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.

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.

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.

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.-

Future Issues in U.S. -ROK Security Cooperation

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

East Asia Enveloped by the US War Against Terrorism

Larry A. Niksch 신아시아연구소(구 신아세아질서연구회) 2002 신아세아 Vol.9 No.1

미국 의회연구소 보고서 : 미·북관계 개선과 관련된 법적, 절차적 문제

Davis, Zachary S.,Niksch, Larry A.,Nowels, Larry Q.,Pregelj, Vladimir N.,Shinn, Rinn-Sup,Sutter, Robert G. 한국전략문제연구소 1995 전략연구 Vol.2 No.1

클린턴 행정부는 1994년10월21일 북한 핵개발로 인한 위기를 해소하고 정치 및 경제관계 정상화 방안들을 포함한 미·북 협정에 서명하였다. 對북 경수로 제공 및 중유선적 등을 위한 세부 절차 그리고 후속조치인 관계 정상화등에 관한 절찬 등 여러협정 세부조항들이 아직 공개되지 않았다. 의회와 행정부가 동 협정을 이행하고 관계정상화를 위한 조치들을 고려함에 따라서 현재의 미북한간 관계를 주도하고 있는 일련의 복잡한 법률 및 규정상의 제한에 봉착하게 될 것이다. 이러한 제한 요소들은 경수로 제공 및 유류공급이 중요한 국면에 영향을 미치고 경제, 외교, 문화 및 기타 등을 포함한 모든 공식적인 관계를 망라 하고 있다. 이것들은 또한 냉전시대에 공산주의를 반대하는 미국의 조치들에 깊은 역사적 뿌리를 두고 있다. 중국 및 베트남 같은 기타의 공산주의국가들과 관계정상화를 도모할 때 있었던 법률 및 규정상의 제한요소와 경험을 검토해 보면 공산주의 국가와의 관계정상화 과정은 종종 지연되었음을 알 수 있다. 현재의 미·북관계의 여러 제한요소들은 북한에 관한 특별한 법령 또는 북한을 포함한 특정국가들에 영향을 미치는 법령들에 의해 규정지워 진다. 일부 법령들은 대통령의 재량권인 한편, 기타 제한 요소들은 일반 법령 또는 특정상황 또는 정책에 관한 행정결정에 의해 북한에 적용된 가타의 권한등에 의해서 유지되어 왔다. 후속되는 관계정상화 과정은 경제관계를 유예시키고 외교관계를 먼저 수립하거나 정치분야보다 경제관계를 선행 또는 모든분야를 동시에 발전시키는 등과 같이 다양한 방안들이 있다. 일반적으로 대통령이 주로 이들을 추진하지만 의회도 여러 분야에서 중요한 역할을 하기 때문에 의회의 지원없이는 관계 정상화가 불가능하다.