Some on-point congressional testimony on sanctions as part of a broader N. Korea policy
Reuters reports that, following North Korea’s weekend missile test, the Trump administration “will consider a full range of options in a response to Pyongyang’s missile test” that are “calibrated to show U.S. resolve while avoiding escalation.”
What we’re about to confront is the question of whether we can coexist with a nuclear North Korea — or, more precisely, whether a nuclear North Korea will coexist with us.
This is where its nuclear weapons program fits into North Korea’s designs. In Pyongyang’s thinking, the indispensable instrument for achieving the DPRK’s grand historical ambitions must be a supremely powerful military: more specifically, one possessed of a nuclear arsenal that can imperil and break the foreign enemies who protect and prop up what Pyongyang regards as the vile puppet state in the South, so that the DPRK may consummate its unconditional unification and give birth to its envisioned earthly Korean-race utopia. [Nicholas Eberstadt, Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, January 31, 2017]
I might add: Pyongyang will soon pose a direct nuclear threat to the United States. It launched cyberterrorist attacks against us to censor our own freedom of speech. It built a nuclear reactor in a part of Syria now controlled by ISIS. It sells surface-to-air missiles to terrorists. It’s cooperating with Iran on missiles. It will sell any weapon to any bidder with the asking price. It has long demonstrated its utter disregard for human life. The answer, emphatically, is “no.”
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There are still plenty of items left on this list of options I posted last year, although I take some satisfaction from that fact that many of them have since been done, and we’re now waiting to see their impact. China’s latest sanctions violations on coal imports and cargo inspections are also openings for the new administration to offer strong responses.
Recent congressional hearings have also offered valuable guidance about what that policy should be. Once again, I’ll point to the testimony of former State and Treasury Department official Anthony Ruggiero, which should be required reading for anyone looking to make sanctions work. Ruggiero argues that we have to step up our investigation and enforcement efforts, target Kim Jong-un’s finances more strategically, and be willing to break some china along the way. Begging Beijing to help us is a fool’s errand (it won’t, at least not voluntarily). Our targets should instead be the Chinese banks and businesses that prop up Pyongyang, and that also need access to our financial system.
Also on the topic of sanctions, Victor Cha made this important argument:
The combination of the Treasury Department’s designation of the DPRK as a jurisdiction of “primary money laundering concern” under Section 311 of the PATRIOT ACT, the North Korean Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act, and the sectoral measures sanctions under UNSCRs 2270 and 2321 comprise a new level of sanctioning. There will be many who criticize sanctions as being ineffective. Sanctions are the most maligned instrument in the diplomatic toolbox. The reality is that we don’t know whether sanctions work until they do. That is, only after the North returns to the negotiating table, or falters under pressure, or gives up its weapons, the policy community will point to sanctions and say they work. Until then, folks will say sanctions don’t work.
So we need to keep the pressure on and expand the scope. Sanctioning of North Korea’s slave labor exports and third-party entities that have willful involvement in DPRK insurance fraud schemes should be considered. Secondary sanctioning (discussed below) should also be considered. We also need to work harder on full enforcement of unilateral and multilateral sanctions. Sanctions enforcement should be pursued in conjunction with our allies and regional stakeholders as well as through international mechanisms. [Victor Cha]
Ironically, those who supported the economic subsidies (Kaesong, foreign tourism) that have undermined sanctions are the loudest voices claiming that sanctions have failed, or repeating the factually and legally false claim that years of strong sanctions haven’t worked. If you want to know why sanctions haven’t worked yet, it’s because (1) they were weak, and (2) until at least a year ago, economic subsidies from South Korea and China canceled out whatever limited effects they’ve had.
Then, what strategy do sanctions serve? Our goal can’t just be to force Pyongyang to come back to talks or promise us another unverifiable freeze.
If there is any chance at all that the North would ever entertain the idea of giving up its nuclear program, it would be only because the new administration has made it very clear that the Kim regime is facing a stark choice between keeping the nuclear arsenal and regime survival. [Sue Mi Terry, testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, February 7, 2017]
As I explained here, sanctions can force Kim Jong-un to make difficult choices about allocating limited resources, catalyze corruption and indiscipline within the security forces, instigate inter-factional knife fights as resources dwindle, and convince him that he’s losing control. Anyone who wants to understand how sanctions fit into a broader policy, and what that policy should be, will not see it explained better anywhere than Terry did in her written testimony last week. She explains how sanctions further our medium- and long-term political objectives by weakening the regime’s domestic political support in tandem with information operations that pave the way for change and, ultimately, reunification without war. And as Terry explains, sanctions aren’t the only element of presenting that stark choice (she also argues for subversive information operations, strong alliances, and diplomacy).
Terry is probably right when she argues that while we can’t close off Pyongyang’s option to resolve the crisis diplomatically, “[i]n the final analysis, there is only one way that the threat from North Korean will truly come to an end: the current regime itself must come to an end.”
Another challenge for the United States is how to induce an internal debate among North Korean elites about the costs of a nuclear North Korea. Sanctions alone are likely to convince North Korean elites that their only options are to unite in support of Kim Jong Un and his nuclear policy or to risk regime failure and international retribution-that is to “hang together or hang separately.” [Scott Snyder, Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, January 31, 2017]
Unless, of course, we offer clemency to those who come forward and defect with valuable intelligence, or who refuse orders to fire on civilians, whether in North or South Korea.
For this reason, it is all the more important for senior officials around Kim Jong Un to know that there is an alternative pathway that can safeguard their survival. Given the absence of overt internal dissent within North Korea today, this strategy may also fail. But media reports of accounts by Thae Yong-ho, a high-ranking North Korean official who recently defected, suggest that dissenting opinions and discontent do exist among high-level North Korean elites. The United States and its allies should seek to communicate a clear message and guarantee to those around Kim Jong-un that there is a viable alternative path forward for North Korea if it abandons nuclear weapons and conforms to international norms, including on human rights.