North Korea and the “D” Word
It is June and all the rhetoric flowing out of Pyongyang has finally dissipated. After the usual threats that scare some foreigners back home and bore the average South Korean, everything has gone back to some semblance of normality. That is except for one long English word – “denuclearization.”
On December 31, 1991, after George Bush Sr. and Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to remove nuclear missiles from the Asian region, North and South Korea signed a joint declaration on denuclearization and agreed not to “test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons” (www.armscontrol.org). South Korea kept its promise. North Korea did not. Why?
In an April 2013 phone interview on America’s NPR program:“Morning Edition,” Professor Andrei Lankov from Seoul’s Kookmin University stated: “Denuclearization of North Korea is not going to happen, period. They need it for security. They need it for blackmail. Every year, they get about 800,000 tons of free food. And how do they push countries into shipping this aid? Well, largely by appearing to be dangerous, and then suggesting a compromise. So nukes are a vital tool of their blackmail diplomacy. They’re not going to surrender it.”
The North Korean newspaper the Rodong Sinmun seemingly confirmed this analysis in April, stating: “There may be talks between us and the United States for the sake of arms reduction, but there will never be talks for denuclearization. Our position is clear. Never dream of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.”
If this rhetoric holds true, America has a problem. This past April, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said: “And it is logical that if the threat of North Korea disappears because the peninsula denuclearizes, then obviously that threat no longer mandates that kind of posture [US missile defense deployment]. But there have been no agreements, no discussions, there is nothing actually on the table with respect to that” (Reuters).
More recently after a fruitful meeting this May with President Park Geun-hye, President Obama stated: “If Pyongyang thought its recent threats would drive a wedge between South Korea and the United States or somehow garner the North international respect, today is further evidence that North Korea has failed again. President Park and myself very much share the view that we are going to maintain a strong deterrent, we’re not going to reward provocative behavior” (Reuters, May 11).
So what are we going to do? South Korea, America, Japan and even China are all tired of the old way of doing things. In my opinion, North Korea needs to embrace change either by peaceful choice or by unwilling force. My hope is that recent reports of Pyongyang allowing cell phones, micro-brewed beer, high heel shoes and Disney characters into the culture are signs of peace and all the military blather is a rhetorical vestige of a fading past. North Korea should embrace the “D” word and end this outdated, decades-old covert/overt push to obtain (and sell) nuclear weapons and technology, because international patience with destabilizing brinkmanship is starting to wear thin.