18 BriefingAmerica and North Korea The Economist January 27th 201812 Korea policy, answers simply: “I can’t imag-
ine what those could be.”
Discussions of Korea strategy quickly
drift into seeminglyimpossible tangles, in-
volving deadly Stalinist court politics and
fantastical perils. Official reports detail the
North’s nuclear, biological and chemical
arsenals, and artillery pieces in hardened
bunkersjustnorth of the demilitarised
zone (DMZ) that divides the two Koreas,
which some analysts estimate can fire
10,000 rounds a minute atSeoul. A Penta-
gon report of 2015 talks of North Korean
drones, midget-submarines and of com-
mandos who may attack targets in South
Korea “via suspected underground, cross-
DMZtunnels”. Mr Mattis has said a Korean
conflict “would probably be the worst kind
of fighting in most people’s lifetimes”.
Still, responding to presidential de-
mands for more and better options, offi-
cials are debating possible “preventive”
strikes, a term denoting actions taken earli-
er than “pre-emptive” attacks in response
to an imminent threat, like a missile being
readied for launch.Untangled logic
At root, however, debates about Korea
strategy turn on two starkly straightfor-
ward questions, spelled out in interviews
with serving and former defence and na-
tional-security officials, diplomats and
spies, including several with personal ex-
perience of negotiating with North Korea.
First, will China ever break decisively with
North Korea, its infuriating neighbour but
valued buffer against the world? Second,
can Mr Kim be deterred? For if he cannot,
then any responsible American president
must contemplate a strike, risking what the
Japanese expert summarises as “tens of
thousands of casualties today to prevent
millions tomorrow”.
Aides to Mr Trump boast that the presi-
dent’s resolve explains China’s support for
UNSecurity Council sanctions of unprece-
dented severity, including curbs on North
Korean exports of coal and textiles and on
flows of oil and refined petroleum from
China. A senior State Department official
recalls Mr Trump’s order to strike Syria
with Tomahawk cruise missiles in April
2017, during dinner with the Chinese presi-
dent, Xi Jinping, at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida
estate. That strike, enforcing a red line over
Syria’s use of chemical weapons, “put mil-
itary action back into our diplomacy”, says
the official. “It was an important data point
that China internalised.”
In fact China has yet to abandon a long-
standing hierarchy of Korean horror in
which a nuclear-armed North ranks sec-
ond. For China, it is pipped by the prospect
of a chaotic fall of the Kim regime, fol-
lowed by a reunification of the two Koreas
on Western terms, lining China’s border
with American allies and high-powered
American radars (or worse, hulkingGIsinOakley sunglasses).
Team Trump has tried sweet reason.
Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, joined
Mr Mattis in assuring China publicly that
as it pursues the denuclearisation of the
Korean peninsula, America has no interest
in regime change or accelerated reunifica-
tion, seeks no excuse to garrison troops
north of the DMZand has no desire to
harm the “long-suffering North Korean
people”, as distinct from their rulers.
Revealing a once closely held secret, Mr
Tillerson told the Atlantic Council, a Wash-
ington think-tank, lastDecemberabout
“conversations” with China about how
the two countries might secure loose nuc-
lear weapons should North Korea fall into
chaos. This included assurances that
American forces would retreat south of the
DMZ when conditions allowed. Less
sweetly, the senior official at the State De-
partment says that when Mr Tillerson first
met his Chinese counterparts, Yang Jiechi
and Wang Yi, in March 2017, he told them
that “we are out of time” and to drop their
long-standing view of North Korea as an
asset that keeps America usefully tied up.
Mr Tillerson told China that it can help
America do more “the easy way or the
hard way”, with the hard way meaning
secondary sanctions on Chinese entities
that trade with North Korea, and credible
threats that Mr Trump is “serious about the
military option if we cannot resolve this
diplomatically”. Addressing that hierarchy
of horror, the aim is to convince Chinese
leaders that the very thing they fear most—
instability next door, followed by an Asian
nuclear-arms race—will be brought about
by continued toleration of America’sworst fear, namely North Korean nukes.
Put that way, the Korean dilemma argu-
ably revolves around a single question: is
Mr Trump bluffing? Should North Korea,
China and the wider world believe that
America will use force to prevent Mr Kim
from building a nuclear missile that can
strike Washington, DC, or Los Angeles?
Team Trump is at pains to explain why
the boss is not bluffing, and why 2018 is, in
the words of one senior administration of-
ficial, “a very dangerous year”. That official
pointedly praises Israel for twice launch-
ing air strikesagainst suspected nuclear
weapons sites, once in 1981 against the Osi-
rak reactor being built by Iraq, and in 2007
against a reactor in Syria allegedly under
construction with North Korean help.Strike one, strike two...
The official calls those strikes “textbook
cases” of preventive action. He draws at-
tention to a Trump tweet in late December,
linking to a television interview that Mr
Trump gave as a private businessman in
1999, urging America to “negotiate like cra-
zy” with North Korea but, if talks failed, to
“do something now” before warheads are
aimed at New York and other cities.
Strikingly, though, when asked point
blank whether Mr Trump has already set
red lines that North Korea may notcross,
officials will only reply that as a general
rule, they are very careful about drawing
red lines. Though news outlets have re-
ported debates about giving North Korea a
“bloody nose”, an official calls that phrase
“a fiction of the press”.
Insiders deny that the Trump adminis-
tration is dividing into camps of hawks andNorth Korea’s nuclear pathKim Jong Il Kim Jong Un
George W. Bush Barack ObamaNK supreme
leaders and
US presidentsDonald
Bill Clinton Tr u mpKim Il
Sung1993 94 95 96 97 98 99 2000 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17Threatens to
leave Nuclear
Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT),
then relents
First test of
Nodong 1 missile
UN inspectors say
North Korea is
hiding evidence of
nuclear fuel for
bombmakingAgrees to
freeze
testing
on long-
range
missilesSigns “agreed
framework” with
US to freeze and
dismantle
nuclear
programme in
exchange for
nuclear reactors,
aid and easing of
sanctionsFires
Taepodong
missile over
Japan
Carries out 1st
underground
nuclear test3rd nuclear
test
Restarts
Yongbyon
nuclear reactorLaunches
satellite on
Unha-4th and 5th
nuclear
tests6th nuclear
test
Further UN
sanctions
Fires two missiles
over JapanUN agrees on
new sanctionsLaunches
Unha-
rocket in
defiance
of UN
security
resolutionAgrees to
return to
NPT. One
day later,
demands
reactor
from USAgrees to
testing
moratorium
in exchange
for aid
Launches
a satellite
using
Unha-
rocketExpels UN
inspectors;
pulls out of
talks and
restarts
nuclear
facilities
2nd nuclear
testSinks
South
Korean
warship
CheonanSix-party talks with China,
Russia, US, Japan and
South KoreaSeries of US-North
Korean talksExpels UN
inspectors from
Yongbyon
nuclear
facilityWithdraws from NPT
Declares
reactivation of
nuclear facilitiesSays it will disable
nuclear facilities.
US agrees to
unfreeze assets
and provide aidAnnounces
it has nuclear
weaponsSources: CSIS; The EconomistMissile testsРЕЛИЗ
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