NEWS ANALYSIS : Episode Points to Limitations of Nuclear Deal

The detention of American helicopter pilot Bobby Hall demonstrated in stark fashion the benefits and many limitations in the far-reaching nuclear deal the Clinton Administration recently worked out with North Korea, the world’s most isolated regime.

Most of all, the 13-day episode showed that the agreement has done nothing so far to ease tensions raised by conventional military forces on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea still has more than 1 million soldiers north of the demilitarized zone, which remains one of the world’s most volatile regions.

In the deal signed in October, North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear weapons program and, over the next decade, dismantle all its nuclear installations in exchange for energy supplies and progress toward diplomatic recognition from the United States and its allies.

The agreement covered only nuclear issues and did not try to address the many other problems caused by massive troop deployments in Korea.

“We have to begin to defuse the DMZ,” former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea James R. Lilley told The Times last week. “We ought to exchange observers (with North Korea), have hot lines, arrange a pullback of forces and work out notification of flights. This episode is an opportunity to try to make sure this never happens again.”

Administration officials can point to Hall’s release as a sign that, in the end, North Korea wants to reach at least some minimum form of accommodation with the United States.

That may not sound like much. But it is more than was commonly believed possible three years ago, when many in the West believed that North Korea was implacably hostile and totally unreliable.

Yet the helicopter episode also underscored just how shaky the North Korean leadership is and how often it is willing to push a situation to the brink.

For the U.S. government, which over the next decade faces a series of deadlines in the complex nuclear deal with North Korea, Pyongyang’s willingness once again to test American patience and resolve can only be ominous.

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By detaining Hall, North Korea tried--as it did in the earlier nuclear negotiations--to draw the United States further into direct negotiations with Pyongyang, thus diminishing the role of South Korea, America’s longtime ally.

These direct negotiations with the United States help give North Korea legitimacy, internationally and in the battle with Seoul for stature among the Korean people.

As both North and South Korea begin to think about the possibilities of reunification, each government hopes to portray itself as the embodiment of Korean nationalism.

What better way to do so than to stand up to the world’s leading superpower?

North Korea held Hall just about as long as it could before its nascent relationship with the United States would have been permanently damaged.

A new Congress convenes in Washington next week, and if Hall were still in North Korean captivity then, there could have been a rush on Capitol Hill to invalidate the nuclear deal between the United States and North Korea.

“I think they (the North Koreans) made a point of not releasing him (Hall) before Christmas,” one State Department official observed this week, pointing out that the episode showed Pyongyang’s continuing eagerness to show that it can’t be pushed around.

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What accounts for North Korea’s behavior?

The Hall episode--and the negotiations for his release by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Hubbard--have reinforced the view in Washington that the leadership in Pyongyang is divided between two factions.

One faction, involving the Foreign Ministry and perhaps economic ministries, seems to want to develop a relationship with the United States, Japan and other major powers. The aim is apparently to bring North Korea out of its isolation and, through tough bargaining, obtain economic benefits that may bring the country out of its current poverty.

The other faction, apparently centering on the Korean People’s Army, favors preserving the country’s isolation. This faction’s members seem to fear that any opening to the West will undermine North Korea’s self-reliance, and they probably fear that, if Pyongyang comes out of its isolation, the United States and its allies will try to undermine, if not overthrow, the current leadership.

Of course, any dramatic reduction in military tensions on the Korean peninsula might lead to a drawdown in the size of the North’s army and a cutback in the huge percentage of North Korean resources that now go to the military.

“From the (North Korean) army’s point of view, it is unclear that they will get any of the benefits of this deal with the United States,” observed one Administration official this week. In this sense, the factional feud is a battle for influence and power.

Last week, when the North Korean Foreign Ministry urged the Administration to send an official to Pyongyang, North Korean officials suggested to their American counterparts that such a mission would help strengthen the hand of the civilian, soft-line faction in Pyongyang in dealing with the North Korean military.

State Department officials say privately that this was at least the third time this year that they have seen signs of this factional dispute in North Korea.

Moreover, when the Administration decided to dispatch Hubbard to North Korea, North Korean officials warned American officials that he might be greeted by bellicose rhetoric. That was a sign, again, of the intense divisions in North Korea over dealing with the United States.

It remains unclear where Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s putative leader, stands in the factional disputes.

Almost six months after the death of his father, Kim Il Sung--the founder and longtime president of North Korea--the younger HKim still has not been formally named head of state nor head of North Korea’s ruling Communist Party.

But for the time being, many Administration officials believe that the mystery of who rules North Korea is much less important than the policies the government pursues. And the bottom line is that North Korea signed the nuclear deal and, after a long delay, released Bobby Hall.