Kim Ji-seok, Editor-in-chief, The Hankyoreh’s Editorial Section
In the wake of North Korea’s firing of a series of missiles, what everyone wants to know is what kind of strategic decision it made that led it to take such an action.
If the idea was to win concessions from the United States, then it was "brinkmanship tactics" in the truest sense of the term. It would mean that the goal was to strengthen its position at a time when the six-party talks are going nowhere, without destroying the actual framework of those negotiations. The day after the missile launch, North Korea’s foreign ministry said the test firing was "defensive military training" and "unrelated" to the six-party talks.
Some observers say the North’s strategy may have been to render the six-party process ineffective. It may have begun a new gamble in which it bets entirely on bilateral dialogue with the U.S.
It would be hard for the Bush administration to accommodate. Not because it sees the six-party talks as an example of successful foreign policy, and not because it has an intense distaste for the "Clinton approach." Hard-liners within the Bush administration really do see the North Korean government and its key members as evil. That is the basic premise of its foreign policy, and it is a matter of religious conviction. In that sense, the Bush administration is fundamentalist.
North Korea fired those missiles knowing it could face international isolation in doing so. It may have incorrectly interpreted the situation to be to its advantage. Either way, it is adventurism to bet the future of your country on minor possibilities. Gone is the "missile card" it could have used in winning American concessions had it not gone ahead with the missile launch. The U.S. has even gone so far as to say that North Korea’s missiles do not pose a genuine threat. It is essentially saying, "just go ahead." Adventurism and fundamentalism depend on speculation and minor possibilities instead of objective observation. When the two collide, it is necessarily ruinous, and we are witnessing the beginning stages of just such a collision. If events continue in the same manner, a scenario in which the North proceeds with a nuclear test and the U.S. engages in a military-enforced blockade is no longer a distant likelihood. Ironically, this means that right now there is an opportunity, because compromise becomes more of a possibility when you can see the worst-case scenario in the distance. Time is running out. The countries with the most work to do are South Korea and the U.S. Progress in inter-Korean relations will contribute to an abandonment of adventurism by North Korea and help it make realistic decisions. The first thing that has to happen is to establish permanent high-level channels for direct communication with officials in Pyongyang. The South should send an emissary and, if necessary, try to hold a summit. Issues relating to North Korea, such as its missile and nuclear programs, need to be resolved while the Republican Party is in power in the U.S. if the South wants to avoid those issues from becoming problems again later on. The Bush administration needs to abandon the fantasy of a collapse of the North Korean government. Being an undemocratic regime does not mean it lacks survivability. It needs to recognize that North Korea could be changed peacefully and it needs to keep from being overly obsessed with human rights and illegal activities. Also, it is illogical to avoid direct talks with Pyongyang when results are expected if such talks were held. If it loses this additional opportunity, the Bush administration will find itself severely criticized for idling its two terms away while only making the situation worse.
