Maximum Pressure, Deferred Engagement

Concerns about an “April Crisis” on the Korean Peninsula that extends into the summer are high.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has typically celebrated the April anniversaries of the birthday of its founding leader Kim Il-sung and the founding of the Korean People’s Army with ballistic fanfare. Two missile launches have already been conducted this month and preparations for a possible nuclear test have also been completed.

To deter North Korea from conducting a sixth nuclear detonation, the largest-ever edition of the annual U.S.-Republic of Korea joint military exercise, Foal Eagle, is set to run until late April. The USS Carl Vinson, a Nimitz-class supercarrier, and her strike group are also due to arrive in the region during this period. And a land-based, anti-ballistic missile defense system, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), will become operational on South Korean soil shortly thereafter.

Even if hostilities are avoided in the near term, there are formidable obstacles to stabilizing the tensions on the Korean peninsula – let alone resolving them. For almost a quarter-century now, the peninsula’s denuclearization has defied resolution and three factors in particular conspire to complicate the negotiation and implementation of any arrangement – be it in a bilateral, four-cornered or six-party format.

First, Kim Jong-un’s quest for a perfected road-mobile, solid-fueled, precision-strike intermediate and intercontinental range ballistic missile capability remains a work in progress. Improvements in nuclear warhead miniaturization are also on the anvil. Until he has reached a threshold point of assurance in terms of his delivery vehicles’ reach to strike the U.S. mainland, which still remains a handful of tests – and years – away, Mr. Kim will scheme for opportunistic breakdowns in the diplomatic process to upgrade his capabilities.

Second, the U.S., for its part, has yet to unleash the full toolset of sanctions, disincentives and punishments on the regime in Pyongyang, as well as secondarily on China. Until such sanctions are maxed-out and are visibly seen to be impotent, the U.S. will not reconcile itself to any far-reaching diplomatic bargain with a regime as odious as the North Korean one. Both sides, as such, have yet to exhaust their options and reach a mutually unsatisfying but stable equilibrium (deterrence against American strikes from Pyongyang’s perspective; comprehensive sanctions and regime isolation from Washington’s perspective) atop which a durable settlement can be constructed.

Finally, an alignment of political interests that favor the diplomatic track and offer a window of opportunity for negotiations is still not fully in place. The most successful prior period of diplomacy with the DPRK (1998-2000) had featured a second-term U.S. president from the Democratic Party and a center-left leaning president in Seoul eager to seek rapprochement with the regime in Pyongyang. Although a pro-rapprochement president will soon enter the Blue House in Seoul, the other two conditions for success fail to hold. A national security-minded Republican Party president, surrounded by a coterie of ex-uniformed political appointees with a track record of distinguished service in fields other than creative diplomacy, is not likely to reach out to a criminal and brutal regime early in his tenure.

The Obama Administration’s policy of “strategic patience” is widely seen to have failed in its purpose of eliciting a pledge from the North Korean regime to verifiably dismantle its nuclear capabilities. To the contrary, the regime has ramped up its missile and nuclear tests during this interval. As the marginal utility of “strategic patience” has diminished, the hawkish tone within the American think tank and North Korea specialists’ community has steadily risen. Overwhelmingly, two points are evident in their views. First, that the full toolkit of sanctions, disincentives and military deterrence must be unleashed against the Kim regime to bring it to its full senses about the downsides of pursuing nuclearization and directly challenge the United States’ interests. Second, that it is high time to stop accommodating Beijing on the DPRK question and that persuading it to rein-in Pyongyang should gradually give way to coercing it – with ‘secondary sanctions’ if need be.

A streak of cognitive dissonance, however, is evident in their views. Kim Jong-un’s international linkages, it is understood, are too marginal to be successfully leveraged by the U.S. as a decisive pressure point on the regime.

On the other hand, his conventional and strategic capabilities constitute a rough-and-ready deterrent capability at his disposal, which as a matter of practicality cannot be preemptively challenged. Some form of negotiated arrangement that assures the continued incumbency of the regime in Pyongyang in exchange for a dismantlement of its nuclear capabilities must be offered. Yet there is an unwillingness to contemplate a pathway of getting to that point where such an offer can be tabled. And, to the contrary, barriers are sought to be placed that obstruct the pathway and make any negotiated arrangement that assures the continued incumbency of the regime even harder to achieve.

To their credit, a minority group within the North Korea watcher community continues to steadfastly champion the case for an early return to the negotiating table. Better to head down this path sooner rather than later, they argue, for the longer one waits and the lengthier the opportunistic intervals that Kim Jongun enjoys to perfect his nuclear and missile arsenal, the harder it will be to resolve the crisis on the peninsula on terms short of total war or diplomatic capitulation at the U.S. end.

The prevailing amalgam of underestimating Pyongyang’s tenacity and overestimating the U.S.’ and Beijing’s clout is also evident in the Trump Administration’s North Korea Policy Review.

“Maximum pressure and engagement” appears to be the watchword emerging from this policy review. “Maximum pressure” utilizing a wider toolkit of diplomatic, political, military, cyber, commercial, economic and financial penalties is to be inflicted by the administration – this, so that “engagement” can thereafter be established with a chastened Kim Jong-un on a qualitatively different footing and concessions obtained on denuclearization and dismantlement that are of a qualitatively deeper character. Initially, at least, the core emphasis of “maximum pressure and engagement” is to be on augmenting and intensifying the political, economic and financial pressure on Pyongyang, with noticeably greater assistance from Beijing. Riskier military alternatives are to be placed on the back-burner for the time being. Should Beijing fail to come through on this front, “secondary sanctions” on Chinese financial institutions and entities that aid North Korean front companies are likely to be instituted.

The North Korea Policy Review is not likely to directly embrace either China’s “suspension-for-suspension” proposal, i.e. DPRK’s suspension of missile and nuclear activities in exchange for a halt or downgrading of the U.S.-ROK’s large scale military exercises, or its “parallel track approach” proposal, i.e.denuclearizing the Korean peninsula while replacing the Korean War armistice with a peace agreement on a related timeline, in the short-to-medium term. On the other hand, a glimmer of hope rests in the possibility that the Trump Administration may be willing to relax the Obama Administration’s insistence of demanding an upfront pledge from Kim Jong-un to denuclearize as a pre-condition to restarting any overt form of direct U.S.-DPRK engagement. This upfront pre-conditioning might be softened or even quietly dropped from the Administration’s North Korea-related policy communications. Down the line, when a new pro-engagement president is elected in South Korea, this could open the door to direct communications with the North Korean regime and exploratory efforts in a bilateral or four-cornered format towards a ‘freeze arrangement.’

It is hoped that events bear out this latter path in the weeks and months ahead. “Maximum pressure” will not deliver a chastened Kim Jong-un at the diplomatic doorstep; “engagement,” wisely-crafted, could restore a modicum of trust and lay the foundation for a more durable win-win pathway.