Joining the Club

The problem with evil dictators is they never seem to know when the time is right for a graceful climb-down. The toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad should have provided a strong visual cue to Kim Jong Il of North Korea to abandon his nuclear weapons-development program and come in from the cold. The message even appeared, briefly, to have been received when North Korea agreed in March to sit down for three days of preliminary talks with the U.S. and China in Beijing. But the dim hope that Kim had drawn “the appropriate lessons” from the American show of force in Iraq, in the premonitory words of U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bolton, was extinguished when the initial round of talks broke off Friday with no date set for resumption.

If anything, Kim is now clinging tighter than ever to his nuclear security blanket, convinced that nothing less than the ultimate military equalizer can ensure the survival of his government as he stares down a technologically superior fighting force. That much was made clear to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, the U.S. envoy for the talks. During a break in discussions, while participants were milling around the Chinese government’s Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Li Gun, chief of the North Korean delegation, casually told Kelly that his country isn’t just developing nuclear weapons — it already has them.

The shock admission, made in an informal arena, may have been stereotypical Pyongyang disinformation calculated to gain bargaining leverage. The North’s envoys “are certainly obnoxious,” a senior U.S. State Department official said after the talks ended. But claiming to have joined the nuclear club is a dangerous gambit that could cost Kim the few allies he has — and it’s an especially risky tactic to use against the take-no-prisoners Administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. Before the week was out, the White House said it would rally its allies to support international economic sanctions against the North. “We’re not going to allow ourselves to be intimidated or blackmailed by threats,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

With no clear grounds for compromise, the standoff could take years to resolve — if the two sides can even keep talking. North Korea wants security guarantees and aid from the U.S. Washington wants “a verifiable and irreversible end” to nuclear-weapons development before it offers Pyongyang much of anything. A diplomatic solution seems in some ways even more unattainable with North Korea than it was with Iraq. And trying to impose regime change on a nuclear-armed rogue state seems unthinkable. A quick, clean surgical strike to take out the Yongbyon nuclear facility would not end the weapons threat — the North is thought to have a separate nuclear program hidden away in underground facilities. Besides, any military move would invite massive retaliation, and Kim has better hostages than Saddam. The capital of South Korea, the world’s 12th-largest economy, is in artillery range, and Japan, the second-largest economy, could also be hit by the North’s missiles.

Kim’s regime would ultimately be destroyed in a conflict with the U.S., but the impoverished pariah state is sinking into oblivion anyway and has little else to lose. “North Korea is ready for a suicide attempt,” warns Yoo Ho Yeol, an associate professor at Korea University in Seoul. The U.S. will determine whether it is an assisted suicide. Here are Washington’s options, and the special difficulties each presents:

DIPLOMACY
At least for now, Washington says it is resolved to talking Kim down from the ledge, using the promise of economic assistance backed up with the threat of force. In the best-case scenario, Kim will try to bluster his way through any negotiations, making outrageous demands until he is finally offered what he wants.

But some observers say the North has already concluded that it must have a nuclear arsenal, no matter what — meaning talks would merely be a stalling tactic to provide the North with cover to carry on N-bomb development. And although Washington has consistently expressed confidence that a diplomatic solution can be reached, its own motives are suspect. Bush has said he “loathes” Kim, and Republican hawks say they hate the idea of dickering with the North. The previous U.S. President, Bill Clinton, used economic blandishments to get North Korea to mothball its nuke program — but in October the North triggered the current crisis when it admitted it was violating that 1994 deal. If the secret agenda of the Bush Administration is regime change, as Kim fears, then negotiations will be a charade — for both sides. Even if there is room for compromise, the atmosphere may be too poisonous to nourish a deal. Said former U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Stephen Bosworth: “They trust us even less than we trust them.”

ECONOMIC PRESSURE
Following the North’s surprise admission in Beijing, the U.S. might find it easier to gain international support for economic sanctions, probably under United Nations auspices. Cutting off the North’s supply lines looks on the surface to be a useful strategy. Short of fuel, electricity and fertilizer, the North Korean economy has been steadily withering for years. Only foreign handouts keep the country’s 23 million people from starvation, and the specter of another famine like the one that killed an estimated 2.5 million from 1996 to 1998 looms because donations have slowed to a trickle since the nuclear crisis began.

Though these weaknesses might be exploited to force better behavior, Kim has not been swayed in the past by the deaths of a few million of his countrymen. Some observers say sanctions would be a waste of time, because foreign trade with the North is already negligible. “Shortages of power and food are a natural thing to [North Koreans],” said Lee Sang Man, an economist at Chung-Ang University in Seoul. Shutting down legitimate trade and aid would punish ordinary citizens, but it would probably do little to undermine Kim, who maintains power through repression and a system of payoffs and perks for his top officials, bankrolled by drug trafficking and covert arms sales. Only a full-scale blockade could choke off those funds.

THE CHINA OPTION
For sanctions to work, Kim’s neighbors and two largest donor countries, China and South Korea, would have to be persuaded to participate. Neither country can make the decision lightly. The South Koreans are terrified that sanctions could lead to an all-out war. If Kim’s government collapses instead, a tide of refugees will flood China and South Korea. But even Kim’s friends appear to be losing patience. China, North Korea’s largest trade partner and donor and its closest ally, is as afraid of a nuclear-armed North as it is of refugees. Beijing was infuriated by the North’s obstreperousness at the Beijing talks, which China had gone out on a limb to sponsor. South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young Kwan said Kim’s nuclear declaration represented “a very serious matter that endangers peace on the Korean peninsula and stability in Northeast Asia.”

Some Washington hawks believe China might even be willing to help undermine the regime. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld circulated a memo, leaked on the eve of talks, advocating that the U.S. team up with China to oust Kim through diplomatic pressure. “When push comes to shove, China may be willing to pull the plug,” said Gordon Flake, a North Korea expert at the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs in Washington.

Kim, however, has proven surprisingly resilient. A 1997 study by a South Korean think tank that compared North Korea to communist-bloc countries before they collapsed concluded the North could have suffered the same fate — in 1992. The regime “is surviving and will continue to survive for the time being,” said Kim Sung Chull, one of the report’s authors. One reason is that Kim is supported by an élite group of military officers, party cadres and security officials who haven’t been as affected by the economic collapse as the general population and who see their fate linked to the regime’s. They number perhaps only 100,000, with 10,000 representing a “super élite” with close ties to senior leadership. North Korea watchers say they are supported in part by the country’s arms sales and illegal businesses — drug exports and counterfeiting — which bring in as much as twice the amount of North Korea’s regular exports, or more than $1 billion. Last week, the world was reminded of the scope of North Korea’s black economy with the arrest of 30 North Korean sailors in Australia on charges of smuggling $48 million worth of heroin.

Most North Koreans are too hungry, too terrorized and too thoroughly distanced from reality by constant government propaganda to revolt. “Inside North Korea, the majority of people still believe in their system,” said Tak Eun Hyuk, a defector from a powerful North Korean family. More news from the outside world is leaking into the country across the northern border with China, and some North Koreans are starting to realize they have been duped. But when citizens waver in their loyalty, Kim has a repressive machine to equal Saddam’s. An estimated 200,000 North Koreans are locked away in remote gulags. Those seen as enemies of the state vanish in middle-of-the-night raids. Refugees attempting to return from China have been caught and publicly executed.

MILITARY FORCE
The U.S. hasn’t ruled out the use of force to strip North Korea of its nukes. Clinton considered a strike on North Korea’s nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. But the risk remains that a smart-bomb attack will spark a war that won’t be as neat as Gulf War II. Estimates of casualties in South Korea from even a short conflict run to 1 million. The U.S. would again risk international censure for unilateral military action. In April, China and Russia scuttled a U.N. Security Council resolution merely condemning North Korea for pulling out of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Even if Kim should fall to a U.S. onslaught, it’s unlikely there will be post-overthrow photographs of joyful North Koreans celebrating the demise of their oppressor. Kim keeps the public in constant fear of a U.S. attack to maintain his grip on power. Schoolchildren are instructed to chant “The U.S. is our worst enemy” in front of the U.S.S. Pueblo, an American spy ship captured by the North Koreans in 1968 that is still on display on the banks of the Daedong River in Pyongyang. They win school sporting contests by being the first to use a wooden sword to lop off the limbs of an effigy of a U.S. soldier. “North Koreans’ loyalty to Kim Jong Il is stronger than that of Iraqis for Saddam,” said Kim Sik, a former university professor in North Korea who is now living in the South.

An enemy programmed to hate and fear is not the adversary the U.S. wants to face across the bargaining table. But assuming that Kim is driven primarily by a desire to stay in power, he might realize his nuclear plan has a fundamental flaw. Using or threatening to use the bomb will almost certainly spell the end of his regime, no matter the cost. Logic should be telling him that the only sure way he can survive is by giving up his nukes, in return getting much-needed aid and living to be obnoxious another day.