The winner of the U.S. presidential race will have to devise a way to de-denuclearize North Korea, possibly with a "a carrot-and-stick approach," according to two policy analysts for the Rand Corp., a nonprofit global policy think tank.
The threat posed by a nuclear-armed North Korea isn’t going away on its own, authors Bruce Bennett and Soo W. Kim said in an op-ed written for The Rand Blog.
“North Korea has reportedly ramped up its nuclear weapons production and has tested several dozen ballistic missiles,” the analysts wrote. “Most estimates suggest that North Korea now has dozens of nuclear weapons, many of which can be delivered by ballistic missiles, with the potential to kill millions of people and otherwise cause immense damage. North Korea also appears anxious to use leverage from its nuclear weapons to strengthen its regime and coerce its neighbors.”
North Korea carried out missile tests in 2016 and 2017 that ramped up tensions in the Korean Peninsula. The tension eased somewhat in 2018 when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered to negotiate an end to his nuclear weapons program, the op-ed said.
The COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. and the presidential election have tended to push the North Korean situation into the background, but the threat remains, the pair said.
North Korea’s economy is dire because of sanctions imposed on the country by the UN and the U.S., Bennett and Kim wrote. The country is having trouble feeding its population. This fact should be exploited to seek disarmament creating rewards for acceptance by North Korea, the analysts said.
“A combined carrot and stick approach may help overcome some of North Korea's reluctance to negotiate the future of its nuclear weapons program,” they wrote. “In terms of carrots, the UN/U.S. could be more explicit about the conditional nature of the existing sanctions. For example, if North Korea were to freeze its nuclear weapons production, would North Korea be able to export a significant amount of coal and apparel to other countries?"
Instead of negotiations, "it may be effective to simply announce what the United States is prepared to offer, recognizing that North Korea will still likely want to negotiate on the margin,” the pair added.
Helping North Korea economically if it agreed to demilitarize would be one possibility, they said. In addition, they proposed inviting a senior North Korean official - perhaps Kim himself - to the U.S. for a two-week visit to help him gain an understanding of America and its desire for peace.
“In terms of sticks, the United States could threaten to increase the severity of the sanctions against North Korea,” the analysis said. “This could be done in part by using U.S. warships in the northern part of the Yellow Sea to interdict North Korean ships participating in the ship-to-ship transfers. Such an action would admittedly not make China happy, but the U.S. is also certainly not happy about the growing North Korean nuclear weapons threat.”
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