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Why Nuclear Diplomacy Has Failed in US Foreign Policy for North Korea

North Korea's sudden announcement that it has nuclear weapons, along with its withdrawal from the six party talks on its nuclear program, once again signified the failure of disarmament attempts by the USA on potentially dangerous regimes. North Korea has also reached a defining moment in its long history of negotiations about the controversial nuclear issue. The isolated Stalinist state may no longer deny its possession of nuclear arms, since its announcement is official.

Pyongyang cited US President George Bush's past labeling of North Korea, along with Iraq and Iran, as the "Axis of Evil", as well as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's remark of North Korea as an "outpost of tyranny" as demonstrating a policy of hostility towards it. By this, North Korea has cleverly shifted the onus onto the United States, with the implication that its refusal to disarm is clearly sensible in view of a perceived security threat from the USA. In fact, it has embarrassed and made the Bush Administration look foolish. Pyongyang, is saying without words, that the threat to regional peace in North East Asia in essence arose from the politically incorrect words used by President Bush and Secretary Rice.

North Korea attempted to justify keeping its nuclear weapons for defence purposes. The truth is, the USA has lost the moral high ground in dealing with North Korea after its previous handling of the Iraq issue, a war fought based on manipulated and misrepresented facts. Given such a precedent, and with much political capital lost in international opposition and souring of interstate relationships, the Bush Administration naturally will adopt a more careful stance when dealing with Iran and North Korea, even though these two nations have the potential to pose a much greater security threat than Iraq.

But is North Korea truly under siege? If we follow the argument that having nuclear weapons brings deterrence even against strong states, then it is doubtful that North Korea is truly in danger of being invaded. Thus far there has been much attention devoted to cajoling, threatening, and bargaining with North Korea from the other five parties - Russia, China, South Korea, Japan and the USA. All sides acted with cautious diplomacy with Kim Jong Il's regime, especially the USA. This is in contrast to the more war-like foreign policy it adopted in Iraq, which eventually led to the Iraq War.

But a simple assessment of conventional military forces between North and South Korea will show that the South Korean forces are far stronger. Moreover, if hostilities resumed, South Korea is likely to be backed by both Japan and the USA, of which the latter also has nuclear capability. Yet, the relatively peaceful status quo has been maintained even though both Koreas are still technically at war, a throwback to the Korean War armistice in 1953 with no official peace treaty having been signed.

The negotiations with North Korea are not likely to lead anywhere. As long as North Korea possesses nuclear arms and is prepared to use them, it holds the upper hand by not giving in to the disarmament program. North Korea knows, and manipulates the democratic US political system as a weakness. It discounts any US threats of military force because excellent justifications must first be needed to garner support for a war. Iraq is a case in point. For all its military might, the United States has its hands tied and cannot enforce its will over North Korea. If North Korea faces a hostile, totalitarian enemy which does not hesitate to go to war over little political justification or social support, then only raw military power matters.

Thus, it uses the nuclear issue as a form of blackmail in bargaining for concessions and hopefully, tangible economic gain. It is not a senseless strategy, because firstly, in the past, its policy of economic self reliance, or juche, has failed dismally. Secondly, its mimicked Special Economic Zone (SEZ) policy after China, turned out poorly when its appointed Sinuiju Chief Executive Yang Bin was arrested by Beijing on charges of tax evasion.

The only alternative for the USA is to take a stiffening stance, and not appeasement all the time. True, the United States may be blamed by many for worsening the economic plight of the North Koreans further, but alternatively, is the USA prepared to abandon its pursuit of the nuclear issue, and take on a policy of economic engagement with North Korea? That will mean heavy financial investments and economic development of the isolated state.

Short of actually going to war against North Korea, there is no other way to restore the bargaining power of the USA. Carrots and sticks have both failed to disarm nuclear North Korea. North Korea will keep its nuclear weapons, whether the United States likes it or not.

Either the world must accept the fact of the existence of another nuclear armed nation, or remove its nuclear capability by military force. This is the hard truth.