Between a Rock and an Incomprehensible Place: The United States and the Second North Korean Nuclear Crisis

Abstract

Abstract This paper is concerned with the second North Korean nuclear crisis and the Six-Party Talks. It seeks to explain the collapse of the Agreed Framework resulting from the shift in U.S. policy under the Bush administration and the decision by North Korea to resume nuclear activities. It discusses the origins, the course and the failure of the Six-Party Talks prior to their resumption in July 2005. It shows how the political philosophy of the Bush administration led it to adopt tactics that were unsuitable for the achievement of the objective of disarmament. Likewise, Pyongyang proceeded from assumptions that were erroneous, and Washington proved to be impervious to its threats and brinkmanship. Thus, while North Korea strove to improve its bargaining power, it had no strategy of how to make use of it, having lost the gains achieved under the Agreed Framework. The article elucidates the structural impediments to a successful outcome, which consist in the divergent objectives among the parties to the talks, the problem of dealing with a nuclear program that is claimed not to exist (the HEU program), the disagreement with North Korea about the modalities of disarmament and the unwillingness of Pyongyang to finally renounce all nuclear activities. It is argued that the nuclear crisis is merely a symptom of the fundamental crisis of the lack of sustainability of the North Korean state and that the nuclear issue, while urgent in itself, cannot be dealt with apart from the future of the Korean peninsula as a whole.