[PacNet Corner] The Six Party Talks: Guess Who's in the Catbird Seat

Larry NIKSCH 신아시아연구소(구 신아세아질서연구회) 2004 신아세아 Vol.11 No.1

THE AGREED FRAMEWORK VIEW FROM WASHINGTON

Larry Niksch 경남대학교 극동문제연구소 1996 THE U . S . - ROK ALLIANCE Vol.- No.-

The Park Geun-hye Government’s Role in a Needed New Strategy toward North Korea

Larry Niksch 통일연구원 2013 International journal of korean unification studie Vol.22 No.1

This paper places President Park Geun-hye’s policy of building trust with North Korea in the difficult context of North Korea’s threats against South Korea and the United States, and the prospect that North Korea soon will produce nuclear warheads for its Nodong missiles. Nuclear warheads on the Nodongs will give North Korea a new instrument to pursue provocative acts against South Korea. It signifies the death of denuclearization as a credible policy priority for South Korea and the United States. The paper contends that a new strategy is needed to replace denuclearization. South Korea must take the leading role in developing new issues in its diplomacy toward Pyongyang. President Park could propose multiple negotiations over at least six South-North issues that could yield outcomes favorable to South Korea. The paper also suggests ways for the Park Government to coordinate with the United States over strengthening deterrence against a North Korea with nuclear warheads.

China’s Policies toward North Korea’s Nuclear and Missile Programs

Larry Niksch 통일연구원 2015 International journal of korean unification studie Vol.24 No.2

China’s policies toward North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs have been a significant problem for the United States, South Korea, and Japan since the onset of six-party talks in 2003. China’s diplomatic strategy and tactics in six-party talks seldom supported U.S. negotiating positions. China officially supported denuclearization of North Korea; but its negotiating strategy was to influence the talks, especially the Bush administration, into accepting more limited objectives that would allow North Korea to retain secret components of a nuclear weapons program. China opened criticism of North Korea when Pyongyang began to test nuclear warheads, thus unveiling secrets of its program, and long-range missiles. However, China rejected placing overt pressure on North Korea. It acted only in limited ways to enforce United Nations sanctions against North Korea. It allowed North Korea access to Chinese territory and institutions that Pyongyang used to advance its nuclear and missile programs. China has been motivated by core objectives of supporting political stability in North Korea and preserving North Korea as a buffer against South Korea and the United States. China is also motivated by its policy of building relations with Iran, a key partner of North Korea in developing nuclear warheads and long-range missiles. These long-standing Chinese goals and strategies suggest that China will pursue similar strategies and tactics in dealing with future scenarios, such as a continuing of North Korean nuclear and missile testing, a de facto moratorium by North Korea on testing but no negotiations, and a resumption of six-party negotiations

Assessing Internal North Korea

( Larry A. Niksch ) 인하대학교 국제관계연구소 2007 Pacific Focus Vol.22 No.1

Assessing North Korea`s internal situation is a near impossible task for anyone on the outside. Access to the country is extremely limited for a selected few and is prohibited for a much larger number. Access to classified information appears to be of little help. Witness the key figures of the Clinton Administration who predicted a collapse of the Kim Jong-il regime in 1994 and 1995 and justified the weaknesses of the 1994 Agreed Framework on the assumption of an early collapse that would render the agreement and its weaknesses mute. They were largely in the dark as we are today. My assessments in this paper could be broken down into 10 percent fact, 20 percent analysis, 50 percent speculation, and 20 percent crystal ball gazing. I may be too optimistic on the extent of analysis.

Dealing with North Korea on the Nuclear Weapons Threshold

( Larry Niksch ) 한국국방연구원 1992 The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis Vol.4 No.1

In the six months from June through November 1992, the govern-ments of South Korea and the United States will face some of the toughest decisions they have experienced in their over 40 years of confrontation with North Korea. Two developments related to North Korea`s apparent nuclear weapons program likely will come to a head in June and July. First, negotiations over outside inspections of suspected North Korean nuclear weapons facilities will probably clarify the extent to which North Korea will allow inspections. Sec-ond, according to US intelligence estimates, North Korea`s plutonium reprocessing plant at Yongbyon could become operational by the summer of 1992. This would be a major step forward towards a nuclear weapons production capability. If a February 1990 Soviet KGB report is correct that North Korea has already manufactured its "first atomic detonation device," North Korea likely will have the components of a bomb or warhead ready to receive reprocessed plutonium when the plant produces enough for a weapon. North Korea has made several policy adjustments on the nuclear weapons issue and on policy towards South Korea since September 1990. These have come mainly in response to pressures from a declining economy, China, and from a series of inducements offered by the United States and South Korea in late 1991, including the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from South Korea. These adjust-ments, however, appear to be tactical maneuvering rather than fundamental policy change. North Korea appears to be following a strategy of limiting and delaying IAEA and South Korean inspections of its nuclear facilities. Consequently, if North Korea is able to start up nuclear reprocessing in the summer of 1992, any inspections that

Future Issues in U.S. -ROK Security Cooperation

( Larry A Niksch ) 한국국방연구원 1989 The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis Vol.1 No.1

North Korea and Terrorism: The Yokota Megumi Factor

( Larry A Niksch ) 한국국방연구원 2002 The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis Vol.14 No.1

This article describes the emergence in 1997 of the issue of Japanese who are suspected of having been kidnapped by North Korea, when a North Korean defector provided information on Yokota Megumi, who disappeared at the age of 13. It then lays out the manner in which this issue grew into a dominant factor in Japan-North Korean relations over the next five years. The heart of the article`s analysis deals with the factors that brought the kidnapping issue into US and South Korean policies toward North Korea, especially the limitations it progressively placed on the policies of Seoul and Washington and the Perry initiative. The Clinton administration`s decision to place the issue on Secretary Albright`s agenda in Pyongyang sent a message to Pyongyang that terrorism issues would have to be settled with Japan in order to receive any meaningful financial compensation in any agreement with the United States on missiles. It also sent a message to both Seoul and Pyongyang that the United States would not risk damage to its alliance with Japan by removing North Korea from the terrorism list without certainty that removal would bring big, substantial benefits to US policy. Moreover, it interrupted Seoul`s plans to secure Japanese money to help fulfill its promise of large-scale infrastructure aid to North Korea, which i turn blocked aid from the international financial institutions.

The Prospect of Relations Between the U.S and N.K Beyond the 1994 Geneva Nuclear Accord

( Larry A. Niksch ) 국방대학교 안보문제연구소 1996 The Korean Journal of Security Affairs Vol.1 No.-

Opportunities and Challenges in Clinton`s Confidence-Building Strategy towards North Korea

( Larry A Niksch ) 한국국방연구원 1994 The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis Vol.6 No.2

The Clinton administration`s decision to enter into high-level negoti- ations with North Korea opened a new phase in the issue of North Korean nuclear weapons. The administration views its strategy as one of long-term confidence building with North Korea in which dialogue will reduce the level of North Korean fear and hostility towards the United States. In the past the US has failed to maintain a clear set of policy objectives. Goals often were modified and then abandoned defacto. Moreover, US policymakers appear to have lacked an under- standing of North Korea`s negotiating strategy: a virtual doctrine in which negotiations are viewed as part of a continual struggle against an opponent and the renunciation of an agreement is as legitimate a negotiating tactic as signing an agreement. North Korea has used these renunciation tactics to miniaturize progressively its obligations under its nuclear treaties and agreements. The August 12, 1994, agreed statement between the United States and North Korea opens up the opportunity for the United States to affect a freeze of important elements of the North Korean nuclear program, the two large nuclear reactors under construction and the plutonium reprocessing plant. The Administration sees this as preventing North Korea from building a significant nuclear strategic threat to Japan and US territories in the Western Pacific. However, this freeze does not include the operations of the existing North Korean nuclear reactor and leaves unresolved the status of 8,000 fuel rods, which North Korea removed from the reactor in May 1994. This, plus other ambiguities in the North Korean program, gives North Korea the potential to produce a few nuclear weapons over the next two years. Such a stockpile would create new military dangers on the Korean peninsula itself. In giving priority to the nuclear freeze, the Clinton Administration has reduced its priority to securing North Korean adherence to its treaty and agreement obligations to permit regular and special inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The administration`s commitment to the previous US goal of dismantlement of North Korean nuclear facilities is even more uncertain. The agreed statement`s provisions were very similar to the proposals made by North Korean leaders to a visiting American expert prior to the visit of Jimmy Carter to North Korea. US negotiators thus expressed puzzlement when North Korean negotiators subsequently issued de- mands that would amount to rewriting the agreed statement: at least $2 billion in cash compensation in addition to a US commitment in the agreed statement to facilitate the provision of light-water reactors to North Korea; a stretching of the timeable for North Korean implementa- tion of the freeze; US agreement to put off into the distant future the question of North Korea`s past plutonium reprocessing (special inspec- tion in the US view); and US agreement to secure light-water rectors from a country other than South Korea. These demands represent an integral part of North Korea`s reunifica- tion strategy. Given the prospect of a long, protracted US-North Korean negotiations, the United States should expected to face such tactics repeatedly. This, plus other risks, has made it necessary that the Clinton admin- istration formulate an effective counter-strategy, which should include: a continuing of negotiations and integration of other measures with negotiations; a willingness to move ahead with diplomatic relations if North Korea is willing to allow the removal of the fuel rods to another country; use North Korea`s demand for cash to offer North Korea the financing of an international structural adjustment program (intended to bring about real reforms in the North Korean economy); adopt a more aggressive set of tactics whenever North Korea employs renunciation tactics; and finally conduct a reassessment of military deterrence on the Korean peninsula in the context of North Korea`s presumably having a few nuclear weapons.