Synchronization of Approaches Between Allies More Difficult

This is the second in a series of articles on U.S. President-elect Barack Obama who will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States on Jan. 20.

By Kirk Larsen

The election of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has given hope to many looking for change in American policy on a variety of fronts, including the nearly moribund six-party talks.

While the prospect of an Obama presidency certainly does present opportunities for progress, the hope that an Obama administration will bring must be tempered by the reality that the complete and final elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons is a long-term prospect at best.

Any change of administration offers the possibility of new approaches and new faces, which, in theory, could reinvigorate a stalled negotiating process.

As for Obama, these prospects are enhanced by the fact that the incoming President will enjoy, at least for a time, enormous global approval, as opinion polls in nearly every nation on earth demonstrated support for him.

Even the DPRK sent signals through its official media and proxies in Japan that it welcomed an Obama victory. In addition, an Obama administration is less likely to be torn by the factional infighting on the issue of North Korea that plagued the Bush administration in the last eight years.

Few observers expect Vice President-elect Joseph Biden to aggressively pursue foreign policy interests and tactics at odds with the stated goals of the President, as Vice President Cheney was often accused of doing in regards to North Korea issues during the Bush administration.

Obama and his chosen negotiators will be able to present a consistent and coherent position that can verily be said to represent the entire administration. Furthermore, Obama spoke during his campaign of his willingness to meet with world leaders, including Kim Jong-il, ``without preconditions.''

While there has been some evidence of backtracking from this bold promise, a high-level delegation or even a presidential summit appears not to be outside the realm of possibility. Such as move would go far in satisfying the perennially status-seeking North Koreans.

One can, then, envision a future in which Obama, by engaging in personal diplomacy with the DPRK, could help revive the stalled six-party talks and move negotiations forward toward a comprehensive resolution of the North Korean nuclear weapons and other issues.

However, it is important to not raise expectations beyond unreasonable levels. President Obama will operate under some significant constraints that will considerably reduce the prospects of a successful resolution of North Korean issues.

It's vital to note that Obama's stated goals regarding North Korea do not greatly differ from those of the Bush administration. In February 2008, Obama stated, ``I have no illusions about North Korea, and we must be firm and unyielding in our commitment to a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula.''

More recently, he declared his support for ``direct and aggressive diplomacy with North Korea" with the objective of ``the complete and verifiable elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons programs.''

Given Obama's consistent attention to the issue of nuclear weapons proliferation, it would not be surprising to see him take an even less flexible stance toward tolerating a nuclear-armed North Korea than his predecessors.

And since North Korea's nuclear weapons status moved from ``developing" to ``declared" (and demonstrated by an underground test) in 2006, it is extremely unlikely that the DPRK will be willing to completely negotiate away its newly earned elite status any time soon. A change in tone and tactics on the part of the Obama administration will be welcome and helpful, but the fundamental conflict between North Korea's desire to keep nuclear weapons for reasons of security and status will remain, as will the outside world's desire to eliminate those weapons.

Other Issues

In addition, as did his predecessors, President Obama will find many other issues competing for his time, attention, and political capital.

Ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Israel-Palestinian conflict top the list of foreign policy issues that Obama will face, however dwarfed by the financial and economic crisis at home, the moment he takes office.

Domestic economic issues will not only draw attention from second-tier foreign policy issues such as North Korea; it will also sharply reduce the amount of financial aid and other resources that the United States might offer in some sort of future ``grand bargain" with North Korea. Trying to sell the idea of sending millions (if not billions) of dollars to North Korea while millions of Americans suffer without jobs will prove to be a difficult prospect at best.

Finally, it is important to note that Obama's election signals the latest in a series of pendulum shifts in Washington and Seoul which have made synchronization of policies and approaches between the United States and the Republic of Korea all the more difficult.

This issue has bedeviled U.S.-ROK relations since at least the mid-1990s, when a negotiation-favoring Clinton administration had to work with a hard-line Kim Young-sam Blue House, which was proceeded by the more open-to-engagement administrations of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, who mostly had to work with a Bush administration that, at least until 2006, adopted a tougher line on North Korea.

Now, when the pendulum in Washington appears to be swinging back in favor of more flexibility in negotiating tactics, if not in substance, the Obama administration will have to work with a Blue House that has vigorously pushed a Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement ― that Obama has publicly opposed ― and demanded reciprocity with the North, leading to a deterioration in North-South relations at levels not seen since the early 1990s.

At the end of the day, history has demonstrated that the DPRK is a difficult negotiating partner even in the best of times. This has been the case as much with North Korea's former friends, such as the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, as it has been with the DPRK's sworn enemies, surely partly due to its insecurity and anxiety about an outside world that has seldom been kind to it. It is also due in part to the fact that North Korean leaders have learned that hard bargaining can often gain valuable concessions from abroad. For all the hope that an Obama administration brings, the unfortunate reality is that the negotiations ahead promise to be difficult, protracted, and unlikely to achieve fundamental resolutions of the underlying problems any time soon.

The writer is an associate professor of history at Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah.

Who Is Kirk Larsen? Kirk Larsen is a professor at Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah. Prior to joining the university, he was director of Sigur Center for Asian Studies and Korea Foundation associate professor of history and international affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. His primary field of specialization is Korean history. He was also a Fulbright fellow in Taiwan and Korea from 1997-98. He has published reviews in the Journal of Asian Studies and Business History Review and has recently completed a book manuscript, ``From Suzerainty to Imperialism: The Qing Empire and Choson Korea, 1876-1910.’’

[출처 : 코리아타임스]