Negotiating with North Korea … Again

Abstract

The emerging consensus in the United States is that the real US objective in talks with North Korea should no longer be its denuclearisation. The superficially sensible conventional wisdom underlying this position is that Pyongyang learned from America’s adventures in Iraq and Libya that only a nuclear deterrent precludes regime change, and that it would not relinquish something it worked so hard to attain at the negotiating table. These assumptions may still be wrong, and it would be a mistake to pre-emptively surrender an essential objective, especially given that doing so would incentivise Japan and South Korea to acquire nuclear weapons. Washington should carefully explore the possibility that the North would give up its nuclear weapons if it could achieve political, economic and diplomatic integration into the international community and true normalisation of its relations with the US, and prepare for an arduous negotiating process.