[Column] Is Pyongyang counting on U.S. midterm elections?

Gwon Yong-nip, Professor of International Relationsa at Kyungsung University

North Korea looked like it was bluffing and about to perform another nuclear explosive test, but now it is hesitating. It is also watching the midterm elections in the United States, where the prediction is the the Democratic Party will seize not only the House of Representatives but the Senate as well. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, which recently took effect, requires the White House to appoint a coordinator for North Korea policy by the middle of December. That person will then be required to report to Congress and the White House within 90 days. Maybe Pyongyang is looking ahead and seeing the possibility the White House’s North Korea policy could become a political issue if the Democrats take over Congress.

Given how House electoral districts have been drawn so that they work to the advantage of Republicans and because voter turnout is low, the Democrats might not have so easy a time achieving such an overwhelming victory. This upcoming election looks, at least on paper, like it is going to favor the Democrats. It is taking place in the middle of the war in Iraq, and the president’s party has been defeated in the last five midterm election the U.S. has had while a war was going on. President Lincoln’s Republican Party lost during the Civil War, in 1862; president Wilson’s Democratic Party lost during World War I, in 1918; president Roosevelt’s Democrats lost during World War II, in 1942; president Truman’s Democrats lost during the Korean War, in 1950; and the Democrats lost again under president Johnson in 1966, during the Vietnam War. On top of that, there’s the six-year jinx, which always works against an American president in his sixth year in office.

If the Republicans are defeated, it is highly likely that Congress will wrestle with the White House over a "Plan B" developed by a joint group of Republicans and Democrats, one in which Iraq is divided into sections for Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds, and then have the U.S. military withdraw in stages. On the other hand, the reason the Democrats are doing so well in places like Ohio and Indiana is because the Republicans have lost favor with traditional Republican voters in the Midwest, so Democratic candidates aware of the need for conservative support in the region are not likely to demand radical changes in foreign policy. Republican foreign policy right now largely borrows from the long 20th-century Democratic tradition of seeking to use American strength to end tyranny around the world, and there are hard-line voices from within the Democratic Party calling for a return to that "diplomacy of strength." Some are even pursuing a strong security policy called the "Truman National Security Project." All considered, it looks as if nothing will change fundamentally about the Democrats’ policy towards Iraq after the upcoming election.

Furthermore, foreign policy has determined which side wins American elections, but foreign policy has never changed because of an election’s results. Even if the Democrats take over Congress, it would be far too much to expect automatic changes in North Korea policy, which was never an campaign issue. There will, of course, be greater calls for dialogue, but not for talking to North Korea while recognizing that it gets to possess nuclear arms. Furthermore, it is quite likely the White House will appoint a negotiator who is more about avoiding criticism than actually negotiating, such as former Secretary of State James Baker or New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says sanctions will continue even if the six-party talks resume unless there is progress in de-nuclearizing Pyongyang, she is reaffirming the basic U.S. stance: The condition for talking to North Korea is that it first give up its nukes.

It is wise to look even further ahead when you’re in an urgent situation. The Korean media predicts that U.S. policy toward North Korea will change if the Republicans lose. Given U.S. tradition and physiology, however, there is not going to be an immediate change in that policy, even if the current majority party loses. The only weapon a Democratic Congress would have to bring about changes in White House policy would be for Pyongyang to give the signal that it is going to give up, unconditionally, on its nuclear program. That is why Pyongyang desperately needs to send Washington a sign that it cannot refuse. If, that is, there is going to be a resolution to the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula.