Text Fwd: Obama’s inconsistency? There’s nothing but negotiation

Peace Network
Obama’s inconsistency? There’s nothing but negotiation

2010. 04. 23

Written by Wook-sik Cheong
Translated by intern En-hye Lee and volunteer Michael Glendinning

Obama administration is taking three contradictory approaches to relations with North Korea over the issue of nuclear weapons. First of all, Obama is not admitting nuclear weapons even though North Korea possesses them. Secondly, Obama administration’s determination to oversee the “complete implementation” of the 9.19 Joint Statement from the six-party talks changed direction during the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). Thirdly, Obama administration is consistent with negative and indirect diplomacy despite it having declared undertaking ‘tough and direct dialogues’ with North Korea.

The Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, stated that North Korea has somewhere between one and six nuclear weapons. This statement brought about a strong presumption that the US acknowledged North Korea as a state possessing nuclear weapons. Especially, there has been a huge doubt whether the US has come up with a new revised goal which attempts to block the transfer of the North Korea’s nuclear materials and technology to other nations or terrorist groups, concluding that North Korea’s denuclearization is impossible.

Gary Samore, White House Coordinator for Arms control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, played down the presumptions claiming that the US cannot acknowledge North Korea as a nuclear weapons state and that the US policy is absolute in its support of complete denuclearization in the Korean peninsula.

It is understandable that the US has inconsistent views about the issues. North Korea has a multitude of plutonium which can lead to the production of nuclear weapons. Moreover, the North has undertaken two nuclear tests. So North Korea, at least ‘technically’, can be classified as a nuclear state. However, the US is taking a clear stance that North Korea cannot be described as a nuclear state because ‘political and diplomatic’ acknowledgment directly violates the US’s nonproliferation policy.

The problem is that if the inconsistency between technological and political acknowledgement of North Korea’s possessing nuclear warheads cannot be resolved at once, the contradictory nature of Obama’s North Korean policy will only intensify the situation and the suspicions will expand whether the US, which thinks it is impossible to settle North Korea’s nuclear issue, is only focusing on the blocking of nuclear transfer.

Preemptive attacks on North Korea or Strategic Obscurity?

The Obama administration declared that the United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons sates that are party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and which are in compliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations. According to this standard, North Korea which conducted two nuclear tests and Iran, which is well known as a state that violated NPT, remained as possible targets of the US nuclear preemptive attack. The US government has confirmed this declaration several times.

The problem is that this kind of US position could be seen as a violation of the 9.19 Joint Statement decided upon during six-party talks. This agreement states that “The United States affirmed that it has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons.” However, 9.19 Joint Statement was agreed during the period when North Korea withdrew from NPT and declared that they were in possession of nuclear weapons.

Regarding this, there could be a counterargument which supports the fact that North Korea has to be excluded from the provision of negative security assurance since the North has undertaken two nuclear tests. But if the US maintains the key option of nuclear preemptive attack, this does not accord with the current US policy towards the North as the US does not currently acknowledge North Korea as a nuclear state.

When it comes to North Korea’s previous nuclear tests, it is understandable that Obama administration’s position towards North Korea is trying to create an exception from negative security assurance. However, it would have been better to take strategic ambiguity instead of mentioning the possibility of a nuclear preemptive attack on the North. In other words, Obama should have stayed at the level of pushing North Korea towards discarding nuclear weapons at the earliest possible moment and return to NPT while simultaneously clarifying the basic position of negative security assurance.

Obama administration believes that making it clear about the possibility of a nuclear preemptive attack will be an incentive for North Korea to abandon the nuclear program. However, with North Korea’s denouncement of Nuclear Posture Review(NPR), this brings about an adverse effect for North Korea to come up with modernization of nuclear weapons and the declaration of nuclear state.

Retracing Bush’s failed diplomacy?

These two contradictions stem from the renouncement of Obama’s “tough and direct dialogue”. In regards to North Korea’s request to have bilateral talks with the US, Obama administration keeps repeating “it is possible only within the framework of six-party talks”. It is obvious that this is just the same as the Bush administration’s tiresome and repetitive statement used up until 2006.

Bush administration stoutly refused to participate in the bilateral talks with the North up until 2006. The two countries finally met for talks in 2007. The six-party talks made great progress towards the denuclearization of North Korea. This means that direct talks with the North are not the partial parts of the six-party talks but the crucial part that has to go together with the six-party talks. Obama administration once firmly criticized Bush administration’s foreign policy and pursued to have dialogues with hostile nations without any preconditions, however, it turned back to Bush administration’s ‘failed diplomacy’.

Moreover, the US has recently delayed the resumption of six-party talks because of the ongoing investigation which is still putting a lot of effort into finding out the truth. The US related this incident to the six-party talks even though it is uncertain whether the Korean attack was caused by North Korea. In light of this, it is somewhat disappointing that Obama administration’s foremost goal in foreign policy in the area which is to achieve denuclearization on the Korean peninsula through six-party talks turned out to be nothing.

Due largely to tragic incident, Obama believes that the two countries cannot participate in the bilateral talks and six-party talks right away. This issue should be discussed once this incident is resolved. So far in this situation, there is a lot of thought that this Cheonan ship sinking incident remains to be a permanent mystery. Relating this incident to six-party talks will debilitate the dialogue. The key lesson we can learn from the North Korean nuclear issue, which lasted for about 20 years, is that if we get far away from any dialogue, North Korea’s nuclear potential is more likely to become a reality. Furthermore, the US’s contradictory position will become even further entrenched.

The way to resolve the multiple contradictions is entirely up to Obama. He has to start over and go back to his original plans for US foreign policy. We need to keep in mind that bilateral talks and six-party talks have to get together and also work together instead of confining bilateral talks to six-party talks. This was also the Obama’s promise during his presidential campaign. Furthermore, we need to get rid of self-satisfactory and unilateral ways of thinking in order to demolish North Korea with sanctions and pressures and we should be open-minded to understand North Korea’s demands. It is my understanding that it is a must to prevent the ‘Korean Armageddon’ when we are faced with the North’s modernization of nuclear weapons and a possible US nuclear preemptive attack.