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‘Hawk Engagement’

Washington provokes North Korea with aggressive, ‘Axis of Evil’ strategy

Events of the past few months have brought the world to a most dangerous moment in human history, with war imminent not only in the Mideast, but also on the Korean peninsula. Both conflicts are the consequence of a provocative U.S. policy aimed at destroying any government that appears to challenge American global hegemony.

Korea’s current crisis began on Jan. 29, 2002, when President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address declared that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was part of an “Axis of Evil” that included Iran and Iraq. Bush spoke just weeks before his scheduled trip to the Republic of Korea (ROK), where he was to meet with President Kim Dae-jung. His transparent objective was to apply pressure on Kim to replace conciliation with confrontation in his policy toward North Korea.

But the Bush administration had other motives. First, including North Korea with Iran and Iraq in an “Axis of Evil” would counter claims that the United States was waging its “war on terrorism” against Islamic states alone. Second, emphasis on how Pyongyang’s nuclear program posed a grave threat to the United States would compel Congress to authorize funds for its proposed missile defense system. Third, Bush was acting on the advice of his more hawkish advisers who long had urged isolating and increasing pressure on the DPRK to encourage the collapse of its Communist regime.
Bush’s Korea policy contrasted sharply with that of his predecessor, Bill Clinton, who had supported President Kim’s “Sunshine Policy” of encouraging engagement and reconciliation with the DPRK. Within weeks of becoming president, Bush reversed that course, arguing that Pyongyang could not be trusted because it was not fulfilling its agreements, although he offered no evidence to support this claim. Then, in Feb. 2001, he voiced his acute displeasure after Kim Dae-jung joined Russian President Vladimir Putin in a public declaration of support for respecting the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty.

Events the past two years reaffirm a tragic pattern in U.S. policy of subordinating Korea’s interests in pursuit of American objectives elsewhere in the world. For U.S. officials, Korea always has been about someplace else—from the 1905 Taft-Katsura Agreement through the end of the Cold War. The collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union convinced many Americans that the DPRK’s demise was imminent as well. But it has survived the devastating impact of diplomatic isolation, natural disasters, economic destitution, mass deprivation, and the death of Kim Il Sung.

When the Bush administration took power, a foreign policy priority was regime change regarding governments hostile to the United States, including North Korea. Bush immediately implemented a policy one scholar has labeled “hawk engagement” to justify an aggressive strategy to accelerate the fall of the DPRK. Through establishing conditions for cooperation that it knew Pyongyang never could accept, Washington ensured rejection, creating justification for charges of unreasonable inflexibility. This confrontational policy began with stalling on implementation of the Agreed Framework that former president Jimmy Carter negotiated in 1994, providing for Pyongyang to halt its nuclear weapon programs in return for fuel oil, $4.5 billion in funding to build two nuclear-powered electricity plants that did not produce weapons-grade (plutonium) waste, and negotiations to normalize U.S.-DPRK relations.

An obsession with preservation of national security after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has interfered with Americans understanding of the current crisis in Korea. The Bush administration’s emphasis on the DPRK’s malevolence has dominated newspaper and television coverage, most recently in the Jan. 13, 2003, issue of Time magazine.

Two years of public U.S. hostility toward Pyongyang guaranteed confrontation for another key reason. North Korea’s government has based its right to rule on the ideology of juche or self-reliance for preservation of national independence. For the past half century, the DPRK has educated its people to fear the United States as a threat to its security. Once the Bush administration announced its intention to topple Iraq’s regime, North Korea’s leaders, as well as its citizenry, naturally expected to suffer the same fate, as a member of the “Axis of Evil.” These fears were inflamed last summer when Bush claimed the right to launch a preemptive attack against hostile nations possessing weapons of mass destruction. When North Korea admitted in Oct. 2002 that it had a secret uranium (not plutonium) enrichment program, it was an act of deterrence.

The Bush administration responded with a provocative policy that only fueled anxiety in North Korea. In November, the United States announced that it would halt fuel shipments promised under the Agreed Framework and rejected negotiations until Pyongyang abandoned its nuclear program. It then was surprised when the DPRK in December reopened its nuclear facility at Yongbyon, removed monitoring devices, and expelled U.N. inspectors. Reflecting expectation of an invasion, North Korean troops also moved machine guns into the demilitarized zone. Significantly, Pyongyang stated its willingness to halt its nuclear weapons program if the United States would agree to sign a nonaggression treaty with the DPRK. After rejecting this proposal, Washington halted grain shipments to North Korea to compel Pyongyang to meet its demands.

As the new year begins, the world waits fearfully for the almost certain renewal of the Korean War. The Bush administration encouraged Pyongyang’s resort to nuclear diplomacy because it would justify public denunciations of the DPRK’s action and pave the way for the imposition of economic sanctions that would result in the collapse of the Communist regime. But “hawk engagement” instead has angered the ROK because it risks igniting an unnecessary war that would bring incalculable death and destruction. To avert a split with its longtime East Asian ally, the United States retreated, stating its willingness to negotiate with the DPRK. The Bush administration also signaled that it was considering issuance of a formal pledge against an attack on North Korea.

Unfortunately, peaceful settlement of the current crisis will not erase the damage that the Bush administration has inflicted on U.S.-ROK relations. Anti-Americanism in South Korea has reached new levels of intensity because the United States continues to minimize or ignore Korean interests in developing policies toward the peninsula.

And how genuine is the threat of Pyongyang staging a nuclear strike, except in response to a U.S. attack, when doing so would lead to the certain destruction of the Communist system it is so desperate to defend? All Koreans have reason to wish that the Bush administration would pursue its policy of belligerence and provocation someplace else.

Note: Since this article was written, the United States has failed to act decisively to end the crisis. It overreacted to North Korea’s formal withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which was legally consistent with Pyongyang’s ouster of U.N. inspectors. The Bush administration then offered talks on food and energy assistance, but only after the DPRK abandoned its nuclear weapons program. Predictably, Pyongyang rejected this “all for nothing” proposal. Russia’s and South Korea’s efforts at mediation provide reason for optimism that the crisis will not result in war. (Jan. 24, 2003)

James Matray, History