At the G-7 virtual meeting last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States urged “the G-7, and all nations, [to] remain united in calling on North Korea to return to negotiations and [to] stay committed to applying diplomatic and economic pressure over [North Korea’s] illegal nuclear and ballistic missile programs.”
North Korea responded Monday with predictable indignation. Pompeo’s comments “seriously impaired the signboard of dialogue put up by the U.S. president as a decoy to buy time and create the environment favorable for himself,” Pyongyang announced. Instead of further talks, the statement continued, North Korea will look to repay “the pains the U.S. has imposed on our people.”
To drive home that point, the Kim Jong Un regime tested nine missiles in March. None of them had a long enough range to threaten the U.S., but the sheer number of tests is unusual and hearkens back to the “fire and fury” era of heightened U.S.-North Korea tensions we saw in 2017.
Further escalation is preventable and, indeed, must be prevented.
Particularly with a pandemic response demanding Washington’s attention, heightening tensions with North Korea is needless and reckless. Ideally, the U.S. and North Korea would open a new round of working-level talks made productive by real concessions from each side. This is to say, the Trump administration would have to drop its unrealistic and counterproductive demand of complete, up-front denuclearization. But, failing that, the next best thing is to refuse to respond to the Kim regime’s provocations in kind, trusting that overwhelming U.S. deterrence will prevent a North Korean first strike.
The Trump administration’s willingness to consider new diplomatic tactics with North Korea has been admirable but flawed by a predilection for showmanship over productivity.
President Trump and Kim alike have a soft spot for dramatic rhetoric and photo shoots. This is fine as an addition to more practical diplomacy, but it cannot be its substitute. Working-level talks, like those that stalled in Sweden in October, have a far better shot at reaching a durable, pragmatic agreement than do media-focused summits between heads of state.
But working-level talks will never be effective if the Trump administration maintains its insistence on complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization, or CVID for short, as a near-term goal and a precursor of any substantive U.S. concessions. The October negotiations failed in a single day because Washington would not budge from its maximalist position, and Kim won’t concede significant denuclearization steps without some immediate reward. The North Korean dictator believes his nuclear arsenal is his only reliable safeguard against forcible, U.S.-orchestrated regime change. He won’t dismantle his weapons easily, and he certainly won’t do it for nothing in return.
Were Pompeo serious about returning to negotiations, he would reset U.S. diplomatic aims to see more modest near-term ends. He would offer North Korea real concessions. Crucially, this would mean sanctions relief, which ordinary North Koreans need more than ever as coronavirus infections spread, but also a peace treaty for the Korean War and cessation of U.S. military exercises on the Korean Peninsula — and allowing South Korea to do the same.
In exchange, instead of insisting on CVID, Pompeo would pursue smaller, trust-building concessions from Pyongyang, the most important of which would be a nuclear freeze. A freeze would be a real win for Washington, and, unlike denuclearization, it is a concession Kim might actually make now, given the right incentives.
If realistic diplomacy can’t happen because one or both sides are unwilling to participate, our next best option is simply leaving well enough alone.
Productive talks would be a very good thing, but they are not necessary to keep the U.S. secure from a North Korean attack. Kim’s greatest goal is to remain in power, and he knows Washington could (and would) obliterate him and his regime if he made an unprovoked first strike on the U.S. or a close ally such as South Korea. Even with his cache of nuclear weapons, Kim is wildly outmatched by American conventional and nuclear military might. That deterrence can continue indefinitely, and it makes a stalemate with North Korea an acceptable state of stasis for U.S. security.
Stalemate is not as good an outcome as peace — but it is far preferable to an avoidable war.
Bonnie Kristian (@bonniekristian) is a fellow at Defense Priorities and contributing editor at The Week. Her writing has also appeared at CNN, Politico, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, Defense One, and the American Conservative, among other outlets.
