Chapter 9: Assessing the Role of Security Assurances in Dealing with North Korea 1. John S. Park 2

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1 9-1 Chapter 9: Assessing the Role of Security Assurances in Dealing with North Korea 1 John S. Park 2 After conducting nuclear weapon tests in 2006 and 2009, North Korea has increasingly insisted that it has become the world s ninth nuclear weapon state. Many interpretations of North Korean nuclear decision-making leading to this predicament are inadequate in explaining Pyongyang s nuclear behavior. While hostile U.S. policy is frequently cited by North Korea as the reason it needs a nuclear deterrent, a careful examination of nuclear behavior by the Democratic People s Republic of Korea (DPRK) reveals that even when the United States has offered explicit security assurances, North Korea has continued with its nuclear weapons development. This behavior raises important questions about our understanding of security assurances and North Korea s stated policy goals. This chapter examines the relationship between security assurances and North Korean nuclear decision-making by focusing on four key areas. 3 The first is an examination of key geopolitical shocks that had a major impact on the North Korean regime. Recent monographs portray Pyongyang as being highly effective at applying a consistent, proactive, and perfidious strategy of using its nuclear program to coerce other countries to accede to its demands. 4 North Korean responses to geopolitical events related to security assurances reveal a significantly different picture than the one depicted in this literature. The second area covered by this chapter is an analysis of the main sources of security assurances for North Korea over its history. Two treaties signed in 1961, with the Soviet Union

2 9-2 and People s Republic of China (PRC), provided positive security assurances. In the early 1990s with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, it became clear that Pyongyang could no longer rely on Moscow s security assurance. During this period, North Korea began seeking a new source of assurances, focusing its efforts on the United States. North Korea received U.S. negative security assurances in the 1994 Agreed Framework and a 2005 joint statement emanating from the Six-Party Talks, as well as a more general reassurance in a 2000 joint communiqué. Third, this chapter assesses this volume s hypotheses on security assurances based on how North Korea reacted to geopolitical shocks. Although assurances have clearly not succeeded in persuading Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program, the case suggests they have the potential to moderate North Korea s behavior under the right conditions. Of Jeffrey Knopf s initial hypotheses regarding security assurances, the analysis of North Korean behavior at least partially sustains hypotheses 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13, though in some cases only with modifications. Security assurances appear most likely to be effective when they are tailored to North Korea s particular concerns, including threats outside its region; embedded in a larger strategy that incorporates positive incentives; capable of influencing internal debates; and not hamstrung by the provider s domestic or alliance constraints. The fourth and final part of the analysis explores the conditions under which security assurances may be most effective in dealing with North Korea in the future. In its negotiations with the United States during the second Bush administration, North Korea sought a package deal through which Pyongyang would receive tangible assurances for regime survival. However, China may be supplanting the United States as the most likely provider of assurances. Since the

3 9-3 mid-2000s, concerted Chinese interactions with North Korea through the Communist Party of China (CPC)-Workers Party of Korea (WPK) channel have enabled the North Koreans to attain significant portions of their desired package deal from Beijing. The pace of deal making in this CPC-WPK channel accelerated as North Korea s relations stalled with both the Obama administration and the Lee Myung-bak administration. It is unclear how developments as this chapter was being completed in late 2010, including North Korea s revelation of a new uranium enrichment plant and shelling of a South Korean island, will affect PRC-DPRK relations. However, China s strategic interest in offering a package deal including security assurances that could restrain North Korea s behavior has continued undiminished. This chapter concludes that the Chinese approach appears to be the most viable among the feasible options for using assurances, but even with this approach the chances of getting North Korea to give up nuclear weapons are low. North Korea s Reactions to Geopolitical Shocks: Four Key Waves North Korea has not been able to develop and implement a coherent, long-term strategy with regard to its nuclear policy. The source of this inability has been a series of sudden, traumatic geopolitical events that have forced North Korea to scramble to find a way to maintain regime survival. In doing so, North Korea has become adept at formulating and pursuing shortterm tactics to adapt to and survive each new geopolitical shock. In many theoretical analyses of North Korean nuclear policy goals and behavior, there is an implicit assumption that the North Korean leadership is skilled at formulating strategy and pursuing its long-term policy goals by using the threat of the country s nuclear program. An examination of North Korean nuclear

4 9-4 behavior during four key geopolitical periods affecting the regime will reveal a state that has been more effective from a tactical standpoint than a strategic one in achieving the immediate goal of regime survival. This North Korean behavior has implications for the applicability of security assurances. Since the establishment of the North Korean state in 1948, it has primarily existed as an aid-recipient country. In this respect, pursuing juche 5, the concept of self-sufficiency, served as a practical method to conceal the externally dependent nature of the North Korean regime. At the core of North Korea s ability to survive has been the ability to react rapidly following a geopolitical shock to the regime. These shocks can be likened to a tidal wave that leaves North Korea scrambling to secure a replacement aid patron following the loss of the previous one. The tactical manipulation of the opportunities that emerge with each wave, however small, has enabled the regime to ensure its survival from wave to wave. This behavior occurs from a position of weakness, rather than strength. This tactical response behavior will be explored more closely in the next section. In this section, the four key waves that have hit North Korea are identified and the manner in which North Korea used its nuclear policy to react to each wave to ensure short-term survival is described. Wave 1: The Sino-Soviet Split and Rivalry In the immediate aftermath of the Korean War, the severely weakened North Korean state faced a formidable U.S. military deterrent and a growing South Korean defensive capability. Seeking to maintain a strategic buffer state, the Soviet Union dramatically increased its military aid to the remnants of the North Korean army in the mid-1950s. In the late 1950s, North Korea

5 9-5 also received growing military aid from China. The Sino-Soviet split during the following decade became the first geopolitical shock to affect North Korea s approach to nuclear matters. As the Sino-Soviet rivalry deepened in the 1960s, the conventional view is that North Korea benefited immensely by playing one patron off of the other. North Korea, however, was not as masterful as is commonly believed. As a RAND study in October 1984 points out: Although the DPRK s geostrategic importance affords it a certain amount of influence, North Korea has not been able to translate this importance into anything more than very cautious and conditional support from its two principal patrons. This is particularly true concerning matters touching directly upon great power interests. Far from a North Korean tail wagging the Russian or Chinese dog, therefore, North Korea has constantly had to scramble to adjust to policies of the USSR or the PRC which were often adopted for reasons having nothing to do with Pyongyang but which had an important effect upon it. The actual leverage of the DPRK has been extremely limited. 6 For North Korea, the Sino-Soviet rivalry caused frequent disruptions in aid from its patrons. The absence of consistent aid flows made domestic production more attractive to Pyongyang. This is about the time the DPRK initiated its nuclear program, with important technical assistance from the Soviet Union. Not knowing how much it could count on such assistance continuing, North Korea increasingly focused on plutonium-based nuclear technology during this period. North Korea reaped a strong benefit from pursuing the plutonium path the opportunity to develop local capabilities. In 1962, North Korea began construction of an IRT-

6 research reactor it procured from the Soviet Union. In the early 1970s, North Korea used indigenous technology to expand the capacity of the IRT-2000 research reactor. 7 Although North Korea periodically received nuclear components, equipment, and training from the Soviet Union, it also indigenized its nuclear program as much as it could. Its graphitemoderated nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, which the DPRK began building in , was built to run on locally mined and milled uranium. 8 North Korea also built a facility at Yongbyon for reprocessing plutonium from the reactor s spent fuel. These efforts to maximize indigenous capacity helped the DPRK weather shifts and disruptions in aid relationships during the period of Sino-Soviet rivalry. Wave 2: South Korea s Nordpolitik In the late 1980s and early 1990s, South Korea embarked on a highly effective diplomatic campaign in which Seoul established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1990 and with China in Offering lucrative trade and investment incentives to Moscow and Beijing, Seoul drastically altered the traditional patron-client relationships that Pyongyang had with the Soviets and the Chinese. These South Korean diplomatic achievements constituted a major shock to the North Korean regime because they threatened its vital, though limited, connections to the international system. North Korea s sense of betrayal by Moscow and Beijing was compounded by further steep reductions in trade, loans, and aid, especially from the Soviet Union as chronic economic inefficiencies and a debilitating arms race took their toll on the Soviets. Starting in the late 1980s, North Korea s economy experienced dramatic contractions due to shrinking imports and major reductions in exports. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end

7 9-7 of the global Cold War, North Korea was no longer able to enjoy any of the last vestiges of friendship prices from or preferential arrangements with its Soviet and Chinese allies. During this period, North Korea increased its nuclear activity at the Yongbyon Nuclear Complex. In 1989, North Korea shut down and refueled its 5 MW(e) reactor. North Korea then reprocessed the spent fuel to weapons-grade plutonium in its Radiochemical Laboratory. At the same time, the end of the Cold War created a possible opening to alter relations with the United States. In late 1991, the United States withdrew its tactical nuclear weapons deployed in South Korea as part of a global policy of reducing its foreign deployments of such weapons. At a time of increased isolation resulting from Seoul s successful Nordpolitik and the collapse of its Soviet patron, North Korea now did something on the diplomatic front it had not done in more than four decades. In January 1992, Kim Yong-sun, international director of the WPK, met with Arnold Kanter, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, in New York in the highest level meeting between the United States and North Korea since the Korean War Armistice talks. 9 With U.S. suspicion growing that North Korea was using its nuclear program to develop a nuclear arsenal, Washington was focused on getting the North Koreans to sign a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Although North Korea had acceded to the NPT in 1985, it had not concluded an IAEA safeguards agreement as required by the Treaty. Such an agreement was needed to facilitate IAEA inspections of the suspicious activities taking place at the Yongbyon facilities. Prior to the New York meeting, President George H.W. Bush s administration was deeply divided about even convening a meeting with a country that the United States had long held to be untrustworthy. 10

8 9-8 On the eve of this meeting, Nordpolitik s shadow loomed large. Seoul s innovative policy had induced a drastic reduction in North Korea s remaining commercial ties with its communist allies. The disintegration of the Soviet Union accelerated and compounded this trend. The loss of key patrons dealt a heavy blow to the viability of the aid-dependent North Korean economy. Opportunities to engage the United States offered a counter-balance to this dire situation. The Kanter-Kim meeting initiated an on-again, off-again interaction between Pyongyang and Washington that has persisted. From the U.S. point of view, the Kanter-Kim meeting achieved its immediate objective, as it persuaded North Korea to accept IAEA safeguards. The resulting inspections, however, set the stage for a new nuclear crisis. Wave 3: Collapse of the Agreed Framework After IAEA inspectors questioned North Korea s initial declaration of its past nuclear activities, a serious nuclear crisis unfolded in Efforts to resolve the crisis led to Pyongyang s first significant engagement with the United States, culminating in the Agreed Framework. In this accord, signed in October 1994, the North Korean leadership agreed to a gradual, step-by-step approach intended to ultimately lead to a nuclear weapons-free Korean Peninsula. This would begin with an immediate freeze on work at the Yongbyon Nuclear Complex. In return, North Korea would obtain deliveries of fuel oil, the construction of two light-water reactors (LWRs), and at the end of the process normalized ties with Washington. When the Agreed Framework unraveled instead, this became a third geopolitical shock to the North Korean regime.

9 9-9 From Pyongyang s perspective, the gradual format of the Agreed Framework was ideal for enabling the regime to test U.S. intentions. Rather than immediate nuclear dismantlement, a series of steps had to be taken for that end goal to be achieved. Should the relevant end goals for North Korea not be delivered i.e., the completion of the LWR project and normalized relations then the nuclear freeze implemented at Yongbyon could be undone. In the end, this is what transpired. Even while the Clinton administration remained in office, implementation of the Agreed Framework proved slow and incomplete. This resulted initially from congressional skepticism and reluctance to fund the deal, later reinforced by increasing administration suspicions of North Korea s intentions. The remaining vestiges of the Agreed Framework unraveled during the first term of the George W. Bush administration. Having publicly stated during the presidential campaign that he despised and loathed North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, one of Bush s first actions as president was ordering a thorough review of America s North Korea policy. 11 As a result, while the heavy fuel oil shipments initially continued, the Bush administration effectively halted the reactor project, which was at the heart of the Agreed Framework. In a meeting in fall 2002, described more fully below, the administration also challenged North Korea with evidence of a secret uranium enrichment project, which it deemed a violation of the Agreed Framework by the DPRK. With these developments, the Agreed Framework collapsed. North Korea responded by reprocessing the 8,017 fuel rods that had been sitting in storage ponds and restarting its 5 MW(e) reactor.

10 9-10 Wave 4: Advent of the Bush Doctrine Overlapping with the collapse of the Agreed Framework, a fourth shock for North Korea emerged from the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when the Bush administration began to speak openly about taking more aggressive action to eliminate possible future threats from so-called rogue states. In January 2002, President Bush named North Korea as part of an axis of evil. The following year, the United States invaded Iraq, another member of the axis of evil, with the avowed goal of regime change. Washington sought to use the new preemption-centered Bush Doctrine to increase the coercive pressure on the Kim Jong-il regime. At the same time, the first-term Bush administration set stricter conditions for its participation in future negotiations with Pyongyang. The administration refused to enter into substantive negotiations with the Kim Jong-il regime until complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament (CVID) had been confirmed in North Korea. Pyongyang insisted on the precise opposite i.e., negotiations and concessions first, CVID later. Although the North Koreans and Americans held talks in a trilateral venue hosted by the Chinese in late April 2003 to end the nuclear deadlock, the official North Korean and U.S. statements indicated that the above policy stances largely remained unchanged. 12 North Korea s resumption of work in spring 2003 at its plutonium production facilities can be seen as much as a response to these broader shifts in U.S. doctrine and negotiating terms as to the collapse of the Agreed Framework. North Korea s nuclear activities were not simply a national defense measure, however, but also a part of the North s bargaining tactics as it dealt with the four geopolitical shocks described above. The next section analyzes the North s bargaining in each of the four waves.

11 9-11 Four North Korean Responses In each of these waves, North Korea used its nuclear program for two purposes: to achieve deterrence objectives and/or to bargain for a particular short-term outcome in order to ensure regime survival in the immediate aftermath of the geopolitical shock. In pursuing these goals, North Korea has benefited from divergence in the responses of affected countries in the wake of each wave. It has been able to calibrate and tailor its tactical techniques to each situation and country. Adapting to the Sino-Soviet Split and Rivalry During the period of the Sino-Soviet Split and the ensuing rivalry in the 1960s, North Korea bargained with the Soviets to secure the components, equipment, and training required for developing a nascent nuclear program. At the same time, the Soviets increased their acquisition of North Korean deposits of uranium and monazite that contributed to the rapidly growing Soviet nuclear industry. 13 These negotiations transpired against the background of North Korea s first positive security assurance embodied in the newly agreed Soviet-DPRK Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in As the Sino-Soviet rivalry grew, North Korea could no longer rely on stable sources of aid and assistance. An example of this recurring predicament was Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev s decision to decrease Soviet military and economic aid to North Korea in the early 1960s. Soviet concerns that Kim Il-sung was becoming a pro- Chinese Maoist contributed to doubts about providing nuclear technology to a suspect North Korean ally. As a result, Moscow sought to reduce nascent Soviet-North Korean nuclear cooperation. 14

12 9-12 As the schism between Beijing and Moscow deepened, North Korea began a concerted effort to explore ways to make its nuclear program more indigenous. While the split created some limited opportunities for Pyongyang, it also revealed North Korea s vulnerability to patrons whose focus and aid shifted depending on larger geopolitical movements. An indigenous, juche-oriented nuclear program and infrastructure hence became a priority for the North Korean leadership. 15 Given North Korea s initial geostrategic value to the Soviets as the Cold War raged in the early 1960s and its abundant deposits of uranium ore and monazite, Pyongyang was eventually able to bargain with Moscow for the nuclear assistance required to establish and develop its nuclear program. Surviving South Korea s Nordpolitik When South Korea effectively established diplomatic ties with Communist bloc countries under Nordpolitik, North Korea s growing diplomatic isolation created panic in Pyongyang. The North Korean leadership became so alarmed because of the significant policy concessions South Korea elicited from the North s chief allies. In return for a US$3 billion trade credit and direct aid package to Moscow, Seoul gained an enormous diplomatic and security payoff. The Soviets pledged to support South Korea s admission to the United Nations, agreed to cease supplying North Korea with offensive weapon systems, and most significantly, guaranteed that it would halt all assistance to North Korea s nuclear program. 16 The landmark visit by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to Beijing in May 1989 compounded the impact of Nordpolitik on North Korea. The formal restoration of party-to-party relations between the two countries brought an end to the Sino-Soviet split. As a direct result, the

13 9-13 value of North Korea as a strategic asset to both China and the Soviet Union dropped significantly. 17 Pyongyang s critical ability to manipulate the rivalry between its titan patrons had evaporated. In this radically transformed international landscape, Pyongyang began displaying strong interest in what it could receive from Washington in return for bargaining away its nascent nuclear weapons program. Having increased its nuclear activity and production of weaponsgrade plutonium in the late 1980s and early 1990s, North Korea sought to use its enlarged nuclear program as a bargaining chip sufficient to garner massive concessions particularly normalized ties with Washington that would facilitate peaceful co-existence. 18 As U.S. demands grew for greater North Korean disclosure in the wake of the IAEA discovery of discrepancies in Pyongyang s initial declaration to the Agency, tensions rose significantly on the Korean Peninsula. The DPRK s attempt to bargain with Washington during this tense period was initially ineffective because the Clinton administration remained adamant about Pyongyang s adherence to its international nonproliferation regime obligations. By mid-1994, Pyongyang began implementing a blackmail tactic whereby it began to unload the spent fuel rods from its 5 MW(e) reactor and extract nuclear material for reprocessing. In May 1994, the IAEA confirmed that Pyongyang s removal of spent fuel took place in the absence of international monitors. In defiance, North Korea announced on June 13, 1994 that it was withdrawing from membership in the IAEA. In the aftermath of these actions IAEA inspectors left North Korea. 19 By increasing the stakes, Pyongyang tried to force Washington into nuclear negotiations. Rather than bring Washington to the negotiating table, however, Pyongyang s nuclear blackmail

14 9-14 backfired and led to the referral of the nuclear inspection issue to the UN Security Council. North Korea s nuclear brinkmanship and the United States demands for full compliance with IAEA safeguards eventually led to a standoff; Washington came within hours of authorizing U.S. military mobilization for the Korean theater of operations. An eleventh hour meeting in Pyongyang between former president Jimmy Carter and North Korean leader Kim Il-sung narrowly averted open hostilities between the United States and North Korea. Carter s intervention represented a lucky break for North Korea, not a success for its bargaining tactics. In the ensuing months of intense nuclear talks in Geneva and New York, the North Koreans sought a grand bargain with the Americans. 20 The outcome of these arduous talks was the 1994 Agreed Framework, described above. For Pyongyang, the promise of eventual normalized relations with the United States was an especially prized part of the deal. Adapting to a Post-Agreed Framework Order With the sweeping electoral victory of the Republican Party in November 1994, powerful opposition to the Agreed Framework solidified in the U.S. Congress and implementation of the nuclear agreement began to encounter major delays. A key component of the deal was the United States annual delivery to North Korea of 500,000 tons of heavy oil for heating and electricity generation. 21 U.S. delays in supplying the heavy fuel oil began to arouse considerable alarm in Pyongyang, as did the lack of progress in upgrading bilateral ties. North Korea s concern about the accord grew as more delays emerged regarding the LWR project turnkey components and the related construction timetable.

15 9-15 As setbacks in the Agreed Framework s implementation increased, Pyongyang embarked on a clandestine uranium enrichment program. 22 U.S. intelligence pointing to the existence of a highly-enriched uranium (HEU) program reignited nuclear tensions with Washington. Almost eight years after the signing of the Agreed Framework, James Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, arrived in Pyongyang in October 2002 for the first U.S.-North Korean meeting since President George W. Bush s electoral victory in In his meeting with then First Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju, Kelly confronted his host with U.S. intelligence data reportedly showing that the North Koreans had been cheating on the previous nuclear accord. Caught by surprise by Kelly s allegations that North Korea had violated the Agreed Framework by pursuing a uranium-enrichment program, Kang is reported to have asserted North Korea s right under the NPT to conduct such activity. In addition to asserting this right, Kang warned that North Korea had more powerful things as well. 24 In a repetition of previous crises, North Korea had again been caught cheating, just as it had in the early 1990s when it submitted an initial inventory declaration to the IAEA that understated the amount of plutonium North Korea had reprocessed. The Kelly-Kang meeting initiated a series of events that ended with the demise of the Agreed Framework. 25 In the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Agreed Framework, Pyongyang began denying the existence of an HEU program and called for the resumption of the 1994 nuclear accord s implementation. Concluding that Pyongyang had lied and cheated on its previous agreement, the Bush administration demanded CVID prior to any negotiations about concessions to North Korea. Pyongyang responded by expelling IAEA inspectors in December 2002, then

16 9-16 fully reprocessing spent fuel rods at its Yongbyon storage site and restarting its 5 MW(e) reactor. In January 2003, the DPRK announced its withdrawal from the NPT. North Korea had returned to nuclear bargaining with the United States. Using the Bush Doctrine s Rigidity to Gain Seoul s and Beijing s Assistance In the post-9/11 era, North Korea s nuclear bargaining tactic produced a significantly different response from the United States than it had in the early 1990s. This time, the North s nuclear activities did not create a sense of urgency to broker a deal with Pyongyang and preserve the non-proliferation regime. Instead, the United States had developed a new approach to dealing with proliferation threats, a posture that became known as the Bush Doctrine. Unveiled by President Bush in June 2002, the Bush Doctrine emphasized preemptive action to disarm dictators with weapons of mass destruction [who] can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies. 26 Rather than back down, Pyongyang chose to raise the nuclear stakes. At a U.S.-DPRK- PRC trilateral meeting in Beijing in April 2003, North Korean negotiator Li Gun privately informed Assistant Secretary of State Kelly that North Korea possessed nuclear weapons. This was likely intended in part to serve a deterrent purpose against any contemplated U.S. preemptive attack. In addition, however, Li reportedly threatened that North Korea may choose to export or demonstrate them and would base its decision on whether Washington meets a slew of demands, including lots more aid. 27 During this period of escalating nuclear tensions, North Korea s nuclear bargaining tactics had a profound impact on its neighbors to the south and the north. From Seoul s and

17 9-17 Beijing s viewpoint, the increasing possibility that North Korea s escalation of tensions with Washington would trigger unilateral U.S. action made the North s nuclear threats a source of grave concern. Each had a major stake in preserving stability in North Korea for Seoul, doing so is a prerequisite to implementing its plan for gradual economic integration and eventual reunification, whereas for Beijing, preserving stability prevented any serious disruptions to its internal economic development efforts. For both South Korea and China, the situation in North Korea had become, in many ways, an extension of domestic policy. 28 As a result, both Seoul and Beijing intensified their diplomatic efforts to stabilize the nuclear crisis. For Seoul, its priority was rapidly assembling a large aid package to entice Pyongyang away from its nuclear confrontation with Washington. The Bush Doctrine alarmed Seoul as much as it did Pyongyang. Soon after his February 2003 inauguration, President Roh Moo-hyun had initiated a more proactive ROK role in inter-korean relations to directly counter Washington s hard-line stance. In sharp contrast to Washington s refusal to negotiate with Pyongyang, Roh sent his senior envoys to meet with the North Korean leadership. Roh s envoys reportedly conveyed detailed plans for unprecedented inter-korean economic relations with aid on a massive scale if North Korea were to work towards a resolution of the nuclear crisis. 29 After the April bombshell, Seoul increased these efforts to entice Pyongyang away from provoking a national security-obsessed United States. In Beijing s eyes, the danger posed by North Korea s nuclear weapons program was more symbolic than actual. Chinese officials argued that even a North Korean nuclear test would not equate to weaponization because Pyongyang had not achieved the ability to mate a miniaturized warhead to a proven delivery system. 30 Based on the developmental experiences of the nuclear

18 9-18 weapon states, North Korea would require multiple nuclear tests to further refine the potency of its program. Chinese officials were skeptical about Washington s assertion that North Korea had a near-deployable nuclear arsenal. 31 Concerned that Washington had overstated its threat assessment of North Korea s nuclear capability, Beijing responded by increasing its multilateral diplomatic efforts to deal with the nuclear crisis. These efforts culminated in the first round of Six-Party Talks in Beijing in August 2003 with representatives from the United States, China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and Russia. The Bush administration agreed to participate, despite its deep skepticism about North Korea, because it preferred multilateral talks to the direct bilateral talks sought by Pyongyang. It also thought North Korea s regional neighbors would have to be involved if the effort to apply pressure on the DPRK regime were to be successful. During this period, North Korea s short-term needs for regime survival food aid, energy supplies, and economic assistance were disproportionately met by China, with additional support from South Korea. While directed at Washington, North Korea s nuclear bargaining tactic yielded enormous aid and de facto political protection from Beijing and Seoul for the latter, to the detriment of its alliance with the United States. Taking full advantage of the major policy differences among China, South Korea, and the United States, North Korea s nuclear bargaining tactic enabled the Kim Jong-il regime to once again turn an extremely weak hand into a highly effective formula for short-term survival. Cognizant that Washington s rigid CVID policy stance would prevent resumption of the LWR project or heavy fuel oil shipments, Pyongyang focused its attention elsewhere.

19 9-19 This review of four geopolitical shocks and North Korea s responses demonstrates how Pyongyang reacted with tactical behavior aimed at ensuring regime survival in the short run. North Korea has used its nuclear weapon program as part of its bargaining tactics in this context. In addition, the DPRK has seen nuclear weapons as a deterrent to possible threats from the United States. Given these motivations for the nuclear program, to what extent have security assurances played a role in moderating Pyongyang s pursuit of nuclear weapons? North Korea s Main Sources of Security Assurances North Korea s nuclear decision-making and reactions to key geopolitical events have taken place against a backdrop of changing security assurances. Box 1 summarizes the main sources of North Korea s security assurances. They include two treaties, an agreement, a joint communiqué, and a joint statement that involve the Soviet Union, China, and the United States at different points in time, and cover both positive and negative forms of assurance. Box 1. North Korea s Main Sources of Security Assurances YEAR SOURCE TYPE 1961 Soviet-DPRK Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation & Mutual Assistance Positive Security Assurance 1961 Sino-DPRK Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation & Mutual Assistance Positive Security Assurance 1994 U.S.-DPRK Agreed Framework Negative Security Assurance 2000 U.S.-DPRK Joint Communiqué Reassurance ( no hostile intent ) 2005 Six-Party Talks Joint Statement of Principles Negative Security Assurance

20 9-20 Pyongyang s Treaties with Moscow and Beijing Key Sources of Positive Security Assurances For much of North Korea s history, the Soviet-DPRK Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (1961) and the Sino-DPRK Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (1961) constituted the two primary sources of security assurances for North Korea. Along with other provisions, both treaties included mutual defense clauses committing one party to aid the other if it were attacked. While both provided a positive security assurance to Pyongyang, the former represented the larger pillar in buttressing North Korea s economy and security. In the late 1980s, Seoul embarked on its highly effective Nordpolitik campaign that culminated in the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1990 and China in By offering massive trade and investment incentives to Moscow and Beijing, Seoul altered traditional patron-client ties on which Pyongyang depended. In September 1990, Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze flew to Pyongyang to inform the North Koreans of imminent Soviet-ROK diplomatic normalization. Although the 1961 treaty still remained in effect, this effectively marked the end of a comprehensive economic, political, and security relationship that Pyongyang had with Moscow for decades. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation proved unwilling to maintain all of the commitments of its Soviet predecessor to the DPRK. In September 1995, the Russian Foreign Ministry informed North Korea that Moscow would not renew the 1961 Soviet North Korean treaty beyond its September 1996 termination date, and instead proposed a new, downgraded treaty. Moscow considered Article I of the 1961 treaty, which had obliged the Soviet Union to provide military assistance in defense of North Korea, to be non-operative. 32

21 9-21 Although not as significant, the Sino-DPRK treaty provided another source of a positive security assurance to Pyongyang. Like the Soviet-DPRK treaty, the Sino-DPRK one provided a critical though not consistent lifeline for Pyongyang after it came into effect in the early 1960s. After Beijing s establishment of bilateral relations with Seoul in 1992 and the end of Moscow s pledge to come to the defense of North Korea in 1996, Pyongyang s last remaining positive security assurance largely existed only on paper. Growing economic interdependence between China and South Korea, as well as between China and the United States, greatly reduced the likelihood that China would come to the defense of its paper ally. China prioritized preventing instability on the Korean Peninsula that could jeopardize Chinese internal economic development goals. After a series of North Korean acts of brinkmanship in the mid-2000s, Beijing warned that should North Korea provoke a retaliatory attack by South Korea or the United States, China would not come to the assistance of Pyongyang. 33 Beijing also began a concerted effort to negotiate a revision of the mutual defense clause of their 1961 treaty a change that Pyongyang has repeatedly avoided. Although Beijing initiated a high-level effort in October 2005 to stabilize North Korea by offering assistance with and incentives for undertaking economic reform, Pyongyang did not fully engage. Pyongyang appeared instead to focus its attention on acquiring a nuclear deterrent capability. In October 2006, it conducted its first nuclear test. In a period where it lacked a functioning positive security assurance, North Korea declared itself a nuclear power and began negotiating in a more strident manner in both Six-Party Talks and bilateral contexts. A second nuclear test followed in May That these moves to achieve nuclear weapon status occurred

22 9-22 at a time when North Korea lacked a comprehensive security, economic, and diplomatic relationship with any external power is quite suggestive. This focus on comprehensive relationships underscores that the 1990s were North Korea s most challenging decade. In 1996, North Korea lost its main source (the former Soviet Union) of a positive security assurance and experienced a major devaluation of the remaining source (China). Compounding this situation was the disappearance of the last vestiges of North Korea s preferential trading arrangements with its communist patrons. While the 1961 Soviet- DPRK defense pact operated, a nuclear weapon state (Soviet Union) offered a credible positive security assurance to a non-nuclear weapon state (North Korea). This positive assurance was not fully effective, as the DPRK made concerted efforts to develop indigenous nuclear capabilities in the 1980s, well before the Soviet collapse. Yet North Korea did not cross the threshold to testing a nuclear device while the assurance remained in place. The decline and termination of this external security guarantee prompted increased interest in North Korea in developing its own nuclear deterrent. North Korea accelerated its nuclear weapons program during a period in which North Korea sought to fill a positive security assurance void that essentially began in the early 1990s. The U.S.-DPRK Agreed Framework Pyongyang s First Negative Security Assurance from the United States The United States is the only nuclear weapon state regarded as a threat by North Korea. The decline and loss of positive security assurances from its allies made a negative assurance

23 9-23 from its main potential adversary a possible alternative. The United States has since offered several assurances, starting with the negotiations leading to the Agreed Framework. In talks in June and July 1993, the United States agreed to a set of principles for a deal that included a negative security assurance. This was then formally incorporated into the Agreed Framework. With respect to the security assurance, the agreement stipulated that, the U.S. will provide formal assurances to the DPRK, against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. 34 This negative security assurance served as an important nascent confidence-building measure for two countries that were accustomed to a highly adversarial relationship. During this period, North Korea froze its nuclear activities at its Yongbyon reactor and reprocessing facility. It also suspended construction of larger reactors that would have been able to produce more plutonium. The Agreed Framework supplemented the negative security assurance with positive incentives, including energy assistance. As part of this, the U.S. led an international consortium tasked with building two LWRs in North Korea. The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) fostered the development of core working partnerships among North Koreans, South Koreans, and Americans. Despite chronic delays in implementation, the KEDO project facilitated many formative experiences of cooperation among traditional adversaries, until November 2002 when the Bush administration convinced KEDO members to halt further work on the LWR project.

24 9-24 The U.S.-DPRK Joint Communiqué No Hostile Intent U.S-DPRK tensions rose again in the late 1990s mainly due to North Korea s missile development activities, specifically the 1998 launch of a long-range missile on a flight trajectory over Japan. After the missile flight-test (described as a satellite launch by North Korea), President Clinton appointed former Defense Secretary William Perry to lead a review of U.S. policy toward North Korea. Upon completion of the review in fall 1999, the Clinton administration re-engaged North Korea based on the recommendations of the Perry Report. 35 Bilateral diplomatic initiatives led to an unprecedented meeting on October 10, 2000 in the White House between President Clinton and Kim Jong-il s special envoy, Vice Marshall Jo Myong-rok. It resulted in a joint communiqué that included a key statement: As a crucial first step, the two sides stated that neither government would have hostile intent toward the other and confirmed the commitment of both governments to make every effort in the future to build a new relationship free from past enmity. 36 The joint communiqué effectively restarted U.S.-DPRK negotiations. The Clinton-Jo meeting laid the foundation for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to hold meetings with Kim Jong-il during October 23-24, 2000 in Pyongyang. This period of bilateral negotiations, however, did not last long. The electoral change from the Clinton administration to the George W. Bush administration in January 2001 highlighted to the North Koreans the lack of continuity in the United States interactions with Pyongyang. The joint communiqué was an example of reassurance, which Knopf describes as a type of negative assurance. 37 It was not explicitly nuclear-related, but instead sought to convey a

25 9-25 more general absence of hostile intent. Interestingly, the reassurance was bidirectional in this case, indicating both sides perceived a potential threat from the other. The Six-Party Talks Joint Statement of Principles A Reaffirmed Negative Security Assurance Following the collapse of the Agreed Framework and hardening of U.S.-North Korea relations in President Bush s first term, his second term witnessed a new attempt at engagement using the Six-Party Talks. The fourth round of talks produced an agreement on principles intended to make possible North Korea s denuclearization. Concluded on September 19, 2005, the Joint Statement of Principles also contained a negative security assurance: The United States affirmed that it has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons. The Joint Statement also contained a more general statement of reassurance as well: The DPRK and the United States undertook to respect each other s sovereignty, exist peacefully together, and take steps to normalize their relations subject to their respective bilateral policies. 38 The Joint Statement of Principles negative security assurance is useful in tracking North Korea s shifting policy statements and preferences. Despite seeking this type of security assurance from the United States since the early days of the first George W. Bush administration, North Korea showed a lack of interest almost as soon as it received it. In subsequent U.S.-DPRK talks, it became clear to the United States that North Korea wanted a regime security assurance from Washington. 39 The specific details and implications of this North Korean demand will be assessed below.

26 9-26 The Obama Administration s Nuclear Posture Review The Six-Party Talks produced two agreements in 2007 on steps to implement the joint principles agreed to in September A final deal to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula could not be reached, however, before the Bush administration left office. North Korea then presented the new Obama administration with a series of new challenges, including a longrange missile test in April 2009 and its second nuclear test in May The Obama administration has not offered a new security assurance specifically focused on North Korea, thus leaving the 2005 Joint Statement as the last security assurance concluded in talks with the North Korean government. The Obama administration did, however, attempt to gain traction from a negative security assurance in a different context. In April 2010, the administration released its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). The NPR revised the existing generalized negative security assurance that had been U.S. policy since 1978 to remove an exception for states allied with a nuclear weapon state. The NPR stated that the United States would not threaten or use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear weapon state that is both party to the NPT and in compliance with its NPT obligations. 40 Administration officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, explained publicly that one goal of the revised negative security assurance was to provide an incentive for North Korea, and also Iran, to give up their nuclear weapons programs and come into full compliance with the NPT. North Korea quickly dismissed the new NPR. A DPRK foreign ministry spokesperson claimed the new U.S. policy meant North Korea was still subjected to nuclear threats and was therefore no different from the Bush administration s preemption doctrine.

27 9-27 Pyongyang also complained that the NPR represented a backtracking on the negative security assurance of the 2005 Joint Statement. 41 Although it will be difficult to make any security assurance effective, North Korea s response to the 2010 NPR suggests it is likely to prefer a bilateral assurance focused explicitly on its concerns over a more generalized NPT-related assurance. Testing Hypotheses on Security Assurances The preceding analysis of North Korean behavior at least partially sustains Knopf s initial hypotheses 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13 regarding security assurances, though it also suggests possible modifications or caveats to some of these. Hypothesis 4: The greater the political and economic ties between sender and recipient, the more effective security assurances will be. For much of its history, North Korea relied upon positive security assurances from the Soviet Union and, to a lesser extent, China. Pyongyang seemed to regard those assurances as most credible in the periods when it had close political ties and extensive economic relations with its communist allies. When those allies reduced their economic assistance or adjusted their diplomacy to more favorable relations with South Korea, North Korea began to invest more seriously in developing its own nuclear capabilities. When it came to judging the credibility of assurances, North Korea took its cues less from public declarations, legally binding commitments, and various forms of defense cooperation than it did from the overall quality of its political and economic relationships with its main patrons.

28 9-28 Hypothesis 7: Assurances will be most effective if they are tailored to take account of unique features of the target state s culture, decision-making procedures, and leadership concerns. The 1961 Soviet-DPRK treaty provided a potent security assurance to North Korea during most of the period in which it operated. Given that the North Korean state system was essentially modeled on the Soviet one, Soviet officials could tailor their assurances more appropriately. As long as the Soviet Union existed, this security assurance was at least moderately effective. This situation changed dramatically as the Soviet Union began to buckle in the late 1980s. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, North Korea s sole functioning security assurance became meaningless. As a result, North Korea sought a new security assurance as part of a package deal tailored to the Kim Il-sung and then Kim Jong-il regime. This period saw the advent of the 1994 Agreed Framework and the repeated phases of stop-and-go implementation. Given that the Clinton administration had been on the brink of military action before the Carter trip in June 1994, a negative security assurance from the United States was certainly relevant to Pyongyang s concerns. Following the emergence of the Bush Doctrine, the DPRK again sought a negative security assurance from the United States. This time, however, the security assurances contained in the September 2005 agreement were not effective and neither was the general NPT-related negative assurance contained in the Obama NPR. These nuclear-focused assurances did not address Pyongyang s larger concerns about regime survival and hence were not appropriately tailored from Pyongyang s perspective.

29 9-29 Hypothesis 8: Assurances will have to be strong enough to overcome cognitive biases in order to be effective. Embedding them in a larger strategy may be one way to do this. Recent developments in China s approach suggest there may be value in embedding traditional security assurances in a broader strategy, although the reasons for this are not related to the possibility that cognitive factors will lead a recipient to discount the sincerity of assurances from an adversary. Although the 1961 Sino-DPRK treaty endures, Beijing now keeps the security assurance clause ambiguous. In research interviews in March 2010, prior to North Korea s sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan and its shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, Chinese government policy analysts had explained that Beijing hopes to derive two benefits from this ambiguity. 42 The first is that it may deter a major North Korean provocation against the United States or South Korea. If North Korea is uncertain about Chinese security assistance in the event its provocation triggers a military confrontation, then Pyongyang may refrain from committing the provocation. The second benefit is that Beijing is able to downplay any vestiges of the early Cold War period when relations between China and North Korea were described as being as close as lips to teeth. It is not known as of this writing whether China is reassessing these expectations in light of North Korean provocations during China s overall strategy, however, has incorporated a positive component that is separate from military security concerns. Since the mid-2000s, the CPC has sought to deepen its working relationship with the WPK. Embedding a security assurance in Beijing s overall approach to seeking a comprehensive relationship with Pyongyang through the CPC-WPK channel constitutes what senior CPC leaders perceive as a winning strategy. In this case, the security assurance is a narrowly focused positive assurance i.e., the CPC will work to ensure the