Pyongyang's defiant nuclear weapons program is Bill Clinton's toughest foreign policy test
by Steven Butler, Susan V. Lawrence, Linda Fasulo, Kenneth T. Walsh, Louise Lief, Bruce B. Auster
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As the United States and other nations scramble to bring some kind of order out of chaos in the post-cold-war world, it is easy to forget that there is one place where the cold war has never ended. And last week, the face-off on the Korean peninsula suddenly heated up as North Korea ignored warnings from the United Nations Security Council and rushed headlong to remove 8,000 spent fuel rods from a 5-megawatt nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, 56 miles north of the capital city of Pyongyang.
In the process, the North Koreans destroyed the evidence that would have allowed inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to investigate whether the rogue Communist regime has stockpiled enough plutonium to make several nuclear weapons. The spent rods themselves could produce enough plutonium to make an additional four or five bombs.
Pyongyang's defiance has handed Bill Clinton his most dangerous foreign policy challenge yet. Traveling through Europe on the 50th anniversary of D-Day, the president responded to Pyongyang's defiance by calling for international economic sanctions against North Korea. But no sooner did Clinton send up the trial balloon than some of his senior aides began shooting it down, suggesting that rather than press for an immediate embargo, the administration will seek a series of milder measures, such as suspending Pyongyang's membership in international organizations and stopping airline flights into the hermit nation.
In Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti and China, Clinton has been criticized for raising the stakes and then folding. In North Korea, he now faces a stark choice between confronting the North Koreans, which could lead to a second catastrophic war on the Korean peninsula, and beating yet another retreat, which could cost the world its chance to head off a global nuclear arms race and America what remains of its influence in Asia.
If Clinton retreats from his effort to halt North Korea's nuclear program, the combination of collapsing American credibility and a nuclear-armed North Korea could ignite an arms race in Northeast Asia, diverting capital, technology and talent from civilian to military purposes. Even worse, administration officials fear that terrorist groups and radical governments would offer impoverished North Korea top dollar for nuclear weapons, materials and the know-how to put them together. Pyongyang is likely to entertain all bids: It has sold weapons them together. Pyongyang is likely to entertain all bids: It has sold weapons to Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria, and it has a rich history of international atrocities of its own, ranging from blowing up a civilian airliner to assassinating top South Korean officials in Myanmar (formerly Burma) in 1983.
But the risks of confronting North Korea and the aging Kim Il Sung, the self named Great Leader, are also high. Most of North Korea's 1.2 million-strong conventional military force is heavily armored and dug into hills just north of the demilitarized zone that marks the border with South Korea, where 36,000 American troops are stationed.
An act of war. North Korea has already warned that it considers the economic sanctions Clinton proposed last week an "act of war." To underscore the threat, Pyongyang last week test-fired homemade Silkworm ship-to-ship missiles in the Sea of Japan (they both missed) and is believed ready to test its Rodong ballistic missile, which is capable of striking western Japan.
Clinton has tried to negotiate with North Korea for more than a year, since Pyongyang threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which requires it to open its nuclear facilities to IAEA inspection. The CIA warned that Pyongyang was simply buying time for its nuclear program, but State Department officials argued that there was a chance the North would trade its nuclear ambitions for international recognition and economic aid.
Last week, however, State Department analysts concluded that the North Koreans made a deliberate decision to destroy the evidence that they have diverted plutonium and to ride out the world's response. Pyongyang, in fact, began speeding up the removal of spent fuel the day after Clinton abandoned his threats to revoke China's most-favored-nation trading status because of Beijing's poor human rights record.
Now, Clinton finds himself with a weak hand. Continuing to offer the North Koreans diplomatic recognition, economic aid and other inducements is unlikely to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program. Attempting to get tough, perhaps by moving U.S. aircraft carriers and airplanes closer to Korea, risks alienating America's allies and provoking the unpredictable North.
Clinton further undermined his own cause by calling for economic sanctions against North Korea without first forging the international consensus that is needed to make any sanctions bite. Even his own administration is divided: Some U.S. officials fear that a premature move to impose sanctions could cause North Korea to sever all ties to the IAEA.
Even if Clinton can eventually organize international sanctions against North Korea, it is unclear whether they would persuade the xenophobic, isolated regime in Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program or merely heighten North Korea's appetite for atomic weapons to keep a hostile world at bay. And sanctions cannot turn back the clock. Hans Blix, the head of the IAEA, told the U.N. that the destruction of evidence caused by the removal of the fuel rods from the Yongbyon reactor is "irreversible."
In order to have any chance of making sanctions work, Clinton would have to persuade Japan to cut off trade and a flow of remittances estimated to exceed $600 million a year; he would also have to obtain the cooperation of China, North Korea's biggest trade partner and its major source of oil. And while all of North Korea's neighbors share the desire to roll back the nuclear program, none shares America's overriding desire to stem the tide of nuclear proliferation and none is willing to risk an apocalyptic second Korean war.
China. Beijing has called on North Korea to cooperate with the IAEA. But China argues that imposing U.N. sanctions would be counterproductive. "If sanctions are imposed, they could lead to turmoil, to an uncontrollable situation," says a Chinese official.
Japan. Tokyo is proposing that the Security Council issue another warning before moving to sanctions. Foreign Minister Koji Kakizawa says that Japan would cooperate with U.N. sanctions, including halting remittances to North Korea and suspending trade. But Japan would be placed in an awkward position if, because of Chinese opposition, the United States moved to institute sanctions outside of a U.N. regime. Japan is vulnerable to North Korean terrorism, and could face social unrest from its large population of Koreans who have relatives in the North.
Russia. President Boris Yeltsin met South Korean President Kim Young Sam in Moscow last week and although he said it is too early to talk about sanctions, Yeltsin warned: "If [North Korea] persists in its reluctance to carry out its obligations, then, taking into account the closeness of our borders, we will be forced step by step, sending a warning first, to turn to international sanctions."
But Yeltsin's real aim appeared to be using the escalating crisis to get Russia back into the global diplomacy game. He proposed an international conference to thrash out a solution, a move that has been politely ignored by the United States and also by South Korea.
South Korea. Seoul would support sanctions against the North but is not willing to risk war for the sake of nonproliferation. Some Korean officials have hinted that Seoul could live with a bomb or two north of its borders, and some ar
