Once a country has nuclear weapons, it suddenly has much more potential to be a danger to the world. At the same time, the world has far fewer options for dealing with that country. It’s unlikely the United States and Israel would have attacked a nuclear-armed Iran, for example.

That’s why North Korea has become such a headache. Its nuclear weapons have protected it from military strikes, making it an example to other nations eyeing bombs of their own. And all efforts to coerce or persuade it to give up its nuclear program have effectively come to nothing; instead, it has steadily built up its arsenal. Today, my colleague Choe Sang-hun writes about why it might be time to try something new with North Korea.

Out of options
By Choe Sang-hun

When I sat down with President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea earlier this month​, he dropped a bold suggestion that no other major global leader — outside of Beijing and Moscow — has voiced. The world, he said, should lift or ease harsh economic sanctions on North Korea in exchange for halting its nuclear weapons program.

​The idea challenges decades of official U.S. policy, which relies on squeezing Pyongyang until it gives up its nukes. Still, Lee pitched this strategy directly to President Trump, who is looking to restart personal diplomacy with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.

Lee’s core argument was simple: What other realistic option does the U.S. actually have?

Consider the facts on the ground.

​Decades of sanctions have failed to stop North Korea from becoming a de facto nuclear-weapon state​; instead, they have only hardened its will to expand its arsenal.

Pyongyang refuses to negotiate if Washington keeps insisting on immediate denuclearization.

China and Russia are now actively helping North Korea flout these penalties.

In the meantime, its stockpile of atomic warheads and missiles is growing.

Lee argues the world must treat denuclearization as a long-term goal but that the immediate priority must be incentivizing North Korea to freeze its current weapons development. Holding onto maximum pressure while demanding total denuclearization is an “idealistic,” all-or-nothing approach that will only aggravate the crisis, he said.

Lee is one of the first global leaders to say it out loud. But the argument he made is one that’s gaining traction: It’s time to try something new with North Korea.

Sanctions versus denuclearization

The U.S. sanctions against North Korea are nearly as old as their troubled relationship.

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Washington first imposed them in 1950, after entering the Korean War on South Korea’s side. It’s been almost eight decades, but North Korea has yet to buckle under the pressure. Instead, it responded to what it called “American hostility” by conducting six nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017.

Under American leadership, the United Nations tightened the squeeze in 2017, banning major North Korean exports, including coal, textiles and labor.

The added pressure helped bring Kim to talks with Trump. The pair met three times between 2018 and 2019. North Korea wanted sanctions relief; Washington wanted denuclearization. But the talks collapsed ​over the question of timing. Pyongyang wanted early sanctions relief, while the U.S. was unwilling to give up its strongest leverage.

Kim returned home frustrated. But a strategic opening emerged with the war in Ukraine. Pyongyang supplied troops and weapons to Russia; Russia strengthened its economic and military ties with North Korea. China, wary of losing influence in Pyongyang, expanded its own trade with the Hermit Kingdom.

One of the casualties of these geopolitical shifts​ has been the effectiveness of international sanctions. Russia and China worked to dissolve a key United Nations monitoring panel, while the expanding trade has supplied North Korea with fresh capital.

North Korea now faces fewer constraints and possesses more resources to advance its nuclear program. It continues to produce plutonium from spent reactor fuel, has added​ a second uranium-enrichment facility at its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon and expanded another outside Pyongyang. Since 2019, North Korea has also developed and tested a range of nuclear-capable missiles.

Meanwhile, Lee said, “both sides maintain unattainable objectives and do nothing.”

Now what?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve attended several forums where analysts and former negotiators have wrestled with the North Korea puzzle.

Almost no one believes North Korea will give up its nuclear arsenal in one go. Instead, experts envision a long, phased process: freeze the program, then gradually reduce it, until the country is eventually nuclear-free. Along the way, Washington and its allies would offer economic and diplomatic incentives, building toward a permanent peace treaty and, eventually, formal diplomatic ties.

Image
President Trump walking with Kim Jong Un. Three people in suits are visible behind them.
President Trump and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, in 2019. Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times
But ​the road ahead is littered with pitfalls. Every previous round of talks — and every short-lived deal, patched together with vague language — has collapsed into recriminations over details like how to verify a freeze. Frustrated American officials have compared negotiating with North Korea to “buying the same horse twice.” North Korean negotiators have likened their U.S. counterparts to “brigands” trying to force them to lower their gun first.

Even if talks between ​Trump and ​Kim resume, North Korea would come to the table far stronger than during Trump’s first term. Its arsenal has grown, and it now has China and Russia to lean on if talks collapse. With or without a deal, analysts warn, Pyongyang’s real endgame is getting the world to accept its nuclear weapons as a fait accompli, essentially following the path of India and Pakistan into the nuclear club.

Human rights researchers caution that lifting sanctions ​would give ​Kim’s regime more room to exploit forced labor for exports like coal. Others worry​ Trump will be drawn more to spectacle — a surprise trip to Pyongyang, say — than to the hard work of an actual road map​ toward denuclearization.

Still, most agree there’s no real alternative other than trying diplomacy again, and soon. Because at this point, North Korea is adding more weapons to its arsenal every year. The price the world will have to pay for a denuclearized North Korea is only going to grow.

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