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A number of prominent proponents of deeper engagement have recently published critical assessments of strategic patience. They deserve a read.
Yonsei University Professor Chung-in Moon was an early supporter of engagement when the rest of the international relations professoriate in South Korea was mired in stale realpolitik. He went on to advise both the DJ and Roh Moo Hyun governments and has made himself into a relentless gadfly of the LMB administration. In the Joongang Daily he argues that strategic patience has failed because the US is too beholden to the LMB government. Moon says the US should be bolder in seeking dialogue with North Korea, although he does not exactly say what such an initiative would look like.
Moon’s critique of strategic patience is really a critique of the Lee Myung Bak administration. Aidan Foster-Carter has long emphasized the importance of maintaining a North-South channel, drawing on interesting historical materials to do so. In a post on 38 North, he looks at the recent controversy over the failed summit proposal. In a very useful post in January he provided an overview of the opportunities opened up by the October 2007 summit, arguing that the LMB administration should not have thrown it over so quickly.
Leon Sigal’s Disarming Strangers is one of the most thorough accounts of the first nuclear crisis. In it, Sigal argues that the North Koreans were willing to play quid-pro-quo politics, but responded aggressively to tough talk and sanctions. He has held pretty consistently to that position ever since.
In a piece for the National Interest—linked and summarized on the Nautilus website—Sigal fills in the arguments laid out by Moon. He attributes the difficulties the Obama administration faced in 2009 and 2010—including the sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeongpyeong island—to the LMB government’s decision to renege on the 2007 Roh-Kim summit agreement. He also believes that South Korea was responsible for the breakdown of the Six Party Talks in 2008: that it was Seoul that forced the issue of verification on Washington. The way back to talks would be to seriously consider the North’s “peace regime” proposal.
As hostile as Sigal is to US policy, he nonetheless shares the odd American view that everything in the world is a result of what we do. There is little reference to the profound domestic changes in North Korea over the last five years that have pushed the country away from reform. The US played a crucial role in that process during the first Bush administration, as we argue in some detail in our new East-West Center monograph. But the problems are much, much deeper, and include the increasingly military foundations of the regime—announced well before the onset of the nuclear crisis— internal skepticism about the 2002 economic reforms, and now the succession.
Finally, Joel Wit and Jenny Town offer their assessment in Foreign Policy. Interestingly, Wit is also a student of the first nuclear crisis and his Going Critical (with Daniel Poneman and Robert Galucci) is also a must-read. Like Moon and Sigal, Wit and Town emphasize the urgency of action: that delay simply provides time for the North Koreans to increase their capabilities. They then outline a seemingly sensible strategy, but the strategy is based on a number of North Korean actions (expressing regret for loss of life in the East Sea incidents, agreeing to some concrete actions to show the seriousness of their intent, agreeing to an immediate resumption of the Six Party Talks). In return, the US would hold bilaterals and peace regime talks--as proposed by Sigal—in parallel with the Six Party Talks.
Great, but is this a strategy document for the US or for the North Koreans? With Kim Gye Kwan coming to North Korea next week, we'll know more soon.
