COMMENT Nothing succeeds like succession
By Scott Thomas Bruce
As interesting as speculation on the future of North Korea may be, the real
issue remains the country's nuclear program. It is possible to end in a matter
of months the country's ability to produce plutonium. Policy-makers in the US
and North Korea can either act now to make a decisive deal that will support
the long-term interests of both countries or let the months of effort that have
been invested in a nuclear deal go down as another in a long line of missed
opportunities to improve security in Northeast Asia.
The reports of Kim Jong-Il's stroke provoked a flurry of hypothetical scenarios
as researchers and diplomats attempted to read the tea leaves in Pyongyang to
determine exactly how sick the Dear Leader might be and predict who would take
power after Kim.
Some predict that Kim's eldest son will assume power, despite him having fallen
out of favor. Other analysts suggest that Kim's
eventual death will end dynastic succession in North Korea and an elite member
of the state will assume power. Still others predict that China will act to
install a Beijing-friendly leader in the country. Another popular hypothesis is
that a collective leadership of elites will take control of the state. The real
answer is that no one, especially not the North Koreans, know who or what body
will assume control of the country after Kim.
This lack of clarity is driving speculation about the situation in the North
and has heightened awareness of the security implications of a dramatic change
in the already unstable regime. Not surprisingly, governments have begun to
plan for the worst. The United States and China have allegedly begun talks on
what a post-Kim North Korea would look like; South Korea and the US have dusted
off the military scenario for a North Korean collapse and are revising it from
a conceptual strategy to a focused, specific operational plan; and Japan has
prepped contingency plans for evacuating Japanese citizens from the Korean
Peninsula and accommodating North Korean refugees.
The question of Kim's health and the issue of succession are indisputably
dramatic, as they highlight the uncertain and tense relationship between the
North and much of the rest of the world. However, speculation on the
instability of the North Korean state is nothing new, and Kim's stroke many not
be the most pressing issue for the country. Chinese and South Korean reports
suggest that Kim is still in power and recovering relatively rapidly. While
some American reports seem less confident, all credible sources agree that
there is no internal power struggle taking place.
Severe food shortages and a rotting infrastructure present a threat to the
security of the state that deserves at least as much concern as the issue of
succession.
The food shortage, with a quarter of the population in immediate need of food
aid, rocketing price of rice due to low supply, and the increasing unrest
stemming from these issues, indicate that the situation in North Korea today
may be more perilous than at the peak of the floods and famine of the 1990s.
The desperate need for food has led to lawlessness, including grain smuggling
across the Chinese border and unrest in North Korean markets as officials try
to tighten control of these areas.
Reports about the North's energy infrastructure indicate that even in
privileged areas, the North may be one very cold day away from sections of the
electric grid failing and leaving the population to freeze. While the Dear
Leader's stroke is a significant event, it is only a symptom of the severe
instability of the North Korean regime.
This uncertainty has been compounded by the collapse of near-detente that
evolved between the US and the North regarding a verification regime for North
Korea's nuclear program, and the delisting of the state from the US list of
terror sponsoring countries.
Inspectors at Yongbyon completed eight out of 11 agreed disablement activities
at the reactor site, and effectively arrested the country's ability to produce
more plutonium. At this time, American inspectors have not been expelled from
the country; however, the North Koreans have announced their intention to
restart the Yongbyon reactor and have asked the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) to remove the seals and disable surveillance equipment at the
facility.
It is tempting to write this dispute up to North Korean posturing due to the
illness of Kim. In reality, the dispute over North Korea's nuclear program is a
dispute over the nuclear program and not an attempt to cover up internal
problems within the North.
The North Koreans see the demands for verification as extra conditions to a
pre-existing agreement in order to derail negotiations. They interpret demands
for information about nuclear collaboration with Syria as a trap that will
compel them to disclose data that will ultimately be used against them.
Finally, they believe that allowing US and IAEA officials to conduct
on-the-spot inspections anywhere within the country to be a loss of sovereignty
with which they cannot abide. While North Korea will certainly attempt to have
its nuclear cake and eat it too, the terms that are proposed now will be very
hard for the North to stomach.
On the US side, policy-makers in the George W Bush administration have just
about lost patience with the North. Pragmatists who considered a nuclear deal
with the North to be the best of many bad options have been locked in a
struggle with hardliners who see no point in good-faith negotiations. After
wining some leeway to pursue an agreement with the North, the breakdowns in the
talks, the endless renegotiations over the terms of the agreement, and their
own unfamiliarity with protracted North Korean negotiating style has wheedled
away their patience with the North until they are resigned to give up trying to
make the agreement with the North work.
The situation with North Korea will not be resolved by the time of the November
presidential US elections. Both Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama
are committed to instituting a firm verification regime in the North. While
Obama will continue the negotiations and may attempt to engage the North with
more bilateral meetings, he will be under political pressure to prove himself
tough on regimes such as North Korea.
McCain may withdraw from the six-party talks entirely if he feels that they are
unproductive. He has indicated that he may consider side issues such as
Japanese abductees before removing the North from the list of terror-supporting
countries. Despite eight years of missed opportunities and exchanges of hostile
rhetoric, North Korea will get no better deal than what is on the table now
from the Bush administration.
Despite these challenges, the benefits of a deal far outweigh negatives. While
the short-term situation in North Korea is relatively stable, there is little
long-term hope for the country unless it can fundamentally reorient its
relations with the international community, in particular the US. The harvest
will be dismal this year and the energy infrastructure of the country is
decrepit and getting worse. Meanwhile, the North remains dependent on the
less-than-benign influence of China. North Korea's best chance for survival is
to barter its nuclear arsenal for aid and a transformed economic
infrastructure, and to dilute the influence of China by improving its relations
with other nations.
In its fading weeks, the Bush administration can still achieve a significant
foreign policy success by disabling the ability of the North to produce
plutonium and laying the ground work for future US administrations, along with
the other parties in the region, to barter away the North's nuclear arsenal.
How would it do so?
Removing North Korea from the list of terror-sponsoring nations no longer
offers a way forward. The North declares that it no longer wants to be
delisted. Moreover, it is no longer politically feasible for the US to
implement this step. About the only step likely to get the North's leadership's
attention is at the presidential level because this reflects on the authority
and power of Kim Jong-il.
The Bush administration could send one or both of former presidents George H W
Bush and Jimmy Carter to meet with Kim and put together the icebreaker. This
would be reminiscent of the July 1994 meeting with Kim Il-sung at which time a
deal was put together that met both parties' fundamental interests. Having
Carter along would make it impossible for Kim to ignore the US overture, given
Carter's link to Kim's father.
It would also make the overture bipartisan in US presidential politics, thereby
signaling the gravity with which the US views the situation in the North.
Incidentally, it would also force the DPRK leadership to produce Kim or admit
that he is in bad shape.
The frantic speculation over the health of Kim is a reminder of the instability
of the North Korean nuclear issue and the danger that a collapsing regime poses
to itself and its neighbors. However, it is not succession that will guarantee
the future of the North Korean state and resolve the security issues on the
Korean Peninsula, but a resolution of the nuclear issue.
Scott Thomas Bruce is the director of US operations at the Nautilus
Institute in San Francisco, which is affiliated with the University of San
Francisco Center for the Pacific Rim.
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