by Cheryl Rofer
It's hard to know what the North Koreans are trying to tell us with their nuclear test. Are they demonstrating prowess? This would argue toward what I called the "Christy option" in their nuclear design. Are they simply determined to build a warhead that can fit on their missiles and make it work? That would argue that they changed some things from their first design and are that much closer to something workable.
Likewise, some analysts are arguing that the nuclear test was as much about the succession within North Korea as its relations with the rest of the world. They provide statements and a certain level of rhetoric, but it's hard to know how to interpret that, given that success in negotiating with them has had such a hit-and-miss character.
I do think that there is a pattern that shows that negotiating with North Korea has been more successful than not negotiating, although it's not definitive. Steven Bosworth, the special envoy who was on his way to North Korea when the test took place, thinks so too, as do Joe Klein and Steve Clemons.
But what are we negotiating about? The easy answer in US newspapers yesterday and today has been "denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," or variants on that. The media frequently get these things wrong, so one can't assume that that is Bosworth's objective, although what the media is saying is consistent with all the administration's public statements I'm acquainted with. And the Japanese have inserted a concern with their citizens who have been kidnaped by North Korea into the Six Party Talks.
Negotiations have to have something in them for all sides, though. One of North Korea's big complaints, which I haven't seen in any of the reports of the last two days, is that we are still at war with them. They have other desires, too, like full diplomatic recognition, trade, perhaps recognition as a nuclear power, and desperations like needing more food and electrical power. The negotiations have dealt with some of these, but apparently the state of war hasn't been touched upon. And there seems to be an element of respect that they would like to see expressed toward them.
The shape of talks designed to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula is different from the shape of talks designed to restore an official state of peace to that region. It's an issue of framing.
Given what seems to be a hypersensitivity on the part of North Korea to read as insults what other nations might take to be normal diplomacy, it's not clear that anything will work. There have been missteps by the others of the Six Parties, too.
But it might be worth gaming out at the State Department just what peace talks might look like. They would be more even-handed, probably would seem less demanding to North Korea, and would involve the others of the Six Parties differently.
Here are some of the analyses that don't even mention that state of war. They're discouragingly similar in tone, although the neocons are, not surprisingly, the worst.
Glenn Kessler, Washington Post