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In the essay below, Leon Sigal, Director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Research Council asserts that unlike Iraq, by acknowledging its nuclear program, North Korea is opening the door for negotiations with Washington. Moreover, Sigal argues that the US has little choice than to respond diplomatically, if it wants to avoid a nuclear-armed North Korea.

The following essay is by Timothy Savage, Nautilus Associate and Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Kyungnam University, Seoul. Savage draws on a previous Nautilus workshop on scenarios for the future of US-North Korean relations ( ../security/Korea/index.html) to examine the security situation following North Korea’s revelation of a clandestine uranium enrichment program. He notes that all four scenarios developed at that workshop postulated some sort of crisis with the Agreed Framework, but the outcome of the scenarios differes greatly depending on how the various countries respond. He argues that we have reached a crossroads on the Korean peninsula, and that the scenarios can provide a helpful roadmap of where the future might lead.

This essay highlights the major parameters of the Kelly process and discusses the possible outlines of Kim Jong Il’s grand strategy vis-a-vis the United States. It argues that the North Korean leadership used the “Kelly moment” to send a dual message of nuclear deterrence and cooperative engagement to the Bush administration. The author believes that whereas in the short run, the ongoing “chicken hawk engagement” between Pyongyang and Washington is likely to bring to an end the agreed framework era on the Korean peninsula, in the long term, it is likely to lead to a quiet burst of the DPRK’s “nuclear bubble” and eventual “friendly co-optation” of the DPRK’s nuclear assets by the ROK “white knight.”

Dr. C. Kenneth Quinones short essay offers an alternative approach to dealing with North Korea. Abandoning the narrow rubric of “carrots” or “sticks,” Quinones argues for a reminder and re-visitation of the over-arching objective of peace and stability. After all, complete US disengagement from North Korea will only further isolate North Korea, while straight-up appeasement will only encourage North Korea to continue its history of coercive diplomacy. Therefore, cooler heads must prevail and calm and collected multilateral engagement free of pre-conditions must be pursued on both sides.

This essay focuses on the consequences and future implications of relations between North Korea and the United States given the North Korea’s surprise admission of a clandestine nuclear weapons program via enriched uranium. It argues that the United States is in a lose-lose foreign policy situation due to potential accusations of hypocrisy (vis a vis its foreign policy with Iraq) and accusations of wrongful appeasement. While it remains unclear why North Korea chose now to reveal its nuclear weapons program, the essay asserts that Pyongyang stands to gain much potential political leverage over the United States, as war is not an option, and neither is permitting Pyongyang to continue its uranium enrichment program.