President Trump will meet with Kim Jong Un on Tuesday in Singapore. Nothing concrete will come out of this summit — the lack of South Korean representation guarantees that — but if things go well some sort of agreement is possible eventually. Still, both sides have things to offer economically, diplomatically, and militarily. What might that look like?
Economic Development in North Korea
North Korea’s economy has improved considerably since a low point in the famine of the 1990s. As a side note, the very fact that the DPRK survived this famine – which was absolutely catastrophic – means that it won’t be undone by “economic pressure”. To a North Korean, if you’re not actually starving to death, you’ve got it pretty good by the standards of living memory.
For example
That being said, the North lags way behind the South in all economic indicators except for “production of nuclear warheads”. The difference between the economic development of the North and the South represents an astronomical unrealized gain, and the prospect of getting a slice of that gain is a juicy incentive for everyone involved, including the average North Korean. The problem for the North is how to get there without losing power. Also, the looting of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union is the “Libya War” of economic agreements in terms of negative examples, something the North wants to avoid.
Given the North’s relatively abject economic state, some sort of economic agreement is a given in any agreement. An easy initial step would be the re-opening of the Kaesong Industrial Complex. In the longer term, the South will want to take advantage of cheap North Korean labor as long as possible without having to assume the costs associated with actually integrating large numbers of North Koreans into its society; the chasmic differences in standards of living rule out a “Korean Common Market” or other radical economic proposals.
The North Korean government had a habit, during the Cold War, of playing China and the USSR off of each other to its own benefit economically. This worked quite well; the North’s GDP compared favorably to the South for much longer than commonly assumed. KJU will in all certainty resume this game with the US in place of the Soviet Union.
The Korean economies didn’t diverge until the mid-’70s. Source: Brookings Institution
The End of the Korean War & Reunification of the Koreas
The biggest obstacle to formally ending the Korean War right now is that the North and South both lay claim to each other’s territories. Both sides want a “reunification of Korea” but, barring the collapse of one side (and anyone hoping for this should note that in most respects the North’s government has been more stable than the South’s), it won’t happen suddenly as with Germany.
North Korea’s game plan is to establish a confederacy or “Korean Parliament” with some initially nominal, later real control over both governments. For instance, the Korean Confederacy could pass a measure to express its disapproval of the Yankee puppetmaster’s occupation of the southern portion of the peninsula. Membership would be shared between both Koreas. The northern interests would always vote in alignment with the Kim dynasty’s wishes, and the southern representatives would be divided, a division which the North would promote through various mostly-nonviolent means. As the Korean Parliament gained power, eventually they’d consolidate into a peninsular government, elect Kim IV head of state, and the vestigial Republic of Korea government would dissolve itself. South Korea’s plan, more or less, is the converse of this. Efforts to create or abolish bilateral inter-Korean agreements, however minor, should always be viewed in this light.
The bottom line is that reunification is viewed for good reason by both sides as a gradual process, not something that happens immediately.
The ROK government may have another reason to seek a formal peace treaty and take clear steps on the road to reunification, which is the decreasing interest of younger generations in South Korea in reunification or the North in general. This may represent a process that, if left unchecked, will eventually lead to an solidification of the division between the two countries. This may motivate both sides towards a peace agreement, although I suspect more so on the part of President Moon.
A formal peace treaty will include at least a declaration of Korean unity, and will probably express any economic agreements reached between the two sides in terms of reunification efforts. It will of course leave most of the existing conflict-resolution agreements of the armistice in place, including the DMZ, while ditching cruft like the vestigial Neutral Nations Supervisory Committee.
“Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”
From the North Korean standpoint: there are currently two nuclear states on the Korean peninsula: themselves, and the United States. Further, their own nuclear weapons program only exists because of the threat posed by the United States, who has a history of both using (on Japan) and threatening the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea, beginning in the Korean War and extending to the present day. Not only does the United States hypocritically maintain a gigantic arsenal of nuclear warheads, they have even deployed them in the hundreds to their puppet state in South Korea. Even despite these outrageous provocations, North Korea’s nuclear program remained peaceful until the fall of the Soviet Union left them no choice but to develop weapons in self-defense.
This view is far from insane. The United States withdrew nuclear weapons from the ROK in 1991, although there has been no third-party verification. Still, the South remains credibly under the “protection” of the American nuclear arsenal, while no reciprocal capability exists on the side of North Korea, even in the hands of a third party like the Soviet Union.
North Korea will not even consider any agreement for “Complete, Verifiable, Irreversible Disarmament” (CVID) unless it includes, at least, the complete withdrawal of all US forces from the Korean peninsula to include naval vessels in dock (which may carry nuclear weapons) and concrete, verifiable gestures towards reunification on the North’s terms. In such an agreement, the North Korean governing elite will be the judge of whether Kim has exchanged the North Korean nuclear program for a suitable reward, and their standards will be very high indeed. They may, in fact, be impossible to meet. Given the likely dynamics of the North Korean state, with the negative recent example of Libya thrown on the balance for good measure, I do in fact think that CVID will not happen. However, that doesn’t mean an agreement can be reached.
A more likely agreement will focus on nonproliferation rather than disarmament (although the word “disarmament” might still end up used). The world goes on with a nuclear Israel and a nuclear Pakistan; it can go on with a nuclear North Korea. If KJU thinks that his current arsenal is enough to deter an “intervention” from the United States (or China!) for the indefinite future, he can agree to cease further testing and development of nuclear weapons. An explicit agreement to limit warheads and delivery systems is unlikely because it would require public rather than tacit recognition of the DPRK as a nuclear power.
The dissemination of both nuclear and rocketry knowledge and materials from North Korea is a more serious threat to world order than a small but stable state maintaining a basic deterrent. An enforceable agreement to prevent such dissemination could easily be sold as a win while diplomatically eliding the creation of another nuclear state. Note the converse here as well: a proliferation threat by North Korea if an agreement isn’t reached.
As far as the American contribution to “denuclearization”, a total withdrawal isn’t impossible but very unlikely. An agreement for total withdrawal in exchange for CVID simply requires too much trust, even assuming both sides think it in their interest. It would be a multi-year long process with many chances for accidental or deliberate sabotage.
However, the US has many steps it can take short of the complete dismantlement of US Forces Korea (USFK). The US has in fact continually reduced its military presence in South Korea since the end of the Korean War, and could do so further. It could withdraw its forces south of a certain area – for instance, south of the Han River – with relatively trivial effort. The US currently has relatively few ground combat units in Korea (an armored brigade, an artillery brigade, and an aviation brigade) and their capabilities would not be seriously missed by the ROK armed forces.
The US could also cede wartime operational control of the ROK armed forces back to South Korea. Currently, in the event of a resumption of hostilities with the North, the entire armed forces of the ROK would fall under the authority of the ranking American general in Korea. Efforts to give the South Korean armed forces full autonomy (“sovereignty” might be a more pointed way of putting it) have been subject to endless delays. This issue has nearly zero day-to-day significance, but isn’t irrelevant and is a relatively popular issue for ROK President Moon’s party.
The drawdown of American ground combat forces and the assumption of wartime operational control by the ROK government are ongoing processes. The latter is going to happen anyway, and including it in some sort of agreement would be an easy “concession”, that would in particular make any deal much more palatable to President Moon.
Going a step further, US Air Force combat aircraft could be removed and relocated to Guam and Japan. US could withdraw the THAAD missile defense system (something that would also improve the ROK President’s popularity, although that’s a whole other subject), and generally downgrade the presence of USFK beyond current projections into the future. These are bigger commitments, but they’re not unreasonable.
Inspection of American installations in South Korea to verify the absence of nuclear weapons isn’t entirely out of the question, as long as a suitable third party were found. Precedent exist in the form of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission, for instance. The inspection of American naval vessels docking in Korea is probably unworkable; ultimately, however, such an inspection regime is superfluous. The US can store all the nuclear weapons for use against the DPRK it wants on its mainland, on other bases in the Pacific (e.g. Guam, Japan) or in missile submarines off the Korean coast out of reach of any conceivable inspection regime. Practically, precision-guided munitions have completely displaced tactical nuclear weapons in American doctrine (that the withdrawal of American nukes from Korea occurred soon after the Gulf War is probably not a coincidence).
Conclusion
An agreement that tacitly acknowledges the nuclear status of North Korea while countering proliferation risk, in return for substantial economic development aid and token military concessions is possible, being beneficial to all sides involved. A formal end to the Korean War could occur if in return for nominal first steps to reunification with minimal immediate effects.
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