Kurt Campbell: We need tougher sanctions on North Korea.

Kurt Campbell, President Obama’s former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs and now CEO of The Asia Group, continues to debunk the pair of academic urban legends that North Korea sanctions (a) are maxed out, and (b) therefore, not a promising policy alternative. At a forum in Seoul last week, Campbell called on his former boss to “further toughen financial sanctions against North Korea” if it continues to refuse to give up its nuclear program and continues its military provocations.

“If we face real serious provocations going forward with North Korea, we have to keep one option … The fact is that if we choose, we can make life much more difficult through financial sanctions on North Korea,” Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs during the first term of President Barack Obama, said in a forum in Seoul. [Yonhap]

Unlike most journalists and academics who parrot these urban legends, Campbell has actually had the benefit of an informed examination of the authorities.

“I thought North Korea was the most sanctioned country in the world, but I was (proven) wrong when I was involved in the previous U.S. efforts to lessen sanctions on Myanmar in the past,” he said. “Myanmar is sanctioned about 10 times (more than) North Korea.” 

It would be interesting to know whether Campbell is taking a jab at his successors, or whether (as I suspect) he’s really sending a message on their behalf. Campbell also offered this elegant critique of the Sunshine Policy and its many variations:

The U.S. has for the past 20 years tried to give North Korea a choice between engagement with the international community and isolation, he said.

“The North Korean answer has always been both as opposed to choice … and it’s not clear we would be able to try to accommodate this,” he said.

Then, Campbell made another provocative suggestion: perhaps Six Parties are too many for regional diplomacy with North Korea. The question Campbell didn’t answer is who should be kicked out. There are so many good candidates for expulsion that it’s hard to see who ought to remain. North Korea itself has consistently reneged on its commitments with the other parties; talks about North Korea have proceeded before when North Korea boycotted them, and could continue as a place for the other five parties to coordinate policy and improve sanctions enforcement.

That China has demonstrated a consistent pattern of double-dealing and sanctions-busting is beyond serious debate. Talks could continue without China, among parties that really are serious about disarming North Korea. Dealings with China would have to continue in other venues, of course, but won’t make progress until China sees that the other parties are serious about enforcing sanctions.

I’ve always thought Russia’s inclusion in the 6PT was a me-too afterthought. Including Russia mostly served to give China a partner in reluctance. Since Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, Russia has shifted toward propping Pyongyang up financially and flouting North Korea sanctions, notably by forgiving North Korea’s debt and hosting Ocean Maritime Management. Japan has also broken with its allies to go its own way, and so, for that matter, has the United States when it suited us.

Finally, there is South Korea, the country with the most direct security interest in disarming North Korea, and the beneficiary of billions of dollars in U.S. defense spending each year. It’s especially ironic that Seoul has never committed itself to offering North Korea the strategic choice Campbell is talking about. Its byungjin-friendly financial subsidy of North Korea has blunted the pressure that U.N. sanctions were intended to apply, signaling to North Korea that it can have both nukes and ski resorts.

Europe is not one of the six parties, but some Europeans have offered that it should be. Europe could be offered a place, but only if it commits to playing a more productive role than it has in the past. Until recently, Europe’s main interaction with North Korea had been to host Kim Jong Un’s offshore slush funds in its banks, to sell him the luxury goods that should have paid for food instead, to support byungjin-friendly (that is, largely unconditional, regime-focused) engagement with Pyongyang despite its manifest failure, and then to oppose the strong enforcement of U.N. Security Council sanctions on humanitarian grounds. Despite rising consciousness of North Korea’s crimes against humanity in Europe, its compliance with U.N. sanctions is still poor.

It’s not clear to me whether there should be fewer parties than six or more, or which nations should be represented in them. It is clear that the United States has failed to use the full extent of its financial, diplomatic, cultural, and military influence to unite around a strategy of effective pressure, and then to pursue it until North Korea is disarmed — completely, verifiably, and irreversibly. Ironically for a President and a Secretary of State who each had emphasized diplomacy in their respective campaigns for the presidency, neither has had diplomatic success in coordinating the North Korea policies of our allies and military dependents in Northeast Asia, to say nothing of our rivals.

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* Byungjin is North Korea’s term for a doctrine under which it will both enrich itself economically and continue to improve its nuclear weapons capability.