Nuclear Weapons

Among the possible contenders mentioned for the summit between U.S. President Donald J. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un—Sweden, the Korean DMZ, Mongolia, Switzerland, as well as much more unlikely possibilities like North Korea itself—Singapore was probably the right choice for the event, and ultimately not such a surprising one. The city-state’s diplomatic corps and security and intelligence personnel are highly respected globally and shown repeatedly that they can host a major summit without allowing any significant security or intelligence slip-ups. The city state indeed has for decades hosted a wide range of regional security summits for Southeast Asian states, and, increasingly summits involving officials from across the world. Singaporean officials also have handled, many high-profile bilateral meetings, like the meeting in 2015 between Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou. The country has an extensive array of hotels and other facilities whose staff are used to preparing for major events with tight security. The wealthy city-state also has said that it will assume some of the costs of the summit, a bonus that some other possible choices like Mongolia would not have been able to add. The city-state also is much closer physically to North Korea than other potential sites like Switzerland or Sweden, which makes it easier for the North Koreans to travel. Yet it is not as remote as Mongolia, which possibly would have struggled to host an event of this potential importance. Just as importantly, Singapore—like a number of countries in Southeast Asia—long has maintained ties with North Korea, as well as close links to the United States. Singapore has had diplomatic ties with Pyongyang for more than forty years, and had trade relations, like many Southeast Asian states, until the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-un’s half-brother, in Malaysia last year and the Trump administration’s campaign of applying greater pressure on the North through further economic sanctions. Before 2016, North Koreans also could travel to Singapore visa-free, which allowed some North Korean elites, including probably ruling party officials, to visit the city-state for services like medical care and shopping, and give them some familiarity with Singapore. Before that killing, and the ramping up of international sanctions on the North for its nuclear program, many Southeast Asian states appeared to be soliciting greater trade ties with Pyongyang, which was beginning to reform its economy and invite in outside investment. Last November, Singapore suspended trade with North Korea. Still, this history of links may make Kim Jong-un and other North Korean leaders relatively comfortable with a summit in Singapore. China and Singapore also have longstanding, if sometimes wary, relations, and Beijing probably preferred Singapore to a summit in Mongolia, Sweden, or Switzerland. Meanwhile, although Singapore is not an official U.S. treaty ally, it is probably, at this point, the United States’s closest security partner in Southeast Asia, as well as a major trading partner. U.S. officials, throughout multiple administrations, generally have a high degree of trust in Singaporean intelligence, political leaders, and diplomats, and have worked closely with Singapore on a wide range of strategic issues. In addition, as some other commentators have noted, choosing Singapore reduces the expectations (slightly) of the summit, making it a (slightly) more low-key affair than if the two leaders had met in the DMZ or North Korea where the summit would have been even more dramatic.

Following the rollercoaster ride that has accompanied scheduling of an on-again, off-again summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, where do we actually stand in terms of defining a convergence of interest on the process, pace, and price of denuclearization that might be expected to accompany the meeting, if and when it actually happens? A delegation led by American Ambassador Sung Kim has reportedly entered North Korea for negotiations in Panmunjom, while a delegation led by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin is meeting with North Korean counterparts in Singapore to discuss protocol for the summit. North Korean Vice Chairman Kim Yong Chol arrives in New York for the highest level visit by a North Korean official since Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok visited Bill Clinton in the Oval Office in 2000. Here are the main issues they must resolve before Trump and Kim will be ready to meet. Read more in The Hill.

Successful denuclearization will hinge on rigorous on-the-ground inspections and closing the gap between North Korea and the United States on what areas any agreement should cover.

Following a dizzying on-again, off-again week of no-shows, cancellation threats, high-level summitry, and dramatic announcements, a glide path is emerging in the direction of the Trump-Kim summit to be held on June 12. Since there may yet be twists and turns in the coming weeks and the roller coaster ride has focused more on logistics than substance, it is important to step back and review the chronology of developments during the past week. Chronological Review of Major Developments in Preparation for the June 12 Summit At a May 22 summit meeting between Donald Trump and Moon Jae-in at the White House, the South Korean and the American leaders discussed preparations for the U.S.-North Korea summit to be held in Singapore. In press availability prior to the Trump-Moon summit, President Trump suggested flexibility on a phased versus all-in-one approach to denuclearization while expressing his strong preference for an all-in-one approach and cast doubt on China’s intentions based on an apparent change in direction by North Korea following the surprise summit meeting held in Dalian only a week earlier between Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un. On May 23, North Korean Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Choe Son-hui released a statement complaining about Vice President Mike Pence’s “unbridled and impudent remarks that North Korea might end like Libya” and stated that “whether the U.S. will meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown is entirely dependent upon the decision and behavior of the United States.” On May 24, President Trump released a letter announcing cancellation of the Singapore summit in response to the “tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in [Vice Minister Choe’s] most recent statement.” However, President Trump also indicated a willingness to come back to talks if the North Koreans showed an interest in resuming contact. Back in Seoul following his whirlwind trip to the United States, Moon convened his national security council and announced his perplexity regarding recent developments. The summit cancellation coincided with North Korea’s detonation of several entrances to their nuclear test site at Pungye-ri, witnessed by international journalists. On May 25, North Korea Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Kim Kye-gwan issued a statement expressing “our willingness to sit down face-to-face with the U.S. and resolve issues anytime and in any format.” President Trump responded with verbal remarks and tweets suggesting that the summit preparations could still happen in time for a June 12 meeting in Singapore. At a press briefing in Washington, a presidential spokesman briefed that the North Koreans had stood up a high-level American delegation that had traveled to Singapore to negotiate logistical matters in advance of the U.S.-North Korea summit and had not kept pledges regarding allowing experts to travel with journalists to witness the closing of the North Korean nuclear test site at Pungye-ri, but Trump disavowed the statement as fake news in a tweet. On May 26, apparently at the request of the North Koreans, Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un met for the second time at Panmunjom, this time on the northern side and in secret. The meeting was announced following its conclusion, and President Moon announced a press conference for 10 am the following day to discuss the results. On May 27, President Moon announced that Kim Jong Un had confirmed his commitment to complete denuclearization but showed distrust in U.S. pledges of regime assurances in their Panmunjom meeting. The two Koreas committed to resumption of high-level ministerial meetings scheduled for June 1 and to the resumption of inter-Korean Red Cross meetings. President Trump expressed his approval of these developments and mentioned that preparatory contacts had resumed. Subsequently, it was reported that a U.S. delegation led by former six party negotiator and current U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Sung Kim, was holding preparatory meetings for the summit on the northern side of the border at Panmunjom. In addition, a delegation led by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin is meeting with North Korean counterparts in Singapore to discuss protocol for the summit. On May 29, reports broke and were subsequently confirmed via President Trump’s tweet that North Korea’s Vice Chairman Kim Yong Chol is traveling to New York for additional talks with the United States. General Kim is a senior military official in charge of inter-Korean dialogue and former head of the Reconnaissance General Bureau who attended the closing ceremonies of the Pyeongchang Olympics and both inter-Korean summits between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un. If the Trump-Kim Singapore summit is to be successful, much remains to be done during the next two weeks to close the decades-long gap over the pace, price, and process of denuclearization between the two sides.

While the collapse of the Donald Trump-Kim Jung Un summit should cause the president to reconsider how to prepare for head of state summits, it should not alter the Trump administration’s strategic objective of complete and permanent denuclearization of North Korea for several important reasons. The leverage of sanctions is greatest now. Since the end of the Cold War and the rise of the global economy, we have entered a new era of arms control/non-proliferation policy where the leverage to stop these programs and reverse them comes from multilateral sanctions. Multilateral sanctions have reached an important apex with North Korea, with increased Chinese support for the Trump administration’s sanctions policy in the UN Security Council and with significant success in encouraging countries across the globe to diplomatically isolate North Korea. Arms control dependent on the persuasion of sanctions limits the utility of phased negotiations. As sanctions weaken in response to step by step moves, sanctions pressure decreases just as the slow burn approach to negotiations has to deal with the final phases of complete denuclearization. A sanctions dependent arms control policy sharply limits the effectiveness of step by step negotiations or time-bound constraints, one of the major concerns with the time bound limits of the Iran agreement. Furthermore, the nuclear genie is out of the North Korean bottle and a freeze does not diminish that threat. North Korea is a nuclear state with both medium range and long-range ballistic missiles and an estimated 10-60 warhead capability. The only remaining question is whether they can reliably put a warhead on a missile — a capability that North Korea says it already has. Freezing missile tests and nuclear weapons tests at this point does not limit North Korean capabilities, which currently threaten our allies, our assets and personnel in the region, and the U.S. homeland. Consequently, a freeze also does not deserve to be rewarded with sanctions relief or diplomatic recognition. The U.S. unilaterally removed all of its tactical nuclear weapons from South Korea during the George H.W. Bush administration. North Korea is the only non-member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in the region and among only four outliers to the Non-Proliferation Treaty regime globally. North Korea is the country that is introducing nuclear weapons onto the peninsula, violating its own past and now reiterated commitment for a nuclear free Korean peninsula. The alternative to complete denuclearization is not simply war, if the goal fails. Along with defense and deterrence measures, the U.S. can continue its policy to pressure and isolate North Korea economically and diplomatically. It can continue to clamp down on its proliferation and other black market activities, which are important sources of hard currency and, thus, denying Kim Jung Un of his equally important goal of developing North Korea economically. North Korea is also not Libya, Iraq or Ukraine. North Korea has publicly stated that their pursuit of nuclear weapons is to keep the Kim regime from the fate of others: Qaddafi, who gave up nuclear weapons only to be killed in an allied attack; Saddam Hussein whom the North Koreans believe was successfully invaded because he did not have nuclear weapons; or Ukraine who gave back nuclear weapons to Russia for promises of sovereignty only to have that promise to collapse with the Russian invasion. North Korea is in a very different situation and, in fact, can be secure without nuclear weapons. It has superpowers on its borders that can provide security guarantees and can offer a nuclear umbrella to counter U.S. extended deterrence with South Korea. North Korea has the potential to leverage a relationship with both China and Russia as a deterrent against U.S. interference. One of China’s principal objectives is to avert a regime collapse in North Korea and a refugee influx on its border. Russia, North Korea’s original mentor before the collapse of the Soviet Union, has also demonstrated its interests in working with the Kim Jung Un regime. These potential security guarantees plus the economic development incentives that these superpowers plus South Korea, Japan and the U.S. can provide, make complete denuclearization not an unreasonable objective. While reversing a nuclear weapons program is very difficult, it is not impossible. The U.S. and the global community have achieved this goal in the past with several countries under the Non-Proliferation Treaty regime over the years. Anything short of complete denuclearization does not solve the current security threats of a nuclear North Korea to the U.S. or our regional allies.

On Thursday, the White House canceled the highly-anticipated June 12 summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un. Despite will on all sides for the summit to proceed, a fundamental disagreement on the roadmap to denuclearization looms large.

Sungtae (Jacky) Park is a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. A version of this piece was first published on CSIS PacNet here. As the top-level summit between the United States and North Korea nears, policy analysts have been expressing skepticism about the Trump administration’s goal of complete denuclearization of North Korea and calling for tempered expectations and objectives. They argue that North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons program that Kim Jong Un sees as critical to the survival of his regime and that Pyongyang will use the summit and negotiations to buy time and loosen sanctions while making limited concessions. While I am a pessimist myself, I worry that cognitive bias is leading to excessive pessimism. An outcome that experts might find satisfactory, while falling short of complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement (CVID), might be possible. Cognitive bias #1: Bad guys do it better The first factor that affects analyses of North Korea is a belief that the North Koreans are brilliant manipulators and strategists, while U.S. officials are incompetent and regularly being duped. The notion that “bad guys do it better” seems to be ingrained in every aspect of the U.S. policy community’s view of the world, whether in discussions about North Korea, Russia, China, or Iran. Consistent with this view, the Washington policy establishment has accused Donald Trump of being manipulated into a summit with Kim and pursuing the unrealistic goal of complete denuclearization. Ironically, Trump himself has accused previous U.S. presidents of being “outplayed” by the North Koreans and has pledged to be different. Is this perception true? Many analysts have argued that the United States has had an increasingly dysfunctional national security decision-making process since the end of the Cold War, but a working process does exist. The separation of powers in the U.S. government often leads to confusion and delays in policy implementation, but Congress also brings a level of oversight to the executive branch. The shift in power at the White House from one party to another sometimes brings changes in policy, but it also prevents foreign affairs from being dominated by a single school of thought. North Korea’s policy process remains a black box, but it is hard to imagine that it functions properly in a setting where officials risk being purged if they say the wrong thing. Moreover, while North Korean officials have access to outside information, they do not have the same level of information freedom that exists in the United States and are working in an ideological framework into which they were indoctrinated as children. North Korea’s intelligence apparatus is brutal, but North Koreans do not have intellectual and technological resources to match those of the U.S. government. There is also no accountability in North Korea, and Kim makes decisions with his close associates and sycophantic advisors. While North Korea has a clear strategy in negotiations with the United States, it is dealing with as much uncertainty as the United States. As a result, diplomacy with North Korea is not necessarily a rigged game in which Kim Jong Un is pursuing an exceptionally clever strategy. Both sides are playing the game partially blindfolded and a satisfactory, if not ideal, outcome that includes North Korea’s denuclearization in some form should not be discounted. Cognitive bias #2: Attributing the current situation to a single, fixed intent The second cognitive bias is the belief that North Korean leaders have made and stuck to a single, fixed choice, instead of having kept as many options available (hedging) or having made disparate decisions at multiple inflection points throughout the history of the U.S.-North Korea nuclear conflict. Korea watchers generally believe that the current crisis reflects North Korea’s unwavering desire to obtain nuclear weapons. However, no one will know what happened with all previous nuclear agreements with North Korea until archives on both sides are open to researchers. Counterfactuals are impossible to prove, and no one can be sure what would have happened if the United States and North Korea had made different choices at different junctures in the nuclear conflict. Yet, the fact that the complex and never-ending debate over how and why the Agreed Framework and later agreements failed exists suggests that North Korean decision-making has been far more complicated than understood in the United States. The assertion, then, that Kim Jong Un will never give up his nuclear weapons program and will inevitably cheat on any agreement is flawed, as it is not clear that North Korea has always had a single fixed position on nuclear weapons. With the right incentives and disincentives, the United States might be able to sway Kim’s decision-making. A counterargument could be made that Kim Jong Un is coldly rational and does hold a single, fixed position because he views nuclear weapons as the key to his survival, especially after witnessing the fall of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, who completely gave up his nuclear weapons program, only to be killed in 2011 in a rebellion protected by a Western no-fly zone. Yet, if Kim were truly rational and faced with “the existential choice between survival and nuclear status,” as noted by Scott Snyder, due to internal and external pressure of varying nature, then a satisfactory level of denuclearization, by logic, should not be discounted. Cognitive bias #3: Past patterns must continue The final cognitive bias is the tendency to conclude that past failures with North Korea mean that current diplomacy is also unlikely to lead to a satisfactory outcome, even though a number of factors are different this time. To begin with, leader-to-leader diplomacy has never been tried. Conventionally, diplomats lay the groundwork, prepare the details, and then have top leaders meet and sign relevant documents at a summit. But the North Korean political system is uniquely centralized and personalized, meaning that only the top leader can exercise true flexibility on policy issues. Kim Jong Un likely is also cautious about airing his true intentions because even the most brutal dictator has to consider the effects of his words and actions on domestic legitimacy, particularly among elites. Hence, leader-to-leader diplomacy might be the only way to gauge Kim’s inner thinking and reach a solution. In terms of regime security, Kim Jong Un is facing far more pressure compared to his predecessors. Kim would like to remain in power for decades, perhaps for more than half a century. Yet, he is facing rapid marketization of the North Korean economy and increased information flow within the country that he has managed to co-opt, but not halt. This comes at a time when an unprecedented level of sanctions has hurt Pyongyang (despite some recent signs that the Chinese might be loosening their grip). In addition, the North Koreans seem to fear that the Trump administration might launch a military strike, particularly in light of talk about a “bloody nose” strike. At the elite level, Kim and his generation are more aware of the outside world compared to their predecessors. North Korea’s first generation of leadership under Kim Il Sung consisted of revolutionaries who believed they were on the winning side of the Korean conflict. The second generation under Kim Jong Il was indoctrinated in socialism but saw the socialist world collapse, along with its model of development. They did not have the right education and skills to adapt North Korea to changing circumstances. The current generation under Kim Jong Un was educated in Western schools and is the most aware when it comes to the West. This generation likely is the most willing to offer nuclear weapons as bargaining chips for aid and Western technology that might be necessary to sustain the regime for decades. In terms of alliance policy coordination, this is the first time the United States and South Korea are truly in lockstep on North Korea. During the 1994 crisis, Bill Clinton clashed with South Korea’s hardline president, Kim Young-sam. Clinton was briefly in sync with the dovish Kim Dae-jung administration from 1998, but South Korea’s progressive governments and the Bush administration clashed from 2001, while there was minimal diplomatic opening under Barack Obama, Lee Myung-bak, and Park Geun-hye. Unlike previous diplomatic phases, U.S. and South Korean leaders are coordinating well. Take all precautions, but be on the lookout for creative possibilities The United States and South Korea should not embrace North Korea with open arms or buy everything that Kim Jong Un is trying to sell. The Trump administration should take all precautions in negotiations that might follow the summit with Kim. Even if a deal emerges, it could be an imperfect one with much ambiguity. Nevertheless, diplomats and Korea watchers should be open to creative diplomatic possibilities, lest they fail to be noticed due to excessive pessimism.

North Korean authorities issued two separate statements on May 16, 2018, that have been reported to cast doubt on prospects for the Trump-Kim summit scheduled to occur in Singapore on June 12. The statements accuse South Korea of disregarding the newly-minted Panmunjom declaration by allowing U.S.-South Korea joint air drills including nuclear-capable aircraft to go forward on the peninsula and challenge the characterizations and objectives of U.S. senior officials regarding prospective U.S.-North Korea nuclear talks in advance of the Trump-Kim summit. The statements declare the terms upon which North Korea perceives that it is entering into the summit and threaten to walk away from summit talks if the United States pushes for North Korea’s unilateral denuclearization without meeting Pyongyang’s conditions for pursuing “complete denuclearization.” The timing of the first Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) statement occurred on the eve of the first ministerial-level talks scheduled to occur following the April 27 inter-Korean summit at Panmunjom. North Korea had proposed the ministerial talks a day prior and canceled at the last minute the night before the two sides were to meet. The timing of the announcement appeared designed to maximize impact on South Korea’s Moon Jae-in administration by underscoring that his achievements were premised on North Korean cooperation and that North Korea intended to utilize the ambiguously worded Panmunjom declaration to suit its purposes and pursue its objectives. The timing of the statement and the temporary interruption of inter-Korean contacts was probably designed to induce caution by the Moon administration and to press South Korea to utilize the Panmunjom declaration as an instrument for inducing restraint and curbing the scope of U.S.-South Korea joint exercises. It was probably also to influence Moon to show solidarity with the spirit of the declaration only days prior to his arrival in Washington for a preparatory May 22 summit designed to enhance U.S.-South Korea coordination and facilitate Trump’s preparation for his own highly anticipated June meeting with Kim Jong-un in Singapore. The statement criticizing the air drills was almost exclusively targeted at South Korean authorities’ will to adhere to the Panmunjom declaration. But it did include a vague reference linking the fate of the Trump-Kim summit to North Korea’s desire that the United States and South Korea show greater self-restraint in their conduct of joint military exercises. North Korea’s second May 16 statement was issued in the name of the country’s Vice Minister Kim Kye-gwan, a senior North Korean official with deep prior experience in U.S.-North Korea negotiations, who had been virtually invisible to the public up to now under Kim Jong-un. The statement was primarily aimed at taking issues with public comments by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton that characterized North Korea as having been coerced into a summit meeting by sanctions pressure and rejected expansive U.S. objectives for North Korean denuclearization based on the Libyan model or based on a compensation model that would reward North Korea economically for denuclearization. This statement was likely designed to publicly set conditions and limits around North Korea’s initial position on denuclearization and to reject Bolton’s Libyan model in favor of a negotiated process in which North Korea engages with the United States on an equal footing as a nuclear state. Most importantly, North Korea reiterated its longstanding view that its return to denuclearization dialogue is rooted in North Korean strength and is conditioned on expectations for tension-reduction and diplomatic normalization with the United States. Kim Kye-gwan’s statement provided a useful public illustration of the extent of the gap between the United States and North Korea over the definition, scope, and duration of a denuclearization process. These are huge issues that arguably should be resolved prior to a high-profile summit meeting between the leaders of the two countries. Kim Kye-gwan’s statement underscores Pyongyang’s sensitivity to the Trump administration’s messaging surrounding the summit and attempts to highlight gaps between Bolton and Pompeo as a means of preemptively deflecting a good cop-bad cop approach that might be used to maximize pressure on North Korea in the context of summit negotiations. The North Korean statement is not designed to end a process of preparation for a summit, but rather reiterates North Korea’s longstanding opening position in anticipation of further negotiations with the United States. It attempts to rule out some recent U.S. statements as off-limits and suggests that North Korea is prepared to drive a hard bargain at the same time that Trump must deal with increasingly inflated expectations for what he is likely to realistically accomplish toward the stated goal of complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement. It is likely that that there will be further volatility, contradictory statements, and brinkmanship on both sides in the run-up to a U.S.-North Korea summit. The date of the Trump-Kim meeting could even face temporary postponement. But, in the end, the summit is likely to happen since both leaders will likely find a mutually acceptable basis upon which to proceed. In the meantime, the magnitude of the task of closing the gaps in understanding between the two sides and the all-critical task of fashioning an agreed-upon denuclearization process that would follow on the event of a Trump-Kim meeting will likely require additional high-level meetings between the two sides. Although there are rumors that intelligence officials may have stayed behind in Pyongyang to continue working out a modus operandi, the more likely scenario is that Secretary of State Pompeo will have to make yet another visit to Pyongyang for follow-on talks designed to sketch out the framework for the Trump-Kim summit and the implementation process that would follow. In the meantime, rhetoric on both sides will continue, despite the accompanying risk that misstatements will result in delays. In the meantime, the two North Korean statements will have also had near-term impact on how Moon approaches Trump in their White House meeting on May 22. North Korea will no doubt evaluate the results of that meeting and assess whether this week’s statements have had the desired effect on Moon and Trump as part of their preparations for next steps toward the Trump-Kim summit.

In an op-ed recently published in the Hill, I write about the findings of the fourth annual Council of Councils Report Card on International Cooperation. No danger weighs as heavily on the minds of leading global thinkers as the specter of nuclear war. That message rings clear in the fourth annual Report Card on International Cooperation, released Monday by the Council of Councils, an international network of twenty-nine prominent think tanks. These findings take on greater salience as President Trump enters a showdown this spring with the world’s two greatest proliferation threats: North Korea and Iran. The world is adrift in troubles. Besides nuclear weapons, the leaders of the Council of Councils institutes ranked interstate war, transnational terrorism, internal violence, and climate change as top global threats. Each of these dangers can seem intractable. Read the full op-ed here.