Kim Jong-un

Denuclearization talks over the weekend ended in another stalemate, and it remains to be seen if negotiations will resume in the coming weeks.

Russian President Putin reiterated the importance of denuclearization during last week’s summit, but did not provide visible sanctions relief for North Korean leader Kim. 

It is time to put denuclearization on the back burner and adopt realistic approaches toward North Korea. An all-or-nothing approach will yield nothing, leaving the United States worse off than before the diplomatic outreach began.

President Trump’s walk away from his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is being compared to President Reagan’s walk away from the 1986 Reykjavik summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev — a U.S. leader with the strength to say no deal and suffer the short-term political fallout of a failed summit, with the eventual outcome being historic progress in nuclear arms reductions. At Reykjavik, after intensive negotiations, Reagan walked away from the possibility of eliminating all U.S. and Soviet ballistic missiles and the consideration of the elimination of all nuclear weapons because the deal would have included constraints on strategic defense that he believed were not in the U.S. interests. Despite the widely held view that the summit was an abject failure, the relationship established between Gorbachev and Reagan during the summit set the U.S. and Russia on the path to eliminate their nuclear weapons stockpiles by over 80 percent in the intervening years. While the Reykjavik analogy is appealing on its surface, there are a number of differences between the two situations, including the fact that Kim is no Gorbachev, a leader who was committed to reform. The more troublesome and fitting historical analogy may be the dissolution of President Nixon’s historic realignment of U.S.-Soviet relations due to the corrosive impact of Watergate on his leadership domestically. Détente and Watergate were inextricably linked from the outset. The two major events unfolded and unraveled simultaneously, very similar to Trump’s North Korea summits and the Russia investigations. The Singapore summit came on the heels of the Manafort indictments and this latest summit in Hanoi was a split screen with the Michael Cohen hearings.  In 1972, Nixon flew home from his transformational summit in Moscow, with the first major Strategic Arms Limitation agreements in hand to triumphantly address a ioint session of Congress. Two weeks later, the Washington Post reported the Watergate break-in of the Democratic National Committee. By the time Nixon resigned more than two years later, détente with Russia was under siege from both liberals and conservatives in part, as Henry Kissinger noted, because Watergate erupted and weakened the presidency. As Kissinger observed in his memoires, “To maintain the dual track of firmness and conciliation required a disciplined Executive Branch and a Congress and public with confidence in their government; …Unfortunately the erosion of Nixon’s domestic base prevented us from fully implementing our strategy.”  Denuclearization of North Korea is a very difficult but necessary goal. As the president and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have stated, the outstanding challenges include, verification mechanisms, the definition of “denuclearization,” details on timing for sanctions relief, all challenges the U.S. has grappled with in previous negotiations made only more complicated by the major advancements made in North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons program. It is clear from the president’s assessment of the outcome of the Hanoi summit that such negotiated achievements continue to remain out of reach. But, if Trump’s diplomacy is to be successful, the success of the agreement has another important hurdle, domestic support. The president will need to convince the Congress and the American public that the deal is a good one that will keep the U.S. safe and secure — not a politically convenient one, patch worked together to distract from his domestic problems. Walking away was the easier part of that strategy. It is much harder to make the case for a deal. As the history of previous North Korea agreements and the Iran deal demonstrate, to be sustainable, the agreement should be a treaty, which will require two-thirds support — therefore, bipartisan support — in the Senate. But whether the agreement is a treaty that requires Senate advice and consent or an executive agreement, which technically would not, it will still need congressional support.  Trump will need the Congress for sanctions relief, a central component of the negotiations. Furthermore, one of the biggest challenges that previous presidents faced in their efforts to stem the tide of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions was convincing the Congress to fund the economic carrots that were elements of previous deals with a brutal authoritarian regime that could not be trusted. Trump has been promising North Korean economic development as a quid pro quo for North Korean denuclearization and saying that this can happen quickly. While that would most certainly include international and regional support, it will also require support from both the House and the Senate for the U.S. contribution to that effort. Whether Trump will be able to provide the leadership domestically remains to be seen. But it is a hurdle that should not be dismissed or overlooked under the misleading glow of a Reagan at Reykjavik comparison.

The abrupt halt to talks in Hanoi between President Donald J. Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un has intensified criticism of the U.S. president’s diplomacy and its U.S. domestic implications. But there are larger regional ripples as well, and the interests of U.S. allies deserve closer scrutiny. While the failure in Hanoi to reach an agreement was a serious setback for Seoul, Japan’s immediate assessment was not terribly critical.   The initial media response in Tokyo largely reflected the U.S. reaction: was no deal better than a bad one? The answer was largely yes, and there were the inevitable questions about the diplomatic performance of the Trump administration. The government response was far more measured. Tokyo has always viewed the North Korea problem from a different vantage point. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has consistently advocated that President Trump not give in to relaxing sanctions imposed by the United Nations on North Korea (DPRK) for its nuclear and missile programs. The Japanese government has long worked with others in the United Nations to build a serious sanctions regime, and Abe worked hard to persuade the international community of the importance of unity in this effort.  Therefore, the announcement that the United States was not going compromise on sanctions must have been welcome news. Indeed, Abe, after a brief phone call with President Trump on his way home from Hanoi, announced his support for the president’s decision to end discussions over Pyongyang’s request for sanctions relief. Yet there are collateral concerns in Tokyo that will need to be considered in any future U.S.-DPRK negotiations. Three issues will shape Japanese thinking about their diplomacy going forward.  First, a negotiated denuclearization seems unlikely in the short term, and this conflicts with Tokyo’s strategic preferences. A bad outcome for Tokyo would be a deal that leaves North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities largely in place, or even worse, acknowledges North Korea’s nuclear status. Here we should expect Japan to continue to admonish the United States and others in the most strenuous terms possible the consequences of a bad deal for U.S. extended deterrence in Asia.  Second, Japan more than any other regional power must be relieved to no longer be on the receiving end of North Korean missile launches. While there was no indication in the run-up to the Hanoi meeting that the United States and North Korea had agreed to diminish or eradicate Pyongyang’s missile production facilities, the freeze on missile and nuclear testing must be welcome in Tokyo. A moratorium on missile testing was central to Japan’s own diplomacy with Kim Jong-un’s father almost two decades ago, and will likely continue to be should Japan-DPRK talks ever begin. But a moratorium on testing does nothing to diminish Pyongyang's missile arsenal, including not only ICBMs but also medium- and short-range missiles that can threaten Japan. Finally, the most difficult outcome for Prime Minister Abe from the breakdown in Hanoi may not be about Japan’s security but rather about the accountability of the Kim regime on human rights. The fate of the Japanese citizens abducted by Pyongyang remains a highly sensitive issue for political leaders in Tokyo, none more so than Prime Minister Abe. Repeatedly, President Trump and others in his cabinet have publicly committed the United States to advocate on behalf of Japanese citizens in North Korea. And yet, the president’s willingness to absolve Kim of responsibility for the death of Otto Warmbier, the American student detained and brutally beaten while in North Korean custody, must have given Tokyo pause. If the U.S. president is not going to hold Kim responsible for the fate of his own citizens, it is unlikely that he will stand firm on behalf of Japanese. Immediately following the president’s press statement in Hanoi, Prime Minister Abe held a press briefing of his own in which he said that he must now pursue directly Japan’s interests on the abductees with Kim Jong-un.  The failure of talks in Hanoi may not be a complete setback for diplomacy. It is too early to tell how this might evolve. U.S. allies will want to ensure that the Trump administration continues to consult as next steps are considered. No one wants a return to the uncertainty and danger of 2017, to be sure. But equally worrisome in the wake of the Hanoi summit is the possibility that President Trump might lose interest in trying to solve the North Korea problem.

Trump must put his affairs in order to strengthen his hand going into a second meeting with Kim Jong-un.

Kim’s meetings with Xi are an effort to drive up the price in negotiations with the United States beyond what North Korea would be able to demand on its own.

Ramped-up diplomacy in 2018 has eased tensions on the Korean Peninsula and led to a one-year halt in missile testing. But Pyongyang has not yet taken credible steps toward denuclearization.

Can South Korea’s Moon Jae-in broker a process for North Korean denuclearization acceptable to both Washington and Pyongyang?

South Korean President Moon Jae-in dispatched a special envoy delegation composed of the same members that met Kim Jong-un in March to discuss arrangements for an inter-Korean summit planned for Pyongyang later this month. The delegation, led by National Security Advisor Chung Eui-yong, traveled to meet with Kim Jong-un on September 5 in Pyongyang, and Chung briefed the Korean public the following day.  Chung announced  that the Pyongyang summit, to be held on September 18-20, would examine the outcome of the implementation of the April 27th Panmunjom Declaration, the measures to achieve “the permanent settlement of peace and common prosperity” and the “practical measures to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula.” Second, Chung announced that “Kim Jong-un reconfirmed his determination to completely denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and expressed his willingness for close cooperation not only with the South but also with the United States.” Chung also announced that the Pyongyang summit would pursue agreement on “concrete plans to establish mutual trust and prevent military clashes” and that the two Koreas would establish a joint liaison office in Kaesong in advance of the inter-Korean summit. The special envoy delegation succeeded in pushing forward specific preparations for the Pyongyang summit and secured both Kim Jong-un’s public reiteration of a commitment to turn the Korean Peninsula “into the cradle of peace without nuclear weapons and free from nuclear threat” and a significant acknowledgment that the two Koreas “should further their efforts to realize the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” directly recognizing denuclearization as a legitimate topic for inter-Korean discussion. This is good news because the United States needs South Korea’s help in pressing for North Korea’s denuclearization, but the bad news is that the formulation used by the North Korean media leaves open the possibility that North Korea has plans to press for weakening of U.S. commitments to the defense of South Korea. In his statement, Chung reaffirmed South Korea’s commitment to work closely with the United States.  Inter-Korean summit preparations will now turn to building on the Panmunjom Declaration, which has shown success in implementing tangible commitments made in the declaration to develop inter-Korean steps toward “co-prosperity and unification,” including the resumption of cultural and sports exchanges, divided family reunions, and the establishment of a liaison office at Kaesong. But implementation of tension-reduction and peace-building efforts outlined in the declaration have lagged, so it is natural that the main agenda for the next inter-Korean summit should focus on implementing those sections of the Panmunjom Declaration. The Moon administration will place the following issues on center stage as South Korea coordinates with the United States to prepare for an imminent summit in Pyongyang:  The Moon administration anticipates that Kim Jong-un’s renewed commitment to denuclearization is sufficient to unstick U.S.-North Korean talks on the topic that stalled with the cancellation of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s planned visit to Pyongyang. Resumption of U.S.-North Korea talks is important to the Moon administration’s view that inter-Korean relations and U.S.-North Korea relations should go together;  South Korean summit preparations should include close cooperation with the United States on efforts to negotiate and implement practical steps to achieve inter-Korean tension-reduction and security/confidence building measures. Progress on these fronts will help create conditions that justify an exchange of an end-of-war declaration with a North Korean declaration to shutter nuclear and missile facilities. An exchange of declarations based on tangible steps toward establishment of inter-Korean peace would affirm the shared U.S. and North Korean aspiration to achieve peace and denuclearization reflected in the Singapore statement and start parallel processes to achieve those objectives; President Moon’s vision of building a single economic community on the Korean peninsula can only be realized through North Korean steps toward denuclearization, the achievement of which is a prerequisite for relief from existing UN and U.S. sanctions. South Korea and the United States should step up coordination to insure that South Korean requests for waivers on the application of economic sanctions on North Korea do not undermine the essential leverage necessary to keep North Korea moving toward denuclearization. 

Take this quiz to test your knowledge of North Korea, including its nuclear buildup, the Kim dynasty, and more.

The weeks following the Singapore summit have thus far not delivered a clear public roadmap or timeline for how and when it will be possible to achieve peace or denuclearization following the Kim-Trump summit meeting. Rather, the days prior to and following the summit have been full of signs that the Trump administration is following the North Korean model rather than the Libyan model for denuclearization. Since the North Korean model is the pathway the Trump administration is on, it is worth examining North Korean statements about where that pathway will lead. As U.S. Forces Korea Commander Vincent Brooks correctly diagnosed to the Aspen Security Forum, a major challenge facing both sides is the absence of trust, and the North Koreans have shown themselves to be nothing if not distrustful of American intentions. This has been the case despite reaping significant prestige benefits from the Singapore meeting in addition to Trump’s unexpected pledge to cancel summer U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises. Trump walked away from his historic meeting with Kim Jong Un saying: “I think he trusts me, and I trust him.” But Kim Jong-un was reported in KCNA following the summit to have noted “that many problems occurred due to deep-rooted distrust and hostility existing between the two countries,” and that “two countries should commit themselves to refraining from antagonizing with each other out of mutual understanding, and take legal and institutional steps to guarantee it.” In other words, Trump says “trust”; Kim says “verify.” The North Koreans appear to have taken Trump at his word by expecting the Trump administration to trust that its unilateral measures to dismantle its nuclear and missile testing sites are significant enough to count as sincere moves toward the goal of “complete denuclearization” pledged by Kim to Xi Jinping, Moon Jae-in, and Donald Trump. But North Korea’s unilateral measures of destroying its nuclear test site at Punggye-ri in May and dismantling its missile engine testing site at Sohae have been implemented without adequate external verification, in a manner that requires the Trump administration to trust rather than verify the credibility of North Korea’s actions. On the other hand, the parts of the Singapore declaration that North Korea most distrusts and therefore most want to verify are related to the U.S. commitments to a “new U.S.-DPRK relationship” and the U.S. commitment to “peace.” As a result, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo received a stiff arm from the North Koreans during his July 6-7 visit to Pyongyang as part of Trump administration efforts to secure a rapid and concrete timetable for denuclearization. The July 7 North Korean foreign ministry statement on the occasion of Pompeo’s visit detailed its proposal of simultaneous actions, including “realizing multilateral exchanges for improved relations between the DPRK and the U.S., making public a declaration on the end of war first on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement to build a peace regime on the Korean peninsula, dismantling the test ground of high thrust engine to make a physical verification of the suspension of ICBM production as part of denuclearization steps and making an earliest start of the working-level talks for recovering POW/MIA remains.” Although POW/MIA (prisoners of war/missing-in-action) remains recovery would appear to be an easy humanitarian confidence building step completely unrelated to American denuclearization demands, working-level communication regarding the handover has become an example of the depth of distrust between the two sides. North Korea’s foreign ministry statement makes clear that from their perspective, the missing piece is a Trump administration declaration of the end of war, deliverable by this Friday. This step would undoubtedly facilitate the return of POW/MIAs, and it is a step that the Moon Jae-in administration has eagerly supported, including through the Panmunjom Declaration, which envisaged an aspirational statement of the end of war by the end of the year. In fact, South Korea’s unification minister, Cho Myoung-gyon, stated at a South Korean National Assembly policy briefing: “I think we can declare the end to the war . . . before the North achieves complete denuclearization.” Cho specifically stated that such a declaration could be possible “if the North takes sincere measures” toward denuclearization, including North Korea’s dismantlement of nuclear and missile testing sites at Punggye-ri and Sohae. According to the North Korean road map, the next step would involve a Trump administration declaration of intent to replace the armistice with a permanent peace, likely accompanied by the return of some POW/MIAs via Panmunjom. Beyond these steps, the looming question over the North Korean model is not just whether the decades-long distrust of the United States by the North Korean leadership can be overcome, but also whether North Korea can build a track record of accomplishment necessary to overcome American distrust fueled by North Korea’s record of broken promises and commitments. According to Pompeo, the North Koreans recognize that the key to bridging that distrust is the achievement of a “final, fully-verified denuclearization.” But it does not mean that the North Koreans are committed to achieving that objective. Thus far, the North Korean model seems to envision a one-sided verification process in which North Korea performs on the honor system while the United States makes tangible concessions in an effort to overcome North Korea’s mistrust. But American mistrust will not dissipate just because Trump declares his trust in Kim. Rather, both sides must embark on a sustained effort to defuse tensions by building a tangible joint record of accomplishment necessary to make both the end of war and North Korea’s denuclearization a reality, not simply a declaration. In this respect, the biggest challenge to building trust on the American side will be long-term consistency beyond a single administration, while the biggest challenge to confidence building on the North Korean side will be reciprocity (i.e., offering of tangible and irreversible quid pro quos rather than pocketing concessions or breaking agreements.

President Trump’s approach to summits is fueling, rather than mitigating, global instability.

President Trump prides himself on being a "dealmaker." In one of his biggest deals yet, he brokered a joint statement between the United States and North Korea. To what extent did he use his eleven-step method from The Art of the Deal?