Dealing with the Kims

North Korean negotiators are a tough, wily bunch. But Americans have outfoxed them before.

BY JOEL WIT, JENNY TOWN | FEBRUARY 21, 2012

This week's meeting between U.S. Special Envoy Glyn Davies and North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan will be the first official encounter between the United States and North Korea since the death of Kim Jong Il two months ago. After endless speculation by the press and experts about the future of North Korea, this meeting will be an important reality check: an opportunity to take the pulse of the new management in Pyongyang, and particularly to discern changes or continuity in its efforts to build weapons of mass destruction.

Even on a good day, of course, we underestimate the difficulties of dealing with North Korea at our peril. Korea specialists are fond of calling it the "land of no good options" (although that is probably true for many foreign-policy challenges facing the United States today). The North remains the poster child for rogue states because of 60 years of bad behavior, including its more recent nuclear and missile tests in 2006 and 2009 and conventional military attacks on South Korea in 2010. If there is anyone who knows that, it's those of us who have had direct experience dealing with North Koreans at the negotiating table, on the ground, or conducting any other business face-to-face with them.

(I will never forget one of my first visits as a U.S. government official to the Yongbyon nuclear facility in 1996, when I was harangued by a senior North Korean engineer who complained bitterly about the United States and its treatment of his country for what felt like hours. I let him speak his peace, though I considered an equally nasty response that would have made my friends from New York proud. In the end, I responded in true State Department fashion that I would tell my superiors about his concerns and suggested we get down to business. He rapidly shifted gears and our talks were successful.)

At the same time, what is striking about the discourse in Washington these days is that we seem to have bought into myths that make Pyongyang appear 10 feet tall. The most egregious has to do with negotiating with North Korea. For the past three years, the Obama administration has harped on the dangers of talking to the North Koreans, emitting a steady stream of platitudes such as not "buying the same horse twice," or "talking for talk's sake" that make it sound like they have taken us to the cleaners more than once in the past.

When I was in the State Department, we use to joke that the North Koreans and the Israelis would be quite a matchup in the "World Series" of negotiators. The North Koreans are tough customers. But a myth-free examination of the past two decades reveals a reality Americans for some reason refuse to recognize -- the United States has done very well negotiating with Pyongyang.

AFP/Getty Images

 SUBJECTS: NORTH KOREA
 

Joel Wit is visiting fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and founder of its DPRK website, 38North. This article was written with the assistance of Jenny Town, a research associate at SAIS and editor of 38 North.

MARTY MARTEL

5:45 AM ET

February 23, 2012

Another attempt to justify fruitless talks

Here is another attempt to justify fruitless talks with double-talking North Korea that dances to Beijing’s tune who sustains North Korea under the bogy of collapsing North Korea flooding China with refugees.

Instead of calling original estimate exaggerated, Wit and Town credit flawed 1993 framework agreement for leaving North Korea with much less bomb-making nuclear fissile material!

As long as North Korea has an option of going back on its word because of China’s help in all fields including nuclear and as long as China is allowed to get away with such a double game also, this North Korean drama of make agreement - break agreement can continue indefinitely no matter how such foreign policy wonks want to spin it.

 

KUNINO

1:13 PM ET

February 23, 2012

A bizarre piece -- or as Wit might have it, peace

As evidence of how great a job of outfoxing North Korea the US State Department achieved -- nobly assisted by Mr Wit himself -- the writer presents "Take the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework that provided for the eventual dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear program".

Terrific outfoxing of those tough wily North Koreans if you ignore the fact that during the recent Bush years, Pyongyang didn't dismantle its nuclear program. Instead, it taught itself how to make atom bombs, and made them. The State Department, it seems, never noticed this while it was going on, and neither did Defense.

The chronology seems to have been this: in 1994, Clinton-era negotiators achieved that framework. In 2003 (the Bush era), North Korea pulled out, saying Washington was't keeping its part of the framework agreement. In 2006,Pyongyang announced it had made and tested its first atom bomb.

The Bush administration seems not to have defended itself from Pyongyang's 2003 claim, which strongly suggests that it was truthful. How unfortunate for the world, if so. And I see no outfoxing in it. Or in the former president's apparently pointless 2002 State of the Union crack about North Korea being one of the worst three nations in the world, as part of an imaginary axis of evil. Insult and threaten North Koreans, and watch them take what seems to them adequate steps to protect themselves. I hope the west is doing better with Pyongyang today than did the Bush-era predecessors.

 

YANKEE

2:16 PM ET

February 23, 2012

What nonsense.

The article did not mention at all the uranium enrichment that went on the entire time of these "negotiations". And it glosses over the two tests carried out. And the two unprovoked attacks. Not to mention not even bothering to mention the ongoing, genocide for which this country could at least speak of since doing anything is apparently beyond us. Horribly pathetic on so many levels I can't even put into words really.

To be proud of the ongoing epic disaster of negotiating with a genocial regime is to spit in the face of the hundreds of thousands of dead Koreans who have been brutally murdered since 1993 and well before. These proud guys are strutting their "success" because they didn't produce more nukes than they did...as if one nuke doesn't mean anything really. Wow.

To then take the stance, after all of this, that confonting the regime is...wrong is disgusting. What incredible fools. No wonder they were "outfoxed" by such a pathetic regime.

 

LECHEB

11:54 AM ET

March 18, 2012

Things Are Changing Rapidly

It looked very promising after these talks that North Korea and the US had come up with an agreement that both would follow. North Korea promised to halt its nuclear ambitions while the US beginning delivering huge amount of aid including food in exchange. Following this story on my iphone 5 apple, it appears now that this agreement is all for not. With the announcement that North Korea will be testing long range rockets in the next couple of weeks it looks like nothing has been accomplished. This will be an on going story to follow.

 

JIMMY GARBO

5:30 AM ET

March 19, 2012

north korea

What exactly are US interests in North Korea?
After testimony from government and NGO witnesses, Kerry observed, ‘Based on [widely differing testimonials], I get the sense that we are misinterpreting what our interests are, vis-à-vis [North Korea] and how they view us. And if we are, how useful are six party talks?’ Kerry remains alone among US policy leaders in questioning official descriptions of US interests on Korea.

Those interests remain the subject of profound confusion among government officials, policy specialists and the media. In public debate in the US, the goals of policy are generally described as denuclearisation, containment or regime change. Governments profess to be working toward denuclearisation while having internally decided it to be too tough and substitute for it containment, which relies on far less diplomacy and overall effort. The US interest in protecting or advancing the human rights of the North Korean public is loudly proclaimed, particularly by elected officials, but policy inputs are not designed to make any difference in this area. Meanwhile the policy of engagement begun in earnest by the US in 1994 — and given a critical boost by South Korea in 1998 — is criticized as having been ‘unconditional’ and having no better impact on North Koreans or on regional security than the current containment approach, neither of which is supported by the record.