10 years of Kim Jong Un: What was Washington’s best North Korea decision so far?
Experts vote on what they think were the best calls the US made on North Korea since 2011
Chad O'Carroll December 10, 2021
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Image: Pixabay, edited by NK News | Full Moon on Capitol Hill Washington
Washington has for decades tried to convince North Korea not to pursue nuclear weapons, and then once it had them, to give them up.
This hasn’t worked, for the very simple reason that there is no better security guarantee for a paranoid Pyongyang leadership that understands much of the world would rather it be gone. However, there have been times when it looked like U.S. policies were making inroads — sometimes to the surprise of long-time North Korea watchers.
Furthermore, some U.S. policies result in peninsular constants that have effectively prevented tensions bubbling over into actual conflict, something which ought not to be taken for granted.
Looking back at Kim Jong Un’s first 10 years in power, what was Washington’s best North Korea-focused decision?
In the third of a six-part series to mark the initial decade of North Korea under Kim Jong Un, NK News answers this question with results from a major survey of international North Korea watchers.
The survey, which questioned 250 North Korea watchers about Kim’s rule and Washington’s policy responses to date, included finalized data and explanations from 82 different respondents (47 on-record and 35 anonymously).
In reverse order, here’s what expert participants thought were Washington’s best four North Korea-related decisions since 2011:
Hotel staff waiting by a wall of clocks in North Korea, May 2019 | Image: NK News#4 (4.9% of votes) – “Strategic patience” under President Barack Obama
Though less than five percent of respondents’ top choice, the Obama-era policy of “strategic patience” was, for some, the best call of the past 10 years.
“‘Strategic patience’ is often judged too harshly,” said Thomas Schafer, Germany’s former ambassador to North Korea. “(But) it included all essential elements: ramping up sanctions, keeping the alliance with South Korea a top priority, plus remaining open to contacts and negotiations — even after the attempt to negotiate the Leap Day Agreement of 2012 failed.”
In a nutshell, “strategic patience” set out to pressure North Korea through sanctions, diplomatic isolation and military deterrence over the long term, in the hope that Pyongyang would eventually capitulate and enter into serious denuclearization talks.
Looking back, Schafer said that “the Obama administration should not be blamed for the lack of negotiations after 2012 as it was Pyongyang’s choice not to negotiate: It takes two to tango.”
Another observer said it was the best of a lousy selection of policy options.
“Strategic patience was maybe the best in order to keep North Korea away on the geopolitical map,” said Thomas Fisler, a former Swiss aid worker stationed in Pyongyang for several years.
The United Nations Security Council Considers DPRK issues in 2018 | Image: U.N.#3 (8.5% of votes) – Significantly ramping up unilateral and U.N. sanctions on North Korea
Donald Trump made clear he was prioritizing the threat posed by North Korea after becoming U.S. president in 2017. The result? As a two-month policy review wrapped up alongside the rising tempo of North Korean missile testing in early 2017, Washington revealed its new strategy: “Maximum pressure and engagement.”
Part of that effort was to significantly squeeze North Korea’s economy through sanctions, both from the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) and the federal government, in order to stimulate good-faith negotiations on denuclearization.
The year 2017 consequently saw a sharp rise in the application of sanctions on North Korea — spurred on by the DPRK’s nuclear and weapons testing — with four rounds of U.N. Security Council resolutions applied that year alone — all of which still remain on the books.
For some experts, Washington’s economic pressure on Pyongyang remains the smartest decision by the White House during the first 10 years of Kim’s rule.
“The strong resolutions significantly reduced North Korea’s foreign income,” said Maiko Takeuchi, a former member of the U.N.’s 1874 Panel of Experts. “(And) as the measures expanded, awareness on the issue in Africa and the Middle East increased significantly.”
Though Takeuchi said North Korea has since found ways around some of the sanctions, “the consecutive resolutions since 2270 (2016) were good decisions.”
Bruce Bennett, of the RAND Corporation, said in North Korean culture “power matters.”
“The sanctions demonstrate to the regime that it will pay a penalty for violating U.N. Security Council Resolutions.” However, Bennett conceded that “none of the actions taken thus far are near enough to motivate North Korean denuclearization.”
Bong Young-shik, a professor at the Yonsei Institute for North Korean Studies, said that recent sanctions had “hit North Korea where it hurts” and make Pyongyang feel the “burden” of “having nuclear weapons.”
UNC/CFC/USFK Commander Paul J. LaCamera (second to the right) in 2021 | Image: UNC/CFC/USFK Flickr#2 (26.8% of votes) – Keeping the alliance with South Korea a top U.S. priority, both from diplomatic and military perspectives
A constant for decades since the Korean War, the U.S.-ROK alliance has remained a priority at nearly all levels of the U.S. government throughout the Kim Jong Un era.
Though former President Trump may have tweeted his personal hot takes about the defense agreement between Washington and Seoul, he nevertheless relied on the U.S. military commitment to deter the DPRK throughout his presidency.
The constant support for the alliance with South Korea — both from military and diplomatic perspectives — during Kim Jong Un’s first decade in power received the second-highest number of votes from experts polled by NK News.
“The ROK-U.S. alliance remains vitally important to peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in the Asia Pacific region,” said Amanda Mortwedt Oh of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK).
“Washington has been diligent and consistent in promoting the alliance and communicating the need to continue to address North Korea from a position of strength and partnership with the ROK,” she said.
And one of the reasons promoting the alliance is important, said Balazs Szalontai of Korea University, is because “friction between the U.S. and ROK is more advantageous to Pyongyang than either Washington or Seoul.”
Christopher Green, of Leiden University in the Netherlands, said that overall, “the alliance is a force for stability,” without which the risk of conflict would be “much greater”.
“This is the most important path to maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” agreed Terence Roehrig of the U.S. Naval War College.
Besides keeping the peace, experts said there were other reasons for South Korea to continue justifying the alliance.
“Regardless of the outcome of the next election in South Korea, it is important that Seoul does not feel abandoned,” said Stephen Blancke, a specialist on DPRK intelligence gathering.
“(South Korea) also faces an offensive China in its confrontation with North Korea,” Blancke said, further justifying ROK needs for the alliance.
Fyodor Tertiskiy, a North Korea specialist at Kookmin University, said that because there is little that can be practically done about Pyongyang’s nuclear program, “keeping good relations with a reliable ally is, of course, a wise and pragmatic foreign policy choice.”
Kim Jong Un and then-U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands at the Inter-Korean border, June 30, 2019 | Image: Trump White House#1 (43.59% of votes) – President Trump’s summit diplomacy with Kim Jong Un
After a year of “fire and fury” and palpable concerns that open conflict would break out on the Korean Peninsula, the sudden, precedent-busting announcement that Donald Trump would accept a meeting with Kim Jong Un was one of the least expected developments of the last 10 years.
Immediately, critics warned that granting Kim a meeting with a sitting U.S. president could be seen as a reward for bad North Korean behavior and that the summit risked unnecessarily legitimizing Kim Jong Un on the international stage.
Some were more optimistic, however, saying the novelty of leader-to-leader engagement with the DPRK had a much greater chance of breaking through the status quo than anything else tried by prior U.S. administrations.
Of all the questions posed by NK News for this survey, there was overwhelming agreement that White House support for U.S.-DPRK summits in Singapore and Hanoi represents the best decision by Washington during the Kim Jong Un era.
“The meetings created a new avenue for negotiation and brought Kim out of North Korea to the world,” said Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the CATO Institute, noting “he proved adept at international diplomacy and might eventually decide to rejoin the process.”
Dean Ouellette of Kyungnam University said that the summits provided a rare moment of clarity for the two leaders to hear each other out in a direct way. “Nothing sets the tone, creates opportunities, or engages the public’s attention quite so well as a good tete-a-tete between two leaders.”
One anonymous survey respondent said Trump’s participation in the summits “unlocked the way forward with North Korea,” even if it was subsequently clear that the U.S. president was lacking another strategy to deal with Kim beyond maximum pressure.
Positivity about the summits, but disappointment in their outcome, was a common sentiment among respondents.
“If the developments away from U.S. hostility had been maintained, there would have been benefits for the U.S., the DPRK and the rest of the region,” said Jim E. Hoare, the U.K.’s founding chief diplomat at its embassy in Pyongyang.
“Probably the DPRK missile and nuclear programmes would have been halted — as they were in the 1990s — and sensible negotiations could have got underway,” he said
Trump’s impulsiveness in agreeing to the summits probably made them possible in a way that would have always been unimaginable under other U.S. presidents, who would have been much more cautious, one other anonymous respondent pointed out.
“To that end, the answering of the ‘what if’ questions about leader-to-leader diplomacy and simply trying something new for me outweighs any perceived negatives of emboldening/recognizing/validating Kim’s position,” the survey respondent said.
And that might have future benefits for the U.S., another expert speculated.
The Trump-Kim summits “removed or at least lowered the barrier to future such meetings which, if better prepared and under better circumstances, can actually yield real results,” said Ruediger Frank of the University of Vienna.
“Mr. Trump deserves credit for that, even though to many, he was the wrong man doing the right thing at the wrong time.”
Edited by Arius Derr
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