US needs to capitalise on prisoner release by Pyongyang

By James Gibney Published: 20:00 October 23, 2014 Image Credit: AP FILE - In this Sept. 1, 2014, file photo, Jeffrey Fowle, an American detained in North Korea speaks to the Associated Press in Pyongyang, North Korea. Fowle, one of three Americans being held in North Korea, has been released, the State Department said Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2014. State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said the U.S. is still trying to free Americans Matthew Miller and Kenneth Bae. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File)

In what passes for a charm offensive, North Korea just released one of three Americans it has been holding prisoners. Last Tuesday's surprise follows North Korea's high-level outreach to South Korea during the Asian Games, its decision to engage, not dismiss, a damning United Nations report on its human rights abuses, and a perverse warning-cum-invitation to the US that thousands of American servicemen's remains from the Korean War risk being lost to 'land rezoning and other gigantic nature-remaking projects'.

Get ready, Charlie Brown: Kim Jong Lucy is teeing up the football again.

It is no coincidence that North Korea freed Jeffrey Fowle on the 20th anniversary of the US-DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) Agreed Framework, an agreement that froze North Korea's nuclear programme in return for fuel oil and two proliferation-resistant light-water reactors. North Koreans take their anniversaries seriously. Yet, before the US responds, it should reflect on the failure of two decades of diplomacy toward North Korea.

Well, not total failure. As Ambassador Robert Gallucci, who negotiated the framework, noted last Tuesday at the Carnegie Endowment, the agreement shut down nuclear reactors that could have produced 200kg of plutonium each year, enough for many more nuclear devices than the half-dozen or so that North Korea probably has. But after three subsequent North Korean nuclear explosions, the discovery of a clandestine uranium enrichment programme, numerous ballistic missile tests and nasty provocations and clashes with South Korea, only a Dr Pangloss - in this case, Sydney Seiler, the Obama administration's representative to the suspended Six-Party talks with North Korea - could characterise the history of US policy as 'not a failure - just an absence of success'.

US policymakers of all stripes swear they have tried everything and nothing has worked. The problem with the North Koreans, said Victor Cha, a Bush administration veteran also featured at the Carnegie event, is 'that they don't want to dance'.

Maybe. Or maybe they just want a partner who does not abruptly change the music. Within the space of two years, for instance, the US went from offering North Korea a possible presidential visit under Bill Clinton to labelling it a member of the 'Axis of Evil' under George W. Bush. Now, one of the most important things the US can do is to achieve a bipartisan consensus on how to deal with North Korea. Start with a reality check:

North Korea is not about to collapse. Nor is that an outcome that any sane US strategist should want - think all the loose nukes, cashiered soldiers from a million-man army, hungry refugees, no history of democratic governance and social, economic and even linguistic disparities that would make German reunification look like a Sunday picnic. The North has made it clear that it is not going to give up its nuclear weapons. Setting denuclearisation as the precondition for a resumption of talks is a recipe for stalemate.

While China can do more to make North Korea behave, it will never do enough. The two nations are no longer 'as close as lips and teeth', as the old Chicom adage had it, and Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly badmouths North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, to foreign visitors. Yet, even though China still accounts for the majority of North Korea's trade, investment and assistance, Beijing will not use its leverage to the point where the pressure triggers instability on its borders.

For new talks to succeed, the US must also expend more energy getting South Korea and Japan, barely on speaking terms, to get along. The US can keep the pressure on North Korea (and on China) by working with its two closest regional allies to strengthen their deterrent and missile defence capabilities. And there is plenty of room for tightening United Nations sanctions and laying the groundwork for new ones to be imposed if Pyongyang proceeds with more tests.

But first and foremost, let Washington use the diplomatic opening of Fowle's release to end the US policy of 'strategic patience' - the Obama administration's code-word for doing nothing while North Korea becomes more dangerous. North Korea is playing a long game and for keeps. Do not expect to win if you are not willing to do the same.

James Gibney writes editorials on international affairs for Bloomberg View.