{"id":53029,"date":"2021-02-25T07:48:28","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T07:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=166631"},"modified":"2021-02-25T07:48:28","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T07:48:28","slug":"time-for-a-new-approach-to-north-korea-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/25\/time-for-a-new-approach-to-north-korea-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Time for a New Approach to North Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"
As President Joe Biden takes office, a host of North Korea watchers, analysts, and former diplomats have put forward recommendations for how the new administration should deal with North Korea. Many rightly point out that the conflict in Korea will be among Biden\u2019s biggest foreign policy challenges \u2014 and that the current circumstances portend significant humanitarian needs and the looming possibility of more military tensions.<\/p>\n
However, what these discussions leave out reveals a glaring gap between conventional thinking in Washington and the reality of the conflict. They also reveal the gap between domestic and foreign policy conversations in the United States. Closing these gaps are the only way to build lasting peace in Korea.<\/p>\n
What is often lost in the popular news coverage and analysis on North Korea is that the U.S. has technically been at war with North Korea since 1950, making it by far Washingtin\u2019s longest running war abroad. The fact that the U.S. and North Korea never signed an official peace treaty is the reason why there is still so much conflict and military build-up on the Korean Peninsula today.<\/p>\n
In other words, the unended war is the cause of the geopolitical tensions we see today. And nuclear weapons are the symptoms of this unended war.<\/p>\n
Many lawmakers and pundits argue that North Korea must denuclearize in order for the U.S. to make peace, or that a peace treaty is something to use as leverage over North Korea. This reasoning, however, amounts to \u201cwe\u2019ll make peace when they surrender\u201d or \u201conce they give us all their weapons.\u201d From the perspective of North Korea, these demands sound unreasonable and out of touch with the reality of the conflict.<\/p>\n
The conventional thinking typically falls along the lines that sanctions, isolation, and general pressure will eventually make North Korea buckle and give up its weapons. The logic rests on the idea that the North Korean regime will change its behavior, or that the country will run out of resources and collapse, or that ordinary people will turn against their own government for isolating their country.<\/p>\n
These ideas may sound logical to some. But, after 70 years, it\u2019s clear this approach doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
Since the ceasefire in 1953, North Korea has endured the collapse of the Soviet Union, a major famine, many natural disasters, epidemics, pandemics, and more \u2014 all while being sanctioned and isolated by the U.S. and, since 2006, much of the international community. The idea that sanctions and isolation will cause North Korea to collapse or undergo a political revolution is clearly wishful thinking.<\/p>\n
The Biden administration, then, must base its approach on ending the cause \u2014 the frozen state of war with North Korea \u2014 rather than an approach that\u2019s exclusively focused on denuclearization, which is a symptom. To do this, the new administration will need to build trust and start small \u2014 something that should be doable even with the overwhelming domestic challenges that need to be addressed.<\/p>\n
Just before the election, Biden wrote an article for the South Korean news service Yonhap<\/em><\/a> largely addressing Korean Americans and making a promise to pursue family reunions between Korean Americans and their loved ones in North Korea. These families have heard these promises before and question whether this new administration will work in earnest to make good on that promise. The signs are not encouraging. Yet, it is not just a humanitarian crisis that needs to be addressed, but a viable way of building trust and healing the wounds of war.<\/p>\n There remain a host of other humanitarian issues and small steps that whole be low hanging fruit for the new administration.<\/p>\n For example, a labyrinth of sanctions regulations have impeded humanitarian aid programs for years. Most of these issues stem from U.S. domestic regulations. The handful of U.S. nonprofit organizations that carry out aid programs in North Korea not only provide lifesaving aid to civilians, they are an essential channel of communication and represent the best of our values. Yet their work has been subject to intense regulation and scrutiny<\/a> from the U.S. government \u2014 the diplomatic equivalent of chopping off your nose to spite your face. These regulations can and should be changed to allow humanitarian agencies the access they need when North Korea reopens its borders.<\/p>\n