“North Korea Policy: Changed Regime” is the latest article published by Military Review by DKI APCSS associate dean and senior military professor Col. James M. Minnich, U.S. Army.
According to Minnich, “The denuclearization of North Korea has been a failed policy objective of the United States and South Korea for twenty-five years. Missteps, hubris, and sophistry clutter past approaches to forestall a nuclear-armed North Korea, but they need not portend today’s policy path. Lost opportunities abound, but it is not too late to peacefully eliminate Pyongyang’s burgeoning nuclear arsenal. North Korea’s denuclearization will be a byproduct of a successful engagement policy, not its singular objective. The North Korea solution that is needed is a policy of changed regime, not regime change. A changed-regime policy will transform North Korea from within by resolute engagements from without and will require an all-weather security guarantee of the entire Korean peninsula, both North and South Korea. An effective changed-regime policy will embrace parallel pursuits that include security, relations normalization, cooperative prosperity, and alternative energy substitutions, while delimiting ardent ambitions to heal all ills at once.”
“Much is at stake because of Pyongyang’s pursuit of nuclear weapons,” says Minnich. “At the forefront of risks are nuclear strikes, preventive wars, conflict escalation, worsened relations, unabated humanitarian crisis, proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology, and a weakened Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). While North Korea is not seeking a first-strike capability, it is difficult to imagine that Pyongyang would refrain from employing nuclear weapons in the face of externally provoked instability that presents an existential threat to its national security or regime survival.”
Minnich suggests “today’s policy path toward the next negotiation to denuclearize North Korea is found by first understanding and then not repeating past failures.” In the article, Minnich proposes how to implement a policy of changed regime by examining the failures of four previous denuclearization agreements: the 1992 Inter-Korean Joint Denuclearization Declaration, the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework, the 2003 to 2008 Six Party Talks, and the 2012 U.S.-North Korea Leap Day Deal.
Read the full article online at: http://www.armyupress.army.mil/journals/military-review/online-exclusive/2017-online-exclusive-articles/north-korea-policy/
Military review is a professional journal of the U.S. Army.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Daniel K. Inouye Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
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1905 was a critical time line when Japan turned Korea to a conflict zone. After 1945, Japan accepted its defeat but Former Soviet played war turn Korea to a different turmoil. China entered to Korean War in 1950 that led to divided Koreans into two South with US and Japan and inclined to Soviet and China. With this history, we should try to understand why Korean Peninsula is still troublesome.