The United States has been negotiating with the DPRK over denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula for nearly two decades yet North Korea’s nuclear weapons program continues to develop. U.S. North Korea policy has been beset by several illusions that have made progress in complicated negotiations with the truculent North Korean regime even more difficult. Some of the most important include: 1. the illusion that denuclearization of North Korea can be bought with aid only, 2. the illusion of regime change, 3. the illusion of effective punishment of the DPRK, and 4. the illusion that the U.S. perspective is universal.
The U.S. and the regional powers also fervently want certain things from the DPRK, namely denuclearization and an enduring commitment to regional stability. It seems the basic elements of a deal are still there, so success remains possible if difficult. Approaching the DPRK with fewer illusions would make success more likely.
Key Words: United States foreign policy, United States-North Korea, hegemony, Six Party Talks
I.
The
Illusions of Hegemony
The United States has been negotiating off and on with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) over denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula for nearly two decades yet North Korea’s nuclear weapons program continues to develop, with atomic tests having been conducted in 2006 and 2009. The North Korean nuclear problem is just one of a number of failures of nuclear non-proliferation in recent times, including the decisions of India and Pakistan to go nuclear and the seemingly imminent nuclear weapons status of Iran.
More broadly, the fraying of the non-proliferation regime is symptomatic of a broader set of failures of U.S. policies in the so-called South. Although the new Obama administration is trying a new tack to repair some of the damage, the U.S. is mired in a “clash of civilizations” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere in the Muslim world, where sentiment has never been more hostile toward the U.S. and the West. The wave of social democratic transformations that is sweeping South and Central America is in large part reactions against fundamental U.S. foreign policy and economic practices and does not bode well for U.S. power in the region. The cozying up of the ASEAN nations to China’s growing economic power as well as the emergence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization between China, Russia, and several nations of Central Asia are challenges to U.S. hegemony is large parts of “rising Asia.”
None of these trends by themselves are particularly surprising. There are inherent limits to any nation’s power, even the power of the contemporary U.S. It is hardly news that there are vast differences in interest between the rich nations of the North and the relatively poorer nations of the South, even those who have experienced decades of rapid economic growth. However, the suspicion remains that U.S. political ideology and foreign policy doctrines contribute much to the rising alienation of many regions of the world from the U.S. and the ongoing problems the U.S. faces around the world.[1] While some distance between the world-view of a hegemonic power and the perspectives of smaller, weaker, relatively poorer nations of the world is natural, much of the isolation of the U.S. and failure of foreign policy is self-inflicted. The differences in the hard power interests between the U.S. and ordinary nations are not nearly as great as the far vaster differences in their understanding of the world. What appears rational from the point of view of the hegemon is not necessarily rational to other states.[2] There is a huge gap in thinking between the rich and powerful U.S. and the experience and conceptions of smaller, less developed states in the South with vastly different histories and substantially different positions in the international system. Failure in U.S. foreign policy often stems from a chronic inability to see the world as others see it. Just as important, the U.S. is consistently unable to see the world as it really is.
Fundamentally, the U.S. tends to operate with a series of illusions about itself and its relationship with the rest of the world. These illusions are a major cause of foreign policy failure. To take a recent painful example, the Bush administration massively miscalculated the reaction of the Iraqi people to the U.S. invasion, leading to the loss of countless U.S., allied, and Iraqi lives and the devastation of a whole country. While the causes of this miscalculation are many, perhaps at the root was the illusion that, as Vice President Cheney famous stated, the U.S. would be welcomed as liberators by the mass of Iraqi society rather than being seen by most as foreign invaders. Similar illusions underlie other U.S. foreign policy failures around the world. This paper will examine some of the illusions the U.S. has in its relations with North Korea.
There are several reasons why the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is so deluded about the perception of the U.S. in the rest of the world. First of all, as hegemon of the global system the U.S. is objectively different from any other nation on the planet and therefore it is not surprising that its perceptions of the world are different. But the U.S. not only recognizes that it is different, it celebrates its difference as fundamental to its national identity, to a degree that can only be characterized as national narcissism.[3] The ideology of American exceptionalism, almost universally held by the ordinary citizen and even more deeply by foreign policy elites, assigns the U.S. a special role in history to literally “save” the world and remake the global political and economic system into its image. George W. Bush clearly articulated in his second Inaugural Address the idea that the American concept of liberty is an inexorable, universal force of history
We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom… We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul. When our Founders declared a new order of the ages; when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty; when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner "Freedom Now" - they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty...America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof.[4]
American exceptionalism is not the special province of American conservatives however. President Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright expressed similar sentiments held by U.S. liberals
(We) are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see farther into the future.[5]
One might think that any tendency toward such grandiose illusions would be checked daily by contrary feedback from other sources that contradict this inflated self-image. Yet exactly because of both the hard and soft power of hegemony, U.S. foreign policymakers rarely get a reality check from their global counterparts. The soft power of U.S. media, intellectual, institutional, and cultural hegemony ensure that almost regardless of nationality, the more important one is in the global hierarchy, the more likely one is to share much if not all of the U.S. view of the world. U.S. hard power assures that flattery and flunkeyism pay off for foreign officials who stoke American narcissism. Few will speak truth to power, will tell the emperor when he has little or no clothes. The few who do are too easily boxed off into the preformed ideological categories of rogue state, anti-American ideologue, or chronic malcontent.
The failure of U.S. efforts to end North Korea’s quest for nuclear weapons is a case in point. U.S. diplomacy toward the DPRK is a chronicle of misperception and misreading of the North Koreans. The criticism of U.S. policy herein in no way implies that the DPRK is without fault for the current situation and the failure of diplomacy. The erratic behavior of the North Koreans has also been a major reason for the failure of negotiations. However, this brief paper focuses on the U.S. side of the equation.
II.
U.S.
Policy toward North Korea: Illusions Generated during the Clinton Years
U.S. relations with North Korea illustrate the power of illusion in U.S. foreign policy. U.S. North Korea policy has been beset by several illusions that have made the possibility of progress in difficult negotiations with the already bizarre, truculent North Korean regime even more difficult.[6] Some of the most important include:
1. The illusion that denuclearization of North Korea can be bought with aid only
2. The illusion of regime change
3. The illusion of effective punishment of the DPRK
4. The illusion that the U.S. perspective is universal
The Agreed Framework
and the Illusion of Aid for Denuclearization
The North Korean appetite for nuclear weapons became a serious matter with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, which deprived the DPRK of its superpower ally to balance against the U.S. support of South Korea. Using existing nuclear power plants to produce plutonium for weapons appeared an alluring shortcut to the leadership of the DPRK to replace the lost deterrent of Soviet military support. However, the United States was alarmed by the prospect of a new nuclear weapons state, particularly one so implacably hostile to the U.S. in a region so crucial to U.S. interests. The story of how the U.S. and the DPRK first negotiated a deal to end North Korean pursuit of nuclear weapons is well told elsewhere.[7] This paper focuses on the failure of the implementation of the Agreed Framework that emerged from these negotiations and subsequent U.S.-DPRK agreements.
From the signing of the Agreed Framework in 1994, several important illusions dogged U.S. understanding of the process. One illusion that gained strength over the Clinton years was that the Agreed Framework was essentially a deal of aid for denuclearization. Almost from the outset, the deal was characterized by the U.S. government and the western press as an exchange of North Korean nuclear capability for western aid. Yet this is willful or ignorant mischaracterization of what the North Koreans agreed to. The North Koreans did demand aid to replace the energy produced by the nuclear reactors that produced the plutonium for weapons that were going to be shut down under the agreement. However, from the beginning, economic aid was not the primary objective the North Koreans sought from the deal. What the North Koreans prize most highly is regime security, meaning security not only for the North Korean state but the power elite that rule it.[8] It was clearly stated in the Agreed Framework that relations between the U.S. and North Korea would be “normalized,” ending the historic hostility between the two nations, with the anticipation of the termination of U.S. and global economic sanctions against the DPRK and establishment of full diplomatic relations between the DPRK, the U.S., and other western states.
Conservative Republicans opposed the Agreed Framework from the start, and their opposition became much more significant after they gained control of Congress and the government budget in 1995. Republicans focused their attacks on the U.S. promise to pay to build North Korea a light water nuclear reactor to replace the power generated by the plutonium-producing Yongbyon plant that was to be closed, but they also criticized the delivery of fuel oil to generate electricity until the light water reactor was built and operational. Congress effectively cut off funds to carry out U.S. commitments to these programs, forcing the Clinton administration to beg the South Koreans, Japanese, and European allies to pick up the tab. But what was anathema to U.S. conservatives was the idea of countenancing the cruel communist North Korean regime in any way, shape, or form, much less formally agreeing to treat with it on a regular basis and to eventually recognize it.
The Illusion of
Spontaneous Regime Change during the Clinton Administration
Yet many in the Clinton administration were relatively unworried about this problem because they believed that it was only a matter of time before the North Korean regime went the way of the recently collapsed Soviet empire into the dustbin of history. Many sincerely believed, or at least hoped, that the Agreed Framework would never have to be fully implemented because the DPRK was on the verge of imploding like its communist brothers in Europe and Russia. This is the liberal version of the second illusion, that regime change in North Korea will end the necessity of dealing with the repressive leadership of the DPRK.
The promises of eventual normalization of relations and formal diplomatic recognition that were part of the agreement proved so unpopular with the Republican Congress that the Clinton administration increasingly took to dropping reference to them when discussing negotiations with the North, and if referring to them at all, putting any such commitments off into the far future, after the “hard” tasks of denuclearization and the mechanics of providing aid were long dealt with. Step by step, the Clinton administration engaged in a kind of managed amnesia about what the DPRK saw as the key provisions of the agreement. While this allowed a relatively successful modus vivendi to be worked out in the short term, it bode ill for the long-term viability of the negotiations. While open conflict with American conservatives was muted, over time the U.S. developed the illusion that denuclearization could be bought for aid alone. And the DPRK grew ever more frustrated that the negotiating process was not paying off in terms of their key objectives.
III.
Ideological
Illusions of the Bush Administration’s North Korea Policy
Politics, Ideology,
and the Lack of a Consistent Bush Strategy
When the Bush administration came into power, North Korean plutonium production was frozen, existing plutonium stocks were under international lock and key, and the plant that was capable of producing plutonium was under international inspection. By the sixth year of the Bush administration, North Korea had tested a nuclear weapon, was producing plutonium again, and had banished international inspectors from its nuclear facilities. Progress was made in the final two Bush years in returning toward the status quo ante, with North Korea agreeing to suspend and eventually end plutonium production, although its was unclear whether the plutonium produced during the Bush years would ever be recovered. Even the apparent achievements of diplomacy near the end of the Bush presidency were in doubt in the final days of the Bush administration and the early days of the Obama presidency as the DPRK appeared to back off commitments made.
The Bush administration, not satisfied with either the aid going to the DPRK under the Agreed Framework or the promise of eventual normalization of relations and diplomatic recognition, pursued a more hard-line policy toward the DPRK than the Clinton administration. It was never really clear whether the Bush team had a strategy of isolation and punishment of the DPRK until it “came to its senses” and reformed its international behavior and domestic system or whether the Bush administration had serious expectations that regime change could be engineered. More precisely, some in the Bush administration actively pursued the illusion of regime change while others had more limited expectations that a hard-line would force changes in DPRK policy, if not the regime itself.[9] Several accounts question whether there was any strategy at all, but whether Bush administration policy was simply driven by elemental animus against the dictatorial communist state.
Bush administration policy has been characterized as largely incoherent and beset by warring camps who were in a see-saw battle, with each side gaining temporary advantage but neither side able to establish a consistent policy line. However, the predominant tone of Bush policy toward North Korea actually did shift over time. Three general periods can be identified. The early Bush years were dominated by hard-liners who attempted to isolate the DPRK, some with the goal of ultimate regime change. During this period ongoing negotiations under the Agreed Framework were virtually suspended, with no high level contacts taking place for almost the first two years of the Bush presidency. During the middle of the Bush presidency, attempts to isolate the DPRK took new form as the Six Party Talks, ostensibly a form of engagement, was actually conceived by key members of the Bush administration as a way to unite regional powers against the DPRK. Finally, after the North Korean nuclear test in October 2006, a period of serious engagement followed, aimed at limiting the subsequent international and domestic political damage. Political infighting continued in all periods, meaning that actions rarely followed any consistent path for any sustained period of time.
The Illusion of
Engineering Regime Change
Ideological illusions of the Bush administration clearly contributed to the regression in the state of affairs on the Korean Peninsula. The Bush administration came in opposed to the Agreed Framework as giving away too many concessions to the DPRK, and at a deeper level opposed to recognizing and treating with a regime it found repugnant. Rather, key members of the Bush team were inclined to raise the implicit Clinton administration wishes for regime change to an operational policy goal. Upon entering office the Bush administration, by refusing all high level contact for almost two years, for all practical purposes suspended ongoing negotiations required under the Agreed Framework. Following the shock of 9/11, regime change became an active goal of the Bush administration on several fronts, as openly stated, perhaps most famously, in the “axis of evil” speech. The illusion of the Clinton years that the DPRK would fall of its own internal contradictions was replaced with the illusion that the U.S. had the power to force regime change in North Korea.
The Illusion of
Isolation and Punishment
In the fall of 2002, the Bush administration made explicit its unwillingness to carry forward the deal made by Clinton when it accused the DPRK of cheating on the Agreed Framework by conducting a secret program to develop a nuclear bomb using uranium rather than the plutonium the North was known to have. The Bush administration presented this to decision to terminate the Agreed Framework to its allies as determination to isolate and punish the DPRK until it admitted wrong-doing and mended its errant ways. However, many in the administration saw the cutoff of support and legitimacy for the DPRK as precursor to regime change.
The Illusion of the
U.S. Perspective as Universal: The Experience of the Six Party Talks
Yet key American allies South Korea and Japan, as well as regional powers China and Russia, were deeply troubled by the abandonment of the Agreed Framework and the suspension of any negotiations or ongoing diplomatic contacts with the DPRK. Each of these nations lobbied intensively for resumption of negotiations. The Bush administration was reluctant to resume direct dialogue with the North, but it could not ignore the pressure from important allies and regional powers. Out of this diplomatic pressure on the U.S. came the idea of the Six Party Talks which would include not only the U.S. and the DPRK, but also South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia. As the Bush administration conceived them, the Six Party Talks would unite the U.S., its allies South Korea and Japan and the other regional powers, China and Russia, to bring joint pressure on the DPRK to knuckle under to U.S. demands. The Bush administration’s conception of the Six Party Talks demonstrated another illusion of U.S. foreign policy generally, and in particular in policy toward North Korea, the illusion of universalism; i.e., that other states share essentially the same perspective and goals as the U.S.
The Six Party Talks never played out as the Bush administration envisioned, as a 5 on 1 ganging up on the DPRK. In fact, more often the other four parties took intermediate position in which they worked together to pressure not only the DPRK but also the Bush administration, to take more reasonable, nuanced approaches to each other. The Six Party Talks had a “rebound effect” on the hard-liners in the Bush administration who had conceived of them as a way of uniting the region against the DPRK. Instead, the Six Party Talks gave the other four powers a forum to exert collective pressure on the U.S., as well as on the DPRK.
The fundamental error of the Bush administration’s original misconception of the Six Party Talks lay in the idea that the other four regional powers shared the U.S. view of North Korea, the same goals for the Korean Peninsula, and the same thinking on the way out of the nuclear situation. Clearly this is not the case. This illusion is based on one shared truth—all the other regional powers want the Korean Peninsula denuclearized. However, each of the other powers has other goals and other perspectives that vary widely from U.S. policy. The South Koreans also want reconciliation and eventual reunification of their country. Neither the South Koreans nor the Chinese want destabilization of the regime in the North, since that will inevitably mean hundreds of thousands or even millions of economic refugees flooding across their borders fleeing a collapsing North. The Chinese do not want any change of regime in the North that would bring U.S. troops closer to their border or expand, prolong or deepen the U.S. commitment of forces on the Korean Peninsula. The Russians look to play a broker’s role to compensate for their declining influence in the region and have no interest in a rapid integration of the North into the South Korean/U.S. orbit which would limit their commercial opportunities. Japan’s interests are most in line with the American’s, but given their special history as the former colonial power and the unique issue of Japanese citizens abducted by the DPRK, they have important differences with the U.S. as well.
The Illusion of China
as a Surrogate for U.S. Policy
Related to the illusion of universalism was the illusion that China could and should bring the DPRK to heel if only it could summon the will to do so. Recognition that China plays a key role in persuading the North Koreans to change their behavior is no illusion but a sober realization of reality. China is the only nation that wields real influence over the DPRK, both ideological through their shared history and material as North Korea’s only significant trading partner. Yet during the Bush years, recognition of these realities often veered into the illusion that China somehow held a magical key to unlocking the DPRK’s cooperation, if only they would use it.
This assumption is erroneous on two counts. First, as the Chinese have often pointed out, no one dictates to the North Koreans, so the idea that China can easily control the DPRK is simply false. Second, China, while sharing the U.S. interest in denuclearization, has other important objectives on the Korean Peninsula, not the least of which is political, economic, and social stability of a neighbor that is already generating tens of thousands of refugees crossing the border. Finally, China’s special relationship with the DPRK means that they are more sensitive to the nuances of how to treat with the North Koreans than the U.S. It would be better if the U.S. gave less advice to the Chinese about how to handle the DPRK and took more advice from the Chinese about how to proceed in their relations with the North.
The North Korean
Nuclear Test
The failure of Bush administration policy toward the DPRK became manifestly obvious when the North Koreans tested a nuclear weapon in October 2006. The reflex reaction of the Bush administration was to return to a policy of isolation and punishment. The U.S. sought and received a UN resolution condemning the weapons test and putting a broad array of economic sanctions on the DPRK. The sanctions had the effect of communicating to the DPRK that abhorrence of their nuclear program was not unique to the U.S. and its allies, but felt broadly around the world. Yet the sanctions did little to change North Korean behavior, particularly because Chinese enthusiasm for enforcement seemed lukewarm at best.
However, as the consequences of the North Korean weapon test slowly sunk in across the Bush administration, a gradual awakening to reality did appear to set in. Not long after the nuclear test bilateral talks with the DPRK began and a new round of the Six Party Talks was convened.[10] (Kim, Dae Jung) Major breakthroughs in denuclearization were negotiated, including the shutdown and eventual dismantlement of the key Yongbyon nuclear plant. In return energy aid was resumed and the first major U.S. political concession was made, taking North Korea off the U.S. government list of nations sponsoring terrorism. However, full implementation of these agreements was again suspended in the final months of the Bush administration.
The Miseducation of
the DPRK by the Bush Administration
Based on a series of illusions, Bush administration policy not only led to a serious regression in the nuclear situation on the Korean Peninsula, it was actually a serious miseducation of the DPRK on how to deal with the U.S. Bush policies effectively taught the DPRK that 1. the U.S. is not serious about achieving denuclearization, 2. the U.S. cannot be trusted to carry out promises it makes and 3. the U.S. can be manipulated by coercive diplomacy. By first refusing high level contacts to oversee the ongoing negotiations required under the Agreed Framework and then by avoiding direct bilateral contacts during the early years of the Six Party process, the Bush administration effectively conveyed not toughness but lack of interest in carrying through with the quid pro quos necessary to achieve DPRK compliance with the denuclearization process. Furthermore, by its manifest reluctance to live up to the requirements of the Agreed Framework and its eventual abrogation of the deal, the Bush administration taught the North Koreans that the word of the U.S. government could not be trusted, that solemn commitments entered into by one administration could just be brushed aside by a new administration. Then finally, after the North Korean nuclear test, the Bush administration woke up to the consequences of its policies of neglect and came running with a new seriousness of purpose and new concessions. By doing so, the Bush administration taught the North Koreans that the U.S. would respond when it ratcheted up tensions sufficiently and take the DPRK seriously only when real coercion was applied.
IV.
A
Future without Illusions?
It is too early to tell how the Obama administration will handle relations with the DPRK. During the Bush years many Democratic leaders and veterans of the Agreed Framework negotiations were highly critical of the Bush hard line. In his campaign, candidate Obama went out of his way to state that he was ready to meet and negotiate with regimes that were banished from Bush diplomatic circles, including the DPRK. So expectations grew a new policy of vigorous engagement was on the horizon.
However, the DPRK’s greeting of the incoming Obama administration with a second nuclear test exploded any hopes of immediate engagement. Instead, the Obama administration, like the Bush team before it, began by crafting an international coalition to isolate and punish the DPRK for hostile actions. Rather than improving relations, the Obama team again turned to the UN to sanction the North Koreans, trying to tighten restrictions voted after the first nuclear test. At its outset, the Obama team seems to be buying into the old illusion that the DPRK can be effectively punished for “bad” behavior and that further isolating North Korea can reap benefits, however small the real impact on regime may be.
Yet the use of former President Bill Clinton as an emissary to finalize the release of two imprisoned U.S. journalists also indicates that unlike the Bush administration, the Obama team does not view mere contact with the DPRK as a reward to be doled out only when the North Koreans behave as the U.S. demands. However, returning to more systematic engagement with the DPRK, even if it eventually comes, will not necessarily bear fruit unless the characteristic illusions that have driven U.S. policy are stripped away.
At this point in history, no one can say with certainty whether North Korea can any longer be persuaded to give up its status as a fledgling nuclear power. The original negotiation and partial implementation of the Agreed Framework indicates that at one time such an outcome was possible and perhaps even likely. After the setbacks during the first Bush term, new agreements on denuclearization were once again negotiated if not fully implemented. However, the on again, off again nature of implementation of agreements has led to doubts that the DPRK is serious about giving up its ever more tangible nuclear assets for any price, even normalization of relations with the U.S. From the North Korean perspective, the DPRK has not gotten what it sought from the decade and a half of negotiations, security for its state and its regime. So it is not surprising that many of its leaders may be losing faith in the possibility that talks will eventually bear the desired fruit.
Successful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will require replacing each of the illusions that have beset U.S. policy with more realistic thinking.[11] The illusion that North Korean denuclearization can be bought with energy and food aid must be jettisoned. It must be recognized that the primary objective of the DPRK is not simply temporary economic aid but rather ensuring the security of its regime, or at least the key members of the regime. The illusion of either engineering regime change or patiently waiting for regime collapse or transformation before negotiating seriously with the North must be abandoned in favor of a clear headed recognition that the DPRK is probably here to stay. Even if the Kim family and certain aspects of Marxist-Leninist doctrine might at some time in the future become less important, any subsequent government is likely to be a hard-line military dictatorship whose leadership will likely prove as prickly a negotiating partner as the current government. Moreover, any precipitous collapse of the regime is more likely to bring chaos more like Iraq in the years immediately after Saddam Hussein rather than immediate flowering of a democratic, pro-western state.
Furthermore, it must be recognized that the DPRK can only be marginally affected by any further isolation and cannot effectively be “punished.” There is already no regime more isolated from the rest of the world. Attempts to further isolate the DPRK are akin to trying to raise the temperature in hell. While denying the Kim family and its close associates some of its imported perks may irritate individuals and attempts to slow weapons trade may marginally impact living standards in the country, the political elite in North Korea has shown it does not care about the living standards of its people and it can always squeeze a little more from the population to compensate for international attempts to sanction it. Sanctions may play an important symbolic role in educating the North Koreans what behavior is truly counterproductive, but sanctions should not be expected to change the overall way of thinking of the regime.[12]
Finally, the U.S. has to be more sophisticated in seeing how other powers view the DPRK and U.S. policy toward it. The fact that all regional powers share a fundamental agreement that North Korean nuclear weapons are not desirable has too often been over-generalized to the illusion that everyone in the region sees the North Korea problem in the same way as the U.S. The fact that the U.S. can use its power to cajole statements of unity from regional powers or allies around broad goals does not mean that other powers share the American perception of the issues or support U.S. practices in dealing with the DPRK.
Despite its ideology of self-reliance, the DPRK clearly highly desires certain things from the outside world, namely regime security and energy, food, and financial assistance. Although the North Koreans are a prickly negotiating partner who do not feel bound to commitments they make when they feel commitments made to them have not been met, they keep coming back to the bargaining table. The U.S. and the regional powers also fervently want certain things from the DPRK, namely denuclearization and an enduring commitment to regional stability. It seems the basic elements of a deal are still there, so success remains possible if difficult. Approaching the DPRK with fewer illusions would make success more likely.
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[2] Katherine Gordy and Jee Sun E. Lee, “Rogue Specters: Cuba and North Korea at the Limits of US Hegemony,” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, vol. 34, no. 3 (July-Sep 2009).
[5] Madeleine Albright, Interview on the NBC “Today” broadcast, February 19, 1998.
[7] Joel Wit, Daniel Poneman, and Robert Gallucci, Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2006); Leon Sigal, Disarming Strangers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); Marion Creekmore, A Moment of Crisis: Jimmy Carter, the Power of a Peacemaker, and North Korean Nuclear Ambitions (Washington, DC: Public Affairs, 2006); Michael Mazarr, “The Long Road to Pyongyang,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 86, no. 5 (Sep/Oct 2007).
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