It’s asked often. Whether there is a possibility that North
Korea will give up their nuclear weapons. Even those who ask already know the
answer. That it seems North Korea will not give up their nuclear weapons. After
acknowledging the presence of a North Korea unwilling to part with its nuclear
weapons, only one question remains. Then what must we do about North Korea’s
threats of nuclear weapon? Answers to this question tend to disagree. Some say
we must also arm ourselves with nuclear weapons; others emphasize
reconciliation and cooperation with North Korea. So the question of whether
North Korea will give up their nuclear weapons was not a simple one to begin
with. It’s not a question meant to be answered with a “yes” or “no,” but rather
a multidimensional inquiry seeking “how” to address the nuclear threats and
“what” must be done.
No threat is particularly felt in regard to America’s
nuclear weapons–the best in the world–but why are we becoming more sensitive
about North Korea’s still shoddy nuclear weaponry? How can we explain this
phenomenon: “Isn’t it expected because it’s North Korea?” Perhaps the situation
can be illuminated if this feeling of “expectation” intuition is further
analyzed. The danger inherent to nuclear weapons themselves are also in
reality, objective. The danger is the same whether or not they are poor or high
quality nuclear weapons. The danger of nuclear weapons in and of itself is no different
from a constant variable. However, recognizing the danger of those threats is
greatly subjective. And the “relationship” with the other party is dependent on
such awareness.
Then questions about the threats of nuclear weapons are
replaced with issues about awareness and relationships. If North and South
Korea relations were as good as possible, the degree of danger and levels of awareness about threats inherent to North Korean nuclear weapons would become
relatively low. Then, how can North and South Korea relations be improved? It is
no simple matter to become closer with such vastly different systems. It
cannot be said that simply doing what North Korea wants is equal to
reconciliation and cooperation. During President Kim Dae Jung’s administration,
South Koreans were persuaded by “the big brother theory:.” The main point was
that it should not be a big deal for a well-off elder brother to be sensitive
to the situation of the poor younger brother. However, the younger brother [North Korea] committed the original sin of developing nuclear weapons behind
his older brother’s [South Korea] back. This is the reason that
remedies calling for better relations as the solution to curtailing the threat of nuclear weapons development–an operation that should not
have existed in the first place–is so criticized; this policy is merely a treatment of
the symptoms rather than a fundamental remedy. And still, nitpicking at rights
and wrongs of the past is not becoming of a wise conduct for overcoming
turbulence.
This is why we cannot give up on analyzing the situation and
seeking a direction for a solution. In that context, the principle of the “Korean
Peninsula Trust Process” is quite a change in tack. There are undercurrents
of the recovery of unification policies that were lost after the Kim Young Sam
administration. This is laid over the understanding that prior North Korea
policies will be returned to their proper place. The essence of the problem is
that the ball is in North Korea’s court. As long is the threat of nuclear
weapons remains an objective constant, ultimately, nuclear threats will never disappear completely. And the international treaty against proliferation against nuclear
weapons does not allow any nuclear development outside of that for peaceful
nuclear use. Of course, the anti-proliferation system itself is incomplete and
full of flaws.
The issue of how to deal with threats of nuclear weapons
cannot help but to be tied to the question of whether North Korea will change.
This is because it has become clear that a North Korea that does not change
will not give up nuclear weapons. Then where can we find the potential to
change North Korea? Is the “intent” of leaders enough? There is something
called “historical institutionalism”: in simpler terms, it refers to a remarkably
critical effort to observe not an event itself, but the context in which the
event took place, while untangling the flow of people and actions of said event through a temporal concept referred to as “path dependence.” Is the institution of North Korea
path dependent?
Then, is there some sort of set of parameters that will leave North
Korea with no choice but to be path dependent? If so, what is it? For a system
like the North Korean society– that does not acknowledge the diversity of
mankind–what will act as its compass? It is “ideology”. The ruling [leading] ideology that North Korea officially claims to support is what truly regulates
the life and identity of the country. Furthermore, the intent of the leader
also falls under this ideology. This means it will be difficult to expect a [political] intent that overcomes the ideology. Historical institutionalism
prognosis is that external variables such as war or economic difficulties, that
would drive deviation from the current course, are the motivation for change in
an existing system [official or unofficial] like this one.
Presently, North Korea has changed from the Kim Jong Il era
of pursuing nuclear weapons to Kim Jong Eun’s resolve to actually possess them. Nuclear weapons have been internalized into the
system. Kim Jong Eun’s “Nuclear Development – Economic Progress Dual Policies”
formalizes this point. In this situation, the chances that North Korea will
give up their nuclear weapons grow even more distant. The weight reduction of
nuclear warheads, also known as vertical expansion, is no different from the
completion of miniaturization. It is only an issue of time and money. The only
road to a realistic remedy for resolving the task of disuse of North Korean
nuclear weapons is to slow and stretch out their time and money.
In order to do so, there is the contradiction that awareness
about the dangers of North Korean nuclear weapons must be disseminated as widely as possible. As
explained earlier, if awareness of the threat of nuclear weapons is inversely
proportional to the relationship with the other party, then would not it make sense that the level of awareness about the threat of nuclear weapons must
increase? This contradiction is truly clear evidence of the paradox this issue presents. Ultimately, whether they are policies for improvement of
relations, or policies to raise awareness levels about the threat of nuclear
weapons, both are fated for a zero-sum game. The trickiness of policies for
dealing with North Korea nuclear weapons results from this aspect. It is
literally a stalemate–overwhelming difficult to make a move in any direction.
Be it the bilateral agreement between North Korea and the
U.S. or the six-party talks, the past twenty years of history regarding North Korean
nuclear weapons has left behind a lesson: attempts to appease North Korea’s
dependence on them with a bold “carrot” [incentives] results in
failure.There is almost no potential of restarting these failed paths for
negotiation. If attempted, it will merely be an insincere political facade with
a different intent and goal. What will be the destination of North Korea’s firm
line of path dependence? For South Korea–stripped of options– it is a contradiction, but they have no choice but to use this method. Is the “Korean Peninsula Trust
Process” not a product of desperate measures? At least it has cast off the
conditional, short- term, result-orientation mindset of the Lee Myung Bak
administration’s foundation for North Korea policies, “Vision 3000:
Denuclearization and Openness”. The process displays South Korea’s struggle in
trying to gently coax North Korea into a Korean Peninsula unification policy with the facade of an ambiguous concept of “trust” that is difficult to assess
but definitely possible to detect.
We return to the original question: will North Korea give up
nuclear weapons? No. But we must not give up on attempts to create historic
conditions and realistic context that will make them worth giving up. We can
only acknowledge the occurrence of change when those results are visible in
North Korea’s official ideology. If we at least do not repeat the foolishness
of viewing a single instance or “solve-things-quick improvement” in relations
with North Korea with blind optimism, the future will record history as a sort of
“improvement” gained through the lessons learned from twenty years of
“failures” with North Korean nuclear missiles.
*Views expressed in Guest Columns are not necessarily those of Daily NK.
