[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 105 (Wednesday, August 3, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 3, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                              NEXT OF KIM

                                 ______


                           HON. NEWT GINGRICH

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, August 2, 1994

  Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, although there are many important issues 
before us, we must not neglect a critical foreign policy problem: 
nuclear proliferation in North Korea. I urge all Members of Congress to 
read ``Next of Kim,'' an article written by our former colleague, 
Stephen J. Solarz, and published in the New Republic. As Solarz points 
out, the Korean dilemma warrants our attention and immediate action so 
that we can prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons both in Southeast 
Asia and in the Middle East.

                              Next of Kim

                         (By Stephen J. Solarz)

       When Jimmy Carter, after concluding several hours of 
     discussions in Pyongyang with North Korea's Great Leader, Kim 
     Il Sung, declared that ``the crisis is over'' on the Korean 
     peninsula, a sigh of relief could be heard around the world. 
     It appeared as if the drift toward a diplomatic and economic 
     confrontation, and possibly even a military conflict, had 
     been averted. If Carter was right, and no one could say with 
     certainty that he was wrong, the stage had been set for a 
     peaceful resolution of the North Korean nuclear challenge.
       Pyongyang subsequently agreed to permit inspectors from the 
     International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to remain in North 
     Korea to verify its commitment not to reprocess the fuel rods 
     that it had recently extracted from its reactor (which would 
     have given it the capacity to make five or six nuclear 
     weapons by the end of the year), and to refrain from 
     reloading its only operational reactor while negotiations 
     were underway with the United States; and this, too, put wind 
     in the sails of the optimists. So did the setting of dates 
     for a third round of negotiations with Washington in July and 
     the first summit ever between the leaders of the two Koreas 
     in August.
       Then Kim Il Sung died. (The Great Leader's fuel rods were 
     finally spent.) In Pyongyang, nothing was clear. The struggle 
     for succession, if such a struggle is taking place, is 
     obscure; and the likely successor, the Dear Leader, Kim Jong 
     Il, the son of the Great Leader, is even more obscure. It is 
     hard, of course, to make foreign policy in circumstances so 
     uncertain; but it would be a great blunder for American 
     policymakers to allow gossip from Pyong-yang and diplomatic 
     politesse to interfere with the historical and strategic 
     understanding of the North Korean problem. Idle speculation 
     about the succession, or even informed speculation, matters 
     less than the words and the actions of North Korea at the 
     negotiating table in Geneva and at the nuclear facilities in 
     Yongbyon.
       This problem has a past and a logic. Pyongyang has 
     persistently prevaricated on the nuclear issue. Over the 
     years it has consistently said one thing and done another. It 
     signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but refused 
     to carry it out. It agreed to let the IAEA inspect its 
     nuclear facilities but interfered with the IAEA's efforts to 
     do so. It entered into an agreement with South Korea 
     obligating it to dismantle its reprocessing plant but 
     blithely ignored the pact.
       My own experience in North Korea suggests that its 
     commitments have about the same value as Tsarist war bonds. 
     In 1980, when I met Kim Il Sung for the first time, he told 
     me that he favored ameliorating the human consequences of the 
     division of Korea by permitting family visitations, the 
     exchange of correspondence and trade between the peoples on 
     both sides of the thirty-eighth parallel. More than a decade 
     later virtually none of these reforms has taken place. In 
     1991, when I met him for the second time, the Great Leader 
     assured me that he had no interest in obtaining nuclear 
     weapons, and that North Korea was not attempting to construct 
     a reprocessing facility, in spite of the fact that there was 
     incontrovertible evidence the country was doing both.
       Now, despite its promise to ``freeze'' its nuclear program 
     while talks are underway with the United States, North Korea 
     continues work on a 200 megawatt reactor, which will give it 
     the capacity to produce enough fissile material for ten or 
     more atom bombs per year when it is completed in 1996. It is 
     also still constructing a ``second line'' in its reprocessing 
     plant, which will enable it to produce additional nuclear 
     weapons more rapidly should it decide to resume reprocessing 
     in the future. What is needed now, in short, is not wishful 
     thinking but hardheaded analysis.
       Such an analysis must begin with a recognition of the fact 
     that the North Korean nuclear project constitutes the most 
     serious threat to the preservation of regional peace and 
     global nonproliferation in the world today. An unconstrained 
     North Korean nuclear program would give Pyongyang the ability 
     to produce and to stockpile dozens, and eventually hundreds, 
     of nuclear weapons. Far from being over, the crisis may soon 
     be upon us. In the absence of a verifiable agreement bringing 
     its nuclear weapons project to an end, the North Koreans will 
     be in a position to make up to fifteen atom bombs per year by 
     1996, and could easily have more than fifty by the end of the 
     century.
       An atomic arsenal of this magnitude would have a number of 
     dangerous and destabilizing consequences.
       It would increase the risks of another conventional war on 
     the Korean peninsula. Should it decide once again to attempt 
     to reunify Korea under Communist control, or should it decide 
     to break, by military means, the international community's 
     efforts to thwart its nuclear program. Pyongyang would have 
     enormous leverage to end the fighting on its terms, which 
     might encourage it to begin the fighting in the first place.
       It would increase the prospects for a nuclear arms race in 
     Northwest Asia by putting pressure on Japan and South Korea, 
     the countries most immediately threatened by North Korea's 
     nuclear potential, to join the nuclear club themselves.
       It would increase the chances that Japan, for the third 
     time, and South Korea, for the first time, will become 
     victims of a nuclear attack.
       It would increase the possibilities of nuclear 
     proliferation by giving North Korea the capacity to earn 
     desperately needed foreign exchange by selling its fissile 
     material, and even off-the-rack nuclear weapons, to whoever 
     is able to buy them.
       It is likely that the first three of these potential 
     consequences could be averted by the realities of America's 
     conventional military power and nuclear deterrent. North 
     Korea has no interest, after all, in inviting its own 
     destruction by launching another conventional war against 
     South Korea or a nuclear attack against Japan; and so long as 
     the United States credibly reaffirms its determination to 
     consider a nuclear strike against South Korea or Japan the 
     equivalent of a nuclear attack against itself, our allies 
     would most probably continue to refrain from joining the 
     nuclear's club. For this reason, some have dismissed concerns 
     about North Korea's nuclear program on the grounds that, just 
     as we prevented the Soviet Union and China from using their 
     nuclear weapons through a policy of containment and 
     deterrence, we can prevent Pyongyang from launching its 
     nuclear weapons as well.
       But this rather sanguine assessment overlooks the real 
     problem, which is that Pyongyang is more likely to sell its 
     nuclear weapons that use them. If this were to happen, and 
     with an unconstrained North Korean nuclear program it surely 
     will, it would dash whatever hopes still exist for a truly 
     effective and global nonproliferation regime. The Hermit 
     Kingdon, remember, has consistently demonstrated its 
     difference to established norms of national behavior. Among 
     its more notable exercises in international terrorism were 
     its efforts in the 1980s to assassinate the entire South 
     Korean Cabinet during the course of an official visit to 
     Rangoon, the blowing up of a South Korean civilian 
     airliner over the Andaman Sea and the abduction of a 
     leading South Korean actress to satisfy the cinematic 
     appetites of Kim Jong II. Its record of selling 
     intermediate-range missiles to Iraq, Syria, Libya and Iran 
     leaves little doubt that it will provide fissile material 
     and nuclear weapons to whatever rogue regimes and 
     terrorist groups are prepared to pay the market price.
       It is one thing to describe the threat. It is quite another 
     to figure out how to deal with it. The Clinton administration 
     has three options: diplomacy, sanctions and force. With the 
     moment of truth fast approaching, it is important to consider 
     each of these options, and for the United States and its 
     Asian allies to determine not only what they want from North 
     Korean, but what they are prepared to do in order to get it.
       Obviously, the best way to resolve the problem would be 
     through a negotiated agreement in which Pyongyang undertook 
     to abandon its nuclear weapons program. Such a settlement 
     would entail North Korea Dismantling its reprocessing 
     facility, stopping any further work on its 200 megawatt 
     reactor, relinquishing all the fissile material it has 
     already produced, including its recently discharged spent 
     fuel, and accepting ``special inspections'' by the IAEA. 
     Without the latter, which would entitle the IAEA to inspect 
     not just Pyongyang's declared facilities but also any 
     location where it has reason to suspect that prohibited 
     activities may be taking place, it would be impossible to 
     preclude the possibility that, like Iraq before the Gulf war, 
     North Korea had a clandestine program or arsenal. North 
     Korea, after all, has a long history of building large-scale 
     munitions factories underground, as it did during the Korean 
     War, and tunnels under the demilitarized zone, as it did in 
     the years after.
       Such a settlement will require the United States and its 
     Asian allies to be clear about what they would be willing to 
     give North Korea in exchange for such commitments. In the 
     discussions that preceded the recent meeting in Geneva, we 
     said only that we would talk about the normalization of our 
     relationship with Pyongyang if it agreed to our demands, and 
     refrained from spelling out what we would be willing to do 
     for North Korea if it abandons its nuclear project. A 
     purely diplomatic strategy entails making North Korea an 
     offer it can't refuse. (There is always the chance that 
     Pyongyang, which has spoken from time to time about a 
     ``package deal,'' might accept it.) And so we should offer 
     North Korea full diplomatic relations; a no-first-use 
     pledge about the use of nuclear weapons; and whatever 
     economic assistance it needs for its legitimate energy 
     requirements, including, if necessary, a light water 
     nuclear reactor. Japan and some of the other oecd 
     countries would join in providing the resources for the 
     construction of such a facility.
       An offer of this magnitude would be a relatively small 
     price to pay for the termination of North Korea's nuclear 
     enterprise. Actually, all things being equal, the 
     establishment of diplomatic relations with North Korea is in 
     our interest as much as it is North Korea's, given the 
     desirability of exposing Pyongyang as much as possible to the 
     realities of the changing world situation. During the 1980s, 
     when Beijing and Moscow had as little to do with Seoul as 
     Washington and Tokyo had to do with Pyongyang, we pursued a 
     policy of ``cross recognition,'' in which the United States 
     and Japan promised to establish diplomatic relations with 
     North Korea if China and the Soviet Union established them 
     with South Korea. Now that Moscow and Beijing have embassies 
     in Seoul, and a thriving trade with South Korea, Washington 
     and Tokyo are still without a diplomatic presence in 
     Pyongyang, and have minimal economic involvement with North 
     Korea. Recognizing Pyongyang without an acceptable resolution 
     of the nuclear issue would be very foolish, since it would 
     give up one of the main cards in our hand; but extending it 
     in a nuclear agreement would be very wise.
       Such an offer would be worth making, moreover, even if 
     Pyongyang rejected it. With North Korea's real intentions--
     its preference for membership in the nuclear club over 
     normalization of relations with the United States, South 
     Korea and Japan--unambiguously exposed, it would be easier to 
     muster the support, at home and abroad, that will be 
     politically necessary to take the tougher steps, involving 
     sanctions and perhaps even force, that may be necessary to 
     solve the problem.
       Instead of rejecting such a proposal out of hand, Pyongyang 
     is more likely to retort that the offer does not go far 
     enough, that what is really needed is a peace treaty to 
     replace the armistice that has existed for the last forty 
     years. With such a treaty, the United States would naturally 
     be expected to withdraw its forces from South Korea. To be 
     sure, the acceptance of such a demand in the absence of a 
     phased and verifiable reduction in the armed strength of 
     both Koreas, and the establishment of an acceptable 
     balance of indigenous power in the Korean peninsula, is 
     unthinkable. The likelihood, anyway, is that the North 
     Koreans will not agree to all of our demands, even if we 
     provide them with diplomatic recognition, security 
     assurances and economic assistance.
       What, then, will the North Koreans do? At the worst, they 
     will begin to reprocess the extracted fuel rods when they 
     cool off sometime in August, reload their now empty five 
     megawatt reactor and continue to move forward on their 
     nuclear project. At best, they will agree to terminate a 
     future nuclear program, while insisting that we forgo any 
     effort to make them relinquish the fissile material they have 
     already produced, thereby enabling them to maintain a limited 
     nuclear arsenal of at least one or two atom bombs. Each of 
     these possible actions on the part of Pyongyang needs to be 
     carefully analyzed, since each calls for a somewhat different 
     reaction.
       If North Korea once again repudiates its pledges and goes 
     ahead with its nuclear project, we will have no choice but to 
     impose sanctions. Yet we must recognize that sanctions are 
     not likely to be effective in persuading Pyongyang to accept 
     the proposal that would presumably still be on the table. 
     North Korea already has the most autarchic economy in the 
     world. And it is better positioned than Iraq and Cuba, which 
     have resisted sanctions, for three years and thirty, to go it 
     alone.
       But the real problem with sanctions is that their 
     effectiveness is almost wholly dependent on China, which 
     provides Pyongyang with up to 80 percent of its oil, and is 
     the only country with which North Korea has any significant 
     economic relationship. Fearing that sanctions will be 
     ineffectual at best and counterproductive at worst, Beijing 
     does not want to risk either precipitating a collapse of the 
     North Korean regime or alienating its only remaining 
     Communist ally in Asia. Even if it abstained on a U.N. 
     Security Council vote to impose sanctions, which is by no 
     means certain, China is unlikely to close its border with 
     North Korea.
       In the event that diplomacy and sanctions fail, the only 
     remaining recourse would be the use of force. Just as Israel 
     destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in Iraq, such a 
     scenario would require the United States to launch a 
     surgical strike against the North Korean nuclear complex 
     at Yongbyon. From a technical and military perspective, 
     such an operation is feasible. We have the capacity, using 
     a combination of cruise missiles and stealth bombers, to 
     render North Korea's nuclear facilities inoperable. And if 
     we were to launch an attack when its reactor and 
     reprocessing facilities were empty, as they are now, the 
     spread of radioactive materials beyond the Yongbyon 
     complex could be greatly diminished, if not entirely 
     eliminated.
       Here is where the worst-case scenario starts getting spun. 
     With more than 1 million men under arms just north of the 
     demilitarized zone, and with its artillery batteries within 
     easy range of Seoul, the continued quiescence of North 
     Korea's frontline troops cannot be taken for granted. The use 
     of force is likely to provoke a retaliatory response that 
     could have catastrophic consequences. There is a real 
     possibility that it could lead to another major military 
     conflict on the Korean peninsula. The United States and South 
     Korea would undoubtedly prevail, but the cost of victory in 
     blood and treasure would be high. So high, in fact, that 
     there are few people in the corridors of power in Washington, 
     Tokyo or Seoul prepared to seriously consider the military 
     option.
       Yet this worst-case scenario may be deeply flawed. the 
     North Korean regime is immoral and irresponsible, but it is 
     not suicidal. Some kind of retaliation by Pyongyang for an 
     attack on Yongbyon would probably be inevitable. Still, a 
     full-scale attack against the South, or an artillery barrage 
     against Seoul, is doubtful, given the likelihood that it 
     would result in the destruction of the North and the collapse 
     of its regime. More likely would be a Scud missile attack 
     against one or more of the eleven nuclear reactors in South 
     Korea, or acts of terrorism directed against the United 
     States or Japan. But even here, the notorious inaccuracy of 
     Scuds, and the presumptive protection of Patriot missiles, 
     would almost certainly blunt such an attack. Terrorism would 
     be harder to combat, but also less threatening.
       The other possible, and more likely, response to a generous 
     diplomatic offer in Geneva is that North Korea will agree to 
     forgo the future production of fissile material in exchange 
     for a comprehensive package of diplomatic, security and 
     economic benefits. It will also insist that its past program 
     is off-limits, thereby enabling it to keep weapons-grade 
     material already produced. And this will present the United 
     States with a tough choice. We will have to decide whether it 
     is better to cut off North Korea's future production of 
     fissile material at the price of permitting it to keep what 
     is already has, or whether we should insist on total 
     compliance with the NPT and the North-South agreement on the 
     denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
       It is essential to understand that complete compliance with 
     its obligations as a signatory of the NPT will not suffice: 
     North Korea could continue to produce fissile material and to 
     extract plutonium from it under the eyes of the inspectors. 
     We must insist, therefore, on the implementation of the 
     North-South Accord on the De-Nuclearization of the Korean 
     Peninsula, which requires Pyongyang to dismantle its 
     reprocessing facility. Our aim is that North Korea shuts 
     it down and takes it apart. But the future of the North 
     Korean program should concern us more than its past. Our 
     stubbornness should not be misplaced. It would make little 
     sense to let Pyongyang assemble a stockpile of nuclear 
     weapons simply because it refuses to surrender the one or 
     two weapons it already may possess; and in such 
     circumstances it would be better to reach an understanding 
     with Pyongyang in which it is permitted to keep the 
     fissile material it already has in exchange for precluding 
     it from accumulating any more. A single North Korean bomb 
     will not threaten global nuclear stability. Many North 
     Korean bombs will.
       Forging a consensus among Washington, Tokyo and Seoul will 
     not be easy. South Korea and Japan, understandably concerned 
     about the possible use of nuclear weapons by North Korea 
     against them, have a greater interest than the United States 
     in preventing Pyongyang from being permitted to keep even one 
     or two atomic bombs. The United States, on the other hand, 
     has a greater interest than Japan or South Korea in 
     preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the 
     world. Just as another conventional war on the Korean 
     peninsula would be a worst-case scenario from the perspective 
     of Seoul and Tokyo, the acquisition of nuclear weapons by 
     rogue regimes and terrorist groups would be a worst-case 
     scenario from the perspective of Washington. To honor these 
     differing perspectives, the president should tell South Korea 
     and Japan that we would be prepared to reject any North 
     Korean proposal that would leave it with even a minimal 
     atomic arsenal, should Seoul and Tokyo insist that we do so. 
     In exchange, if Pyongyang refuses to abandon its nuclear 
     project, Seoul and Tokyo should agree to the surgical strike 
     that will be necessary to prevent North Korea from becoming a 
     major and mischievous nuclear state. The chances are that the 
     Japanese and the South Koreans will choose a negotiated 
     settlement over a surgical strike, but choose they must.
       Time is running out. In August the North Koreans may move 
     their fuel rods and start to reprocess them. In such 
     circumstances, sanctions, which will serve as a warning to 
     other proliferators, will work too slowly to affect this 
     proliferator. The crisis that Carter said was over will then 
     be upon us. What will matter is the determination of the 
     president. If the only way left to stop a nuclearizing North 
     Korea is the use of force, the president should find the 
     will, and the nerve, to order an attack. This will be a 
     difficult decision to make; but if Clinton finds a way to 
     stop North Korea from becoming a nuclear power, he will have 
     established himself as the leader that the post-cold war 
     world needs him to be. A decade from now, if Pyongyang has 
     proceeded with its nuclear project, and sold atomic bombs to 
     Libya, Iran, Syria and Iraq, not to mention terrorist groups 
     and nationalist armies, historians will rightly describe our 
     timidity as one of the greatest and grimmest failures in 
     history.

                          ____________________