DPRK-USA Relations - Obama - Strategic Patience
Since 2009, the U.S. pursued a reactive policy toward North Korea called ‘‘Strategic Patience,’’ which maintains leveled pressure and resolute warnings with a door to renewed discussions partly open. This policy, however, has not slowed North Korea’s nuclear program, as illustrated by Pyongyang’s decision to restart its Yongbyon reactor. Most forms of U.S. economic assistance, other than purely humanitarian assistance, are prohibited. North Korea has at times experienced periods of famine, and the United States has provided food aid. The United States has also assisted U.S. NGOs in providing aid to fight the outbreak of infectious diseases and to improve the supply of electricity at provincial hospitals in North Korea.
The United States imposed a near total economic embargo on North Korea in 1950 when North Korea attacked the South. Over the following years, some U.S. sanctions were eased, but others were imposed. U.S. economic interaction with North Korea remains minimal.
North Korea is a grave threat to the United States and allies in Asia. Policies pursued by Presidents of both parties, with minor variations, have failed.
On 10 February 2016, one day after America’s top intelligence official warned of North Korea’s nuclear, ballistic and cyber capabilities, the US Senate passed expansive sanctions targeting Pyongyang and its foreign suppliers and collaborators. The 96 to 0 vote followed North Korea’s launch of a long-range rocketas well as a recent nuclear test.
Some partisan sniping arose during floor debate. A few Republicans suggested North Korea and other U.S. adversaries have been emboldened by what they see as President Barack Obama's weak leadership on the world stage. “Through his words and deeds, the president continues to discredit and undercut American leadership around the world, and as a result the world is even more unstable and conflict-ridden than when he [Obama] assumed office,” said Senator John Cornyn. “It is absolutely the fact that in the absence of American leadership, tyrants, thugs and bullies feel emboldened.”
The sanctions bill’s lead author, Republican Cory Gardner, said the president has been slow to confront Pyongyang. “Strategic patience has been a strategic failure,” Gardner said. “All that our so-called patience has done is to allow the North Korean regime to continue to test nuclear weapons, to expand its testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles, to grow its military power, to develop cyber-warfare technologies, while systematically continuing to torture its own people.”
“Whatever one’s views on various U.S. policy efforts of the past two decades, what has worked, what has not worked, there can be little question these efforts have failed to end North Korea’s nuclear ambitions or end its missile programs,” Democrat Robert Menendez said. “They have failed to reduce the threat posed by North Korea to our allies, failed to alleviate the suffering of North Korea’s people, and failed to lead to greater security in the region.” Evans J.R. Revere is senior director with the Albright Stonebridge Group, providing strategic advice to clients with a specific focus on Korea, China and Japan. Fluent in Chinese, Korean and Japanese, Revere retired from the Foreign Service in 2007 after a distinguished career as one of the U.S. Department of State's top Asia experts. He has extensive experience in negotiations with North Korea. From 2007-2010, Revere served as president and CEO of The Korea Society. Revere said in May 2016 that " .... only an “unprecedented” level of sanctions designed to threaten the very system Kim Jong Un defends through nuclear weapons can have any chance of bringing about denuclearization. And without credible efforts toward denuclearization, ... “serious dialogue” is all but impossible with North Korea, meaning there is little way to see any path to an improvement in relations between the U.S. and North Korea.... the North Korean position as it has evolved very clearly since late 2008 is that they are not prepared to have a conversation about denuclearization.... we need to try something different... And that “something different” is to begin to put at risk the one thing that the North Koreans treasure more dearly than their nuclear weapons, which is the stability and the future prospects for survivability of the regime.... the level of sanctions that we have applied on North Korea frankly pales in comparison to what we did on Iran and other countries. And so this is a work in progress and I think there is a lot more to be done and that should be done."
The Obama Adminstration listed Iran and Burma as countries of primary money-laundering concern, a designation it did not apply to Pyongyang despite its counterfeit-currency racket. The US applied harsher human-rights sanctions against Congo and Zimbabwe, ignoring the tens of thousands of political prisoners in Pyongyang’s labor camps.
In August 2013 the US House Armed Services Committee approved an amendment to the FY2014 defense bill that called for the reintroduction of tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea. The bill also required Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to submit a report on the feasibility and logistics of redeploying such weapons. The amendment was viewed as leverage the US can use in efforts to pressure China to get North Korea to give up nuclear weapons.
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