The futile pursuit of negotiations with North Korea

North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs have advanced so far and so fast that they are an existential threat to Japan and South Korea and soon will threaten the continental United States. What better reminder that we shouldn't wait until the threat is grave to put intense pressure on extremist aggressor regimes. Calling North Korea "our greatest immediate threat," and initiating an urgent "policy review," the Trump administration is considering how to do just that.

UN Representative Nikki Haley and others have stressed that "all options are on the table" and that we will not "waver" in our commitment to South Korea and Japan. Secretary of Defense James Mattis has warned, "Any attack on the United States or its allies will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons will be met with a response that is effective and overwhelming." The administration is accelerating missile defense deployment and supporting stronger sanctions. Clearly, it is trying to reassure Asian allies and caution North Korea.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's trip to the region was key to that effort. Citing the "failed approach" of the past, he said that the United States would no longer rely on negotiations. The Trump team is right to conclude that our continuous pursuit of a negotiated solution has played to North Korea's advantage. The problem with recent proposals from the usual quarters that diplomacy be attempted because penalties have "already" been tried is its upside down logic. It is diplomacy that has been tried, again and again, whereas initiatives to sanction North Korea and its enablers have been inconsistent and inadequate. Vacillation, incrementalism, and naïve faith in "talks" with the fanatical regime have been recurring features of US policy, and were especially evident during the Obama years.

President Obama, and Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry continued to seek diplomatic solutions even after North Korea proved duplicitous, intransigent and intractable. No matter how many bellicose threats and acts, nuclear and missile tests, and violations of previous agreements, they suggested that compromise and material assistance were "still" possible if genuine talks ensued. They promised recognition of the brutal regime's "legitimacy" if only "progress" were made on the nuclear issue, and even offered "no first use" of nuclear weapons. Yet the very administration that was willing to pay the highest price for negotiations could not get North Korea into "Six Party Talks." Instead, it got North Korea's march toward deliverable nuclear weapons, ratcheting up of incendiary rhetoric and increase in already horrific human rights violations.

In 2012, Kim Jong-un did agree to a bilateral "Leap Day" agreement in which the United States pledged 240,000 metric tons of food in exchange for a freeze on (not an end to) nuclear and missile tests. But the agreement fell apart once it became clear that North Korea had no intention of honoring it. The regime prepared more nuclear tests, declared its nuclear weapons were not a "bargaining chip," threatened the United States and its Asian allies with destruction, and rattled South Korea with cyber-attacks and military provocations. Similarly in 2015, after North Korea signaled that it might agree to diplomacy, it added preconditions, then rejected the possibility of talks themselves.