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Analysis: Obama's North Korea Dilemma

Council on Foreign Relations

December 23, 2008
Author: Jayshree Bajoria

Obama, writing in a 2007 Foreign Affairs article, said he supports "sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy." But the problem underlying negotiations with North Korea, experts say, is that Pyongyang has no intention of giving up its weapons anytime soon. "I think we're sort of condemned to that process because we don't really have any alternative," says CFR Vice President Gary Samore, who worked on the Agreed Framework to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue during the Clinton administration. Experts say an alternative approach that would force the issue and potentially provoke a war is not a viable option at this point. The U.S. military is already engaged in two wars, and Pyongyang's neighbors, China and South Korea, are both wary of the potential geopolitical fallout of regime change in North Korea.

Steps taken by the Bush administration this year may complicate the next administration's task. After North Korea handed over a declaration of its nuclear program in June 2008, the Bush administration moved to take Pyongyang off the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and remove restrictions related to the Trading with the Enemy Act. Critics say the report, which only details plutonium-based materials and facilities, falls short on three important counts:

* It does not include details of suspected uranium enrichment;
* It does not address Pyongyang's proliferation activities;
* It fails to give an account of the nuclear weapons already produced.

It will be up to the Obama administration to bring uranium enrichment and proliferation issues back to the table as well as to convince Pyongyang to agree to a verification protocol for its plutonium-based materials. In December 2008, the talks reached an impasse (NYT) as North Korea refused to agree in writing to a protocol presented by all the other countries.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.