The North Korea Nuclear Crisis: A Strategy for Negotiations
May 01, 2003
by Alan D. Romberg and Michael Swaine
For the United States, any negotiating strategy must aim to
achieve the complete, verifiable abandonment by North Korea of its
nuclear weapons program. It is by no means clear that North Korea will
ultimately refuse to dismantle its nuclear program if it obtains
political, security, and economic benefits sufficient to ensure regime
survival for now, especially if the alternative appears to be a
confrontation that could well lead to regime change. Therefore, any
subsequent negotiations must be designed, first and foremost, to test
the North's willingness to give up that program. But over time, it will
also be important to address the termination of any chemical and
biological weapons programs and, eventually, the far broader question of
reducing and redeploying conventional weapons. For the moment, however,
focusing on the elimination of the nuclear weapons program and on
constraining the missile delivery systems will be more than enough to
handle and sufficient to quell the current crisis.
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here for the entire article, originally published in Arms Control Today.
