The latest North Korean missile test this past weekend was more successful than many previous attempts, and raises anew the question of how the US and other governments should respond. An effective strategy is needed for countering the growing threat from Pyongyang, as I discuss in my recent piece in Huffington Post.
The key to success is partnering with China. Beijing has all the cards in this game. No strategy can work without its full cooperation. The US and China have similar objectives on the core strategic issues at stake. Both want a nuclear-weapon free Korean peninsula, a halt to further nuclearization, and stability in the region. China is opposed to regime change, and it has encouraged and benefited from Pyongyang’s steps toward market reform. The US has no strategic interest in who rules in North Korea so long as the regime is not building nuclear weapons and missiles that threaten us or our allies in the region.
The diplomatic package I offer is spelled out in the article. Prepare a tough new UN Security Council sanctions resolution, imposing additional measures as recommended by the UN sanctions committee panel of experts and others, but suspend action on those measures to allow for diplomatic engagement.
For the US and China, acting on behalf of the six-party framework, the diplomatic model should be the 2015 Iran deal, and also the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea, which froze the main part of Pyongyang’s nuclear program for about eight years.
Combine the threat of new sanctions with an offer to lift sanctions and provide a package of security, economic and diplomatic inducements. These would be contingent on North Korea taking specific verified steps toward halting the further development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capability.
Military threats or sanctions without incentives have not worked in the past and are unlikely to succeed now. A creative new approach is needed that partners with China in addressing North Korea’s security and economic needs as inducements for freezing its nuclear and missile programs.
David Cortright 