Why Jimmy Carter should be Trump’s messenger of peace on North Korea
Chi Wang says it is clear that increased sanctions and harsher rhetoric will only make the North Korean regime dig in its heels. Instead of demanding denuclearisation, the US ought to try an indirect approach, led by former president Jimmy Carter
The top priority at the moment should be to prevent nuclear conflict. Only after dialogue is opened and tensions are reduced can potential agreements be reached. Illustration: Craig Stephens
The UN recently placed new sanctions on North Korea, the US independently sanctioned two North Korean officials, and Pyongyang called the UN sanctions an “act of war”. If this series of events seems familiar, it should. It is part of an ongoing cycle of North Korean missile tests, UN and US sanctions, and North Korean backlash against the sanctions.
While the Trump administration has made the Korean peninsula and the denuclearisation of North Korea a foreign policy priority, it is important to note that this is not a new issue. I served as the head of the Chinese and Korean section at the US Library of Congress until I retired in 2004. During my time there, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and weapons programme were key areas of concern, with Pyongyang withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in early 2003 and declaring it had nuclear weapons later that year.
I have continued to follow the situation. Time and again I have watched as the UN imposed sanctions, only to have North Korea test another missile or nuclear weapon and further develop its nuclear capabilities. This has been going on for more than a decade, and yet the United States and UN continue to turn to sanctions and demand denuclearisation. With tensions only escalating, and President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un repeatedly engaging in a battle of words, it’s time to re-evaluate the way we look at and approach North Korea.
The first thing policymakers need to acknowledge is that North Korea’s nuclear weapons aren’t just going to go away. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson can say the US will not accept North Korea as a nuclear power all he wants, but the fact is, North Korea is a nuclear power. And it’s not just going to stop being one just because we refuse to “accept” it.
Any US strategy has to start from the knowledge that the North has nuclear weapons and that, if the US chooses pre-emptive military action, Pyongyang has the potential to retaliate with nuclear weapons, if not against the US, then against our allies in the region.
North Korea’s nuclear weapons aren’t just going to go away
Next, the US needs to realise that sanctions aren’t working, just as they didn’t in the past. Claims that we simply have not reached the right level of sanctions yet, or that sanctions would work if China did more, fail to understand the limitations of sanctions. While sanctions do serve as punitive measures and certainly place economic pressure on their targets, they are unlikely to convince the leadership of a country to take action seen as detrimental to their self interest. This limitation undeniably applies to North Korea abandoning its nuclear weapons programme.
