The Story Behind Obama’s Olive Branch to North Korea

The Obama regime has suddenly changed its stance on North Korea. A State Department spokesperson recently reported that the State Department is preparing for bilateral talks with North Korea to pressure the nation to rejoin the six-party talks. Up until now, the U.S. had insisted that North Korea first rejoin the six-party talks. Now the United States has taken the initiative to enable direct bilateral talks with North Korea. What’s the back story?

First, this development indicates that the United States may be making an effort to fundamentally revise its global nuclear strategy.

The United States has been vacillating on the North Korea nuclear question for a long time, indicating that it has not come up with a way to systemically reform its nuclear policy. During the cold war, the “strategy of containment” so fundamental to the U.S. nuclear policy was logical, clear, and effective. With the conclusion of the Cold War and the global proliferation of nuclear weapons, the U.S.’ nuclear nonproliferation strategy has been drawn in two different directions; nuclear strategy has become the U.S.’ Achilles’ heel. Nuclear weapons are the main source of conflict in the Middle East, in Iraq and Iran, and between Pakistan and India. North Korea has made the utmost of the strategic potential of its nuclear weapons.

During his eight years in office, Bush squandered most of his energy on the Iraq War, and had little left for the comprehensive revision of nuclear strategy that the end of the Cold War made necessary. Obama has clearly stated that he supports total nuclear disarmament. However, this is merely a distant goal, so distant that the president himself has said that he does not believe he will achieve it during his presidency. But Obama understands that in order to go down that long road, the United States must begin by fundamentally rethinking its nuclear strategy.

The United States has already submitted a comprehensive resolution on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament to UN member nations, expected to be adopted on the 24th of this month. Suffice to say, Obama has made his move, but it is a limited one. The resolution made no mention of the nuclear test-ban, which the U.S. has long been unable to agree to. What’s more, we are still not seeing the United States fundamentally restructure its nuclear policy or lay out a framework for global negotiations on nuclear weapons after the resolution is passed.

Second, things are beginning to get interesting for Japan’s new administration.

The only obstacle to direct talks with North Korea is Japan. To this day, Japan’s only motivation for participating in the six-party nuclear talks has been to obstruct those talks. If the six-party talks is successful, Japan would have to normalize relations with North Korea, and in turn would have to make apologies, dispense compensation, and face up to other awkward obligations. Furthermore, the day that relations with North Korea are normalized will be the day Japan will lose its excuse for military build-up. Thus, when it comes to the six-party talks, it is in Japan’s interest to conflate the North Korean nuclear problem with North Korea’s kidnapping of Japanese citizens, when, in fact, the issues are unrelated.

North Korea knows well that if it can only normalize relations with the United States, Japan will be a cinch. This is why North Korea relentlessly pursues the United States, but is standoffish towards Japan.

However, Japan is now in the midst of an administration change. Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama has sought diplomatic independence from the United States, and at the same time has insisted that the United States, in its dealings with North Korea in the six-party talks, give special attention to the kidnappings issue. So the U.S. has used the opportunity to suddenly choose to leave Japan alone, as if to say, “If you want to be independent, then I won’t have anything to do with you!”

Almost at the same time, North Korea has reached out to the new Democratic Party of Japan administration to propose talks between the two nations, something that has rarely been seen this year. This move on North Korea’s part indicates that North Korea hopes the new Democratic Party administration in Japan will go easy on North Korea. Just as the United States turns its attention away from Japan, North Korea views this as an opportunity to develop relations with Japan.