Monday, April 14, 2008

The More The Merrier: Peace Talks with North Korea

Hardliners Target Detente with North Korea
Kim & Feffer

A New National Strategy for Korea
Klinger

The situation with North and South Korea is very unstable one. The first article by Kim and Feffer looks at the consequences of the U.S. pursuing unilateral agreements with N. Korea. They argue that the Bush administration is actually hurting chances of N. Korea denuclearizing and making peace with the rest of the world, including S. Korea.

The biggest problem is that N. Korea has not been as transparent as the "Six Party Talks" agreement had called for and yet Bush still conceded to the nation in many ways. Klinger goes on to blame this move on Bush's need to leave a foreign policy legacy. There is a flaw in this, however, as also demonstrated by the Syria situation. No one is entirely certain what nuclear weapons and other tools N. Korea actually possesses because they, as Klinger puts it, use secrecy as their weapon. President Kim is right, not knowing what N. Korea is capable makes them incredibly scary to the outside world. However, this also leads those participating in peace talks with little to base the need for transparency on. So, is this an issue or isn't it? Should N. Korea be granted their right to "privacy" if we have no verifiable grounds on which to suspect them of dangerous activity? Or, as Bush and other nations have concluded, are they only being secret because they have something to hide? Can we factor in N. Korea culture when it comes to national pride?

So how do human rights factor in?
As I see it, we have already decided that human rights are a security issue, right? Then why, as Kim and Feffer highlight, are human rights groups angry over placing these issues alongside political agenda and denuclearization talks? It's kind of like pork (or bacon, whatever its called) with U.S. legislation.... if the Six Parties can somehow manage to slide human rights practices among the nuclear issue, then they may have the chance to make amazing gains in a nation known for kidnapping and starving its people. It seems to me, however, that everyone not in support of discussing human rights along with nuclear weapons is stuck in the old definition of security. However, the fact that human rights are even being discussed in the same article as other, more traditional military, security issues is a step in the right direction.

So how about making it a party?
There is something to both Kim &Feffer's article and Klinger. The first emphasizes that S. Korea is pushing better relations with the North by making it into a business deal: you give us info. and we'll give you money and resources to help your starving people. This is good for inter-Korean security but not for everyone else because it gives N. Korea no incentive to cooperate with everyone else. How do we know they are actually using the money for the intended purposes? We don't unless we follow Klinger's suggestion of requiring N. Korea to show where the money is going. Good luck with that since we can't even get into the country.

What Klinger suggests throughout his whole article is multilateral engagement. The U.S. may gain some sense of security by engaging with N. Korea and S. Korea may also make some gains, but in both cases, no other nations gain from these peace-talks. This is dangerous because, if N. Korea has the deadly weapons we all so fear, then the nations not giving concessions to N. Korea are vulnerable. And so are the people within the country who's human rights issues are continuing to go ignored under unilateral agreements. However, multilateral agreements seems to offer the best incentives. Klinger highlights nuclear compliance and transparency of all "six party" nations, more free trade and less reliance of any one nation on another, and lessen perceived military threat from any one nation on another. Essentially, the more people involved with bringing N. Korea into the world stage, the more N. Korea's accountability is spread out and the harder it would be for them to violate any agreements it has made. That's a great idea!

Seeing the Broader Picture
Klinger definitely has a very well-rounded approach concerning the U.S.'s role with both Koreas. And it's interesting he takes this stance of gaining more power for all six parties but even more so for itself right under S. Korea's nose by putting it in the Korea Herald. Klinger provides suggestions for Free Trade Agreements, enhanced military alliance with S. Korea, and drafting detailed plans for a new U.S.- South Korea alliance as a means for both strengthening their bond and forming more power to get at the N. Korea issue. This makes sense in the nuclear and human rights issues because having stronger bonds between U.S. and S. Korea than the South has with the North allows for a better chance that no one nation forms too strong a unilateral engagement with North Korea. However, I can see potential for the U.S. to gain more power over the East Asia region by disguising as an equal partnership, thus appeasing the increasing distrust over U.S. military presence. However, as the rest of the region benefits from the actions Klinger suggests, N. Korea will feel the pressure to become transparent and thus comply with the human rights and nuclear guidelines the rest of the world has set out to follow.

No comments: