North Korea’s Brinkmanship and the Task to Solve the “Nuclear Dilemma”

Abstract

This article makes three points. First, the protracted negotiations of the Six Party Talks brought about unintended consequences of the nuclear dilemma: Technically, North Korea made advances in nuclear development as the talks progressed, and domestically the prolonged talks made it difficult if not impossible for the North Korean regime to move sequentially from the resolution of nuclear issues to domestic reforms for survival. Second, the Six Party Talks are not an effective format for resolving North Korean nuclear issues due to the contending positions of China and South Korea, on one hand, and the United States and Japan, on the other. Instead, a combination of bilateral and multilateral negotiations needs to be adopted. Third, the nuclear talks should go beyond the resolution of nuclear issues to deal with “normalizing North Korea,” which includes a future regional order, system reforms in North Korea, and peaceful coexistence between North and South Korea.