korean studies in the Untied States, Europe, and elsewhere. And, one of the main ways they’ve done this is funded positions at universities, like mine. So essentially they put up the initial money to create a position where someone like me can teach, create history and culture in American universities.

RS: So you teach about the culture and history of Korea, as well as the current political situations, so you have a pretty broad view. Let’s talk about the current situation of the North Korean nuclear crisis. We see that the Bush administration is now softening its stance somewhat. A State Department official has been over in the region and now China is even offering perhaps to play a role as peace broker. Why is this softening happening?

KL: It’s recognition of the reality that no one wants to take military action against North Korea to try to resolve the nuclear problem. And given that, the range of options is relatively limited. And given the reluctance of our allies or would-be-allies of the region, (it would be) South Korea and China to get on board a tough sanction regime, as well. So really only one of the few options left is to talk again.

RS: One of the main questions that keeps getting asked over and over again, and nobody really knows the answer to, but I’ll continue the trend of asking it: Is North Korea wrapping up this crisis as a form of brinkmanship, as a way of bargaining, or do they really want to have some nuclear weapons?

KL: Well, I have to start out with the caveat that I always talk about with North Korea, and that is when we talk about North Korea we really can’t say much for certain. Unlike many other places in the world, where American officials or academics or others have had personal interaction with leadership, and have a least some idea of what makes them tick and what they’re thinking about. In North Korea, we have almost none of this because of the lack of diplomatic relations and interactions in the past. This is a particular case with the current North Korean leader because he hasn’t traveled much of anywhere, either, until this last year or two. We have to approach why North Korea is doing things with extreme caution and even maybe a little humility because we don’t have a lot of information. But having said that, you know you have to plunge in and give your best guess, and my best guess is that it is not a case of brinkmanship, but rather the North Korean leadership is seeing which way the winds are blowing and recognize that this is a good opportunity to really go after nuclear weapons while the US is distracted with Iraq. And so they really want them. And they may be convinced to choose another path but this is not just simply a negotiating tactic.

RS: That said, what is the wisdom of negotiating?

KL: Very good question, not least because we had a negotiated settlement in 1994, the agreed framework, that was brokered by Jimmy Carter and Korea’s previous leader Kim Il Sung. It has been clear that the North Koreans did not live up to their end of the bargain. They embarked on a secret uranium enrichment program. They have recently backed out of many of the key portions of the agreed framework. One of the questions we can ask then is what is the point of talking with a nation that clearly won’t keep up its end of the bargain? How do you ensure trust? How do you ensure verification? It’s a good question, but at the same time, we don’t have a lot of other options, considering that we don’t want war. We don’t seem to want sanctions. What else can you do?

RS: One of the original options was sanctions and isolation. It’s interesting that the Bush administration has backed off from that because that was one of the initial approaches that they had. Why don’t you think the Bush administration continued that?

KL: There are a couple of reasons. One is that the North Koreans made it very clear in their rhetoric, and you always have to take their rhetoric with a bucket of salt because it’s very vitriolic at times and over the top, but they made it very clear that they would regard sanctions as an act of war. The United States doesn’t want to provoke North Korea, not least because North Korea has hundreds, if not thousands of artillery pieces that are within range of Seoul that could cause serious damage to Seoul. Another reason is that many of our allies in the region have made it clear that they, too, are not keen on sanctions. For some of the same reasons, but in the case of China in particular, China’s very concerned that if you apply sanctions, you might have further worsening of the almost dead North Korean economy, which may result in a refugee crisis, flowing over the northern border into China, something China does not want.

RS: I’m remembering in one analysis of North Korea’s economy that the idea of sanctions would be to do to North Korea what happened to the Soviet Union — that the economy just got so bad, that the government imploded. Is that an apt analogy or are the dynamics different?

KL: In some respects, it is, because the economy in the last 10–12 years has been in terrible shape. In many cases, the officially running state economy is essentially dead outside of key military industries. Indeed, if you see satellite pictures of East Asia at night, you’ll see the China coast, South Korea, and Japan are all brightly lit. In North Korea, all of the lights are out. One of the reasons people are staying alive is that the state has kind of looked the other way and allowed kind of a shadow economy to operate where people barter goods and services for food just to stay alive. But, they are also kept on life support by humanitarian aid and assistance from the outside. If these were cut off, things could get considerably worse.

 

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