North Korea

The Joe Biden administration has framed its main foreign policy paradigm primarily in terms of competition between democracy and authoritarianism, emphasizing cooperation among like-minded allies as its fundamental strategy for confronting China. There should be no questions as to where South Korea stands, both as a security ally and a vibrant democracy. And when South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in meets with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House Friday afternoon (local time), the decades-long U.S.-South Korea alliance will have an opportunity to address two distinct challenges to the proposition that the alliance is sustained by shared democratic values. The first challenge stems from the Biden administration’s conflation of shared values with shared interests in defining its approach to China and its expectations for allies. This approach has put considerable pressure on Seoul to join in a U.S.-led coalition to confront China’s challenge to the rules-based order. South Korea is an obvious candidate for membership in the Quad, especially given that last year the country had touted itself as a model in its initial pandemic response and in view of the potential importance of South Korean semiconductor production to supply chain resilience. But despite having the potential to forge extensive value-based cooperation in many functional areas, the Moon Jae-in’s government has expressed almost no public interest in joining the Quad. Instead, South Korea has thus far clung to choice avoidance as its primary approach to Sino-U.S. rivalry. The Biden administration’s framing of the Quad summit as an opportunity for cooperation among like-minded nations to provide public goods in the Indo-Pacific by emphasizing pandemic response, has helped to ease South Korean concerns that joining would label the country as part of an anti-China coalition. But South Korea’s geographic proximity to China and fear of economic retaliation from its largest trading partner have induced policy paralysis in Seoul. Also, South Korea retains an abiding interest in preventing China from exercising a veto power over inter-Korean reconciliation efforts by further enabling North Korean hostility. Seoul has tried to square the circle by aligning its policy approach to Southeast Asia with the U.S. Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy, and hedging in relations with Beijing by holding out the possibility of economic cooperation in infrastructure projects through China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Asian International Infrastructure Bank. South Korea’s approach to values-based cooperation is akin to a shy student that aces the test, but who goes to great lengths to avoid class participation. The second challenge to values-based U.S.-South Korea alliance cooperation relates to the Moon administration’s conciliation of North Korea with regard to efforts to promote information penetration inside North Korea. Following inter-Korean pledges not to slander each other, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong issued belligerent statements last year aimed at North Korean defectors in South Korea who sent leaflets across the border. In December 2020, South Korea’s National Assembly passed a vaguely worded anti-leaflet law imposing harsh penalties on the spread of outside information into North Korea of virtually any type of information from almost any location. The law rests on the premise that prevention of North Korean retaliation superseded both the rights to freedom of expression of those sending the information, and those in North Korea who suffer under the regime’s control over dissemination of information. The Moon administration’s support for the anti-leaflet law pits South Korean appeasement of the Kim Jong-un regime against Biden’s strong emphasis on human rights promotion and freedoms of expression. A U.S. Congressional hearing on the matter elicited bipartisan pleas for South Korea’s legislature to reverse course and rescind the law, and the South Korean government has acknowledged deficiencies in the draft law by pledging to make revisions. However, Moon’s progressive supporters in South Korea view external criticisms of South Korean law-making as U.S. meddling in South Korea’s domestic affairs, while conservative critics see Moon as simultaneously appeasing the Kim regime and betraying the very pro-democratic values on which he has fashioned his political image. Moon’s first face-to-face meeting with Biden provides a clear opportunity for them to address these cleavages and shore up the foundations of the alliance. As a first step, the Biden administration should welcome South Korean proposals for a vaccine swap to meet Moon’s domestic need to increase vaccine availability in South Korea, in return for South Korean engagement with Quad priorities through enhanced roles in supply chain resiliency and in production and distribution of vaccines within the region. On the human rights front, Biden and Moon should stand firm on preserving freedoms of expression as a distinguishing characteristic of democracies and by speaking out on North Korean human rights abuses; while acknowledging Kim as an inevitable counterpart for addressing mutual security concerns such as denuclearization and reduction of inter-Korean military tensions. These joint actions will align the interests of the two countries, while affirming common democratic values as the bedrock for U.S.-South Korean cooperation.

In a speech to a joint session of Congress marking his first hundred days in office last month, U.S. President Joe Biden described his North Korea policy as a combination of “diplomacy, as well as stern deterrence.” Hours later, Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the White House intends to adopt the classic middle ground policy option of a “calibrated, practical approach”—framed between former Presidents Barack Obama’s “strategic patience” and Donald Trump’s “grand bargain.” “Our goal remains the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. With a clear understanding that the efforts of the past four administrations have not achieved this objective, our policy will not focus on achieving a grand bargain, nor will it rely on strategic patience.” Psaki said. “We have and will continue to consult with the Republic of Korea, Japan, and other allies and partners at every step along the way,” she added. Having emphasized coordination with alliance partners Japan and South Korea, it is unsurprising that the policy outcome would wed South Korea’s desire for a diplomatic breakthrough with Japan’s strict emphasis on deterrence. Biden’s policy review laid out the instruments in the U.S. foreign policy toolbox and reasserted “complete denuclearization” as the enduring U.S. bottom line, but failed to satisfactorily address the main problem that has bedeviled decades of policy toward Pyongyang under successive U.S. administrations: how to dissuade North Korea from pursuing unremitting nuclear development objectives to guarantee regime survival, stand equivalent to the U.S. as a nuclear power, and reshape the regional strategic environment in North Korea’s favor. To be fair, no U.S. administration has found a satisfactory answer to this question since U.S. satellites began surveilling North Korean nuclear efforts in the 1980s. But this failure is more indicative of North Korea’s isolation, persistence, and weakness than of U.S. policy. A North Korean regime dependent on economic support from China needs to showcase its nuclear accomplishments as a basis for internal legitimacy, as a deterrent against “hostile forces,” and as an obstacle to South Korea-led unification of the Korean Peninsula. U.S. assurances that it is not hostile to North Korea cannot bring peace to the Korean Peninsula, unless North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is willing to abandon his revisionist aims. Due to Kim Jong-un’s persistent commitment to nuclearization, even capping North Korea’s nuclear development en route to “complete denuclearization” appears to be an impossible task that is only achievable through the inordinately costly course of regime change. Increasingly severe UN sanctions have slowed North Korea’s nuclear development, but failed to halt it. Diplomatic proposals to negotiate a cap and freeze might induce a measure of North Korean voluntary self-restraint—until the next U.S. administration comes along. The North Koreans, despite a few weeks of perhaps genuine doubt during the crescendo of “fire and fury” and Trump’s threats of North Korean annihilation during late 2017, concluded long ago that their nuclear deterrent will forestall a military invasion. One might hope that North Korea’s quarantine and self-induced economic distress would change Kim’s mind and open the door to diplomatic talks, but he appears to have dismissed the Biden administration’s early dialogue feelers and doubled down on economic recentralization and nuclear development at the Eighth Party Congress in January. North Korea’s economic distress may induce its diplomats to accept assistance in return for participation in diplomacy, but the regime has underscored that it will not succumb to external diplomatic pressure. Not to mention that Pyongyang had already warned Washington earlier this month that the U.S. “will face worse and worse crisis beyond control in the near future” if Biden’s administration is to follow its approach. “Now that what the keynote of the U.S. new DPRK policy has become clear, we will be compelled to press for corresponding measures, and with time the U.S. will find itself in a very grave situation,” North Korea said in a statement issued by its state news agency KCNA. The Biden administration’s decision not to appoint a special negotiator for North Korea reflects low expectations for North Korea to return to denuclearization negotiations at this time. Instead, the U.S. Directorate of National Intelligence anticipates that North Korea will likely pursue provocative actions, before it will be willing to return to the negotiating table.  In the meantime, Pyongyang will likely continue its three decade-long effort to nuclearize its way to prestige and equivalency, with the United States through mutual nuclear deterrence. This is a formula for stalemate in negotiations that pits U.S. denuclearization objectives against North Korea’s nuclear development, with the North perceiving its steadily expanding fissile material stockpiles and missile development as counter-leverage against U.S. “maximum pressure.” Unless the Biden administration can find a way to induce or impose self-restraint on the expansion of North Korea’s arsenal, the dimensions of the North Korean nuclear challenge will only continue to grow.

The Biden administration is in the midst of a North Korea policy review that will shape prospects for diplomacy and the relative priority of North Korea on Biden’s to-do list. Perhaps the earliest and most significant issue the Biden administration faces as part of that review is whether to use the Singapore Declaration as a foundation for future diplomacy toward North Korea or as another lesson learned on a three-decade long road strewn with North Korea policy failures. The one-page Singapore Declaration signed by former U.S. President Donald J. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is admittedly a thin reed upon which to build. It identifies four aspirational objectives: 1) a new U.S.-North Korean relationship, 2) peace on the Korean Peninsula, 3) work toward “complete denuclearization,” and 4) a return of the remains of American MIAs from the Korean War from North Korea. At the time of the declaration’s signing, North Korea specialist Andrei Lankov assessed that “we expected it to be a flop, but it’s floppier than anything we expected. The declaration is pretty much meaningless.” But the inevitable temptation among the Biden team to toss a document signed by Trump may be tempered by the other signature on the document: that of Kim Jong-un.   Some might argue that Kim Jong-un himself was never sincere about the declaration, while others will blame the failure to implement the declaration on miscommunications at the February 2019 Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi. Trump administration Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun spent over two years declaring that the door was open to working-level negotiations to flesh out a denuclearization-for-peace and normalization pathway for the U.S.-North Korea relationship. Despite his efforts, Biegun earned only a week of face time with North Korean diplomats in Pyongyang in preparation for the Hanoi summit and a day in Stockholm in October following the summit’s failure. Moreover, North Korea’s own internal assessment of the U.S.-North Korea relationship provided at the Eighth Korean Worker’s Party Congress last month further reveals North Korea’s true intent. At the meeting, Kim credited the adoption of the Singapore Declaration “that assured the establishment of new DPRK-US relations,” but failed to mention commitments to establishing peace or denuclearization. Moreover, the Congress assessment reveals that summitry proved politically useful to Kim as a venue for North Korea to defend “its independent interests and peace and justice against the superpower.” Kim asserted that his meeting with Trump raised North Korea’s strategic position and prestige, but it did not serve as a pathway for real improvement of relations with the United States, still characterized during the Congress as North Korea’s “principal enemy.” Although Kim Jong-un appears to have walked away from the Singapore Declaration, the Biden administration should leave the door open for North Korea to take part in substantive working-level negotiations. Simply maintaining a posture of openness to and readiness for a denuclearization dialogue contradicts propaganda efforts designed to lay the blame for North Korea’s failures on a perceived U.S. “hostile policy.” The declaration also remains an accomplishment for Kim that provides an already existing framework for moving forward if North Korea chooses to do so. Most important, a reaffirmation of the validity of the Singapore Declaration provides an opportunity to challenge Kim to reaffirm the declaration himself and to preserve the self-restraint shown on mid- and long-range missile testing that made both the declaration and the three summits with a U.S. president possible. Just as North Korean self-restraint is an essential condition for the Biden administration to keep the declaration in place, a North Korean return to missile testing would catalyze a U.S. campaign to rebuild international support for implementation of an expanded UN sanctions regime that has eroded since Kim turned to summitry in 2018.  Finally, an affirmation of the Singapore Declaration provides a foundation for alliance cohesion with Japan and South Korea by acknowledging South Korea’s desire to keep open a pathway for improvement of U.S.-North Korea relations while perpetuating a framework that might help keep in place North Korean self-restraint on missile testing that most immediately endangers Japan.  Building on the Singapore Declaration uses Kim’s own commitments, limited as they are, to provide a foundation on which to build allied support for a peace-and-denuclearization pathway that can ease North Korea’s isolation and enhance its security and prosperity. Keeping the spotlight on Kim will help clarify Kim’s motives, highlighting the costs and sparse returns on his investments-to-date in nuclear and military development.

North Korea will likely continue to develop its nuclear program, but Kim Jong-un could return to negotiations if the United States makes concessions.

Scott A. Snyder is senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. As we turn the calendar on 2020 and embark on 2021, the incoming Joe Biden administration faces no shortage of challenges. The priority areas identified by his transition team include overcoming the pandemic, reviving the economy, achieving racial justice, and addressing climate change. Russia, China, and Iran have also been singled out as issues to be addressed. However, the number one concern identified in CFR’s annual Preventive Priorities Survey of foreign policy experts about potential geopolitical risks to worry about in the coming year—namely, a renewed crisis on the Korean Peninsula—has received scant attention in comparison. This is surprising as the issue has hardly gone away—to the contrary, in fact. President Obama warned President-elect Trump in November 2016 that the most vexing international security threat he would face would emanate from North Korea. Two nuclear tests, myriad long-range missile tests, and three Trump-Kim summits later, the magnitude and likelihood of North Korea posing a catastrophic threat to U.S. national interests is greater than it was four years ago. Despite President Trump’s assertions that he averted a war with North Korea by developing a close personal relationship with Kim Jong-un, Trump’s diplomacy appears to have only changed the tone of the relationship while failing to address the underlying problems posed by North Korea’s ability to launch a nuclear strike on the U.S. mainland. It is not clear that Kim’s self-restraint on long-range missile testing will continue. At the Worker’s Party of Korea (WPK) Eighth Party Congress staged only days prior to the Biden administration’s inauguration, Kim characterized the United States as its “foremost principal enemy,” and criticized U.S. perceived “hostile policy” toward North Korea despite North Korea’s “good-will efforts.” Military parades staged in conjunction with the Eighth Party Congress and on the October 10, 2020, 75th anniversary of the WPK revealed that North Korea has strengthened its conventional forces and has developed but not yet tested several new types of missiles capable of delivering a nuclear strike on the United States. While the Trump administration has left the door open to diplomatic negotiations since a one-day meeting with North Korean officials in Stockholm in October 2019, North Korea has refused to come to the negotiating table. Meanwhile, Kim’s 2018 summitry gambit and accompanying economic hopes have turned to distress in the face of ongoing sanctions, North Korea’s COVID quarantine, and flooding from a series of typhoons, putting even greater pressure on Kim to achieve an economic breakthrough. North Korea’s Eighth Party Congress addressed these and other economic challenges while pledging to continue its military development and promising to respond to “force with toughness” and “good faith in kind.” This was as close as Kim came during the eight-day Party Congress to providing a signal of intent to open negotiations with the Biden administration.  In addition, many analysts expect North Korea to revert to its traditional playbook by returning to nuclear and missile tests as means by which to test new leaders as Kim has previously done with Obama, Xi Jinping, Park Geun-hye, and Trump. North Korea’s purpose in pursuing provocations would be to push North Korea closer to the top of the Biden administration’s agenda by generating a crisis atmosphere and shaping the space and prospects for diplomatic negotiations. Anticipation of North Korean provocations is so high that analysts have either rushed to recommend that Biden extend an early olive branch to North Korea in an effort to forestall a crisis or speculated about how to capitalize on a crisis to induce North Korea to return to denuclearization negotiations. Regardless of whether Kim Jong-un is motivated by domestic economic distress or the desire to redress long-held international grievances, North Korea’s insistence on presenting itself as an entrenched nuclear weapons state remains at odds with the longstanding U.S. policy and international security norms upheld by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But North Korea’s capabilities are also an undeniable reality and an international security threat that must be managed to avoid catastrophic results. The Biden administration will need to devise a set of early actions to reassure North Korea of its willingness to engage in negotiations, reduce the risk of North Korean miscalculation, and forestall likely attention-grabbing provocations by North Korea, regardless of whether they emanate from manifestations of Kim’s military strength or his economic weakness.

This article is co-authored with Chaesung Chun, Patrick Cronin and Sang-hyun Lee. The U.S.-South Korea alliance has survived for almost seven decades, and has sustained peace on the Korean peninsula since the Korean War. To thrive going forward, however, the alliance must not only hold open the door to the establishment of peace and denuclearization with North Korea, but expand even further. The U.S.-South Korea alliance should refashion itself to meet urgent global challenges and enhance regional and global prosperity. Although the list of global challenges has rarely been more daunting than it is now—from the pandemic to North Korea’s nuclear program to China’s growing assertiveness—common pursuit of a partnership built on shared values has never been more essential to overcoming nationalist-driven impulses, domestic divisions and defend against economic and political coercion. The U.S.-South Korea alliance should work bilaterally and in concert multilaterally with like-minded partners for peaceful solutions to disputes based on agreed-upon rules and to expand space for cooperation and peace-building in Korea, Asia and beyond. Toward that aim, the U.S. and South Korea should quickly resolve issues like burden-sharing costs, the transition of operational control and impediments to the maintenance of military readiness. To do so, both “America first” and “Korea first” impulses will have to be set aside in favor of continued force integration and the establishment of institutions strong enough to protect alliance cooperation from the threat of rising nationalist challenges. Resolution of these issues will enable Presidents Joe Biden and Moon Jae-in to more effectively coordinate policies toward North Korea and expand the focus of the alliance to larger contextual issues, such as how to better handle Chinese economic and political coercion while leveraging new technological forms of cooperation to address challenges to a peaceful and prosperous democratic global order. Early consultations between Biden and Moon to fashion a joint strategy toward North Korea are critical, and will be closely watched. North Korea and others will be looking for early signs of a combined approach that enhances stability on the Korean peninsula, affirms a commitment to the peaceful coexistence of the two Koreas, establishes a pathway and benchmarks for economic cooperation, and strives to overcome mistrust and removes the nuclear issue as an obstacle to improved political relations. The two allies should expand the breadth of their alliance to hold in-depth consultations that also include blunting the effectiveness of Chinese policies that resort to economic and political coercion rather than accepting the peaceful rules-based settlement of disputes. The establishment of a whole-of-alliance approach to policy toward China will require in-depth dialogue to understand and close gaps between Washington and Seoul on how to effectively respond to China’s growing assertiveness. The U.S.-South Korea alliance approach must be developed alongside multilaterally coordinated efforts both with regional and global U.S. alliance partners to clearly establish the conditions necessary to push back on “might makes right” efforts to establish a Sinocentric order. Large-state bullying needs to be dissuaded in favor of a global system that encourages disputes to be resolved through peaceful diplomatic negotiations. There are even more significant opportunities to expand the alliance functionally, both to develop new frontiers for alliance cooperation and to enhance joint responses to common threats that endanger humankind. As leaders in development and practical application of technologies, the U.S.-South Korea alliance has the potential to address emerging global challenges in the areas of health, climate change, AI, energy security, supply chains and space cooperation. The U.S.-South Korea alliance stands as an antidote that can be readily used to manage not only the ongoing challenge posed by North Korea, but also to address the shared threats of heightened nationalism, major power rivalry and global health challenges facing the two nations. The authors have completed a year-long study for the East Asia Institute analyzing the U.S.-ROK alliance and recommending a course for the future, the full text of which is available here.

The incoming Biden administration will face a nuclear catastrophe unless it can build good relations with North Korea. The U.S. President-Elect can begin by sending the right signals to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Because North Korea has nuclear weapons, the Biden administration cannot unilaterally impose terms on Pyongyang. Refusal to even talk with Pyongyang until it takes steps to denuclearize is a foolish and dangerous approach. Such an approach will likely inflame tensions and return Washington to a tense nuclear standoff with Pyongyang that poses a risk of miscalculation and accidental escalation into a nuclear war. Biden may be under pressure to be “tough” on North Korea to differentiate himself from Trump’s alleged cozy relationship with the North Korean dictator. However, a hostile stance toward Pyongyang will only make North Korea feel more insecure and drive Kim to pursue further nuclear development to ensure his regime’s survival.  Washington must recognize that Pyongyang has no incentive to denuclearize if the regime finds in nuclear weapons a guarantor of its survival and prestige. The only conceivable way that the regime might be persuaded to denuclearize is if denuclearization meets its needs for security and economic development. In return for denuclearization, Washington needs to offer Pyongyang a guarantee of regime survival, such as a formal peace treaty ending the Korean War, and an economic aid package. This offer should be extended in the context of an amicable personal relationship with Kim. Only when Kim feels safe enough, will he be open to the possibility of denuclearizing. Building and maintaining good relations with Pyongyang does not equate to coddling dictators. During the Cold War, the United States maintained official diplomatic relations and regular open channels of communication with the Soviet Union even though the USSR was a totalitarian state. This steady relationship helped prevent a nuclear catastrophe, including during the Cuban missile crisis. Washington did not maintain steady relations with Moscow because it approved of the Communist regime and its human rights abuses. Rather, the United States pursued a strategy of realist diplomacy with the understanding that relations with nuclear-armed totalitarian states must be cultivated and managed well in the interest of maintaining peace and preventing a nuclear catastrophe. A decision by Biden to build good relations with Pyongyang should not be viewed as approval of the regime’s totalitarian character and human rights abuses. As for approaches to negotiations on denuclearization, Washington must realize that North Korea may denuclearize only if enough confidence-building steps are taken to build mutual trust between the two sides. The United States should not impose top-down or sweeping terms at the outset of negotiations, such as requiring North Korea to declare a complete inventory of its nuclear weapons and spell out a comprehensive roadmap for full denuclearization. Pyongyang likely feels reluctant to show its hand before mutual trust has been established. It likely prefers a more flexible, ad hoc process, whereby the two sides engage in tit-for-tat reciprocal measures to build mutual confidence before any comprehensive roadmap is spelled out. To start the bilateral U.S.-North Korea relationship off on the right footing and build mutual trust, Biden should reach out to Kim now, even before he takes office, with the right conciliatory gestures. North Korea is reportedly experiencing serious economic hardship due to damage from flooding this year and self-isolation imposed to combat COVID-19, on top of the economic damage already inflicted by UN sanctions against the regime. Despite the fact that the regime has denied the existence of COVID inside the country and has refused to accept aid, as North Korea faces the threat of mass hunger and malnutrition, an offer of humanitarian relief from Biden might be appreciated. Provision of emergency food aid via third-parties such as the UN World Food Program might make North Korea more likely to accept humanitarian assistance. Biden should also work with his team to come up with and undertake other imaginative measures to break the ice and build trust. Finally, to build trust, Biden should offer to meet with Kim without any preconditions. The President-Elect should also offer to open high-level dialogue channels with Pyongyang, at which any and all issues can be discussed. Kim is apparently unhappy that his alleged good relationship with Trump has not led to success in negotiations with Washington or to significant economic gains for his regime. As a result, he may be questioning the utility of pursuing good relations with Biden and may even be under political pressure at home to be “tough” on Washington. However, Kim must realize that progress with Washington takes time and that if he rejects good relations and all negotiations with Washington, he may be giving up too soon. By rejecting Biden’s friendly gestures, Kim would only be giving in to the hardliners in Pyongyang and Washington, the same group who has contributed to the failure of negotiations under Trump. Moreover, Kim must recognize that a policy of confrontation vis-à-vis Washington will isolate his country even further and only make his regime’s current economic hardships worse. Kim has more to gain by being patient with Washington and seeking friendly relations with Biden than by giving up on Washington altogether and pursuing a policy of confrontation. During his presidency, Biden will be preoccupied with addressing domestic challenges, including the COVID pandemic, and will be taking a political risk by spending precious time and resources on developing good relations with Pyongyang. Therefore, instead of rejecting Biden’s gestures and staging military provocations, Kim should reward Biden’s risk-taking by accepting the President-Elect’s offers of summitry and high-level dialogue channels. He can begin by reciprocating Biden’s friendly signals, including during an expected New Year’s address. Ultimately, it is incumbent upon both Pyongyang and Washington to appreciate the importance of developing and maintaining good relations regardless of changes in the U.S. presidential administration. The stakes are high, given that the penalty for failure could be a nuclear crisis. Jongsoo Lee is Senior Managing Director at Brock Securities and Center Associate at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. He is also Adjunct Fellow at Pacific Forum (Hawaii) and Contributing Editor at The Diplomat. The opinions expressed in this essay are solely his own. He can be followed on Twitter at @jameslee004.

An update of the Council on Foreign Relations' Cyber Operations Tracker for the period between July and September 2020.

A return to provocations as North Korea’s primary mechanism for drawing international attention would signal weakness, not the intended message of strength.

Biden's return to a conventional alliance management approach could shed light on cracks in the U.S.-South Korea alliance previously obfuscated by Trump's unconventional approach.