A ‘Rogue State’ That Wants Respectability

When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright flies to Bangkok this week for the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations’ Regional Forum, she will meet with her North Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun. It will be the highest-level meeting ever between United States and North Korean officials.

It also will be an occasion for Albright to do something even more momentous: Sign a political declaration with Paek declaring an end to 50 years of hostility between our two countries. North Korea, in turn, is ready to put its missile-test moratorium into writing and to negotiate an end to its missile exports, production and eventually deployment. That is a much less-risky way to curb the missile menace from Pyongyang than deploying unproved missile defenses.

Missile defense enthusiasts are demanding deployment now. They exaggerate the missile threat from so-called “rogue states” (now officially labeled “states of concern” by the State Department). North Korea is Exhibit A in their gallery of rogues. Name-calling predisposes the U.S. to adopt a coercive approach with North Korea instead of a cooperative one. Rogues are criminals, after all, and the way to treat criminals is to punish them.

North Korea’s one-man rule, its internal regimentation and its dogmatism are alien to any freedom-loving American, and its nasty habit of floating concessions on a sea of threats can antagonize the most cool-headed negotiator. At the same time, it is militarily much weaker than South Korea.

In many respects, North Korea makes a perfect foe. The problem is that North Korea has been trying to end its life-long enmity with the United States since the late 1980s. Its missile behavior is evidence of that. Had Pyongyang wanted missiles worth deploying or selling, it should have been testing and perfecting its two medium-range and one longer-range missiles. Yet it has conducted just two medium-range missile tests of its own in the past decade--both of them failures--and has never tested the longer-range missile. Last September, North Korea agreed to suspend missile tests while missile talks continue. In return, the U.S. agreed to end sanctions under the Trading With the Enemy Act. North Korea’s restraint is just one sign of its interest in a diplomatic resolution of the missile issue. Since 1992, it has expressed a willingness--for a price--to stop exporting missiles. In a breakthrough two years ago, North Korea made public an offer to negotiate an end to “development”--its word--of new missiles as well. Development is usually understood to cover both tests and the production of missiles for the purpose of testing. With that offer came a threat to resume missile tests.

The offer, carried by its Korean Central News Agency in English, was very explicit: “The discontinuation of our missile development is a matter which can be discussed after a peace agreement is signed between [North Korea] and the United States and the U.S. military threat [is] completely removed. If the U.S. concern about our missiles is truly related to the peace and security of Northeast Asia, the United States should immediately accept [North Korea’s] proposed peace agreement for the establishment of a durable peace mechanism on the Korean Peninsula.” By a “peace agreement,” the North means something less formal than a peace treaty. The “peace mechanism” is a military-to-military channel involving the United States, South Korea and North Korea that Pyongyang has sought to replace the Military Armistice Commission set up to monitor the cease-fire ending the Korean War.

Removing the “U.S. military threat,” as seen from Pyongyang, does not require withdrawing U.S. forces, a point the North made in high-level talks with the U.S. in 1992. Instead, it wants a change in the political relationship with the U.S. Once we no longer regard one another as enemies, the troops are no longer a threat. By contrast, withdrawal of U.S. forces would still leave the North at risk from U.S. forces offshore.

For eight years Pyongyang has been expressing interest in a missile deal, but it refuses to give Washington something for nothing. Far from a desperate ploy by a regime on the ropes wanting to obtain foreign aid in order to revive its moribund economy, the North most of all wants to put an end to enmity in order to enhance its security.

South Korea’s Kim Dae Jung showed the way in his summit meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Il when the two leaders pledged to reconcile, a historic step toward ending the internecine conflict on the peninsula. Now it’s Washington turn.