[칼럼[ Korea Story 12 - Foreign Affairs and National Security 4 by Atty Jeong-kee Kim

(Newskorea=Seoul) Digital News Team = Korea Story 12 - 
<Foreign Affairs and National Security 4   by Atty Jeong-kee Kim>

● North Korean Nuclear History and the Korean Peninsula Denuclearization Process

South Korea has been a hostage to North Korean nuclear weapons for almost 7 years now. With North Korea successfully conducting six nuclear tests and developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting the U.S. mainland, the United States, feeling threatened, came to the negotiation table, temporarily halting the fear of North Korean nuclear weapons. Subsequently, the first and second North Korea-U.S. summits in Singapore and Hanoi were held, with the results being one victory and one defeat. With the seventh nuclear test imminent and the possibility of a third North Korea-U.S. summit unknown, North Korea continues to launch missiles frequently.

The history of the North Korean nuclear issue, which South Koreans must bear, is indeed long. During World War II in 1945, Kim Il-sung, who was a Soviet military intelligence officer, felt fear from the power of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which ended the Pacific War early. In the Korean War in 1953, North Korea was forced into an armistice system due to U.S. threats of using nuclear weapons if it did not agree to ceasefire. These experiences led Kim Il-sung to develop a belief that nuclear weapons were essential for North Korea's survival. After the war, in 1955, North Korea sent hundreds of scientists to the Soviet Union to learn nuclear technology. In 1965, according to the nuclear agreement with the Soviet Union, North Korea began constructing and operating the IMT 2000 research reactor in the Yongbyon area using enriched uranium as a raw material. Particularly in the 1980s, as the communist world experienced waves of openness and liberalization due to the Soviet Union's perestroika and the Tiananmen incident in China, Kim Il-sung, feeling a crisis in maintaining the regime, accelerated nuclear development as a survival strategy, starting to produce plutonium, a nuclear fuel, at a lower level, and in 1989, French satellites captured images of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facilities, marking the beginning of the North Korean nuclear crisis and negotiations.

The beginning was promising. In 1991, the United States, suspecting that North Korea had secured plutonium, declared the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula along with North Korea and withdrew 1,000 tactical nuclear weapons that had been deployed in South Korea. However, in 1993, North Korea’s resistance to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s special inspections led to the first North Korean nuclear crisis. At that time, the Clinton administration even considered bombing the Yongbyon nuclear facilities. Fortunately, through the Geneva Agreement, the United States agreed to replace North Korea’s graphite-moderated reactor with a light-water reactor, in exchange for North Korea halting reactor construction, not reprocessing, and closing radiochemical laboratories, among other proposals. The second North Korean nuclear crisis, which began in 2002, was serious in that it advanced towards establishing nuclear status as a fait accompli. Following reports of North Korea’s nuclear test preparations, North Korea admitted to a highly enriched uranium nuclear program, announced the successful reprocessing of nuclear fuel rods in 2003, and in 2005, finally declared itself a nuclear power, launching missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads in case of emergencies. Then, in 2006, North Korea carried out its final card, a nuclear test.
 
Since then, North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests by 2017 and has become an unofficial nuclear state with an estimated 100 nuclear weapons. North Korea has succeeded in miniaturizing and lightening nuclear weapons and has developed intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of attacking the U.S. mainland. The unavoidable truth is that North Korea has become a nuclear power. 

From the U.S. perspective, it faces a situation where it must go to war, come up with a peaceful solution, or find a third alternative to completely eliminate nuclear weapons. 

First of all, what if the United States chooses war? 
In conclusion, it is a game with no chance of winning for the United States. North Korea has over 10,000 underground military facilities that are difficult to detect, making it impossible for the United States to destroy all of them in a short-term conflict. To destroy North Korean nuclear facilities through simultaneous and short-term attacks would involve tremendous radiation leakage, bringing disaster to the surrounding countries. Moreover, since North Korea is mountainous, a long-term war could turn into a convenional war, with a high likelihood of escalating into guerrilla warfare, resulting in a surge in casualties, which would shift U.S. public opinion towards opposition to the war. Considering the difficulty of completely eliminating North Korean nuclear weapons in a short-term conflict, the United States is unlikely to create a war situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Next, what if the United States chooses peace? In conclusion, it would be a long and arduous path requiring protracted negotiations. What the United States desires is a simultaneous and parallel denuclearization of nuclear weapons, nuclear facilities, nuclear materials, and nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles, aiming for CVID (Complete, Verifiable, Irreversible Dismantlement). North Korea will not abandon its nuclear weapons, which are essential for its survival under a single-man leadership system. Therefore, it will demand a 'fake denuclearization,' i.e., a phased denuclearization while buying time by only freezing nuclear activities and dismantling intercontinental ballistic missiles. In return, North Korea will seek to resume inter-Korean economic cooperation and trade with the Western world, including the United States by easing UN sanctions and lifting sanctions to revive its economy.

Although unlikely, if North Korea were to accept the CVID desired by the United States, it would demand transition from the armistice system to the peace system on the Korean Peninsula. In this process, it would also require the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea and the prohibition of nuclear-capable aircraft carriers approaching the Korean Peninsula. Additionally, North Korea would seek assurances for regime security, including protection from external threats and guarantees against regime collapse due to internal divisions. To revive the devastated North Korean economy, North Korea would demand a North Korean version of Marshall Plan, i.e., a large-scale economic recovery plan, asking for $600 billion in investments over the next 10 years from South Korea, China, the United States, Japan, and others. While other demands might be addressed, the investment request is challenging due to the nature of the single-man leadership system, making full reform and openness nearly impossible. It is a harsh reality that sustained large-scale capital investments over a decade are not easily achievable.
 
If North Korea's peaceful demands are accepted and denuclearization is achieved, what will be the future of the Korean Peninsula? Even if North Korean nuclear weapons are eliminated while Kim Jong-un is alive, there is no guarantee that U.S.-North Korea relations will improve. Although North Korea's nuclear weapons may be gone in the short term, the country still has nuclear experience, technology, and uranium (26 million tons!!) buried underground, making it capable of rearming in the future. It should not be overlooked that Kim Jong-un has achieved two of his post-Kim Il-sung goals—nuclear development and military-first policy—while the remaining goal of reform and openness will not progress at the pace desired by South Korea, the United States, and Western countries during his lifetime. Even if a large-scale economic project like the Marshall Plan were implemented, it would proceed under Kim Jong-un's control, making it unrealistic to have high expectations.
If both war and peace are challenging, does it mean that spring will never come to the Korean Peninsula?

☆ Author:  Atty Jeong-kee Kim ☆

● Education
- Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Summa Cum Laude, State University of New York at Stony Brook
-  Doctor of Jurisprudence, Marquette University Law School
- Senior Executive Program, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
- Research Scholar in North Korean Studies, Peking University

● Experience
- Consul General of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai
- Commissioner General for the Korean Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo
- CEO, Asia-Pacific Local Government Network for Economic and Social Development (CityNet)
- Secretary General, World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization(WeGO)
- Law Clerk, Milwaukee Circuit Court, USA
- Senior Attorney-at-Law, Dr & Aju LLC
- Distinguished Visiting Professor, World Economy Research Institute, Nanjing University
- Research Professor, Institute of Oriental Studies, Peking University
- Distinguished Professor, Graduate School of Political Science, Kookmin University
- Chair Professor, Graduate School of Business, Dongguk University
- First President of Soongsil Cyber University

● Publications
- Georo English Studies Series for College Students [10 volumes] (Georo Publishing)
- I Challenge the Possibility of One Percent (Chosun Ilbo)
- The Art of Negotiation (Cheongnyonneongsin Publishing)
- Korea and the World (Chekmidum Publishing)