By Liz Whitfield
Refusing to reengage diplomatically with North Korea would be a serious blow to U.S. national security interests.
Right now, the world’s attention is focused firmly on the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. But there’s another country that deserves at least as much attention, if not more: North Korea. The hermit kingdom’s nuclear weapons program is looking more and more dangerous these days. Recently, Admiral William Gortney announced that it is now the United States’ official assessment that North Korea is capable of mounting a miniaturized nuclear warhead atop an intercontinental ballistic missile. This is a significant and extremely threatening development because it means that North Korea may actually have the capability to target the United States with a nuclear weapon. In spite of this revelation, the United States continues to give North Korea the cold shoulder diplomatically.
The major avenue for negotiations over the DPRK’s nuclear weapons has historically been the Six-Party Talks, but these talks have been stalled since 2009. The most recent attempt at diplomacy was the 2012 Leap Day Deal (PDF), which broke down when North Korea launched a long-range rocket, in violation of the agreement. Since then, the U.S. position on restarting negotiations has been that North Korea must take steps towards denuclearization before talks can begin again, and that talks can be focused only on convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear program completely rather than on limiting the program. However, as others have pointed out, this “strategic patience” approach is a recipe for inaction. Given the dangerous direction that North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs is headed, we can’t afford to give them the silent treatment forever.
There are plenty of arguments floating around for why the United States shouldn’t reengage diplomatically with North Korea; however, most of them don’t stand up to scrutiny. Here is a partial list of these arguments and why they aren’t convincing:
Read the full story at The Diplomat