More Reasons to Scrap An ‘Agreed Framework’ That is Rewarding Pyongyang As it Continues to Build Nuclear Arms

(Washington, D.C.): According to Reuters, a South Korean newspaper reported today that
U.S.
and South Korean officials have discovered traces of plutonium in the soil surrounding two
locations where U.S. officials suspect North Korea has been engaging in covert nuclear
weapons-related activities. This information adds injury to the insult caused when Pyongyang’s
refused to
permit a team led by U.S. Special Envoy Charles Kartman to conduct a rigorous inspection of an
underground facility believed to be associated with such activity. In the wake
of these
developments, the United States has no choice but to pull out of the 1994 Agreed
Framework — an accord that cannot ensure that North Korea abandons its nuclear
weapons ambitions, once and for all.

Too Bad for ‘Government Work’

On Thursday, Ambassador Kartman (who serves as the Acting Assistant Secretary of State
for
East Asian and Pacific Affairs) confirmed the gravity of the problem: “[The U.S. and South
Korea] both believe there is compelling evidence for nuclear-related activities” at the sites he was
sent to inspect. Even before this revelation, however, there was good reason for the
U.S.,
Japan and South Korea to stop providing two nuclear power plants and many tons of fuel
oil to Pyongyang.

For example, as Victor Gilinsky, a former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner, and Henry
Sokolski, Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, observed in
January:

“The twin-reactor deal never made much sense except on the symbolic level —
for
North Korea. The large reactors are much too big for the small North Korean electric
grid. If North Korea needs more electric generators, it hardly needs the most
expensive ones that take the longest to put on-line and produce plutonium to boot.
The new reactors, while harder for the North to use for plutonium production, would
produce more plutonium than the small indigenous ones they replace. In fact, the
new
reactors, called ‘proliferation resistant’ by the State Department, are essentially the
same as those the State Department labeled a proliferation risk when Russian talked of
supplying them to Iran.”⁽¹⁾

Sokolski and Gilinsky argued persuasively that the economic disadvantages of pursuing
these reactors is evidence that the North Koreans are up to no good. When combined with the
latest intelligence about covert activities, underground facilities and the North’s aggressive pursuit
of long-range ballistic missiles⁽²⁾, the circumstantial case is
overwhelming: Pyongyang is as
determined as ever to acquire the nuclear weapons and intercontinental-range delivery systems
with which to pose a serious threat to the United States, as well as its forces and allies in Asia. href=”#N_3_”>⁽³⁾

The Bottom Line

The functional — if not yet acknowledged — demise of the Agreed Framework makes all the
more
important a news article in today’s Washington Times. According to the
Times, the U.S. and
South Korean militaries have drafted a revised war plan in the event of an act of North Korean
aggression. The new strategy is said to depart from the current U.S. and South Korean plan,
which is aimed merely at restoring the status quo ante — stopping a North Korean
invasion and
pushing the invaders back across the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Instead, the new
strategy
would respond by “demolishing North Korea’s armed forces and capturing Pyongyang, the
capital.”

It is generally bad business to have the details of war plans leaked. In this case, however,
some
good may come of the disclosure if it: credibly puts the North Koreans on notice that the
communist regime will assuredly lose everything in the event it starts a
renewed conflict on the
Korean peninsula; accelerates the timetable for review and approval of this
plan by the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and the President; and prepares the United States and its South Korean
allies
to deal forcibly with a North Korean threat the Agreed Framework is clearly unable to
prevent from materializing.

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1. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
‘Seize the Day’: Asian Financial Crisis Offers
Opportunity to End Dangerous Appeasement of North Korea ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_12″>No. 98-D 12, 21 January 1998).

2. Most recently, North Korea in August tested a three-stage Taepo
Dong 1 ballistic missile over
the Japanese home islands, demonstrating a radical jump in the sophistication of its technology
base and making clear that it will not be long before the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang is able
credibly to threaten the United States with ballistic missile attack. North Korea’s missile
programs demand that the Clinton Administration urgently deploy ground-based THAAD and
anti-missile systems aboard AEGIS ships at sea for the purpose of defending South Korea, Japan
and the U.S., itself.

3. A particularly worrisome scenario has been explored by Dr. Daniel
Fine, an internationally
recognized economist specializing in energy and natural resources at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. Dr. Fine’s analysis suggests that Pyongyang could have a $4-6 billion impact on
the U.S. economy within just 10 days time simply by threatening to attack the $32
billion energy
infrastructure of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.