OPINION:
North Korea is now aligned with a revanchist Russian Federation, providing artillery shells, ballistic missiles and reportedly troops to aid Russia in its war in Ukraine.
North Korea reportedly amended its constitution to make South Korea its principal enemy, eschewing peaceful reunification while destroying railways and roads connecting North Korea to South Korea.
Kim Jong Un’s and his regime’s rhetoric has become more strident, threatening to use nuclear weapons — tactical and strategic — if North Korea perceives a threat to its survival. Mr. Kim recently visited a highly enriched uranium, or HEU, site, finally admitting that North Korea is using fissile material from HEU and plutonium for nuclear weapons, an HEU program North Korea had denied having since 2002, when its leaders were told that the U.S. knew they had a secret program to produce nuclear weapons, in addition to their plutonium plant in Yongbyon.
How have relations with North Korea deteriorated to this level?
Indeed, this is the North Korea that spent 30 years seeking a normal relationship with the U.S., arguing that it would be a good friend to the U.S. and that its nuclear weapons were a deterrent to ensure the regime’s survival.
Over these 30 years, we have had the Agreed Framework of 1994, which former President Jimmy Carter helped to establish.
In 2000, we had Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visit North Korea and have productive talks with leader Kim Jong Il, Mr. Kim’s father, and we had North Korea’s second most powerful official, Marshall Jo Myong-rok, meet with President Bill Clinton in the White House to discuss normalization of relations.
In 2003, the Six-Party Talks began, which resulted in a September 2005 Joint Statement committing North Korea to complete and verifiable denuclearization in return for economic development assistance and a path to normal relations with the U.S., South Korea and Japan.
In 2018 and 2019, President Donald Trump met with with Kim Jong Un in Singapore and Hanoi.
The 2018 Singapore Summit produced a short joint statement committing North Korea to denuclearization in return for transforming relations with the U.S. The 2019 Hanoi Summit ended abruptly when North Korea refused to acknowledge its HEU sites, expecting sanctions relief in return for halting activities at its plutonium site in Yongbyon.
Since then, negotiations with North Korea have ceased, with North Korea incessantly launching ballistic missiles, some capable of reaching the U.S. It was during this hiatus that Mr. Kim decided to align with Russia, with his visit to Vladivostok to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr. Putin’s visit to Pyongyang to formally enshrine an allied relationship with North Korea, with a mutual defense treaty, committing each to come to the defense of the other if attacked.
Ignoring North Korea is not a viable option.
Some have argued that normalizing relations with North Korea and accepting them as a nuclear weapons state was and is the best approach for dealing with North Korea. I and others have opposed this approach.
Normalizing relations with a nuclear-armed North Korea could result in significant nuclear proliferation, with a nuclear arms race in Northeast Asia, with South Korea and Japan — and others — seeking their own nuclear weapons despite U.S. extended nuclear deterrence commitments.
Moreover, the danger of a nuclear weapon or fissile material for a dirty bomb getting into the hands of a rogue state or terrorist organization could become much greater. In 2007, Israel bombed the nuclear reactor North Korea was building for Syria in Al Kibar, a violation of past agreements with North Korea.
Concurrently, arguing that we can ignore North Korea with a policy of containment and deterrence is also flawed.
North Korea now has a mutual defense treaty with Russia. Russia had called for North Korea’s denuclearization and supported sanctions against it in the U.N. Security Council. North Korea also has China, its economic lifeline and treaty partner, committed to its defense.
Both Russia and China are ensuring that North Korea is no longer sanctioned by the U.N. for its continued violation of resolutions prohibiting missile launches and nuclear tests. A seventh nuclear test appears to be imminent. And North Korea has not been deterred from building more nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons to distances as far as the U.S.
Conflict on the Korean Peninsula has become more likely.
With the coming election and a new administration, taking a different tack with North Korea is possible. Engage the North with the prospect of sanctions relief in exchange for a halt in fissile material production, nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches. Keep open the option of a path to normalization of relations with the U.S.
This path also makes it clear that the U.S. continues to be committed to the defense of South Korea and Japan, with enhanced extended nuclear deterrence commitments and a continuation of joint military exercises with South Korea, which should also include Japan.
A new U.S. administration has an opportunity to reengage with North Korea, a country that wanted normal relations with the U.S. but is now allied with and aiding Russia.
• Joseph R. DeTrani served as special envoy for the Six-Party Talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006 and as director of the National Counterproliferation Center. The views expressed here are the author’s and not those of any government agency or department.
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