To Disarm North Korea, Focus on Human Rights

"When discussing American policy on North Korea, Robert Joseph likes to cite the aphorism that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

This is the insight at the heart of a recent paper from the National Institute for Public Policy, which calls for a dramatic shift on North Korean policy. It is time to let go of the "false hope that the Kim family regime will relinquish its nuclear weapons through negotiation if only we can find the right mix of carrots and sticks," says Mr. Joseph, lead author of the report and undersecretary of state for arms control and national security in the George W. Bush administration.

Since the 1990s the American goal has been to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program. After 30 years of diplomacy under presidents of both parties, Pyongyang's nuclear program is stronger than ever. When negotiations between the two countries began in the 1990s, North Korea's nuclear program was in its infancy. Today Pyongyang has 40 to 60 nuclear weapons, and missile tests indicate that it may be able to deliver nukes to any American city. Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump all followed the same pattern: Negotiate, make concessions, sit back and watch North Korea build more bombs and ballistic missiles.

The paper proposes, instead, putting human rights at the forefront of U.S. policy. The Reagan administration used human rights in the 1980s as part of its strategy to speed the collapse of the Soviet Union -- against the objections of so-called experts who worried it would heighten tensions.

In this case, the objective is the collapse of the Kim family regime from within. The paper calls for an information campaign to educate North Koreans about the realities of life in their homeland: the abysmal human-rights conditions, including prison camps where hundreds of thousands have died; the corruption of the leadership; and the truth about the world outside their borders. Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and one of the report's co-authors, says these "three stories" would drive North Koreans to enact change.

The information-delivery vehicles would be high-tech and human -- easy-to-smuggle micro-SD cards, for example, as well as communication through networks of informers that human-rights groups and others have developed within the country. One of the campaign's first targets would be the five million to six million citizens with government-approved cellphones. A Starlink-like internet, accessible on official cellphones or phones smuggled in from China, is a possibility, Mr. Scarlatoiu says. In a nation where only 1,000 super-elites are believed to have access to the internet, access for ordinary people could be transformational.

North Koreans are hungry for information and are increasingly willing to take risks to obtain it. Some North Koreans already have bits of knowledge of life outside their borders thanks to illegal trade with China as well as information sent home by the tens of thousands of North Koreans who have fled to China or South Korea in the past 30 years.

Dictator Kim Jong Un understands that information control is key to regime survival. North Korea is the most closed country on earth. Borders are sealed. Radio, television and cellphones are tightly regulated. The regime worries especially about the influence of South Korean pop culture on young people, who might conclude that the North's propaganda about the South is a lie. It recently announced that parents who let their children watch K-pop, Hollywood hits and other illicit foreign media even once would be sent to prison camps.

The human-rights-first strategy is not just for the sake of human rights but to achieve a national-security objective, Mr. Joseph stresses. Diplomacy, military policy and economic sanctions would still be important strategic tools. But a course change in U.S. strategy that "facilitates the people of North Korea determining their own future provides the most viable alternative to the failed policies of the past."

Mr. Joseph is sending copies of the report to likely presidential candidates, and he hopes to meet with them in the runup to the 2024 election. His proposed policy change would meet resistance from the bureaucracy and require leadership from the White House. "Fundamental shifts in policy are always difficult to achieve even when the established policy has been proven to fail," he says.

The RAND Corp. projects that North Korea could have as many as 200 nuclear weapons by 2027.

Given Pyongyang's history of sharing and selling technology, it is likely that some of the bombs will end up in the hands of rogue states and terrorists.

On New Year's Eve, Mr. Kim used his annual address to call for an "exponential increase" in the country's nuclear arsenal. In November the dictator introduced his 10-year-old-daughter, his presumed successor, at the launch site of a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile. The message was that the Kim dynasty is strong and here to stay.

The goal of U.S. policy on North Korea should be complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization. The National Institute for Public Policy paper offers a path for getting there. Refinements are needed, but unlike the failed diplomacy of the past three decades, it doesn't meet anyone's definition of insanity.

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Ms. Kirkpatrick, a former deputy editorial page editor of the Journal, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute." [1]

1.  To Disarm North Korea, Focus on Human Rights
Kirkpatrick, Melanie.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 06 Mar 2023: A.17.