Between a Rock and an Incomprehensible Place:The United States and the Second North Korean Nuclear Crisis

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the second North Korean nuclear crisis andthe Six-Party Talks. It seeks to explain the collapse of the Agreed Frameworkresulting from the shift in U.S. policy under the Bush administration andthe decision by North Korea to resume nuclear activities. It discusses theorigins, the course and the failure of the Six-Party Talks prior to theirresumption in July 2005. It shows how the political philosophy of the Bushadministration led it to adopt tactics that were unsuitable for the achievementof the objective of disarmament. Likewise, Pyongyang proceeded fromassumptions that were erroneous, and Washington proved to be imperviousto its threats and brinkmanship. Thus, while North Korea strove to improveits bargaining power, it had no strategy of how to make use of it, havinglost the gains achieved under the Agreed Framework. The article elucidatesthe structural impediments to a successful outcome, which consist in thedivergent objectives among the parties to the talks, the problem of dealingwith a nuclear program that is claimed not to exist (the HEU program), thedisagreement with North Korea about the modalities of disarmament andthe unwillingness of Pyongyang to finally renounce all nuclear activities. Itis argued that the nuclear crisis is merely a symptom of the fundamentalcrisis of the lack of sustainability of the North Korean state and that thenuclear issue, while urgent in itself, cannot be dealt with apart from thefuture of the Korean peninsula as a whole.