Making a big deal is unrealistic to denuclearize North Korea

By Mitch Shin

North Korea used to pursue a big deal with the United States by utilizing its nuclear arsenal in exchange for lifting all economic sanctions. However, this strategy seems to have adjusted in the Kim Jong-un era.

When then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in activated his "peace process" to tackle the rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula and renew the stalled inter-Korean dialogue in 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un showed his willingness to denuclearize his country. Considering the North's past attempts not to abide by the agreements that were crafted in the negotiations with the U.S. and South Korea, his vow was accused of being another cover-up operation by Pyongyang to achieve its hidden goals.

With this, Kim's pledge to denuclearize his country sounded unrealistic to North Korea watchers due to the impossibility of his regime surviving without nuclear weapons and the desire of the North to be a powerful nuclear-owned state to confront the U.S.

As his father Kim Jong-il used a two-faced strategy over the U.S. administrations in the late 1990s and early 2000s, his relatively young successor Kim Jong-un was expected to update or slightly revise his father's negotiating strategy. Unlike his father, however, the offer he made during the negotiations demonstrated how he was ready to take steps toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Eight months after the first North Korea-U.S. summit in Singapore, Kim again jumped on diplomacy with then-U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi in February 2019. As it was a follow-up summit meeting after the Singapore summit, it was expected to see some substantive outcomes over the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula ― which is technically the denuclearization of North Korea as there is no nuclear weapon on the South's soil.

As reported, however, the summit broke down due to the different views of Trump and Kim over the ways to denuclearize North Korea. Trump eventually walked out of the summit with no deal, leading the nuclear talks to be stalled to this day.

Many American experts and politicians praised Trump's decision by saying that no deal is better than making a bad deal. However, what should be underlined here is the offer made by Kim. According to the media reports and papers, Kim offered an incremental deal which was a different approach from his father's: complete disarmament of all nuclear facilities in Yongbyon in exchange for lifting the five sanctions imposed in the U.N. Security Council that concerned the civilian economy.

In other words, Kim showed his willingness to denuclearize his country in a phased process in the long term. As the first step to denuclearize North Korea, it was not a bad deal for Washington to accept. However, Washington hawks believed that there are other hidden nuclear arsenals outside of Yongbyon ― which is not proven officially yet ― and made Trump pressure Kim to give up his nuclear weapons at once. Due to Trump's sudden brinkmanship strategy in the Hanoi summit, Kim might have interpreted that the U.S. would not lift economic sanctions even if he showed some meaningful moves for the denuclearization of his country.

Some American experts may say that Trump made the right decision as Pyongyang would have again broken the agreement but let's step back and look at what Kim offered to Trump. Was Kim's offer unacceptable to Trump?

With this, one more question should be asked of American officials and experts: Was it the right call of Trump to demand Kim hand over his nuclear weapons and fissile materials in one scoop?

There are a few background details, which explain Trump's "walk out" decision. The most compelling one is the domestic political issue: the hearing of Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen. Due to the House Democrats' scheduling of the hearing on the same day as the Hanoi summit, Trump failed to get enough attention from the press and the public. In this context, some South Korean pundits once shared their analysis that Trump's no-deal was a strategic decision to turn the scale in his favor.

Since the Hanoi summit went down, North Korea shifted its lever toward nuclear and missile development again. Washington and Seoul have repeatedly urged Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table with no preconditions. Considering Trump's political and strategic decision for his interests in Hanoi, however, the U.S. should make concessions such as lifting the economic sanctions partially or temporarily halting the joint military drills with the South if it wants to renew the deadlocked nuclear talks with the North. As it has already made clear several times, Pyongyang would not engage in dialogue with Washington again unless it makes concessions.

It is no longer important to argue whether the U.S. should try to implement an Iran-like nuclear model or the Libya model on North Korea issues. What should be highlighted is that as both the U.S. and North Korea cannot accept a big deal that is not completely standing on each side's interests, Washington should closely coordinate with Seoul to make a long-term and phased plan for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. It also needs to change its main goal over this issue from keeping the status quo (insisting on the complete, verifiable, irreversible and dismantlement (CVID) of weapons of mass destruction on the Korean Peninsula with no plan B) to resolving the security dilemma.

To make it happen, Seoul should be the main handler on the issue under the full support of Washington and make clear that Pyongyang cannot bypass it to directly negotiate with Washington.

Mitch Shin (mitchsshin@gmail.com) is a chief Koreas correspondent for The Diplomat. Shin was a non-resident research fellow at Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm Korea Center.