Roman Harak
Children in Pyongyang, North Korea.
Donald Trump’s approach to North Korea—which consists of a combination of death threats, taunts, and “maximum pressure” tactics—has proven to be counterproductive: North Korea has accelerated its nuclear program and tensions have reached a fever pitch. Leading nuclear security expert Scott D. Sagan assesses that the risk of nuclear war has reached a historic high.
Yet, instead of re-evaluating its strategy, the Trump Administration is intensifying it.
The problem isn’t that there are no good options in regards to North Korea, as is frequently claimed. Instead, the problem is the Trump Administration’s approach to North Korea. As a whole, the administration has failed to employ a key diplomatic tool, one that has proven invaluable in resolving international disputes and has previously succeeded in reigning in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
That tool is empathy.
Although we more commonly associate empathy with interpersonal relations, empathy plays a strategic role in international relations. Without empathy, it is impossible to obtain a nuanced understanding of foreign leaders’ perspectives, predict their behavior, or influence them effectively.
Economist Jeffrey Sachs has argued that President John F. Kennedy was able to solve the Cuban Missile Crisis because he “repeatedly imagined himself in [Soviet Union leader Nikita] Khrushchev’s position in order to assess his motivations and to induce him to withdraw the missiles without humiliating the Soviet Union.” Conversely, author Robert Wright argues that “had we put ourselves in the shoes of Sunni Iraqis, we might have guessed that replacing a longtime Sunni leader with a Shiite leader would strike them as threatening—so threatening that . . . rebellion could ensue.”
The exercise of empathy has proven invaluable in resolving international disputes and has previously succeeded in reigning in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
An empathetic approach has been similarly effective with North Korea in the past. The Clinton Administration negotiated the Agreed Framework in 1994 that led North Korea to suspend its nuclear program. Clinton’s negotiators succeeded, political expert Alexander Zhebin said recently, because they “took the other side's interests into account.” The agreement by and large held up for nine years—until the Bush Administration decided to axe it.
If we put ourselves in North Korea’s shoes, we can better understand why Trump’s strategy has failed and, more importantly, determine what strategy would be effective.
North Korean fears over Trump’s threat to “totally destroy” their country is rooted in history: the United States quite literally destroyed North Korea during the Korean War, burning every town to the ground. When U.S. bombers fly over the North Korean coast, the action dredges up the collective memory of the U.S. carpet bombing campaign that killed an estimated 12 to 15 percent of the population. General Douglas MacArthur called it “a slaughter such as I have never heard of in the history of mankind.”
More recent history has only reinforced North Korea’s perception that the United States poses an existential threat. George W. Bush’s Administration used false pretenses to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, plunging the country into a state of protracted sectarian warfare from which it still has not recovered.
If one acknowledges this fear, it is easier to understand how North Koreans can be convinced that nuclear weapons are instrumental to their survival. In fact, according to Professor John Delury of Yonsei University, “North Korea learned from Iraq that Saddam Hussein’s mistake was he did not possess the weapons of mass destruction he was falsely accused of having.”
Many Americans, too, believe that nuclear weapons are essential to their national security, even though the United States has never endured such destruction at the hands of a foreign power.
Threats, military deployments, and drills have only increased North Koreans’ sense of insecurity, leading them to accelerate their nuclear program. Sanctions—no matter how stringent—will continue to fail because economic penalties are of little consequence when survival is at stake. As Vladimir Putin phrased it, North Koreans would “rather eat grass but will not give up the nuclear program if they do not feel safe.”
Therein lies the key to resolving the crisis: the United States must make North Korea feel safe. Doing so would also make the United States more secure. Even the CIA agrees that North Korea would not attack the United States unless its leaders believe there is an unavoidable and imminent threat.
Therein lies the key to resolving the crisis: the United States must make North Korea feel safe.
One optimal solution would be a “freeze-for-freeze.” In such an agreement, the United States would agree to suspend its most provocative drills in exchange for North Korea’s suspension of nuclear tests. This would assure North Korea that its existence is not at immediate risk and prevent it from carrying out subsequent tests. China, Russia, Germany, and independent experts all support such a solution. Even American military analysts have advocated for it, explaining that it is possible to suspend these drills without compromising military readiness.
Unfortunately, we are currently at the disadvantage of being led by an empathetically challenged President who has not only refused to consider such a proposal, but has also displayed an active desire to use nuclear weapons, irrespective of their target, and doesn’t appear to have any qualms about instigating conflicts that result in civilian deaths.
Congress must therefore step up to dictate an effective foreign policy strategy with North Korea. It has done so in the past. It can, for example, revoke authorization and funding for specific military drills, thereby compelling the Trump Administration to pursue a freeze-for-freeze agreement.
The tragic irony of the situation is that Americans and North Koreans both want the same thing: security. If the United States fails to resolve the North Korea crisis peacefully, it will not be due to irreconcilable differences or intractable conflict dynamics. Instead, it will be a result of leadership failure—and our own failure to hold our leaders accountable.
Lisa Fuller is a civilian peacekeeping expert who spent the past eight years working in war zones such as Iraq, South Sudan and Sri Lanka. Follow her on Twitter: @gigipurple.