This essay was contributed by Kim Myong Chol, Executive Director of the Center for Korean-American Peace, Tokyo, and the former editor of People’s Korea. Kim is also author of “Kim Jong Il’s Reunification Strategy,” a book published in both Seoul and Pyongyang. Kim asserts that the Geneva Agreed Framework is “brain dead” by Western standards. North Korea is not to blame, but rather it is the United States that is responsible for the virtual collapse of the nuclear deal. A package settlement, which addresses North Korean security concerns, will go a long way to defuse the crisis.

The essay below is by Victor Gilinsky, an energy consultant who has written on US-DPRK nuclear relations since 1993 and former commissioner of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Gilinsky argues that The North made its admission about a uranium enrichment program to serve its security interests and create more opportunity for economic blackmail while, in their view, risking little. It reflects a DPRK assessment of Western, Japanese, and South Korean weakness. They very likely have one or more plutonium-based nuclear weapons, and apparently have the prospect of many more and think they can get the world to accept that. We have to prove them wrong. This puts us in a tough spot in Korea and more generally in enforcing the Nonproliferation Treaty, whose future is in the balance. As an immediate first step, the US should close out the KEDO LWR project.

The essay below is by Jekuk Chang, a Tokyo based attorney-at-law and Visiting Fellow at Keio University in Tokyo, who is currently working on a book on “Clinton’s policy toward North Korea, 1993-2000. Change asserts that Pyongyang’s recent admission of secret nuclear program has to be viewed as an effort to build up its credibility with the United States, although the burden of proof lies squarely with North Korea. At the same time, however, Washington must also be prepared to give Pyongyang some breathing space if it hopes to achieve its ultimate objectives involving North Korea.

Below is commentary by Hugo Wheegook Kim and Peter Hayes on Kim Myong Chol’s “Agreed Framework Is Brain Dead; Shotgun Wedding Is the Only Option to Defuse Crisis” posted on NAPSNet of October 24, 2002. The original piece can be found

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.