[Column] ’Failure to Launch’: Missiles, sanctions, and the U.S. response to North Korea

L. Gordon Flake, Contributing Writer, Executive Director of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation

July 15, 2006 - In response to weeks of international pressure demanding North Korea refrain from launching a long-range missile, Pyongyang issued its own self styled July 4th declaration of independence in the form of not one, but six missile tests. A seventh followed hours later and there remain indications that further tests may be in the offing. Coming as they did in the face of numerous warnings and ultimatums, not only from the U.S., but also from Japan, Korea, and even China, these North Korean missile launches naturally focus international attention on the anticipated U.S. response.

The U.S. has condemned the tests as a provocation and promised a swift diplomatic response. To the relief of many, however, the higher-risk military options floated in the weeks prior to the launch were not employed, perhaps in part due to the apparent failure of the long-range Taepodong 2 missile. Since the U.S. has no diplomatic relations with North Korea nor diplomatic relations or ongoing negotiations, the ultimate U.S. reaction will presumably involve the further application of economic sanctions. Further sanctions are now almost inevitable in the light of the successful passage of a U.N. Security Council Resolution over the weekend. While the resolution was not adopted under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter and is not necessarily enforceable by military means, by almost any measure the resolution is a stunning success for the United States and Japan.

By proposing and standing by a very strongly worded draft resolution, Japan and the U.S. ensured that the resulting compromise resolution was far stronger in its wording and in its implications than it would have otherwise been. Over the course of about a week, the Chinese and Russian position, perhaps nudged by continued North Korean recalcitrance, moved steadily toward a strong stance in response to the North Korean missile test. While there is some ambiguity regarding enforcement, the resolution does appear to call for mandatory sanctions on North Korea, and at a minimum, opens the doors for strong bilateral sanctions under the guise of the U.N.

In recent years there has been a vibrant policy debate in the U.S. about the efficacy and even the morality of economic sanctions. Recognition that broad sanctions on regimes tend to harm ordinary citizens while leaving the offending political leadership largely unscathed has led to calls for "smart sanctions" that target regime leaders. This debate has been largely irrelevant to North Korea. Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the U.S. has maintained a relatively comprehensive web of sanctions on North Korea since 1950. With the exception of some largely symbolic easing of limited travel and trade restrictions under President Clinton in June of 2000, North Korea’s designation as a "state sponsor of terrorism" as well as the ongoing crisis surrounding the North Korean nuclear program have ensured that the push for broader sanctions is largely unchanged. If anything, the recent proactive crackdown on North Korean money laundering and other activities, such as the investigation that led to the closuring of the Macao-based Banco Del Asia last fall and the freezing of North Korean assets therein, mark the addition of aggressive "smart sanctions" to the existing framework, rather than an alternative to them.

It is precisely the comprehensive nature of the U.S.’s current sanctions regime, and the paucity of any significant diplomatic or economic ties, that raise legitimate questions about what further options the U.S. really has to respond to a provocation on the magnitude of the North’s multiple missile launch. The U.S. could of course reinstate the restrictions that were eased under President Clinton, something that might be considered appropriate as their easing was ostensibly, at least in part, a reward for the now defunct North Korean moratorium on missile tests. Furthermore, the leadership in the Senate has introduced a "North Korea Nonproliferation Act" which would add North Korea to the list of countries currently covered by the Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act. Both of these efforts are likely to progress rapidly now that the U.N. Security Council has acted. The U.S. will almost certainly continue its law enforcement efforts to crack down on North Korea’s illicit activities and to disrupt its trade in missiles and other arms through the Proliferation Security Initiative. Yet these are activities that would have presumably continued with or without the missile test. More importantly, while some in the Bush administration were encouraged by evidence of real discomfort caused by the Macau sanctions, there are few analysts that think U.S. sanctions alone are sufficient to convince North Korea to return to the negotiating table, let alone bring about regime change in Pyongyang. This is not to say that such measures are completely ineffective: like the Macau bank case, further sanctions in the form of an executive order restricting firms involved in doing business with North Korea from doing business in the United States would create a chill that would have a ripple effect extending beyond any targeted individual firms.

The Bush administration has been wise to resist efforts to cast the current crisis as a showdown between the U.S. and the DPRK. Without support form China, South Korea, Russia, and Japan, sanctions are meaningless. Just as diplomatic efforts yielded widespread warnings in advance of the missile launch, such efforts should now be focused on ensuring that the other stakeholders in the region follow through with consequences for this most recent provocation. However, the objective of any sanctions should be clear. While one can always hope for instability and regime change, a more realistic scenario is one in which a unified international response convinces North Korea to return to the negotiating table in earnest. In the days after the missile launch, senior U.S. officials have restated the importance of the six-party talks as a venue for diplomacy. U.S. diplomacy is now more of an exercise in coalition-building with the intent of using the leverage of other nations. In defying the clearly expressed will of its neighbors, North Korea may well have made the daunting diplomatic challenge faced by the U.S. a little more achievable.

In the short run, however, it appears increasingly unlikely that the six-party talks will resume any time soon. A Chinese delegation to Pyongyang led by Beijing’s chief negotiator with North Korea Wu Dawei appears to have returned empty handed, with North Korea repeating its longstanding preconditions for returning to the talks. The inter-Korea process also suffered a setback this week, with the truncation of Minister-level inter Korean talks in Busan. As such, the hurdle for the resumption of any diplomatic process has grown considerably higher this week. After having resisted months of coaxing to return to the table, even if the North experiences a sudden change of heart, or if Chinese nudging is successful in getting Pyongyang back to the talks, it is highly unlikely that North Korea will be able to return to the talks with their head held high as they might have imagined when they decided to launch missiles last week. Not only do they now face condemnation and potential sanctions following action by the U.N. Security Council, but they will also have to swallow new Japanese sanctions, the termination of South Korean aid, and likely new sanctions from the United States. A high hurdle, indeed.