Pyongyang's latest nuclear test is another reminder of the seemingly intractable "problem" of North Korea. The country's pursuit of nuclear weapons has apparently been unstoppable. First quietly in the 1980s but lately rather overtly, North Korea has proceeded with its weapons program despite sanctions, isolation, military threats, and attempts at engagement and reconciliation.
At a time when the United States is moving toward normalizing relations with Cuba and extolling "historic progress through diplomacy" with Iran, U.S. relations with North Korea are increasingly anachronistic. But Pyongyang's conventional military capability, its often-convoluted relations with its neighbors and the United States, and the ambiguous examples of other states' paths to developing or abandoning nuclear weapons have made "solving" the North Korean problem a complex challenge indeed.
The North Korean Problem
Aside from a general agreement on the need for multilateral talks and a desire for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, there are few other aspects of North Korean policy on which China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the United States agree. Within each of these countries, there are strongly conflicting opinions regarding any North Korean policy that limits national, much less international, consensus. Even simply defining the North Korean problem is often difficult. Is it about the pursuit and possible proliferation of weapons of mass destruction? About the security of South Korea in the face of the North's conventional threat? Is it Pyongyang's so-called provocative behavior as a disruptor of regional stability? Is it a question of human rights, global economic access or the legitimacy of the Kim dynasty, or some combination of these issues?
Domestic political considerations as much as international security concerns determine various countries' policies toward Pyongyang. And the North Korean leadership is adept at exploiting these internal and international differences. The result is that despite being tiny, constrained by international sanctions and surrounded by some of the largest military powers in the world, North Korea can still manipulate its neighbors' fears and disagreements to preserve its regime by whatever means it sees as necessary to ensure its survival.
This leaves debate over past and future policies toward North Korea far from resolved. In the United States, equally erudite (and at times equally naive) arguments can be, and often are, made for and against each of the basic policy options for dealing with Pyongyang: engagement, isolation, threat or direct military action.
Sanctions and attempts at international isolation may have slowed North Korea's nuclear and missile development, but they have clearly not stopped these programs. And after several decades, they appear no closer to crippling the North Korean government.
Previous attempts at reconciliation and engagement have had very mixed results. While at times they have slowed North Korea's weapons of mass destruction programs, they have also perhaps granted Pyongyang the space to advance its research and preparations toward a nuclear and missile capability while distracting the world with dialogue.
Threats of military action have done little to dissuade the North's nuclear and conventional weapons development, or its occasional clashes with South Korea. Such threats may have even increased Pyongyang's desire to pursue nuclear weapons - first as something to trade for security assurances, and later as a deterrent themselves.
Calls for military strikes on North Korea to slow or end its nuclear and missile programs have been frequent. But they have just as frequently been dismissed because of the North's proximity to Seoul and even to Japan, questions over the immediate cost versus potential long-term benefit of such actions, and questions over just how China would respond.
No Easy Answers
And so the question continues to arise, what to do about North Korea? There is no easy answer, and certainly none that would satisfy all political factions in the United States, much less in each of the other immediately concerned countries. We are frequently asked what we would recommend. Stratfor traditionally has not made policy prescriptions. This has been to preserve at least some sense of objective observation and to avoid tainting our analysis and forecasts with what we may "want" to see as opposed to how things are actually developing. Moreover, policy prescription can quickly move to advocacy. Though that is a necessary role for many organizations, our role is based on the principle of providing the information necessary to make informed decisions but not asserting which is the "right" decision.
