Getting Real on North Korea

Joshua Stanton has an interesting piece in the New Ledger that touches on North Korea and the failures of diplomacy. He writes:

Disbelieve Democrats who claim to have done better. The best they can say is that Bill Clinton’s Agreed Framework I was a partial and temporary success at containing the plutonium portion of North Korea’s nuclear program, even as North Korea cheated by pursuing a parallel, undeclared uranium enrichment program.

Admittedly, redirecting the North's efforts from plutonium to uranium isn't the ideal outcome, but it's not bad either. As Brookings' Michael O'Hanlon has noted, this diversion to a "basement bomb program" slowed the North's nuclear program considerably. In the eight years that the Bush administration had the North Korean portfolio, they ramped up weapons production and succeeded in detonating a nuclear device. So the proof is in the pudding.

The problem with the debate over North Korea is that it's frequently conducted as if there are a host of realistic options and that it's only political cowardice that prevents the U.S. from "solving" the problem. That strikes me as implausible.

The U.S. holds little leverage over North Korea. We're not going to bomb them or blockade them and put the civilian populations of South Korea and Japan at risk. As stringent as sanctions get, the Chinese and South Koreans will continue to prop up the North because they fear instability and refugee flows more than a nuclear armed Kim Jong-Il. No amount of UN Resolution waving, suave diplomacy or militaristic bravado seems to alter the perceived interests of the Chinese and South Koreans.

Which leaves us with two unpleasant options. The first is to walk away altogether and watch as the North ramps up their weapons programs and proliferation activities in an effort to frighten us back to the table. The second is to consent to their extortion and hope that diplomacy can slow down their weapons programs and proliferation activities.