1. Our Pyongyang Problem
- Author:
- Peter Huessy and General Michael Dunn (ret.)
- Publication Date:
- 06-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Journal of International Security Affairs
- Institution:
- Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
- Abstract:
- Today, the overwhelming focus of the United States and its allies is aimed at stopping Iran from securing a nuclear weapon. The ongoing nuclear weapons program of North Korea appears to be, at best, a serious but somewhat secondary consideration. Yet the two programs are inexorably intertwined, and are part of an identical strategy adopted by these two rogue states and their allies to harm U.S. security interests. Policymakers in Washington still appear to believe in both cases that a “deal” of some kind monitoring their respective nuclear programs—as opposed to ending them—is possible. Such a view is naïve at best, and deeply dangerous at worst. This is true for two key reasons. The first is North Korea's “Ten Step” negotiating strategy—an approach that the DPRK has successfully adopted over the past two decades to shake the U.S. and its allies down for oil, food and economic assistance and to “buy time.” The second is that North Korea's true strategic objective—ignored all too often by experts and the media alike—is one of reunifying the Korean peninsula under Communist rule and this requires a nuclear weapons program as a shield. When viewed through these two prisms, Pyongyang's policies in recent years make sound strategic sense. Washington's, by contrast, too often do not.
- Political Geography:
- United States, North Korea, and Pyongyang