[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 175 (Monday, October 30, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6879-S6883]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              NORTH KOREA

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, a few weeks ago, I traveled to South Korea 
to better understand the threat posed by North Korea. I would like to 
share my impressions from the trip and how I believe we should be 
positioning ourselves to better deal with this current crisis.
  I want to recommend to my colleagues and the administration that the 
time for debate on this issue is now, before the crisis comes to a 
head. We need to have a clear strategy and increased cooperation with 
South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia to contain and to deter the 
nuclear threat posed by North Korea. I have significant concerns that 
we are not doing everything we can right now to improve our bargaining 
position with North Korea. I am convinced we must try to find a 
diplomatic solution to this problem because the alternatives are 
extraordinarily costly. While we should always remain prepared to go to 
war and never take that option off the table, I believe as long as 
there is a possible diplomatic solution to this crisis, we must make 
every effort to make it a reality.
  I would like to spend some time talking about the threat posed by 
North Korea and then review the history of our diplomatic negotiations 
since the early nineties.
  North Korea voluntarily joined the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, 
NPT, in 1985. It was clear only a few years later that it was in 
violation of the NPT.
  Our first crisis occurred when Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the 
current leader, refused inspections required under the treaty in 1993. 
Since then, North Korea has engaged in the illegal production of 
fissile material and nuclear devices, and has conducted six nuclear 
weapons tests. The latest test occurred just last month on September 3.
  The threat we face from North Korea is not just a nuclear weapon 
aimed at New York City or Washington, DC. This regime has proven over 
and over again that it will not hesitate to proliferate weapons of mass 
destruction for financial gain. The proliferation threat is a global 
one. We can all imagine the consequences of a nuclear weapon in the 
hands of al-Qaida or ISIS that can be deployed anywhere in the world.
  North Korea poses not only a nuclear threat to the globe but also a 
conventional one. In 2010, the regime torpedoed and sank a South Korean 
warship, and 46 South Korean sailors lost their lives. Later that year, 
the regime killed four South Korean citizens when it shelled Yeonpyeong 
Island. Once this regime achieves its goal of developing a nuclear 
weapon that can hit the continental United States, we may see increased 
kinetic attacks against South Korea and Japan and possibly other 
countries in the region.
  North Korea has repeatedly engaged in cyber attacks over the last 
decade and uses them as an asymmetric weapon against companies and 
governments alike. It has been attributed with sweeping attacks against 
the financial industry's Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial 
Telecommunication or SWIFT protocol to enrich itself to the tune of 
millions of dollars. This SWIFT protocol is the backbone of the world 
financial system.

  It orchestrated the DarkSeoul cyber attacks in 2013, attacking South 
Korean news stations and financial institutions, and it was responsible 
for the destructive and coercive attacks against Sony Pictures, a 
successful American entertainment company, because it didn't like a 
movie's depiction of the current leader.
  Let us not forget that North Korea engages in horrific human rights 
violations against its own people. It maintains a system of brutal 
prison camps that incarcerate thousands of men, women, and children who 
live in atrocious living conditions under the constant fear of rape, 
torture, and arbitrary execution. It keeps its civilian population 
isolated from the rest of the world without access to current news and 
information that would undermine its propaganda to brainwash its 
population into believing in and revering their leader and demonizing 
the Western ideals of freedom and democracy.
  I think it is important for us to remember the long and torturous 
diplomatic path we have walked with North Korea for the last 25 years 
and recognize the wasted opportunities by past administrations that 
could have prevented or reduced the threat we face today.
  After we realized that North Korea had failed to meet its obligations 
under the NPT in the mid-nineties, we almost reached a crisis point in 
the late spring of 1994, as the Clinton administration considered 
striking the Yongbyon nuclear facility. The crisis was resolved when 
former President Carter traveled to Pyongyang that summer and brokered 
the outlines of a deal. North Korea would freeze its plutonium 
production program in exchange for a light-water nuclear reactor. A 
final deal was brokered later that year called the Agreed Framework, 
under which North Korea agreed to freeze its plutonium production 
programs and to eventually dismantle them in exchange for two nuclear 
reactors and the prospect of normalization of economic and diplomatic 
relations.
  How did we get from that agreement to today? For starters, in 1998, 
North Korea tested its first long-range ballistic missile, and that 
began to unravel the deal. The Clinton administration attempted to 
salvage the Agreed Framework by negotiating additional terms to stop 
its missile program but was unable to conclude arrangements before 
President Clinton left office. After President Bush took office in 
2001, the new administration wanted to distance itself from Clinton's 
policies and stopped negotiating the Agreed Framework in earnest. North 
Korea, reacting to the Bush administration's new hostile tone, also 
stepped away from the talks.
  For example, in January 2002, President Bush delivered his ``axis of 
evil'' State of the Union speech that identified North Korea as a 
regime ``arming [itself] with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, 
while starving its citizens.'' In April of that year, President Bush 
issued a memorandum stating he would not certify North Korea's

[[Page S6880]]

compliance with the Agreed Framework. Rumors also abounded at this time 
about North Korea's pursuit of a uranium-based nuclear weapon, which 
were confirmed in October of 2002. By the end of 2002, diplomatic 
efforts having stalled, North Korea expelled inspectors from the 
country, withdrew from the NPT in early 2003, and turned fuel rods that 
the United States had helped to store safely under the Agreed Framework 
into weapons-grade plutonium. It was a lost opportunity to go back to 
the drawing board, reengage with the North Korean regime, and attempt 
to find a comprehensive deal that would include both its plutonium and 
uranium programs, as well as the missile program.
  After North Korea admitted in April 2003 that it possessed nuclear 
weapons but was willing to get rid of its program in exchange for 
something ``considerable'' from the United States, the so-called Six-
Party Talks started in August of that year and eventually reached an 
agreement in September of 2005, in which North Korea committed to the 
other five parties that it would abandon all nuclear weapons and 
existing nuclear programs.
  At this point, North Korea's nuclear program had made significant 
progress, and forcing the North Korean regime to implement the 
agreement and stop its program would have required a significant 
diplomatic investment by the United States, but at that time we were 
fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and did not see North Korea 
as the highest priority.
  After North Korea tested a nuclear device in 2006, we had a moment 
when the other parties to the Six-Party Talks were even more resolved 
to work together. The Six-Party Talks did produce two additional 
agreements in which North Korea froze the plutonium program, turned 
over operating records, and dismantled the cooling tower, but they 
again faltered and then failed over verification measures. It is 
possible that with consistent pressure and cooperation with the other 
parties, we could have convinced North Korea to follow through on its 
verification commitments. Then the North Korean leader suffered a 
stroke in 2008, and President Bush left office in January 2009, 
complicating matters even more. North Korea greeted the newly elected 
Obama administration with a ballistic missile test in April 2009 and a 
nuclear test in May.
  After Kim Jong Un took control of North Korea in 2011, the situation 
became even more challenging when it became clear that there was a new 
and concerted effort to advance their nuclear program. The Obama 
administration struck the so-called Leap Day Deal--both countries 
separately announced an agreement to suspend operations at its Yongbyon 
uranium enrichment plant and invited the International Atomic Energy 
Agency or IAEA inspectors to monitor the suspension and implement 
moratoriums on nuclear long-range missile tests. In exchange, we 
offered a generous food aid package. It was an attempt to begin the 
process of denuclearization but was short-lived since North Korea 
announced its plans to launch a satellite in violation of U.N. 
resolutions only 2 weeks after the agreement was announced. Yet, again, 
it was a lost opportunity to really challenge the current leader before 
he had consolidated power within North Korea over a provocation that 
did not need to derail negotiations.
  My purpose in reviewing this history is to note that there were 
opportunities, especially under the Agreed Framework and later during 
the Six-Party Talks, to reengage the North Korean Government and find a 
comprehensive diplomatic solution.
  We missed those opportunities and deferred this problem and now we 
are in a much worse negotiating position than in any time in history. 
Of course, we cannot ignore that the biggest problem has always been 
North Korea's failure to stand by its commitments and its covert 
development of programs despite repeated assurances during 
negotiations. That is why I believe we need to make sure any deal 
includes stringent verification measures, with snapback sanctions and 
economic measures that will cripple the North Korean economy and starve 
it of any resources it can use for a nuclear program. While I 
understand the risks inherent in any deal with North Korea, I believe 
the alternatives are much riskier.
  I would like to be very clear. While we will prevail in a war against 
North Korea, it will not look like winning. I want to paint for you the 
very stark and grim reality we will be facing in a conflict against 
North Korea. First, it would and should not be lost on anyone that the 
United States has never fought against a nuclear-armed state. Even if 
we were to engage in a preemptive war with North Korea now, it 
currently has the capability to hit both South Korea and Japan, our 
main staging areas and where the majority of our troops would be 
located, with a nuclear weapon. The irony is that by striking first to 
prevent a nuclear strike against the United States, we would be 
significantly increasing the likelihood of a nuclear strike against 
ourselves or our allies.

  Even if North Korea does not hit South Korea or Japan with a nuclear 
weapon, a conventional war would be devastating. Within the first 
weeks, we would see tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of civilian 
casualties from the long-range artillery strategically aimed at the 25 
million citizens of Seoul. There are some 250,000 American citizens 
living in South Korea who would need to be evacuated, mostly from 
Seoul, while the city is under siege. The United States has never 
conducted a noncombatant evacuation operation of this scale. It is 
likely that most U.S. citizens would not be able to be evacuated within 
the first week of hostilities, resulting in massive U.S. civilian 
casualties in addition to the thousands of our Korean friends who would 
also lose their lives.
  Moreover, either in anticipation of hostilities or in response to a 
preemptive attack, North Korea will engage in significant cyber 
operations that will strike at infrastructure throughout the world, 
including the United States. Further complicating the scenario is the 
fact that North Korean cyber operations are conducted outside of its 
territory, principally in China. Without any prior agreement with these 
countries, we would be faced with the difficult decision of how to stop 
these remote North Korean operations.
  Let us also not discount the cascading economic effects of war. The 
South Korean economy would be in ruins, and shortly thereafter, the 
Asian markets and the global market would begin to see the effects. As 
noted by Emerging Asia Economics Focus by Capital Economics with regard 
to the potential economic impacts of such a war, South Korea accounts 
for around 2 percent of global economic output. If South Korea's GDP 
fell only by half, that would result in a 1-percent decrease in global 
GDP, not to mention a huge disruption to global supply chains. The U.S. 
Federal debt would go up considerably. Collectively, this war could 
cost us billions, in addition to the actual financial and military 
resources that we would need to expend.
  To those who think we will have a quick and certain military victory, 
I would say that our assumptions of a quick victory have been proven 
wrong many times in our history. We will not be viewed as liberators by 
the majority of the North Korean population, who have been taught from 
birth that the United States initiated the hostilities that led to the 
Korean war and is determined to destroy their country. The Korean war, 
during which the North Koreans suffered massive casualties and a 
constant bombing campaign that reportedly killed almost 20 percent of 
its population, is within the living memory of older North Koreans.
  Add to that the incredibly risky missions of locating, isolating, and 
neutralizing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapon sites and the 
thousands of underground facilities in North Korea and we are looking 
at a month-long kinetic campaign with a years-long stabilization 
effort, not to mention the decades it will take not only to reconstruct 
North Korea but to bring its infrastructure and population forward to 
the 21st century.
  We also cannot underestimate the reactions of the global community, 
especially China, if we act prematurely. China has a defense treaty 
with North Korea, and although it has publicly stated that it will not 
aid North Korea if North Korea attacks first, we cannot gauge what 
China's reaction will be if it determines that we were the initial 
aggressors.

[[Page S6881]]

  Again, we will prevail after a long, bloody, and costly fight, but it 
will not look like winning. We must do everything we can now to set the 
theater to win the war, and then do everything in our power to avoid 
it. To that end, we should exhaust every single diplomatic avenue for 
peace before considering other options. We have an obligation to our 
men and women in uniform to vigorously seek a diplomatic solution 
before using military force. We also need to convince our allies, 
especially South Korea and Japan, that we are serious about their 
security and have made every effort to avoid conflict. We will 
undermine our own credibility and our standing in the world if we rush 
to war without demonstrating our commitment to peace.
  Finally, even if diplomacy fails--and I fear that our likelihood of 
success is low, given the history I have laid out above--there are 
certain advantages to being secured solely through the process of 
negotiating that will be significant achievements in their own right.
  First, we will have a much better sense of what the current regime's 
strategic interests are. It was clear Kim Il Sung, the present leader's 
grandfather, had three strategic priorities: to use the nuclear program 
to blackmail the rest of the world for economic concessions; to appeal 
to the North Korean populace, who had been told that nuclear weapons 
were a mantle of legitimacy; and to scapegoat the United States with 
North Korea's economic problems, arguing that the sacrifices made by 
the North Korean people were necessary to fend off U.S. imperial 
aggression.

  It is less clear where the current regime's interests lie. It is 
possible that Kim Jong Un is interested only in regime survival and 
will be willing to agree to a deal that will freeze its programs and 
instead focus its attention on developing its infrastructure and 
improving its economic growth in exchange for guarantees that we will 
not seek regime change.
  Despite our strongest sanctions programme to date, the North Korean 
economy is growing, albeit from a remarkably low starting point. Kim 
Jong Un has taken a page from the Chinese economic plan of the 1980s 
and 1990s and significantly increased the economic prosperity of his 
people. While maintaining strict social and political control, he has 
opened the economy through decollectivization, the reduction of market 
restrictions, and allowing small private enterprises to flourish. The 
North Korean economy grew more than 3 percent last year. It is clear 
that Kim Jong Un is interested in allowing his economy to develop and 
in providing greater economic opportunity to his people.
  But it is also possible that Kim Jong Un has more aggressive 
ambitions and seeks to finish his grandfather's goal of reuniting the 
peninsula under North Korean rule. I believe we should spend the time 
to try to understand Kim Jong Un's ultimate goals and whether peace is 
really on the table.
  Second, we will have the moral authority to go to war having 
demonstrated to the world that we negotiated in good faith and that the 
North Korean regime is not interested in peace. It will also give us an 
opportunity to better understand and coordinate on China's strategic 
interests. While China is also quite concerned and alarmed by the 
nuclear programs, it has a considerable interest in maintaining 
stability on the peninsula to avoid regime collapse, to avoid a 
humanitarian crisis triggered by millions of refugees flowing across 
its southern border, and to avoid the possibility of a biological or 
chemical weapon attack or a nuclear attack so close to its territory.
  Diplomacy may offer the opportunity to find common ground with China 
on these issues--issues that concern us as well--and to coordinate our 
responses in the event of a contingency. We should discuss end states 
with China that take into account their vital national interests.
  Finally, we should be able to receive some commitments from other 
countries, especially China, with regard to the enforcement of 
sanctions as an aid to the diplomatic process. To date China has been 
unwilling to exert the type of pressure necessary to cause real 
economic pressure on the North Korean regime. I believe we should push 
for an agreement with China and Russia on even stronger sanctions that 
will be immediately enforced during the negotiation process and will 
continue to be enforced if the negotiations fail.
  We should be expending every possible resource now to set the right 
conditions for diplomacy and to improve our negotiation position. This 
administration has not created the right conditions to date, and there 
are four areas that I believe we need to focus on today: consistent and 
clear messaging to North Korea and the world; increasing our diplomatic 
and military capacity; improving international cooperation and 
coordination; and increasing pressure on the North Korean regime 
through better sanctions enforcement, military pressure, and 
information operations.
  There has been a marked failure to consistently message to the North 
Koreans, our allies in the region, other global players like Russia and 
China, and the rest of the world. Secretary Tillerson has repeatedly 
made public statements regarding our intentions to pursue a diplomatic 
solution with North Korea and has been consistently undercut by the 
President's commentary that we are not really interested in diplomacy. 
While I understand the President's intent might be to demonstrate that 
we can and will use military force if necessary, there are certainly 
more artful ways of making that message clear than tweeting that the 
Secretary of State is ``wasting his time trying to negotiate with 
Rocket Man.''
  This is not a time for incoherence or confusion. We need to be as 
precise and clear as possible with regard to the administration's 
avowed strong preference for diplomacy.
  Likewise, President Trump's speech at the United Nations General 
Assembly sent exactly the wrong message to North Korea and to our ally 
South Korea. Threatening to destroy North Korea, a country of 25 
million people, may send a deterrence message, but it also plays into 
the regime's narrative that we are out to destroy them. We should not 
be feeding into Kim Jong Un's propaganda machine by reaffirming their 
mistaken belief that we are interested in annihilating their country, 
and we should not be signaling to South Korea that this administration 
does not take its security seriously.
  I sincerely hope that the President does not repeat his tone-deaf 
messaging during his upcoming speech to the Korean National Assembly. 
The Government of Korea needs to hear a clear commitment to diplomacy 
and a clear commitment to protect the Republic of Korea as is required 
by our alliance.
  In this regard, it is disturbing to hear of reports that officials 
responsible for executing our diplomacy with regard to North Korea are, 
as reported in an October 25 Foreign Policy situation report, 
``frustrated by an inability to communicate the urgency of the 
situation to the White House.'' Unless there is consistency in our 
message and constant and acute attention from the White House, we are 
on a path to disaster.
  In addition to consistent messaging, we need to drastically improve 
our capacity, both diplomatic and military, to position ourselves for 
any negotiation with North Korea. It is diplomatic malpractice that 
there is no U.S. Ambassador to South Korea. The President is heading 
there in a few days. There is insufficient time, even if an Ambassador 
were to be named tomorrow, to confirm that individual before the 
President's trip. We have a key diplomatic post that has been empty for 
8 months. There is also no Assistant Secretary of State for Asia in the 
State Department or in the Department of Defense. While we have Acting 
Assistant Secretaries, that is no substitute for the political 
appointees who will be able to operate with far greater freedom and 
support from the administration. I urge this administration to fill 
these positions immediately.
  Since sanctions are our most important diplomatic tool, it is also 
astounding that Secretary Tillerson is eliminating the State 
Department's Coordinator for Sanction Policy office, ``which has been 
led by a veteran ambassador-rank diplomat with at least five staff'' as 
reported in an October 26 Foreign Policy article. He will reportedly 
entrust this critical task to one individual in his Policy Planning 
Office.

[[Page S6882]]

  One of the most important elements to strengthening our bargaining 
position is demonstrating that we are prepared to fight if necessary. 
When I was in South Korea, I spoke at great length with our military 
commanders, including General Brooks, about our readiness. I was very 
impressed by not only how prepared we are to go to war but also how 
integrated our operations are with the Republic of Korea's.
  Even so, I believe there are some additional measures that should be 
taken now. Specifically, I believe we need to increase our 
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations, our strike 
capabilities, and strengthen our missile defense capabilities in the 
region with more Patriot, THAAD, and SM-3 interceptors, as well as 
increase our critical munitions stocks to ensure that we are providing 
credible military options on the Korean Peninsula. We should be 
providing U.S. Forces Korea with every tool they may need to prosecute 
a possible war. However, even this increased readiness would not 
overcome the massive casualties and possible use of nuclear weapons 
that I outlined before.
  As we have learned time and time again, the multilateral approach is 
the best path to a successful outcome, whether in diplomacy or war. 
There are a number of countries whose national security interests are 
touched by the North Korean threat, although I would submit that North 
Korea poses a global challenge because of the risk created by its 
nuclear weapons and human rights violations.
  First and foremost, we need to better coordinate our messaging and 
strategy with our allies, South Korea and Japan. It will be nearly 
impossible to initiate any unilateral action against North Korea 
without the commitment and cooperation of South Korea and Japan. The 
majority of our forces are either stationed or flowing through those 
two countries. They are indispensable and equal partners in the crisis 
and should be treated as such.
  We cannot assume that South Korea and Japan have identical interests 
to us or that they are in complete agreement on all aspects of our 
strategy. Through constant diplomacy, we can ensure that we enter into 
negotiations with the same objectives and understand our partners' 
interests and their tolerance for risk. We also need to push our 
partners to work better together. For example, at the end of last year, 
South Korea and Japan entered into a General Security of Military 
Information Agreement to share sensitive information on North Korea's 
missile and nuclear activities. However, this agreement has yet to be 
implemented, to the detriment of the security of South Korea, Japan, 
and the United States. Our allies must learn to work in concert to 
ensure we are in the best position to deal with the threat we all face.
  Second, we should be seriously considering some combination of 
multiparty talks with the relevant stakeholders, including China and 
Russia, to first establish some basic redlines that can be conveyed to 
the North Korean Government: No atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons, 
no electromagnetic pulse attacks, and no missile attacks on the United 
States, its allies, or any country. These talks should be also geared 
toward getting additional commitments on sanctions, especially from 
China and Russia, that have to date failed to fully implement sanctions 
against North Korea.
  If we can come to some agreement among ourselves about the path 
forward and show a unified, diplomatic front to North Korea, I believe 
we will be much more successful in any negotiations.
  It is also critical that we increase the pressure on North Korea and 
create less operating space for the regime to pursue its ballistic 
missile and nuclear ambitions.
  We are not at the maximum level of sanctions that can be imposed on 
North Korea. There are financial institutions that are conducting 
transactions with North Korea that have not yet been subjected to 
sanctions. We should be pursuing sanctions against every institution, 
no matter how large or small, that conducts even a single transaction 
with this regime. There are significant authorities that have been 
created, both through the United Nations and by other authorities, to 
go after companies and individuals who are doing business with North 
Korea. The issue, as I see it, is enforcement. Our Treasury Department, 
in cooperation with the State Department, must act faster to target 
these bad actors. Time is not on our side. Every day that passes is a 
day that Kim Jong Un is closer to the goal of achieving an 
intercontinental ballistic missile that can hit the eastern seaboard of 
the United States with a nuclear weapon.
  In addition to financial institutions, we must starve the regime of 
the resources it needs to support its elites and the military--whether 
through coal or overseas labor, every avenue of revenue must be cut 
off.
  We need to make a concerted effort through our diplomatic channels to 
cut off North Korea's access to hard currency. Every country that 
continues to employ North Korean labor and allow North Korean business 
to operate within its borders needs to know that there will be economic 
and diplomatic consequences for its behavior. To those who argue that 
we would be punishing everyday North Koreans with these measures, I 
would note that the vast majority of funds are remitted to the regime 
to use for its nefarious purposes.
  We should be engaging every single country with a North Korean 
Embassy that has not yet been closed to follow Spain and Mexico's 
example and order them closed. It has been reported for years that 
these Embassies operate as fronts for North Korea's illicit activities, 
including trading in counterfeit currency, arms smuggling, and 
circumventing sanctions by selling prohibited goods.
  China needs to be convinced not only to cut off the fuel supply to 
North Korea but also to clamp down on the regime's use of its financial 
institutions. Russia employs thousands of workers and stands ready to 
sell fuel to North Korea, acting opportunistically instead of as the 
global leader it makes itself out to be.
  The United States withheld nearly $300 million in military assistance 
to Egypt after we discovered that the military had purchased 30,000 
North Korean rocket-propelled grenades.
  I believe it is our failure to exact severe consequences on the 
countries that do business with North Korea that has allowed the regime 
to spread its workers and exports across the globe and reap billions of 
dollars from the global economy.
  North Korea needs to realize that its reckless pursuit of nuclear 
weapons has left it with no allies, no friends, and no financial 
resources. This is one reason why the devastating cuts to the State 
Department and the failure to adequately staff our diplomatic corps is 
such a wasted opportunity to increase our diplomatic capacity to spread 
this message to all the countries that work with North Korea.
  We need to increase the military pressure on North Korea. This 
requires flying close surveillance missions and continuing our 
exercises and posture on the peninsula. We need to make it clear to 
Pyongyang that while we prefer diplomacy, we will not hesitate to use 
military force if necessary. To that end, we should be doing everything 
to set the military theater on the peninsula in our favor.
  Finally, we have not sufficiently countered the propaganda that has 
brainwashed the North Korean people into believing that we are their 
enemies and that we seek to destroy their country. We should be 
increasing the budgeting for Radio Free Asia and other organizations 
that everyday North Koreans can access. We should also be exposing the 
North Korean people, through every avenue available, to real 
information about the world and the deplorable conditions that their 
leadership has created within their country.
  I believe it was a mistake to do away with the position of Special 
Envoy for North Korean Human Rights. We need more diplomats fully 
engaged and working on improving the human rights conditions for 
millions of North Korean citizens, helping North Korean refugees, and 
increasing efforts to educate them.
  We should be just as concerned with internal pressure on the regime 
as we are with external pressure. The Soviet Union collapsed because 
everyday Soviet citizens saw how far behind their Western counterparts 
the USSR's policies had left them. Everyday North Koreans want the same 
things: security,

[[Page S6883]]

stability, and the ability to educate and raise their children in peace 
and prosperity. That is the message we should be promoting in North 
Korea.
  I wish I could stand here and say that I am confident we can 
negotiate a deal with the North Koreans to denuclearize the Korean 
Peninsula. This may have been possible in the late 1990s under the 
Agreed Framework, but it will be very challenging now. The price of 
peace has risen dramatically since that time. Administration after 
administration kicked the can down the road, and now we are left with a 
North Korean regime that is very close to developing a nuclear-armed 
ICBM that can hit the United States and a North Korean leader who 
observed the fates of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qadhafi and has 
decided that his regime will only survive if he has a nuclear weapon 
capable of hitting the United States.
  We may need to be willing to accept a deal short of denuclearization 
that includes a verifiable freeze on the development and testing of 
nuclear weapons and missile programs. We will likely need to have some 
interim confidence-building agreements over a period of months or years 
short of this goal to build momentum. Obtaining the necessary 
agreements regarding verification and inspections will be the most 
challenging aspects of the deal and I worry may derail our best efforts 
at negotiation.
  There will likely be discussion of reducing our military presence on 
the peninsula and curtailing our joint military exercises with the 
Republic of Korea. I believe we should not agree to any reduction of 
joint exercises in exchange for a freeze, but I do think we should 
carefully consider whether there should be a step down in military 
exercises on both sides to reduce tensions and build confidence.
  Any agreement will need to contain strict prohibitions on 
proliferation and an international observation organization to ensure 
that North Korea is not selling its nuclear or missile technology to 
other countries or nonstate actors.
  It is important that we all recognize that we are not faced with the 
binary options that many people are fond of promoting--denuclearization 
or war. There are diplomatic options short of denuclearization that we 
may be forced to consider. If diplomacy fails, our only alternative is 
not a kinetic one. There is the same option we chose when Russia and 
China became nuclear states--accept the risks and mitigate it through 
isolation, containment, and deterrence.
  I would like to note that the costs associated with this path are 
very high but still likely less than the cost of war. There is a 
significantly lower risk of the loss of life.
  For example, we will need to invest even more heavily in our missile 
defense, and even after investing millions of dollars, we are left in a 
position where we won't have confidence that we can shoot down every 
single missile pointed at Washington, DC, or New York. That is where we 
were with the Soviet Union and still are with the Russians today.
  We will also need to increase our funding for overhead intelligence 
to make sure we have the most accurate information, minute by minute, 
about developments within North Korea.
  Additionally, we will need to maintain a strictly enforced sanctions 
regime for years to come, and we will need to work diligently to 
overcome the inevitable sanctions fatigue.
  We will also need to invest even more heavily in our agencies that 
prosecute sanctions. We will need a nimble Treasury, State Department, 
and intelligence community that can identify and quickly target bad 
actors. The North Korean regime has proven itself quite able to engage 
in illegal and illicit activities as varied as cyber crime, arms sales, 
currency, counterfeiting, narcotics, and wildlife trafficking. 
Empowering our State, Treasury, and intelligence Departments to 
identify and target these illicit activities and schemes will be 
expensive, both in manpower and diplomatic negotiations with countries 
that stand to profit from these arrangements.
  We will also need to work hard to prevent a nuclear arms race in the 
Asia-Pacific region. There are already elements in South Korea that are 
agitating for the return of tactical nuclear weapons. As North Korea's 
nuclear program grows more robust, these elements will only get 
stronger. Even nuclear-adverse Japan may reconsider its position as it 
feels more pressure from its neighbor to the west. The risks of 
proliferation in Asia and the rest of the world are high. Let us 
remember that proliferation is not the solution, it is the problem.
  We need to be clear-eyed about the threat we face from North Korea. 
Years of indecision have left us with a number of imperfect and 
expensive options. North Korea's aggressive behavior has led us to the 
brink of war. We are in a time of uncertain peace.
  I would urge this administration and my colleagues to consider the 
costs of war that I have outlined and for all of us, Republicans and 
Democrats, to work toward a peaceful and diplomatic solution to this 
crisis now.
  I yield the floor.

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