America’s North Korea Strategy Has Failed

I n his New Year’s Eve address, North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, called for an “exponential increase” in his country’s nuclear arsenal. This followed a year during which the North launched a record number of ballistic missiles of all ranges, including a new missile assessed to be capable of striking any city on the American homeland. Kim’s intention to expand his nuclear stockpile should not come as a surprise. The previous spring, he directed his weapons program to move forward “at the fastest possible speed” to support a new law calling for the preemptive use of nuclear weapons “automatically and immediately” if the Kim leadership is put in danger. Even earlier, the then–vice chairman of America’s joint chiefs, John Hyden, stated that North Korea “is building new missiles, new capabilities, new weapons as fast as anybody on the planet.”

While Kim’s announcements receive widespread attention, and while there is extensive concern expressed about his nuclear buildup, serious analysis of the political and military significance of the North’s growing arsenal is lacking. Five years ago, it was simply unthinkable for most observers that North Korea would possess a 100-weapon stockpile. That level is now easily in sight with every indication that the growth will continue to accelerate beyond that benchmark. At its current rate, the North’s stockpile could exceed 200 weapons by 2027, approaching those of France and Britain.  But unlike France and Britain, the North’s numbers will continue to grow.

Yet in the open literature and in official reports and testimony, the strategic implications of North Korea’s possession of hundreds of nuclear weapons remain mostly unknown. For example, would South Korea and Japan decide to acquire their own nuclear deterrent if the arsenal of their adversary goes from 40 to 200 or more weapons? And if so, how would that impact U.S. interests? Given the North’s record of selling almost every weapon it develops to any buyer able to pay, what would be the likelihood that Kim would sell nuclear weapons to other rogue states or terrorist entities? What would be the effect on the military balance on the peninsula and regionally if North Korea fielded nuclear weapons for battlefield use? How would a much larger North Korean nuclear force affect U.S. nuclear-force and missile-defense requirements? All are difficult questions. But all need to be addressed.

A recent strategy document produced by national-security and human-rights experts, including myself, make clear the need for a realistic appreciation of the implications of the growing North Korean threat and for a fundamental change in U.S. policy. Since the Korean nuclear threat emerged in the early 1990s, the principal U.S. objective has been to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons. While successive administrations have employed varying combinations of carrots and sticks to this end, all have sought denuclearization through negotiations as the signature component of their policy. All have failed.

Recent suggestions that we should acknowledge North Korea as a formal nuclear-weapons state to encourage Pyongyang to enter arms-control talks is a formula for further failure. Conceding that the North is a legitimate nuclear-weapons state would unleash an array of unintended consequences inimical to U.S. interests. And, like past permutations in U.S. policy, it misses the most obvious point: The Kim regime will not give up its nuclear weapons and is determined to build more.

To meet this threat, it is imperative to design and implement a comprehensive strategy incorporating all tools of statecraft — diplomatic, economic, information and intelligence, military, and others. Most important, the strategy must be grounded in a pragmatic understanding of Pyongyang’s determination to continue its nuclear program, which it sees as vital to the survival of the Kim dynasty.

Although elements of the current strategy — such as alliance relationships, defense and deterrence, containment, and economic sanctions — should be retained, the new strategy must reflect a structural shift in the narrative of the past 30 years.  While diplomacy to achieve denuclearization will be encouraged, the central feature of the new strategy should not be negotiations with the North over its nuclear program but the promotion of the rights and freedoms of the North Korean people.

The Kim regime’s greatest vulnerability is from within, from the alienation of its people, who suffer under totalitarian repression. While insisting on complete and verifiable denuclearization, the foundation of U.S. strategy should be a human-rights-upfront approach, a comprehensive information and influence campaign, and the advancement of a free and unified Korea. This is not the promotion of human rights solely for the sake of human rights. This is the means to achieve national-security objectives. Only in this way will the nuclear threat, as well as the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Kim regime, be ended.

Four decades ago, many national-security experts criticized President Reagan for insisting on including human rights as a central element of the strategic dialogue with the Soviet Union. We now know that doing so did not derail the pursuit of arms-control agreements; in fact, it contributed to that outcome and ultimately to the end of the Soviet Union itself. Similar to the Reagan approach, the new strategy with North Korea must combine patience with strength. The Soviet Union did not fall because military force was used to achieve regime change; that change came from within as it must with North Korea.