Despite Woes, N. Korea Remains Threat

It must have been quite a jolly celebration in North Korea last weekend. While the rest of the impoverished country scrounged for food, the nation’s leaders gathered at Pyongyang’s so-called House of Culture to celebrate the 44th anniversary of their “victory” in the Korean War.

Their theme, boasted the North Korean news agency: “Today, the Korean revolution is constantly developing on to a higher stage, recording a new chapter of shining victory.” It was a report that might be characterized as pathetically Orwellian.

Nothing around the world these days could be more absurd than North Korea. This is a country that boasts of its great ideology of juche (self-reliance) while it accepts ever-larger food handouts from the rest of the world.

The question is whether U.S. policy toward North Korea is going to become equally contradictory. For the danger now is that the Clinton administration may be slowly drawn into perpetuating the status quo--helping to supply North Korea with food and energy, without requiring Pyongyang to end the threat of a military attack against South Korea and American forces.

The confusion in American policy arises because no one seems to be able to figure out whether North Korea is collapsing or not.

Last December, then-CIA Director John M. Deutch predicted to Congress that within the next few years, because of its severe economic problems, North Korea was bound to change dramatically in one of three ways: It would collapse, go to war against South Korea or decide to reunify with the South.

To the Clinton administration’s credit, it has begun quietly to prepare for such changes.

All the possibilities are being worked out. For instance, U.S. military officials have been trying to improve the equipment and plans for defending the American forces in South Korea against a chemical attack if North Korea should launch some desperate, last-ditch invasion.

At the same time, the Pentagon has been studying what would happen to those 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea if the two Koreas reunified. These studies are affecting American military strategy throughout the region. For example, U.S. officials are quietly pressing for a greater American military presence in Southeast Asia in case troops are withdrawn from Korea.

But now an interesting problem crops up: What if North Korea isn’t collapsing at all?

In the recent issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Marcus Noland, an economist who specializes in North Korea, argues that speculation about the regime’s demise is premature. “North Korea is likely to muddle through,” he says.

One of the main reasons he gives is that none of North Korea’s neighbors--Japan, China or even South Korea--now wants a reunified Korea. For South Korea, the issue is money. “The costs of unification would be so great that the South would try to prevent it,” Noland argues. He estimates those costs at a staggering $1 trillion.

The Clinton administration’s policy toward North Korea has been to try to bring about what is usually called a “soft landing.” The idea is to cushion North Korea’s collapse so that it doesn’t lead to a disaster, such as millions of refugees pouring out of the country.

This summer, the results of this “soft landing” policy can be seen in several different ways.

Two weeks ago, the administration announced it was doubling its donations of food aid to North Korea by sending another $27 million in grain. South Korea has also just shipped new food to the North.

Next week, the United States will start new talks in New York City with North Korea, South Korea and China about a possible peace conference that would bring a formal end to the Korean War (technically, a prolonged cease-fire is in effect).

All of this would seem to make sense, if North Korea is actually collapsing. The food aid, after all, prevents people from starving.

Yet there remain some unpleasant realities about North Korea that sometimes seem in danger of being ignored. Despite its economic woes, the country still pays to maintain a huge army, which is still deployed near the DMZ and still threatens U.S. forces. It still has missiles and chemical weapons. It may still have enough material for a nuclear weapon or two.

If the North Korea regime is going to survive, as Noland predicts, then the Clinton administration policy may make less sense. We may be drifting into a policy of giving more and more aid to a country whose military continues to threaten its neighbors and American forces.

There is a solution for this. At some point soon, the administration could insist that as a condition for further help, North Korea should pull back its forces from the DMZ, cut back on its military and take other steps toward making the Korean Peninsula a more peaceful place.

Maybe the North Korean revolution is opening a “new chapter,” as its propagandists proclaimed last weekend. If so, it should be one in which its menacing million-man army begins to be written out of the plot.

Otherwise, despite the Clinton administration’s efforts, there will be no new chapter in North Korea, just the same old story.