Sparring Over North Korea:
The Clinton Administration and its Critic

Larry A. Niksch
Specialist in Asian Affairs
Congressional Research Service^[1]

Paper presented at the conference
North Korea Policy After The Perry Report:
A Trilateral (Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the United States) Workshop

March 3-4, 2000

“Sparring over North Korea” brings to mind two boxers with different styles. The Clinton Administration is fleet of foot with quick hands to fend off blows and deliver counter-punches in the style of Mohammed Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson. The Administration’s critics in Congress and elsewhere are more in the image of Rocky Marciano and Joe Frazier, moving forward aggressively, looking for one opening to deliver a knockout punch. So far, to continue the boxing analogy, the Clinton Administration is well ahead in points, although it was shaken in 1999 and there will be more rounds to come.

No Disagreement on the North Korean Threat

Looking at the substance of the issue, the key to the Administration’s success is ironically the agreement between the Administration and most of its critics that North Korea presented a major threat to U.S. security. The Administration continually raises the 1994 scenario of an all-out war on the Korean peninsula that would inflict thousands of American casualties, destroy Seoul, and force the United States to commit hundreds of thousands of troops to Korea. In his report of October 13, 1999, William Perry, the Administration’s Special Advisor on policy toward North Korea, stressed “the risk of a destructive war to the 37,000 American service personnel Korea and the many more that would reinforce them….” In his press conference of September 17, 1999, he asserted: “Now it seems that we are headed for another crisis like 1994.”

Most critics agree. The November 1999 report of the North Korea Advisory Group to the Speaker of the House of Representatives asserted that North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction programs “pose a major threat to the United States and its allies” and that “North Korea maintains a potent armed force capable of undertaking a large-scale invasion of the ROK [South Korea].”

The Clinton Administration has been able to manipulate this agreement and traditional Republican “hawkishness” by constantly spinning two themes into an apocalyptic message. The first is to portray the North Korean leadership in what might be called Branch Davidian terms, related to the radical religious sect in the famous confrontation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Waco, Texas. Thus, Administration and State Department officials have described North Korean leaders, using adjectives such as “irrational,” “desperate,” and phrases such as “showing signs of incoherence” and “close to paranoia.” The second theme, until recently, has been to portray the North Korean regime as on the brink of collapse. Linking these two themes, the Administration has laid out a scenario in which a “desperate” North Korean regime facing collapse or threatening outside pressure would launch an apocalyptic war in the same fashion that Branch Davidian leaders ignited the deadly fire in their compound when confronted with an FBI assault.

This apocalyptic portrayal of the North Korean threat has served to justify the Administration’s policy of providing ever expanding amounts of economic assistance to North Korea in order to prevent this scenario–in short, paying off North Korea for “good” behavior. It also serves to justify the Administration’s opposition to putting increased pressure on North Korea. Since 1994, Administration and State Department officials have voiced constantly the slogan: “The alternative to our policy is war.”

The critics have not challenged these themes and are limited in doing to by their strategy of surpassing the Administration in magnifying the North Korean threat.. In short, in agreeing on the North Korean threat, advantage Clinton.

The Narrow Policy Focus of the Administration and Critics

Several other factors have worked to the Administration’s advantage. The Administration cites the possibility that, without the Agreed Framework, North Korea would produce much larger numbers of nuclear weapons from its known nuclear installations and could export some of them to Iran and other rogue states. This probably is the strongest Administration position in objective terms.

The Administration and the critics focus U.S. policy on the narrow parameter of North Korean nuclear and missile programs. This allows both to portray the North Korean threat in stark, destructive firepower terms. The Clinton Administration has followed a “don’t ask, don’t tell” strategy aimed at influencing North Korea to keep its nuclear weapons and long range missiles secret (hidden in North Korea’s thousands of tunnels). “Don’t tell” has been part of the Administration’s definition of North Korean “good behavior,” the other part being North Korean adherence to keeping its known nuclear facilities shut down. The critics look for the knockout punch opportunity in the “smoking gun”–conclusive evidence that North Korea has hidden nuclear weapons. The maneuvers in 1998 and 1999 over the Kumchangri site showed the advantage of the Administration’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” strategy over the likelihood of finding the nuclear “smoking gun.”

This narrow focus on nuclear weapons and missiles also limits the critics from developing a stronger critique based on North Korean internal and terrorist policies–human rights, Stalinist economic policies, and kidnappings. A strong case can be made from the Perry report and other statements that the Administration has ignored or depreciated these North Korean practices and that its economic aid policy subsidizes oppression and the Stalinist economic system.

In this context, the critics have been unwilling to challenge and advocate limits on the Administration’s policy of providing North Korea expanding amounts of food aid with conditions largely related to North Korea’s commitment to attend meetings. The critics talk about the absence of meaningful economic or agricultural reforms in North Korea, but they recoil from urging that the United States condition food aid, or food aid beyond a certain level, to fundamental North Korean agricultural reforms. Some critics seem to fear being accused by the Administration and the humanitarian aid establishment of “starving North Korean children” even after five years of massive food aid. Instead of developing and asserting an argument against “subsidizing Stalinism,” the critics seek another “smoking gun” of North Korean diversion of food aid to the military. Evidence has emerged of small scale diversion; but, like the search for hidden nuclear weapons, the smoking gun of massive diversion has not been found and probably will not be found.

The South Korean Government under President Kim Dae-jung has shifted its support from the critics to the Clinton Administration, and it now criticizes the critics. As a result, the critics’ argument over the lack of progress in North Korea-South Korea talks has lost strength. Moreover, by their narrow policy focus, the critics have lost an opportunity to address the lack of progress of the four party talks over a Korean peace agreement, which began in December 1997. The critics thus have joined the Administration, which has treated the four party talks with lethargy. These negotiations now stand on the brink of collapse.

The “No Alternative” Accusation

A final element in the Administration’s advantage is the success in accusing the critics of offering no alternative to Administration policy. Administration officials and their supporters bombard the critics with this in both private and public meetings in Washington. The charge is not totally accurate. In 1999, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would require Congress to vote on a bilateral U.S.-North Korean bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement. Such an agreement is required before the United States could send North Korea the nuclear components of the light water nuclear reactors to be built under the 1994 Agreed Framework. Such a vote would allow Congress to judge whether North Korea is complying fully with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (and the Agreed Framework)–a requirement under U.S. law for any U.S. nuclear cooperation agreement with another country. In early 1999, a “Working Group on U.S. Policy Towards North Korea,” led by former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage, offered a position paper on North Korea. Its recommendations contained similarities to the Clinton Administration’s subsequent Perry initiative in offering North Korea economic benefits, security assurances, and political legitimization. However, the “Working Group” called for more explicit measures to strengthen military deterrence; a re-negotiation of the Agreed Framework strengthen the inspection powers of the International Atomic Energy Commission and accelerate of implementation of commitments by both sides; placing conventional force reduction at the center of negotiating a Korean peace agreement; and linking U.S. economic aid to “North Korean economic restructuring.” The Working Group further separated itself from the Administration by calling for the United States to “consult with North Korea to review the energy component of the Agreed Framework to develop alternate energy sources” and urging “a willingness to interdict North Korean missile exports on the high seas.” Representative Christopher Cox authored an article in Human Events, November 26, 1999, in which he proposed and end to paying off North Korea, a strengthening of U.S. and allied defenses in the Western Pacific, and a U.S. strategy that would seek “regime change in North Korea.”

Nevertheless, the accusation appears to have kept the critics off balance. This is partly because there has been no sustained attention given to the proposals of the Armitage Working Group, including little action by members of the Working Group to refine and promote their proposals. It is partly because Congress has not enacted legislation encompassing such proposals and restricting Administration initiatives. The Senate has not supported the House bill on the nuclear cooperation agreement, pointing up the difficulty of congressional critics in securing any consensus among 535 Members of Congress for any specific course of action. Jim Mann, columnist of the Los Angeles Times and himself a critic of Administration policy, lamented in his column of October 6, 1999, that despite much rhetorical criticism, the Republicans in Congress “have done nothing.”

The critics have offered no military alternative to the Administration’s policy aside from vague references to strengthening deterrence. This allows the Administration to throw out hints that the United States would have to commit additional ground forces to South Korea if Administration policy broke down and a 1994-like crisis developed. This line, of course, reinforces the apocalyptic outcome the Administration claims would come about in the absence of its policy. Instead of a detailed plan to strengthen U.S. naval and air forces in the Western Pacific (but not necessarily on the Korean peninsula”) to increase deterrence related to North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities, many critics focus on proposals for theater missile defense and national missile defense. Whatever the feasibility of these proposals, most experts believe their realization is 10-15 years away, in short no alternative for the current situation or the next decade.

Prospects

Despite its advantage, the Clinton Administration faces two challenges which could erode domestic support for its policy. One of course is the 2000 presidential election. Candidates may debate policy towards North Korea, and/or the Administration that takes office in January 2001 could revise policy in significant ways. The Administration has created a second challenge in its own Perry initiative. The Administration devised the Perry initiative partly because it appeared in 1999 that the critics were closer to finding a “smoking gun” at Kumchangri or in a North Korea long range missile test. The Perry initiative warded off this immediate threat; but in order to contain the critics, the Perry report of October 1999 set out far reaching objectives that the Administration previously had deferred and depreciated. Perry called for the United States to secure “complete and verifiable assurances that the DPRK does not have a nuclear weapons program” and “the complete and verifiable cessation” of North Korea’s long range missile program. The Administration has not defined “complete and verifiable assurances” and “complete and verifiable cessation,” but its credibility will be weakened if the definition is anything other than the establishment of an intrusive inspection system. This is in fact the definition the Administration currently is applying to Iraq and which it applied to North Korea prior to the 1994 Agreed Framework. On the other hand, the establishment of such a definition would require the Administration to abandon its “don’t ask, don’t tell” strategy. This no doubt explains why, so far, the Administration has not volunteered a specific definition of Perry’s objectives. Whether it does define them probably depends on whether the critics will press the Administration for such a definition, which the critics so far have not done.

These far reaching objectives, if actually sought, likely will encounter stiff North Korean resistance. If so, this would give the critics the opportunity to press the Administration or its success to verify and give details regarding Perry’s so-called Plan B, the undefined alternative mentioned in his report as “steps to assure their [U.S. allies] security and contain the threat.”

If the Administration faces potential vulnerabilities, the critics will continue to have difficulty offering convincing criticisms and alternatives to the Administration’s apocalyptic outcome defense unless they change their view of the North Korean threat in line with today’s reality. Despite weapons of mass destruction, the strategic threat from North Korea is eroding steadily due to the sharp deterioration in Pyongyang’s conventional forces and defense industries. The dual collapse of the Soviet Union and North Korea’s economy has left North Korea’s army, air force, and navy with obsolete weapons, fuel shortages, poorly trained units, and inadequately fed enlisted personnel. The evidence is substantial that North Korea has lost its option to invade South Korea with any hope of seizing territory, including Seoul. There also is evidence that North Korea’s military and political leadership is well aware of this.

The new situation removes the great strategic threat that planted fear in U.S. policymakers and military leaders from the 1960s to the early 1990s–that North Korea could attack massively across the demilitarized zone and seize Seoul and territory further south. North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction do not change this. Instead, the loss of the invasion option restricts North Korea’s option of using weapons of mass destruction militarily for its longtime paramount strategic-political objective of taking over South Korea. Their utility appears to be limited to use in North Korea’s diplomacy and deterrence against a U.S. attack.

In short, any credible alternative U.S. policy toward North Korea will have to be based on a realistic assessment of the relationship between weapons of mass destruction and conventional force decline. From this, political, diplomatic, and military objectives and strategies can be devised without the fear of the apocalyptic outcome that currently unites the Administration and its critics.