Ultimately, a more pragmatic strategy would better serve U. He served nearly 20 years in the U. Forces Korea. Intelligence Community or any U. North Korea announced on September 13 that it had tested long-range cruise missiles over the weekend. But despite the test, a spokesperson for the Biden administration said the United States remains prepared to engage with North Korea. Type: Analysis and Commentary.
Early signals indicate the Biden team is prioritizing pressure among many options. Several experts, however, believe this approach will continue to fail because it incorrectly assumes North Korea will yield to coercive tactics and that China will cooperate in this effort.
Desperate for some semblance of stability, the North Korean state initially tolerated these rudimentary transactions as a financial necessity. These markets have grown in scale and complexity over the last two decades—and in the process, have facilitated the growth of unofficial economic networks that exhibit signs of a nascent semi-autonomous public sphere that is unprecedented in North Korean society.
North Korea serves as a mutually beneficial partner for many African governments. Type: Special Report. We provide analysis, education, and resources to those working for peace around the world.
But so far, the regime has not taken the far more provocative steps of testing a long-range missile or a nuclear weapon, both of which it has done previously. There is always a chance, however, that Biden's bid for negotiations fails, and North Korea falls back on its pattern of aggressive and attention-seeking behavior, including threatening its neighbors and testing dangerous weapons.
If that happens, the only real option short of war — covert CIA operations aside — is more economic sanctions, experts say. Critics point out that years of sanctions of various kinds have failed to convince the North to denuclearize.
But in fact, observers say, the U. Those sanctions included penalties against European and other banks accused of violating the law by doing business with Iran. So far, no administration has been willing to levy similar "secondary sanctions" against Chinese banks that keep North Korea afloat. Klingner and other North Korea experts cite a single telling exception to that rule: An action against an obscure bank in Macau that they say could be a blueprint for putting the squeeze on North Korea.
Soon, more than two dozen financial institutions had pulled back from doing business with North Korea, imperiling its finances. Even many top U. It was part of a deal that was supposed to result in the unwinding of North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
Joshua Stanton, who runs the blog OneFreeKorea and is one of the foremost experts on North Korea sanctions, argues that United Nations reports on sanctions compliance regularly provide evidence that could be used to penalize companies, but the U. One reason, Cha and others say, is because the U.
In order for diplomacy to work, it must be backed by a credible threat of force, the former Trump administration official and other experts say. We will say we are ready to lift sanctions, sign a peace treaty, provide aid, allow trade and investment — but only after North Korea has given up all its nuclear weapons.
So we need to lower our sights and start smaller. The United States should not recognize North Korea officially as a nuclear weapons state, and it should retain the long-term goal of complete disarmament.
In the short term, it would be enough to prevent the further growth and modernization of the North Korean arsenal. Specifically, working with regional partners, we should seek to persuade North Korea to dismantle verifiably its nuclear production sites. They are large and much easier to monitor than individual nuclear bombs themselves. We should also insist on formalizing the North Korean moratorium on testing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles that has been observed since In return, the international community could agree to lift many of the UN sanctions placed on North Korea after its big weapons tests of and By Michael E.
This kind of deal, perhaps negotiated secretly with North Korea by someone close to Biden, like his national security advisor Jake Sullivan, and then formalized with a presidential summit, would not be the end of the story. Other sanctions, including those under US law, would remain in place as leverage to pursue full disarmament someday. True, that process may take many years or decades. It is somewhat surprising that Donald Trump did not do this deal himself, once he opened up communications channels with Kim.
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