Trump is right about North Korean missiles, and here’s what he should do about it

What to make of this week’s report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies detailing the existence of 15-20 ballistic missile operating bases in North Korea? To put it bluntly: Nothing much. While the the New York Times may call North Korea’s ongoing ballistic missile work as a “great deception,” the truth is closer to President Trump’s tweet:

Coming at a time when Washington and Pyongyang are working on scheduling a second summit early next year between Trump and Kim Jong Un, the CSIS report smacks of unfortunate timing. Hardliners in the Trump administration will try to exploit the existence of undeclared North Korean missile facilities to convince the president to reform his policy in a far more hawkish direction.

But while news of undeclared missile bases is indeed unfortunate, it’s not in the least bit surprising. Indeed, to believe North Korea wasn’t continuing to improve the quantity and quality of its missiles, as United States intelligence officials have confirmed, is to engage in an exercise in self-deception.

There are a number of vital points the Trump administration needs to remember when misleading reports like these come out.

First and foremost, the CSIS report confirms what the Un.S. has long suspected: If Kim is open to making the strategic decision to denuclearize his regime (an unproven assumption), he won’t do so without corresponding, phased measures from the U.S. Viewed from Kim’s perspective, it would be absolutely foolish to disarm Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs on the front-end without getting substantial concessions in return.

This is how all meaningful international negotiations work, and it doesn’t take a Henry Kissinger-level understanding of world politics to see why: No country, especially North Korea, would give up its nuclear deterrent, its security guarantee, for mere promises of economic, political, or security incentives at some later date.

Pyongyang has insisted on a step-by-step negotiating process for exactly this reason; to expect North Korea to get eliminate its nuclear insurance policy before a penny of sanctions relief is offered or an end-of-war declaration is at least discussed with some seriousness is downright illogical. It wouldn’t work with a country like Germany or Canada, let alone a regime as paranoid as Kim’s.

Second, the latest intelligence disclosure provides more ammunition to the idea that the conventional wisdom surrounding the ongoing U.S.-North Korea talks is past due for a fundamental change. As entertaining and historic as last June’s Trump-Kim confab was, the meeting in Singapore was nothing more than an inconclusive mishmash of positive rhetoric and aspiring promises. The Singapore statement signed by Trump and Kim sketched out a loose denuclearization-for-normalization scheme, whereby Washington would provide Pyongyang with diplomatic and economic incentives in return for the North’s nuclear dismantlement. But what the summit lacked was a concrete, detailed agreement with specific deadlines attached.

As a consequence, Pyongyang’s continued missile work is not a violation of any agreement because no formal agreement was signed in the first place. As South Korea’s Blue House said in reaction to the New York Times story, “[North Korea] has never signed any agreement, any negotiation that makes shutting down missile bases mandatory.”

Trump clearly understands this, as his recent tweet shows. Until an actual accord is formalized, the North Koreans will continue to amass diplomatic leverage by producing more bomb fuel and missiles.

Third, it’s important to understand North Korea’s actions in a historical context. What the North Koreans are reportedly doing is not unique among nuclear powers. During years of Cold War-era arms control talks, the Soviet Union played a similar game. After discussions with the Reagan administration stalled, Moscow deployed SS-20 missiles as far west as East Germany to counter Washington’s deployment of Pershing II missiles. The Soviets constructed SA-20 bases and increased the size of its missile arsenal while engaged in arms control negotiations with the U.S. What Kim is doing today is exactly what the Soviets did more than 35 years ago.

Last and most important, reports of a larger North Korean missile program further show Kim is committed to being the leader of a nuclear weapons power. Nuclear weapons are still viewed as the ultimate deterrent to a hypothetical U.S. military attack, a card too valuable to trade away.

The solution to the diplomatic stalemate, however, is not to walk away from the negotiating table and return to the days of “fire and fury.” Trump, rather, should stick with hard-nosed diplomacy with a new series of priorities. While denuclearization can remain the long-term U.S. objective, the first priority should be aiding a durable peace on the Korean Peninsula in order to make the prospect of a bloody armed conflagration less likely — and make denuclearization over the long term a possibility. This means assisting South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s rapprochement initiative with his North Korean neighbors instead of making such an effort more difficult to achieve by blocking certain cross-border projects. It’s unwise for Washington to tie inter-Korean reconciliation and less tension on the peninsula with denuclearization, a goal that could very well take decades to achieve — if it can be achieved at all.

A non-nuclear North Korea is the ideal scenario for the U.S. (it may also be fantasy). But due to America’s massive military capability and Kim Jong Un’s instincts for self-preservation, it’s not a requirement for U.S. security. Just as the U.S. deterred China and the Soviet Union for decades during the Cold War, the U.S. can deter a far less powerful and lethal North Korea indefinitely. As Trump recognizes, time is on our side, and to rush talks based on an artificial timetable would be a road to inevitable failure.

Rather than attack Trump for not meeting unrealistic timelines, he should ignore the Washington foreign policy elite which has failed to resolve this problem for decades. The president has a terrific opportunity to accelerate peace on his watch, even if nuclear disarmament will have to come later.

Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a fellow at Defense Priorities.