South Korea says that North Korea launched what appeared to be two short-range missiles on Thursday, which would constitute the second round of missile tests in the past five days.
Meanwhile, the U.S. announced it has seized a North Korean shipping vessel that it says was in violation of international sanctions. Prosecutors from the U.S. Department of Justice said the ship was being used to export North Korean coal, which would be violation of sanctions.
Cipher Brief expert, Ambassador Joseph DeTrani is headed to South Korea this weekend as part of a fact-finding delegation. We spoke with him as he was preparing for that trip, about the latest back and forth and what it could mean for U.S. - North Korean negotiating efforts.
The Cipher Brief: The last time we spoke, which wasn’t that long ago, you were hoping that the north wouldn't return to missile tests, so what should we make of news that North Korea has once again fired two missiles (both appearing to be short-range missiles based on early expert analysis).
DeTrani: Not too long ago, as you mentioned, North Korea launched a number of projectiles that included a short-range ballistic missile, and the pictures were very clear and it was well disseminated that Kim Jong-un observed these events. Now, with this most recent flurry, it could be a few short-range ballistic missile launches, North Korea is clearly disseminating this type of information, and it's very obvious what they're doing. Again, we shouldn't be overly surprised. They've been doing this sort of tactical work for the last 25 years. It is part of their playbook. When North Korea's not happy, when they feel they're not getting what they want, they stop talking. They escalate, they threaten, they attempt to intimidate, and they expect concessions in this regard from the United States.
I'm not surprised. I'm disappointed. In the past, we saw this type of behavior even with the Six-Party Talks when we were going into plenary sessions. It's disappointing now because we have a president of the United States, a sitting president, meeting with Kim Jong-un. It’s the first time a sitting president has met with a leader of North Korea, and we see this type of behavior. I view it as very disappointing. But also, potentially dangerous, because we could be moving towards further escalation, not only on the part of North Korea, but from both sides and other sides, in regards to additional sanctions, greater enforcement of those sanctions, and possibly even greater escalation following that.
The Cipher Brief: Have you ever seen in your career a diplomatic situation quite like this one that we're in? I don't know if the right word is "complex" or "dynamic", but do you have anything to compare this particular situation to?
DeTrani: Certainly, we have rich experience with North Korea. This is exactly how they do business, and we saw it up close during the Six-Party Talks, we saw it with the joint statement, we saw it subsequent to the joint statement, we saw it after the failed Leap Day agreement. Indeed, we saw it in 2017, when they significantly escalated a nuclear test to include a thermonuclear event, and a significant missile launch that included ICBMs. So, indeed, there's nothing new here in terms of North Korea’s behavior. When you look at other countries, especially nuclear countries like China or like the Russian Federation, I can't say that I’ve ever seen this type of behavior, where literally your interlocutor is in your face, basically saying, we're not happy, or we want to put you on notice. Indeed, it’s not only because they're not happy, but because they want to message that if they should in the future not be happy, this is the path they could be taking. I think this is relatively unique to North Korea, at least from my experience.
The Cipher Brief: Let's put our conspiratorial hats on for just a moment and ask whether there could be any connection between Kim's recent visit with Vladimir Putin, and this latest round of North Korean behavior. Do you see any possible connection there?
DeTrani: I think Russia is on board with the United States and South Korea, Japan, and China, on complete denuclearization, or at least movement towards complete denuclearization. I don't think it's in anyone's interest to see further escalation and possibly conflict on the Korean peninsula. Having said that, I would think that the possibility of President Putin telling Kim Jong-un, ‘Look, you need to not only ensure that you have security assurances, but you need to show that you're determined to build greater defensive capabilities, if you will, or greater deterrent capability, to ensure that until you get an agreement satisfactory to Pyongyang, you're showing that you have ... There will be consequences to the U.S. and its allies if they did anything provocative towards you’. So the only thing I can see coming out of that would be to further embolden Kim Jong-un to feel that, ‘Okay I'm not getting what I want immediately from the U.S., so maybe I need to show them that I have significant deterrence capabilities, and I'm going to enhance those deterrence capabilities’. And I can imagine the Russian Federation being very supportive of this type of behavior.
The Cipher Brief: Do you, with respect to the issue with the ship, and we don't know all the details yet, but let's assume that the initial reporting is accurate, and that the U.S. has taken custody of a North Korean vessel. What do you believe Kim's reaction is going to be, is he likely to see that as a provocative act in the context of negotiations? Is he going to see that as a separate event?
DeTrani: I think North Korea will see this as a very provocative act on the part of the United States. They will see this as the United States trying to intimidate North Korea, and they will play it up that way, that this is the United States further imposing itself on North Korea, and they'll make the case that the vessel was in international waters, they were conducting legitimate business, it was not illicit in any way, and whether we say it was transferring coal in violation of a UN security resolution, North Korea will deny all of the above, regardless of the proof. We saw this in 2010, with the Cheonan incident, where 47 South Korean sailors were killed. They denied and continue to deny that they were involved in that tragic episode. I think they will play the innocent victim here and make it seems like the U.S. is the provocateur. This is the U.S. is not getting what it wants, and this is their way of escalating, trying to intimidate, and they will come back, I think, with the line that there's no way the U.S. is going to intimidate us. In fact, we're going to show that we're building even greater defensive capabilities, and until the U.S. shows a different attitude, we'll continue down this path.
The Cipher Brief: What's your assessment? Is this working? Is this approach from the U.S. on the foreign policy front working? How do you rate the U.S.’ chances of making any valuable progress with North Korea?
DeTrani: I think seizure of this vessel that was transporting coal in violation of a UN security resolution sanctioning North Korea was a bold act on the part of the US, a very definitive statement saying these sanctions are on the books, they're to be implemented, and we're implementing them as we expect in Indonesia and other countries, signatory countries, to the Proliferation Security Initiative to implement these sanctions. So, I think the U.S. position is, this is a commitment we have, not only as the organizer of the Proliferation Security Initiative but also as a member of the more than one hundred countries that are signatories and obligated to do exactly what we did with this vessel. I think the U.S. position here is a justified position. Unless we implement these sanctions, they're only behavior sanctions. They're not going to have any impact. When we scroll back to January 1, 2018, when Kim Jong-Un made his New Year’s address saying ‘We now will focus on economic development, we now have a deterrent capability, we don't have to work on a nuclear weapons capability any longer’ yes, they had significant nuclear and missile events and successes in 2017. But also, the sanctions were biting and are biting, and that we had joint military exercises which were intimidating to Pyongyang. In that regard, I think maximum pressure did work at that time, in conjunction with other elements therein, which was North Korea's success with nuclear and missile launches.
I think now, the position the U.S. continues to take on maximum pressure is the right position, because I think it’s important that we're saying we are prepared to implement the Singapore joint statement of June 18, 2018. That joint statement commits us to transforming the relationship with North Korea, which we're apparently prepared to do, with possibly liaison offices, in anticipation, eventually, of normal relations, and a declaration ending the Korean War, and a peace treaty for the Korean peninsula. These are the commitments we made in a joint statement in Singapore. The other commitment was to come from North Korea on complete denuclearization. We're not seeing movement on that. So I guess the key here for the United States and for its allies and partners is, we were and are prepared to sit down and talk about bringing the tension level down significantly, coming back to negotiations, and implementing, if you will, that Singapore June 12, 2018 joint statement.
I think the U.S. doesn't have much of an option but to work hard to implement those sanctions that are on the books, and to insist on focusing on complete verifiable denuclearization, while making it clear to North Korea as, I think, President Trump did in Hanoi, and certainly we did it in Singapore, that we're prepared to transform the relationship, improve it, eventually normalize it, to bring peace and a peace treaty to the Korean peninsula, and economic development to North Korea. I think in principle, the U.S. is adhering to its commitments. What we're not seeing from North Korea, because they don't want to talk about denuclearization, is a commitment to pursue that issue, which is a core issue, isn't it?
If North Korea continues to escalate with these short-range ballistic missiles into intermediate range missile tests, or long range, intercontinental ballistic missile launches, I think we - the U.S. and its allies and partners - would not only be working hard to implement those sanctions, but also to look at introducing new sanctions - UN sanctions - that further sanction North Korea and further isolate North Korea.
The Cipher Brief: From a little bit broader geopolitical perspective, how do you rank right now who has the slight advantage, with respect to timing? This week we've got what by all accounts is an important meeting between the U.S. and China to hopefully make some progress on economic trade negotiations, for which markets around the world continue to react to news coming out of those talks. It would seem that perhaps this is not the most advantageous time for North Korea to be pressing forward. Is that the way you see it, or are we missing something on that?
DeTrani: I can see where you're coming from on that, but I can also see where North Korea can be looking at these events as indicative of, maybe this is the time to show our strength, to escalate the element of tension, to refuse to re-engage with negotiations, because the U.S. is significantly involved with China on trade talks. We have, with the Russian Federation, given what Russia is possibly doing in Venezuela, and looking at 2021 with a new START, and some of the statements that came out of Putin about hyper-sonics and the ability to defeat any missile defense systems and how vulnerable the U.S. is to Russia's nuclear capabilities, I think Kim Jong-un, or at least those people advising him, are maybe saying the U..S is pushing many pawns. They have a number of issues on the table, and I would think they would want to see some success somewhere, and North Korea could be one of those areas. So let's ensure that we get our maximum advantage from this set of events that's affecting the U.S. I think they could see this as maybe an opportune time to be a little more assertive and demanding.
I think it would be a mistake, however, because I think again, they have to understand the U.S. and how the U.S. views these issues, rather than looking at it through a North Korean optic. And the U.S. optic is, if indeed we have these other issues, and certainly we do, with China and Russia, but these are separate from North Korea and I think President Trump has compartmented those issues. I think China and even the Russian Federation are on board with complete denuclearization. So, I think if the advisors to Kim Jong-un are looking at this as an opportune time to be more assertive, then I think they're missing the point, and this could ratchet up quickly and significantly. It would not be in North Korea's interest to move in that direction.
Read more from Ambassador Joseph DeTrani in The Cipher Brief
