Making Peace Possible
NO. 157 | FEBRUARY 2020
PEACEWORKS
A Peace Regime for the
Korean Peninsula
By Frank Aum, Jacob Stokes, Patricia M. Kim, Atman M. Trivedi,
Rachel Vandenbrink, Jennifer Staats, and Joseph Y. Yun
NO. 157 | FEBRUARY 2020
Making Peace Possible
The views expressed in this report are those of the authors alone. They do not necessarily reflect the views of
the United States Institute of Peace. An online edition of this and related reports can be found on our website
(www.usip.org), together with additional information on the subject.
© 2020 by the United States Institute of Peace
United States Institute of Peace
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Washington, DC 20037
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Web: www.usip.org
Peaceworks No. 157. First published 2020.
ISBN: 978-1-60127-794-7
GLOBAL
POLICY
ABOUT THE REPORT
This report examines the issues and challenges related to establishing a peace
regime—a framework of declarations, agreements, norms, rules, processes, and institu
-
tions aimed at building and sustaining peace—on the Korean Peninsula. Supported by
the Asia Center at the United States Institute of Peace, the report also addresses how US
administrations can strategically and realistically approach these issues.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Frank Aum is senior expert on North Korea in the Asia Center at the US Institute of Peace.
Jacob Stokes, Patricia M. Kim, Rachel Vandenbrink, and Jennifer Staats are members
of its East and Southeast Asia program teams. Ambassador Joseph Y. Yun is a senior
adviser to the Asia Center. Atman M. Trivedi is a managing director at Hills & Company.
Cover photo: South Korean soldiers, front, and North Korean soldiers, rear, stand
guard on either side of the Military Demarcation Line of the Demilitarized Zone
dividing the two nations. (Photo by Korea Summit Press Pool via New York Times)
2
PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
Summary
Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, few serious eorts have been made to
achieve a comprehensive peace on the Korean Peninsula. The unique aspects
of the diplomatic engagement between Washington and Pyongyang in 2018 and
2019, however, presented a situation that warranted both greater preparation for
a potential peace process and greater vigilance about the potential obstacles
and risks. Today, with the collapse of negotiations threatening to further strain
US-North Korea relations and increase tensions on the Korean Peninsula, a more
earnest and sober discussion about how to build mutual confidence, enhance
stability, and strengthen peace is all the more important.
Peace is a process, not an event. A peace regime thus represents a compre-
hensive framework of declarations, agreements, norms, rules, processes, and
institutions aimed at building and sustaining peace.
Six countries—North Korea, South Korea, the United States, China, Japan, and
Russia—have substantial interests in a peace regime for the Korean Peninsula.
Some of these interests are arguably compatible, including the desire for a sta-
ble and nuclear-free Peninsula. Others, such as North Korean human rights and
the status of US forces, seem intractable but may present potential for progress.
Understanding these interests can shed light on how to approach areas of con-
sensus and divergence during the peacebuilding process.
Certain diplomatic, security, and economic components are necessary for a
comprehensive peace on the Korean Peninsula. Denuclearization, sanctions relief,
and the US military presence have drawn the most attention, but a peace regime
would also need to address other matters—from procedural aspects such as which
countries participate and whether a treaty or an executive agreement should be
used, to sensitive topics such as human rights, economic assistance, and humani-
tarian aid, to far-reaching considerations such as the Northern Limit Line, conven-
tional force reductions, and the future of the United Nations Command. This report
addresses how US administrations can strategically and realistically approach the
challenges and opportunities these issues present, and then oers general princi-
ples for incorporating them into a peacebuilding process.
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Since the signing of the 1953 Armistice Agreement established a military truce on the
Korean Peninsula, few serious endeavors have been undertaken to realize a “final
peaceful settlement” to the Korean War.
1
A variety of factors, including geopolitical
tensions, deep mistrust, poor mutual understanding, political expediency, and myopic
policymaking, have prevented diplomatic negotiations among the four major coun-
tries involved—the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea), the
Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea), the United States, and China—from advanc-
ing to the formal peacemaking stage.
To be sure, many limited eorts have been made to reach a peace settlement. The
first attempt, the 1954 Geneva Conference, reached potential agreement on the
issues of foreign troop withdrawal and the scope of elections for the Peninsula.
2
However, the conference ultimately foundered after two months over the question of
who would supervise these issues—the communist side favoring Korea-only or neutral
nations supervision and the US-led side supporting UN oversight.
Later, despite the grip of Cold War tensions on the Peninsula—China and the
Soviet Union backing the North and the United States supporting the South—the
President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, right, and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, shake hands in the truce village of Panmunjom on April 27, 2018.
At center is the border between the two Koreas. (Photo by Korea Summit Press Pool via New York Times)
Achieving peace
on the Korean
Peninsula is possible
but it will be a
long and arduous
process. The first
step is elevating
peace as a priority.
Background
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PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
two Koreas took sporadic, incremental steps toward
peaceful coexistence and long-term reunification.
They achieved significant breakthroughs in diplomatic
relations and tension reduction, including the 1972
joint North-South Statement on reunification, the 1991
Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression, and
Exchanges and Cooperation (Basic Agreement), and
the 1992 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of
the Korean Peninsula.
These achievements, however, proved largely aspira-
tional because they could not resolve three fundamen-
tal issues. First, North Korea desired direct negotiations
and normalization with the United States, often sidelin-
ing South Korea in the process. Second, North Korea
continued to conduct violent acts against South Korea
(such as the 1983 assassination attempt of President
Chun Doo-hwan in Burma, the 1987 bombing of a
Korean Air flight, and the 2010 sinking of the ROK ship
Cheonan and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island), partly be-
cause of its own insecurity about the South’s growing
political and economic legitimacy. Third, it was unclear
how the two Koreas would accommodate mutually con-
tradictory conceptions of reunification following peace.
Advances in North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic mis-
sile program in the 1990s finally drew Washington into
negotiations with Pyongyang but further complicated
the prospects for peace discussions. Successive US
administrations prioritized denuclearization as the pri-
mary objective in negotiations and made it a precondi-
tion for discussing peace and diplomatic normalization.
After the 1994 Agreed Framework deal froze North
Korea’s nuclear facility at Yongbyon, US President Bill
Clinton and South Korean President Kim Young-sam
proposed Four-Party Talks with North Korea and China
in April 1996, the first major eort at peace negotiations
since the 1954 Geneva Conference. Unsure about US
intentions for the endgame, North Korea took more
than a year to respond.
3
When it finally engaged,
discussions about peace quickly collapsed because
of its insistence that US troop presence on the Korean
Peninsula be on the agenda.
4
A North Korea review
process led by former US Secretary of Defense William
Perry (but conducted separately from the Four-Party
Talks and ongoing US-DPRK missile talks) pushed the
two sides “tantalizingly close” to a deal that would have
banned North Korea’s production and testing of long-
range missiles in exchange for potential normalization
steps.
5
Because time was running out for his adminis-
tration, however, President Clinton chose to prioritize
promising Israeli-Palestinian talks rather than making a
trip to Pyongyang, believing that the next administra-
tion would consummate a deal with North Korea.
6
In the mid-2000s, the Six-Party Talks chaired by China
represented another attempt to address peace and
denuclearization under a “commitment for commitment,
action for action” approach.
7
Despite some confi-
dence-building measures, including North Korea’s shut-
ting down the five-megawatt reactor at its Yongbyon
facility, the United States’ removing North Korea from
its state sponsors of terrorism list and Trading with the
Enemy Act provisions, and the creation of working
groups focused on normalization, the talks again fell
apart in December 2008 when the two sides could not
agree on a formal protocol for verifying North Korea’s
nuclear activities. In the absence of a written protocol,
Washington, along with new, right-of-center govern-
ments in Seoul and Tokyo, insisted on suspending
energy assistance; Pyongyang responded by expelling
international inspectors.
8
The landmark June 2018 agreement reached in
Singapore between President Donald J. Trump and
Chairman Kim Jong Un—the first signed between the
Peace on the Korean Peninsula will require far more than a simple agreement, however.
A comprehensive regime consisting of declarations, agreements, norms, rules, processes,
and institutions will be necessary to build and sustain peace.
5
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United States and North Korea at the leader level—
was the latest eort at forging a peace regime on
the Korean Peninsula. Under the agreement, the two
sides committed to “establish new US-DPRK relations”
and “build a lasting and stable peace regime on the
Korean Peninsula.” In addition, North Korea promised
to “work toward the complete denuclearization of the
Korean Peninsula.”
9
The inability of the two countries
to negotiate a more comprehensive agreement at a
second summit in Hanoi in February 2019, or since
then, underscores their entrenched positions and the
long-standing chasm that lies between.
Nevertheless, the Singapore agreement’s call for a
peace regime reinforced the need to examine this
issue in a thorough and timely manner. Also, the
unique aspects of this period of diplomacy—including
President Trump’s unconventional willingness to meet
with Kim Jong Un directly and to discuss peace and
denuclearization simultaneously, the severity of the
global pressure campaign against North Korea, the Kim
regime’s purported desire to shift from nuclear to eco-
nomic development, and the ostensibly cordial relation-
ship between the two leaders—presented a potentially
radical disjuncture from past negotiation scenarios.
10
Although the considerable obstacles were clear, the
moment warranted greater preparation for a poten-
tial peace. As this latest eort at diplomacy appears
to have failed and US-North Korea relations seem on
the brink of another downward turn, it is just as—if not
more—important to think through how to enhance sta-
bility, build mutual confidence, and strengthen peace
on the Peninsula without a formal peace agreement.
The limited number of ocial, multilateral eorts to
pursue a comprehensive peace regime has meant
equally few examinations of what it entails, how the
relevant countries view such an initiative, and what
issues and risks it involves. The focus of most parties
on the immediate challenges of North Korean denu-
clearization has further detracted from assessing the
long-term challenge of structuring peace on the Korean
Peninsula. The rapid development of North Korea’s
nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and
the corresponding intensifying of the global sanctions
regime against North Korea significantly complicate a
potential peace process.
All parties interested in Korean Peninsula security
accept in principle the necessity of a peace regime to
ensure a permanent end to conflict. Peace will require
far more than a simple agreement, however. A compre-
hensive regime consisting of declarations, agreements,
norms, rules, processes, and institutions—spanning the
diplomatic, security, economic, and social spheres—will
be necessary to build and sustain peace. Furthermore,
the process will raise challenging questions about the
future of the US-ROK Alliance, the strategic orientation
of and relations between the two Koreas, the role of
the United States and China on the Korean Peninsula,
and the overall security architecture in the Northeast
Asian region.
Achieving peace on the Korean Peninsula is possible,
but it will be a long and arduous process. The first step
is elevating peace as a priority.
6
PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
Perspectives
Six countries—North Korea, South Korea, the United
States, China, Japan, and Russia—have substantial in-
terests in how peace unfolds on the Korean Peninsula
and the implications for Northeast Asia. Many of these
interests are arguably compatible. For example, all
six parties support the goal of denuclearization of the
Peninsula, though following dierent definitions and
timelines; even North Korea has committed to this goal,
at least nominally, despite actions to the contrary. Some
disputes, such as the presence of US forces on the
Korean Peninsula or the human rights situation in North
Korea, seem nonnegotiable but may present areas
for progress after greater dialogue and trust building.
Other interests present challenges because they are
at direct odds (such as the sequencing of denuclear-
ization and reciprocal confidence-building measures)
or particular to just one country (such as Japanese
abductees). Understanding these interests can help
accentuate consensus areas while mitigating diver-
gences during the peacebuilding process.
NORTH KOREA
Since at least the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union,
North Korea’s approach to peace has been rooted
in its pursuit of regime security. To this end, the Kim
regime has focused on ending what it perceives as a
“hostile” US policy and transforming its overall rela-
tionship with the United States. The North has also
engaged with liberal South Korean governments to
reduce tensions and gain benefits, but it has long
perceived the United States as the paramount threat
to its security and the principal impediment to attaining
comprehensive, sustainable peace.
During periods of negotiations with the United States,
the regime has pursued this approach by securing US
commitments to move toward full normalization of polit-
ical and economic relations, provide formal assurances
against the threat or use of conventional and nuclear
weapons, ease economic and financial sanctions, and
respect North Korea’s sovereignty. The most recent
articulation of this goal was described in the June 2018
US-DPRK Joint Statement in Singapore, which com-
mitted the two countries to “establish new US-DPRK
relations” and “build a lasting and stable peace regime
on the Korean Peninsula.”
North Korea believes that denuclearization should be
the result, rather than the cause, of improved bilat-
eral relations between Pyongyang and Washington.
The regime insists, with China’s endorsement, that a
transformed relationship can only occur by both sides
taking “phased and synchronous measures” to build
trust slowly rather than Pyongyang being required to
denuclearize unilaterally and comprehensively up front
under a “Libya model” as suggested by then National
Security Advisor John Bolton.
11
For North Korea, measures for ending the “hostile” US
policy can be described under three categories: diplo-
matic, military, and economic.
For Pyongyang, an important demonstration of im-
proved US-DPRK ties is the normalization of relations.
North Korea believes that peace and security starts
with a mutual recognition of each country’s sovereignty
and parity, which can be accorded through normaliza-
tion. Normalized relations would also facilitate regime
legitimacy in other ways, including through enhanced
economic and trade relations, greater academic, scien-
tific, and technical exchanges, and improved standing
in the international community.
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SOUTH
KOREA
NORTH
KOREA
CHINA
RUSSIA
JAPAN
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(West Sea)
Sea of Japan
(East Sea)
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a
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r
a
i
t
Seoul
Gwangju
Daejeon
Ulsan
Busan
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Daegu
Pyongyang
Wonsan
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Sinuiju
Hamhung
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Tanchon
050
MILES
0 50 KILOMETERS
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I
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I
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(
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Map 1. The Korean Peninsula
Artwork by Lucidity Information Design
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PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
North Korea views the US military presence in South
Korea and its joint exercises as a direct threat to
the regime’s security and a constant manifestation
of Washington’s hostility. To mitigate this threat, the
regime has sought military security guarantees from
the United States, which include not only assurances
against an attack but also an end to joint US-South
Korea military exercises and a reduction in—if not com-
plete withdrawal of—US forces on the Peninsula. The
regime has also made its own varying demands for the
denuclearization of the entire Peninsula, including the
removal of US nuclear and strategic assets from South
Korea and even in the region.
Despite its public emphasis on diplomatic normalization
and security guarantees, North Korea has consistently
demanded economic concessions in previous bilateral
and multilateral negotiations. Since 2018, it has focused
on gaining relief from the robust UN sanctions target-
ing the civilian economy that started with the adoption
of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2270 in
March 2016. This eort also coincided with a shift in
the country’s strategy to prioritize economic develop-
ment rather than simultaneous development of nuclear
weapons and the economy (byungjin).
12
Experts disa-
gree on whether the move was a natural progression in
national priorities after the successful completion of its
nuclear force development, as North Korea claims, or a
response to the crippling eects of economic pressure,
as sanctions advocates argue.
North Korea has been equivocal and inconsistent about
how it prioritizes potential US and international conces-
sions. For example, at dierent points throughout the
1990s, North Korean ocials both expressed a willing-
ness to set aside the issue of US troops on the Peninsula
(such as during the 1994 Agreed Framework negotiations
and the 2000 inter-Korean summit) and demanded that
the issue be on the negotiating agenda (for example,
during the late-1990s four-party peace talks).
13
Former US
ocial Robert Gallucci, who negotiated the 1994 Agreed
Framework, noted that “from time to time there have
been indications that the North would like more political
freedom and less economic dependence on China and
is not so enthusiastic about an American departure from
the region.”
14
Similarly, North Korea has sometimes under-
scored its desire for sanctions relief, including making it
its highest priority during the February 2019 Hanoi sum-
mit negotiations, but in other instances has dismissed
its importance and instead emphasized the primacy of
security guarantees.
15
This equivocation may be an eort
to downplay the eect of sanctions and save face while
seeking economic relief. Ultimately, Pyongyang seeks
comprehensive security across the diplomatic, military,
and economic dimensions, but has demonstrated flexibil-
ity in its demands, depending on the circumstances and
potential corresponding concessions.
In the absence of diplomatic progress, North Korea has
sought to coerce the United States into ending its “hos
-
tile” policy by increasing its leverage through nuclear
and long-range missile testing, heightened tensions
on the Korean Peninsula, and improved relations with
China, Russia, and other countries. After the collapse of
negotiations in December 2019, Chairman Kim stated
that North Korea would revert back to “taking oensive
measures to reliably ensure the sovereignty and security
of our state.”
16
Many experts argue that even an end to
US enmity will not persuade North Korea to abandon
its nuclear weapons. Becoming a nuclear power has
been its highest security goal (if not national ambition) for
several decades. North Korean ocials have wondered
in various settings why their country was not treated like
India and Pakistan, which each possess nuclear weap-
ons and have normal diplomatic relations with other
countries but are not considered nuclear-weapon states
North Korea has sought to coerce the United States into ending its “hostile” policy through nuclear and
long-range missile testing, heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and improved relations with
China, Russia, and other countries.
9
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under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
17
Given North Korea’s
claim that it has “finally realized the great historic cause
of completing the state nuclear force” with the successful
launch of its Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile
in November 2017, many US experts believe that North
Korea will likely continue to maintain its nuclear deterrent
because it is the best guarantee of regime security and
national sovereignty.
18
Accordingly, security guarantees
and promises of brighter economic futures will not be
enough to get significant traction on denuclearization be-
cause North Koreans view the US domestic political land-
scape as unpredictable and changes in administrations
triggering swings in Washington’s North Korea policy.
SOUTH KOREA
Given the proximate security risk from North Korea and
the fundamental yearning for reconciliation (and even
reunification), both liberal and conservative South Korean
administrations since the democratization period of the
late 1980s have generally pursued a policy of engage-
ment with the North. President Roh Tae-woo (1988–93),
inspired by West Germany’s Ostpolitik engagement
with Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union’s adoption of
glasnost, implemented a Nordpolitik policy in 1988 that
strengthened political and economic ties with communist
countries to help draw the North out of isolation. The
inter-Korean détente continued under President Kim
Young-sam (1993–98) and intensified under the sunshine
policies of Presidents Kim Dae-jung (1998–2003) and Roh
Moo-hyun (2003–8), leading to several breakthroughs,
including the Mount Kumgang tourism project in 1998, the
Kaesong joint industrial complex in 2004, and the first two
North-South summits in 2000 and 2007. Critics have ar-
gued, however, that the sunshine policy achieved tempo-
rary rapprochement at the expense of enabling and even
funding the North’s nuclear program and illicit behavior.
Subsequent conservative administrations adopted a
tougher, more reciprocal approach in engaging with
North Korea. President Lee Myung-bak (2008–13) con-
ditioned dialogue and humanitarian assistance on North
Korean steps toward denuclearization and openness;
President Park Geun-hye (2013–17) sought a middle
ground that emphasized mutual trust building as the foun
-
dation for peace and denuclearization. These engage-
ment eorts, however, were undermined by North Korean
provocations, which included four nuclear tests between
2009 and 2017, the sinking of the Cheonan and shell-
ing of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010, and a 2015 landmine
explosion in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Both adminis-
trations implemented a “proactive deterrence” policy that
aimed to thwart provocations by highlighting dispropor-
tionate retaliation, oensive capabilities, and preemption.
Pyongyang rejected this less accommodating approach
and viewed the conservative governments’ emphasis on
reunification as a hostile regime-change strategy.
The current Moon Jae-in administration reinvigorated the
sunshine policy of its liberal predecessors, highlighting
three main principles for a peaceful Korean Peninsula.
The first involves the renunciation of all military action
and armed conflict, whether it is a North Korean provoca-
tion or a US preventive strike. A military clash would not
only undermine peace eorts but could also potentially
lead to dangerous escalation. Second, President Moon
has emphasized the importance of denuclearization of
the Korean Peninsula. This point not only recognizes
that North Korea’s denuclearization is a prerequisite for
peace, but also rejects arguments by South Korea’s con-
servatives in support of indigenous nuclear weapons or
the redeployment of US tactical nuclear weapons.
The third principle stresses that the two Koreas must
play the primary roles in leading the peace process. This
principle stems from a strong desire for national self-
determination born out of decades of colonial occupa-
tion, foreign intervention, great power influence, and
North Korean refusals to engage with South Korea. In his
first meeting with President Trump in June 2017, President
Moon quickly secured US support for “the ROK’s leading
role in fostering an environment for peaceful unification
of the Korean Peninsula.”
19
A week later, in a speech
outlining his North Korea policy delivered in Berlin, he
declared that South Korea would be “in the driver’s seat”
10
PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
of the Korean Peninsula. Nevertheless, South Korea
recognizes that the United States will play a leading role
on the basis of its authority over nuclear issues and the
North’s preoccupation with US enmity. Consistent with the
concept of self-determination, President Moon has also
adopted from previous sunshine policies the principle of
“no regime change” to allay Pyongyang’s fear that greater
engagement could lead to forced integration, absorption
by South Korea, or an end to the Kim regime.
With these three principles in mind, the Moon adminis-
tration has pushed for a step-by-step, comprehensive
approach to building and maintaining peace with North
Korea. The South’s invitation of a senior North Korean
delegation to the February 2018 Winter Olympics in
Pyeongchang began an inter-Korean thaw that led to
three North-South summits and a comprehensive military
agreement on tension reduction. Seoul also envisioned a
peace process beginning with an end-of-war declaration
by the end of 2018 and then subsequent steps toward
a peace treaty. Further, Seoul has pursued economic
cooperation and nonpolitical exchanges with the North,
promoting potential inter-Korean railway and energy
projects for mutual prosperity and seeking the reunion
of separate families to encourage reconciliation. At the
same time, the Moon administration has supported the
US-led “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign, includ
-
ing sustaining the unilateral May 2010 sanctions adopted
by previous conservative governments, and maintained a
policy of robust deterrence to urge the North to return to
talks and stay on the path toward peace.
Despite these successes, South Korea has run out of road
for advancing inter-Korean cooperation. Seoul will have a
dicult time moving forward on joint inter-Korean eco-
nomic ventures absent a US-DPRK agreement that allows
North Korea's Hwang Chung Gum and South Korea's Won Yun-jong carry the unification flag during the February 9 opening ceremony of the 2018
Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/AP)
11
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for at least partial relief from economic sanctions, includ-
ing those against joint ventures with North Korea. The
Moon government will also need to address North Korea’s
concern about Seoul’s ongoing military buildup, includ-
ing its acquisition of US F-35 stealth fighters. Moreover,
Pyongyang has grown weary of Seoul’s role as an “o-
cious” mediator, arguing that it should instead support the
interests of the Peninsula.
20
For his part, President Moon
recognizes the limitations of his five-year, single-term
presidency and has begun eorts to institutionalize the
Panmunjom Declaration reached during the April 2018 in-
ter-Korean summit by ratifying it in the National Assembly
so that it is binding on future administrations.
21
UNITED STATES
The US perspective on a Korean peace regime is driven
by its broader national security interests, primarily the
elimination of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruc-
tion and the need to maintain US strategic presence and
influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Washington maintains
a laser focus on ending North Korea’s nuclear program
and considers denuclearization the linchpin of any
improvements to the security situation on the Peninsula.
Indeed, for many US analysts, a peace regime would
flow naturally from ending Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons
program—and remain out of reach without it.
A minority of US analysts have broached the potential
for a peace regime under an arms control model that
reframes denuclearization as an ambiguous or long-
term goal and focuses on managing the growth of North
Korea’s nuclear program in the short term.
22
Believing
that North Korea will not denuclearize anytime soon, they
advocate taking more realistic steps focused on capping
Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal, locking in a nuclear and mis-
sile testing freeze, cultivating crisis stability and controlling
military escalation, and advancing a political framework
for peace based on deterrence and arms control. That
view, however, currently stands outside the mainstream
of ocial thinking because it could require a tacit accept-
ance of North Korea as a nuclear power if an arms control
agreement were construed as the endpoint rather than
starting point for a process aimed at full denuclearization.
Relatedly, many Washington analysts worry about permit
-
ting conditions that could induce South Korea and Japan
to acquire their own nuclear weapons. Some believe that
North Korea could conceivably threaten to use its nuclear
weapons to deter the United States from intervening to
stop North Korean aggression against the South.
A potential peace regime raises dicult security ques-
tions for Washington about the US-ROK Alliance,
American military presence in South Korea, and US strate-
gic posture in Northeast Asia. Any moves within a peace
process that undermine the pillars of the existing US-led
regional security architecture would encounter significant
opposition. The United States would in theory welcome
a peace regime whose principal eects were the consol-
idation of North Korean steps to end its nuclear program
and curtail its human rights abuses, and a reduction of the
potential for war between North and South. Washington
would also be amenable to a peace regime nested within
a wider, US-backed regional political and security order.
Therefore, a central question for the United States in
evaluating a potential peace regime is whether it would
require Washington to accept a reduction to its desired
force posture and level of influence in the region. North
Korea, China, and Russia would welcome an outcome
that diminishes US influence, but the United States wants
to avoid weakening its strategic position in Asia—espe-
cially if the promises of a peace regime prove illusory.
Given these considerations, Washington has historical-
ly favored incremental over sweeping changes on the
Korean Peninsula, thereby upholding the status quo. US
policymakers tend to dismiss North Korean, Chinese, and
Russian arguments about US regional military posture
being excessively threatening toward Pyongyang. From
Washington’s perspective, the only credible threat to
peace and security on the Peninsula is the Kim regime.
Therefore, although the United States wants North Korea
to move as rapidly as possible to dismantle its nuclear and
missile arsenals, it prefers to move slowly and methodical-
ly on the other components of a peace regime.
12
PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN
PEACE, DIVISION, AND REUNIFICATION
The relationships between Korean
peace, division, and reunification
have been in tension since 1945.
Both Koreas were unhappy with the
division and actively sought to reunify
the Peninsula by force. Kim Il Sung at-
tacked South Korea in 1950 with the
aim of reunification. Three years later,
South Korean President Syngman
Rhee refused to sign the armistice
because he wanted the war to con-
tinue until reunification was achieved.
The notion of peaceful coexistence
was unthinkable to both leaders.
a
By the early 1970s, as Washington
signaled a desire to reduce tensions
with China and the Soviet Union and
to decrease its defense burden in
the region, the two Koreas took steps
toward rapprochement. North Korea
viewed North-South dialogue as a
way to decouple Seoul from Wash-
ington and Tokyo and hasten the
withdrawal of US troops; South Korea
saw engagement with the North as a
hedge against US abandonment.
b
In
1972, the two countries signed a joint
statement to promote the unification
of the Peninsula through nonviolent
means and independent Korean
eorts. Later, the 1991 Basic Agree-
ment signaled an implicit understand-
ing that peaceful coexistence was a
precursor to reunification.
Since 2000, the two Koreas have
recognized that their respective
approaches to reunification have ele-
ments in common.
c
The North Korean
proposal for a Democratic Confederal
Republic of Koryo envisions reunifi-
cation under a one-state, two-system
approach in which the two govern-
ments maintain autonomy in manag-
ing diplomatic, military, and economic
aairs. This system would be a transi-
tional phase for the ultimate end state
of a single-system country. Similarly,
South Korea’s National Community
Unification Formula uses a three-
stage approach that would begin with
a period of reconciliation and cooper-
ation, followed by the formation of an
economic and social commonwealth
(like the European Union), and then
the final realization of a unified state.
d
These positions are not static, how-
ever, and have evolved with changes
in the security environment and each
country’s security interests.
Fundamental dierences in the two
plans will make a unified state di-
cult to operationalize. South Korea’s
constitution calls for a unified Korea
based on a “free and basic demo-
cratic order.” North Korea’s approach
seeks to preserve its socialist system
and requires the removal of US forc-
es, which it believes contributed to
the division in the first place.
Analysts generally view the prospect
of a democratic South Korea and
an authoritarian North Korea living
in peace as a waypoint to eventual
unification. Nevertheless, whether a
peace regime would extend or short-
en the timeline for unification is not
agreed. The Moon administration and
other engagement advocates believe
that a peace process, by encourag-
ing cooperation and the exchange of
ideas, goods, and people, can build
mutual trust and facilitate the path
to not only denuclearization but also
Notes
a. “The idea that Korea could be separated into Northern and Southern parts and that the parts should coexist is very dangerous,” Kim said in
November 1954. “It is a view obstructing our eorts for unification” (Chong-Sik Lee, “Korean Partition and Unification,” Journal of International
Aairs 18, no. 2 (1964): 230–31).
b. Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas : A Contemporary History, rev. ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2013), 25–26.
c. Dae-jung Kim, “North and South Korea Find Common Ground,” New York Times, November 28, 2000, www.nytimes.com/2000/11/28/opinion
/IHT-north-and-south-korea-find-common-ground.html.
d. South Korean Ministry of Unification, "National Community Unification Plan" [in Korean], www.unikorea.go.kr/unikorea/policy/plan.
e. During the Cold War, Finland maintained a realist strategy of neutrality between the West and the Soviet Union and “neighborly” relations with the
latter to coexist as a free and democratic country. The original use of the term Finlandization, however, suggested pejoratively that the country re-
linquished some aspects of its national sovereignty as a part of this arrangement. See James Kirchick, “Finlandization Is Not a Solution for Ukraine,”
The American Interest, July 27, 2014, www.the-american-interest.com/2014/07/27/finlandization-is-not-a-solution-for-ukraine.
Box 1.
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Previous US policy toward North Korea may have
also been influenced by the belief that the Kim
regime would not endure indefinitely. The potential
for regime collapse or change was a consideration,
albeit small, for the Clinton, George W. Bush, and
Obama administrations that may have contributed
to an unwillingness to consider the regime as a truly
permanent entity requiring long-term relations and
peaceful coexistence.
The Trump administration has prioritized North Korea
as a top security concern and adopted a more aggres-
sive and urgent approach to peace and denucleariza-
tion than those of previous administrations. Under the
first prong of its “maximum pressure and engagement”
policy, the administration threatened military action
against North Korea through “fire and fury” and “bloody
nose strikes,” and significantly increased the number
of North Korean sanctions designations in an eort to
increase leverage.
23
By the June 2018 Singapore Summit, however,
President Trump shifted toward an accelerated en-
gagement approach. He minimized preconditions
for talks, met directly with Chairman Kim (three times
in thirteen months) despite the lack of regular work-
ing-level meetings, exchanged letters with him, provid-
ed significant concessions up front with little delibera-
tion (such as suspending the August 2018 joint military
exercise), and demonstrated a willingness to pursue
peace and denuclearization simultaneously rather
than sequentially. These steps have put North Korea’s
sincerity about denuclearization to the test.
At the same time, other aspects of the administration’s
policy implementation, including uneven Alliance
coordination, internal disunity, and disjointed messag-
ing, warrant significant concern and may be osetting
any potential gains. In particular, the insistence by
high-ranking ocials that North Korea disarm unilater-
ally before Washington provides any sanctions relief
continues to hinder US-DPRK negotiations.
a mutually agreeable, soft-landing
unification. Other experts argue that
a peace regime process would pre-
maturely relieve pressure on the Kim
regime to denuclearize and conduct
reforms, thereby extending it. From
this perspective, a peace regime
creates a strategic dilemma with no
clear resolution.
Assuming reunification is possible,
what a unified Korea might mean for
regional stability is also a matter of
concern. Washington supports the
peaceful reunification of Korea based
on the principles of free democracy
and a market economy. Yet some
Washington analysts believe that
South Korea, in its pursuit of reuni-
fication, may be willing to abandon
the US-ROK Alliance and assume
neutrality or, even worse, accommo-
date China’s foreign policy prefer-
ences under a Finlandization model.
e
Such concerns are even greater in
Tokyo, which worries that a neutral
unified Korea would be anti-Japan,
tilt toward China, reduce US influ-
ence and presence in the region,
and degrade Japan’s security vis-à-
vis China. For its part, Beijing could
accept a peacefully reunified Korea
but would oppose the continuation
of the Alliance and any eort to draw
Korea into a US containment strategy
against China. Mitigating these con-
cerns about the future orientation of
a reunified Korea will be an important
aspect of the peace process.
14
PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
CHINA
China’s approach toward a peace regime is grounded
in its core priorities for the Korean Peninsula, which
Chinese ocials have described as no war, no instability,
and no nuclear weapons. Beijing seeks first to avoid
military escalation on the Korean Peninsula as well as
regime collapse in North Korea, both of which would
destabilize its immediate neighborhood. To a lesser
extent and as a longer-term goal, it also seeks North
Korea’s denuclearization to reduce proliferation and
contamination risks, curtail the rationale for US force
presence and military buildup in the region, and prevent
South Korea and Japan from seeking their own nuclear
weapons. It supports peace negotiations because they
would advance each of these three priorities.
It is also driven by its desire to maintain and project
influence on the Korean Peninsula. Beijing expects to
be involved as a major player in any peace process, not
only because of China’s role in the Korean War but also
because of the geostrategic implications for the future of
the region. In particular, Beijing seeks to take part in both
an end-of-war declaration and a formal peace treaty,
but especially the latter given that China was an original
signatory to the Armistice Agreement and wants to be
involved in shaping any final, legally binding agreement
that aects the future of the Korean Peninsula.
China has made this position clear not only in words but
also in its actions. Despite years of frosty relations and
no contact between President Xi Jinping and Chairman
Kim, bilateral ties warmed up quickly as North Korea
announced a strategic shift from nuclear to economic
development and began engaging with the United
States and South Korea to coordinate summit-level
meetings. The unprecedented number of strategically
timed meetings between Kim and Xi since 2018 signals
China’s determination not to be left out.
Beijing has encouraged bilateral negotiations first
between Pyongyang and Washington, with each side
making reciprocal concessions. It supports the idea of a
dual suspension (that is, a freeze in major US-ROK military
exercises in exchange for a freeze in North Korean nucle
-
ar and missile tests) to reduce tensions and has called for
parallel track negotiations to advance denuclearization
and peace simultaneously. This position is consistent with
Pyongyang’s preference for a “phased and synchronous”
process with Washington. However, if US-DPRK negoti-
ations progress to a broader discussion about a future
security arrangement for the Korean Peninsula, including
a peace agreement, China would seek to participate.
As China advocates for North Korea’s demands for secu-
rity concessions from the United States and South Korea,
it will try to shift the balance of regional power in ways
that are favorable to its interests. It is likely to leverage
the peace regime process to advance its strategic aim
of eroding the US presence in the region. For example,
Beijing has endorsed Pyongyang’s broad call to “denu-
clearize the Korean Peninsula.”
24
Although neither North
Korea nor China has clearly defined the specific US-ROK
actions required to create a “nuclear-free zone” on the
Peninsula, it may include demands that Washington
retract its nuclear umbrella over South Korea, end the
deployment of US nuclear and strategic assets to the
Korean Peninsula, roll back any missile defense cooper-
ation with Seoul, and reduce or withdraw US troops from
the Peninsula. If North Korea (and voices in South Korea)
push for the “neutralization” of the Korean Peninsula,
and thus the abrogation of the US-ROK Alliance, China is
likely to support this position given its desire to reduce
the US presence and alliance network in Asia.
25
Beijing will reject a peace regime that it perceives as
harming its own security interests or places the burden
of providing security for the Korean Peninsula on China.
It is also likely to reject any security arrangement that
it perceives as tilting the region toward Washington. It
will likely oppose any US positive security guarantees
to North Korea or any eorts to integrate North Korea
or a unified Korean Peninsula into the US-led alliance
network. At the same time, Beijing is also unlikely to
extend its own positive security guarantees to the
15
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Korean Peninsula beyond the strictly defensive terms
enumerated in China’s bilateral treaty with North Korea.
26
Chinese leaders insist that China is a “new type of great
power” uninterested in formal alliances. China has never
extended its nuclear umbrella over another country thus
far, and the provision of extended deterrence guaran-
tees to North Korea or other partners would require a
fundamental shift in China’s strategic thinking.
China, however, would likely support any economic
dimensions of a peace regime. Beijing views eco-
nomic engagement and partnerships as its primary
way to expand its relationships and influence with
partners. Beijing has long desired that Pyongyang
follow in China’s footsteps by opening up economically
while preserving its political system. Chinese leaders
believe North Korea’s economic development and
regional integration are key to stabilizing its immediate
neighborhood. They have therefore vowed to support
Kim’s strategic shift toward economic development,
including by proposing with Russia a plan for lifting UN
sanctions on North Korea related to exporting stat-
ues, seafood, textiles, and labor as well as exempting
inter-Korean railway projects from UN sanctions.
27
JAPAN
In the post–Cold War era, Japan’s relations with North
Korea have reflected Tokyo’s interest in increasing its
regional leverage relative to Beijing and Moscow while
enhancing its ability to act independently of Washington
and Seoul.
28
Japan has typically engaged in normaliza-
tion talks with North Korea during periods of inter-Kore-
an and US-DPRK rapprochement to avoid losing influ-
ence and to ensure that its interests are being served.
Between 1991 and 1992, it conducted eight rounds of
normalization talks with Pyongyang to establish ties
Commuters in the Seoul Railway Station watch a television showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping
to Pyongyang on June 21, 2019. (Photo by Lee Jin-man/AP)
16
PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
and resolve outstanding claims from colonial Japanese
rule. These talks failed, however, over the issues of
international inspections of North Korea’s nuclear sites,
Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea during the
1970s and 1980s, and compensation for post–World War
II claims.
29
After North Korea conducted a Taepodong
missile launch over Japanese territory in 1998 and
appeared to be making diplomatic progress with
Washington and Seoul in 2000, Tokyo held additional
rounds of normalization discussions in 2000 and 2002.
Although these talks did not yield significant results, the
two sides agreed on a joint declaration in 2002 in which
North Korea admitted to abducting Japanese nationals
and Japan expressed remorse for its colonial past.
30
Since the 2002 declaration, successive Japanese admin-
istrations have prioritized two goals under its North Korea
policy: the elimination of North Korea’s weapons of mass
destruction, including its nuclear and ballistic missile
programs, and the resolution of the abductee issue. The
first goal overlaps with US objectives, though Tokyo is
concerned that Washington is overlooking Pyongyang’s
shorter-range missile capabilities while focusing on the
longer-range threat. In response to domestic public
opinion, Japan is also continuing to seek a full account-
ing of the remaining twelve Japanese abductees. In
recent years, the Shinzo Abe government has insisted on
a “comprehensive resolution” of these two issues as the
conditions for normalization of bilateral relations.
31
Japan’s rigid position on these issues, particularly abduct-
ees, may stem from a desire to influence the agenda de-
spite its limited role in nuclear negotiations. Some experts
have argued that stalled denuclearization negotiations
prolong the North Korean threat, which provides Japan
additional justification to enhance its military capabilities,
particularly in the context of a stronger China.
32
During
the Six-Party Talks, Japan was criticized for obstructing
progress by making stringent denuclearization demands
and conditioning its provision of economic and energy
assistance on a full resolution of the abductee issue.
33
During Pyongyang’s recent spate of diplomatic outreach,
Tokyo has been relegated to indirect involvement in the
form of consultations with Washington. Japan remains
the only country with significant interests on the Korean
Peninsula that has not had a leader-level meeting with
North Korea during this period. The Abe administration
has been willing to let President Trump lead the denu-
clearization negotiations given their aligned position on
North Korea policy, but in May 2019 began proposing an
unconditional bilateral summit with Kim to ensure that its
interests are not neglected.
Japan wants to be included in multilateral negotiations
that involve serious discussions about a future regional
security architecture. It also wants a security framework
that reduces the North Korean threat so that it can focus
resources on China, which it views as its primary long-
term strategic threat.
34
This view supports the continu-
ation of a robust US presence on the Korean Peninsula
and in the region. Some Japanese experts are con-
cerned, however, that eorts to reduce this posture, in-
cluding modifications to US-ROK military exercises, would
not only undermine military readiness and deterrence but
also elicit domestic complaints about why similar meas-
ures could not be taken to decrease US forces in Japan.
Japan’s ability to provide economic assistance can be
useful in peace and denuclearization discussions. Tokyo
continues to adhere to the understanding in the 2002
declaration that Japan will provide grant aid, low interest
loans, and humanitarian assistance to North Korea as
part of the normalization process, similar to the compen-
sation given to the South as part of the 1965 Japan-ROK
normalization treaty. Estimates of the compensation
amount, adjusted for inflation and accrued interest,
range from $10 to $20 billion.
35
However, Tokyo wants to
Tokyo wants to have a role in shaping security discussions rather than being asked to simply provide a
blank check. Japan may have to shed its spoiler role if it is to have a greater role in a peace regime process.
17
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have a role in shaping security discussions rather than
being asked to simply provide a blank check.
Japan may have to shed its spoiler role if it is to have a
greater role in a peace regime process. In addition, its
current dispute with South Korea regarding historical,
export control, and security issues, if not resolved, could
complicate future multilateral negotiations as well as
Japan-DPRK normalization eorts. If US-DPRK and in-
ter-Korean negotiations advance in the future without ac-
ceptable resolutions to the abductee and ballistic missile
issues, Japan will need to decide whether it can maintain
its long-standing position or risk losing leverage on the
Peninsula and in bilateral Japan-DPRK negotiations.
RUSSIA
Like Beijing, Moscow favors North Korea’s denucleariza-
tion and the de-escalation of tensions through political
dialogue but is skeptical about the Kim regime’s will-
ingness to give up its nuclear weapons.
36
Russia also
worries that North Korea’s nuclear program heightens a
multitude of risks, including military conflict, regime insta-
bility, the erosion of the global nonproliferation regime,
contamination from nuclear accidents, and US military
expansion in the region. Based on these concerns, its
historical ties with North Korea, and its limited leverage in
the region, Moscow has typically mirrored Pyongyang’s
and Beijing’s prescriptions—such as the “dual freeze”
proposal—and their criticisms of US demands for North
Korea’s immediate and unilateral denuclearization. In
October 2018, at a trilateral vice foreign ministers meet-
ing in Moscow, Russia joined China and North Korea in
supporting a negotiations process that includes step-by-
step, reciprocal measures, a peace mechanism based on
bilateral and multilateral cooperation, and an easing of
the sanctions regime against North Korea.
From a broader perspective, Russia’s Korea policy re-
flects its geopolitical strategy for relations with other ma-
jor powers and sustaining its claim to great power status
in the region. Cooperation on North Korea policy is a key
issue for the deepening Sino-Russian “comprehensive
strategic partnership of coordination.”
37
Both powers
hope to use the peace and denuclearization process to
weaken the US-ROK Alliance and undermine the US-led
regional security architecture. At the same time, Moscow
recognizes that China’s stake in Korea is bigger than
Russia’s, and therefore shows a certain deference to
Beijing in dealing with Korea.
Russia also seeks, however, to maintain regional
influence and avoid acquiescing to China in Peninsula
diplomacy. The April 2019 Putin-Kim summit demonstrat-
ed Moscow’s ability to engage North Korea directly as
a way of gaining strategic leverage vis-à-vis the United
States.
38
President Putin has also called for Russia to
“turn to the East” and deepen its involvement in the
Asia-Pacific overall.
39
Staying involved in Korea, even
if not decisively, supports Moscow’s regional goals. It
also envisions itself playing a helpful role in a broader
discussion about security mechanisms in Northeast Asia.
It expects a peace regime to include a series of bilateral
and multilateral security guarantees covering the entire
Peninsula, which would then form the foundation for a
new regional security mechanism—presumably one with
a diminished US role. In addition, experts note that, in
the context of the collapse of the Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces Treaty and the potential for a regional
missile arms race, Russia could facilitate discussions
among regional actors on strategic missile systems.
40
Economics and trade are also major drivers of Russia’s
Korea policy. Moscow wants to develop the Russian Far
East, link South Korean railroads to the Trans-Siberian
Railway, and grow demand for its energy exports to
Asia by connecting pipelines and electricity systems
with the Peninsula. These interests align well with
President Moon’s hopes of using regional economic
cooperation to persuade North Korea to intensify its
shift from nuclear to economic development. Easing
sanctions on North Korea—which Russia helped adopt
as a permanent member of the UN Security Council
but has only selectively enforced—would remove an
economic constraint for both countries.
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PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
Structure of a Peace Regime
Various terms have been used to describe a complete
and enduring settlement of the Korean War, but ocial
bilateral and multilateral statements since the September
2005 Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks have ex-
plicitly articulated a peace regime as a primary goal.
Recognizing that peace is not a singular event that can
be achieved by one accord, the South Korean gov-
ernment oered the concept of a peace regime as an
organizing structure. The concept has since developed
to encompass a comprehensive framework of declara-
tions, agreements, norms, rules, processes, and institu-
tions—spanning the diplomatic, security, economic, and
social spheres—aimed at building and sustaining peace
on the Korean Peninsula (see table 1). Under this broad
definition, a peace regime would encompass previous
inter-Korean, US-DPRK, and multilateral declarations as
well as any future measures, including an end-of-war
declaration, any bilateral or multilateral peace processes
designed to achieve a final agreement, the peace agree-
ment itself, and any subsequent organizations, mecha-
nisms, or frameworks designed to maintain the peace.
Two important components of a peace regime—an end-
of-war declaration and a peace treaty—are often conflat-
ed. The Moon Jae-in administration envisions an end-
of-war declaration as a symbolic, nonbinding, political
statement that proclaims the Korean War to be over and
that marks the beginning of a new era of peaceful rela-
tions.
41
These new relations could also be demonstrated
through security guarantees, partial sanctions relief, the
exchange of liaison oces, reduced military tensions,
and people-to-people exchanges. To reinforce the lack
of any legal eect, the statement would underscore that
existing arrangements that maintain the peace, such as
the UN Command, the Armistice Agreement, and the
Military Demarcation Line, would remain in place until
the parties negotiate a more comprehensive peace
settlement.
42
The broader settlement, achieved under
a formal peace treaty, would require extensive negotia-
tions to replace the Armistice Agreement, formally end
the Korean War, complete the process of denucleariza-
tion, and create a binding set of obligations for maintain-
ing peace and security on the Peninsula. In this sense,
an end-of-war declaration would essentially serve as a
preamble to a peace agreement.
A comprehensive peace regime should address three
separate, but interrelated, sets of unresolved issues
from the Korean War: the multilateral nature of that war
and a long-term security architecture for the Korean
Peninsula and the region; the civil war and reconcilia-
tion between the two Koreas; and the normalization of
relations between the United States and North Korea
and between Japan and North Korea.
First, an umbrella peace agreement could be used to set-
tle the wider multilateral issues related to formally ending
the Korean War and establishing peace on the Korean
Peninsula. These issues would include the cessation of
hostilities, the status of foreign conventional and strategic
forces on the Peninsula, North Korea’s weapons of mass
destruction programs, the replacement of the Armistice
Agreement, human rights, the role of the United Nations,
and the establishment of both transitional and permanent
systems for managing the peace on the Peninsula and in
the region. The multilateral dimension of a peace agree-
ment should also lay the foundation for regional stability
by securing buy-in and support for a permanent Korean
peace from the United States and China.
Second, a separate process—perhaps annexed under
the umbrella agreement—would formally end the war
19
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between the two Koreas and resolve additional inter-
Korean issues, including outstanding border and terri-
torial matters, such as the Northern Limit Line (NLL) and
the Northwest Islands; military tension reduction; eco-
nomic cooperation; the movement of people, goods, and
services across the border; and any guidelines for future
confederation or reunification. The United States will
likely play a role given its combined defense posture with
South Korea and its role through the UN Command in es-
tablishing the NLL and controlling the Northwest Islands.
Previous inter-Korean agreements, such as the 1972
North-South Joint Statement, the 1991 Basic Agreement,
and the 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement, have
already delineated principles and steps for reconciliation
and tension reduction that can serve as a foundation for
the new inter-Korean agreement.
Examples
Declarations,
Agreements,
and Statements
(past and future)
• July 1972 South-North Joint Communique
• December 1991 Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression, and Exchanges and Cooperation
between the South and North
• January 1992 Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula
• June 2000 North-South Joint Declaration
• October 2000 US-DPRK Joint Communique
• October 2007 Declaration on the Advancement of South-North Korean Relations, Peace and Prosperity
• June 2018 Singapore Statement
• Potential end-of-war declaration
• Potential peace agreement or treaty
Norms, Rules,
and Processes
• Secretary Tillerson “Four No’s” (no regime change, no regime collapse, no accelerated reunification of
the Korean Peninsula, and no US forces north of the 38th parallel)
• Four pillars of Singapore Statement (new US-DPRK relations, lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean
Peninsula, complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, commitment to recovering POW/MIA remains)
• President Moon Sunshine Policy (two Koreas must play leading role on Peninsula and unification
issues, peaceful coexistence of two Koreas, no intent for collapse or absorption of North Korea,
denuclearization of the Peninsula, permanent peace regime, inter-Korean economic cooperation,
nonpolitical exchange and cooperation separate from political matters)
• Chairman Kim-President Xi policy (“phased and synchronous measures” that would “eventually achieve
denuclearization and lasting peace on the peninsula”)
• China’s support for “dual freeze” on North Korean nuclear and missile tests and US-ROK joint military
exercises and parallel track negotiations on peace and denuclearization
• Japan’s policy (resolution of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and Japanese
abductee issue)
• Potential institutionalized peace process
Institutions • Potential peace management organization (to replace Military Armistice Commission)
• Inter-Korean joint military committee
• Potential US-DPRK senior-level military-to-military dialogue
• Potential bilateral, four-party, and six-party working groups
• Potential regional security mechanisms (for example, Northeast Asia Peace and Security Mechanism)
Table 1. Conceptual Framework of a Korean Peninsula Peace Regime
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PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
Finally, separate tracks would be needed to
normalize Pyongyang’s relations with both
Washington and Tokyo. Establishing US-
DPRK diplomatic relations could be relatively
quick and simple once major issues such as
denuclearization, sanctions relief, and human
rights were resolved in multilateral discus-
sions. Also, although Japan was not a bel-
ligerent in the Korean War, its role as a base
for US and multinational forces during the
conflict and as a major power in the region
makes Japan-DPRK normalization an impor-
tant part of the peace regime process. Other
bilateral aspects of the Korean War, such as
the prior state of conflict between the United
States and China, and between the ROK and
China, have already been resolved through
the normalization of diplomatic relations in
1979 and 1992, respectively.
A Korean Peninsula peace regime compris-
es a broad set of interrelated diplomatic,
security, and economic challenges (see
table 2). Certain sensitive issues (such as
denuclearization and sanctions relief) are
linchpins to the entire endeavor; others
would be important confidence-building
measures (an end-of-war declaration, hu-
manitarian assistance, and so on). Similarly,
some measures are better suited to the
front end of the process. Others would
come only later, as the process ripens.
Ultimately, as the perspectives of the in-
volved countries make clear, most if not all
of these issues must be addressed at some
point in the peace regime process.
POTENTIAL MEASURES
UNDER A PEACE REGIME
SHORT TERM (temporary or reversible measures)
Establishment of working groups on peace and
normalization (US-DPRK, JPN-DPRK), setting of
diplomatic end states
End-of-war declaration
Liaison oces
End of travel ban to and from North Korea
People-to-people exchanges (POW/MIA remains recovery
operations, reunion of divided families, cultural exchanges)
Intermittent head-of-state meetings for progress updates
Broad DPRK commitment to engage on human rights,
initial human rights measures, meetings with UN special
rapporteur and US special envoy
Partial sanctions relief, with snapback provisions and
focus on inter-Korean projects or limited sectors (such as
Kaesong Industrial Complex, Mount Geumgang tourism,
coal and textile)
Support for technical assistance related to economic
reform and international financial institution (IFI)
requirements
Humanitarian assistance
Commitment to discuss economic and energy assistance
DPRK commitment to address counterfeiting and money
laundering
Establishment of four-party working group on
denuclearization and security (US-DPRK-ROK-PRC),
definition of denuclearization of Korean Peninsula
Mutual negative security assurances
Moratorium on nuclear and ballistic missile tests
Freeze on all nuclear and ballistic missile activities
Declaration of nuclear activities related to Yongbyon
Yongbyon shutdown and return of monitors and inspectors
Engagement on cooperative threat reduction measures
Development of inter-Korean joint military committee
Development of additional arms control, military tension
reduction measures
Suspension or modification of large US-ROK military
exercises and Korean People's Army (KPA) exercises
Halt to deployment of US strategic and nuclear assets on
or near Korean Peninsula
Establishment of US-DPRK military-to-military dialogue
DIPLOMATIC
ECONOMIC
SECURITY
Table 2.
21
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LONG TERM
Regular working-level meetings on peace and
normalization, including human rights norms
Continued people-to-people exchanges
Intermittent head-of-state meetings for progress updates
Continued DPRK engagement on human rights measures
and periodic reviews
Signing of four-party peace agreement, including DPRK
human rights commitments
Normalization of relations
Establishment of embassies
Continued review of peace agreement implementation
Increased people-to-people exchanges
Intermittent head-of-state meetings for progress updates
Continued implementation of DPRK human rights
commitments and periodic reviews, including termination
of gross violations
Additional sanctions relief with snapback provisions,
commensurate with DPRK actions
Removal from state sponsor of terrorism list
Continued humanitarian assistance
Discussion of energy assistance
Complete sanctions relief commensurate with
denuclearization, with snapback provisions
Continued support for economic reform and international
financial institutions membership
Continued economic and energy assistance
Continued humanitarian assistance
Regular four-party working-level meetings on
denuclearization and security
Complete and verifiable dismantlement of Yongbyon facility,
partial verification of halt to uranium enrichment activities
Declaration of all nuclear and missile activities
North Korea accedes to the Chemical Weapons Convention
Continued engagement on cooperative threat reduction
measures
Proportional US-ROK and DPRK conventional force
reduction measures
Suspension or modification of large US-ROK military
exercises and KPA exercises
Continued halt to deployment of US strategic and
nuclear assets on or near Korean Peninsula
US force presence commensurate with security environment
Begin six-party working group on regional security
(US-DPRK-ROK-PRC-JPN-RUS)
Continued verification of halt to all uranium enrichment
Verified dismantlement of all nuclear weapons
Verified dismantlement of intermediate-range and long-
range ballistic missiles
Elimination of DPRK chemical weapons
Continued engagement on cooperative threat reduction
Disestablishment of United Nations Command
Establishment of new peace management organization
Resolution of NLL and Northwest Islands issues
Proportional US-ROK and DPRK conventional force
reduction measures
Suspension or modification of large US-ROK military
exercises and KPA exercises
Continued halt to deployment of US strategic and
nuclear assets on or near Korean Peninsula
US force presence commensurate with security environment
Establishment of six-party regional security mechanism
MEDIUM TERM
DIPLOMATIC
DIPLOMATIC
ECONOMIC
ECONOMIC
SECURITY
SECURITY
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Diplomatic Issues
Constructing a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula
would require a series of diplomatic actions from sev-
eral parties. In particular, Washington and Pyongyang
would need to transform their ties from near-total es-
trangement into normalized relations. This would need
to begin with ending the state of conflict that has exist-
ed since the beginning of the Korean War in 1950 and
was frozen in place by the 1953 Armistice Agreement.
One approach, which South Korea has suggested,
would be for the parties to formally conclude fighting in
two steps. First, the United States, South Korea, North
Korea, and potentially China could issue an end-of-war
declaration, which would amount to a political rather
than legal statement that all the parties consider hostil-
ities terminated. The second step would create a pro-
cess to replace the armistice with a peace agreement.
Such a process would be much more dicult given the
large set of issues involved and the potential legal con-
sequences of terminating the armistice. It would likely
entail various interim steps or agreements that achieve
prerequisite confidence-building measures prior to a fi-
nal settlement (for example, an interim deal that freezes
North Korea’s nuclear and missile activities in exchange
for security guarantees and economic assistance).
The normalization of diplomatic relations by itself could
potentially come before a final peace agreement and be
relatively easy to achieve if the countries involved agree
to it. For example, Japan and Russia share diplomatic
and economic ties despite the lack of a formal peace
treaty after World War II. However, that sequence would
be politically dicult for the United States unless signifi-
cant progress is made on North Korean denuclearization
President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Kim Jong Un of North Korea, flanked by their spouses, during a luncheon in Pyongyang during their Sep-
tember 2018 summit. (Photo by Pyeongyang Press Corps Pool via New York Times)
23
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and human rights. A process that addresses denucleari-
zation and peace in parallel would have the best chance
of maintaining political support from all sides.
Questions about which parties have the authority to
act on behalf of the belligerents remain. The armistice
was signed by the UN Command; the Korean People’s
Army (KPA), North Korea’s military; and the People’s
Volunteer Army, a now-defunct military force Beijing
created solely to fight in Korea. It is therefore unclear
whether the United States can sign on behalf of the
United Nations, whether South Korea can sign at all,
and whether the unocial status of the former People’s
Volunteer Army allows Beijing to sign a subsequent
agreement on its behalf.
43
Legal analyses have argued
that both Koreas, the United States, and China could
justifiably sign an agreement to replace the armistice.
44
None of the parties would likely contest this legal inter-
pretation given their de facto roles in the conflict.
Creating venues for diplomatic representation is another
critical part of the normalization process. Currently, the
United States and North Korea communicate primarily
through the unocial “New York Channel” at the DPRK
Permanent Mission to the United Nations for working-lev-
el interactions. The next level of diplomatic presence
would be for each side to set up mutual liaison oces
or “interests sections”—essentially, bare-bones unocial
embassies—in each other’s capitals (an example is the
US interests section in Cuba before the embassy was
established in 2015). The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang
reserves space to host a US liaison oce should one
need to be set up quickly. For their part, the two Koreas
opened liaison oces in the North Korean border town of
Kaesong in September 2018, although North Korea (to sig-
nal displeasure) has at times recalled sta from the oce.
The United States has a history of setting up liaison
oces as a precursor to full-fledged embassies with-
in the context of diplomatic normalization processes.
Washington and Beijing established them in 1973
following President Nixon’s visit in 1972, for example.
Embassies were eventually opened in 1979 after the
United States ocially recognized the People’s Republic
of China. In Vietnam, the process moved much more
quickly. Washington and Hanoi established liaison oc-
es in January 1995 and ocial embassies that August.
Similar processes could unfold for the United States and
North Korea as well as for Japan and North Korea.
PROCESS, PARTICIPANTS, FORMAT
The process of developing a peace regime on the Korean
Peninsula will be long and complicated. Devising an
eective framework that addresses the central concerns
of each party and carrying that arrangement through to im-
plementation will be dicult. Decades of negotiations on
the Korean Peninsula have seen a range of formats, from
bilateral talks between the United States and North Korea
in the early 1990s to the Four-Party Talks in the late 1990s
that included South Korea and China to the Six-Party Talks
in the mid-2000s that added Japan and Russia.
The latest negotiations, initiated in early 2018, were most-
ly bilateral meetings between North Korea and a rotating
cast of South Korea, the United States, China, and Russia.
Japanese leaders were also eager to be involved. At
some point, however, the parties might see value in
transitioning the process into a multilateral format given
the far-reaching interests and implications for regional
powers related to the Korean Peninsula. Ensuring all
the relevant countries have a seat at the table can help
mitigate incentives for any party to act as a spoiler, build
in support for an agreement up front, and spread out
responsibilities and costs. Those rationales propelled
the Six-Party Talks. At the same time, adding parties can
make the process substantively, procedurally, and logisti-
cally more dicult, so a balance must be struck.
The parties could opt for one of several negotiating for-
mats. The guiding principle should be the inclusion of par-
ties on all issues for which they have substantial interests,
yet keeping the overall process as nimble, focused, and
results-oriented as possible. The first option would be for
negotiations to move forward on a four-party basis: North
24
PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
Korea, South Korea, the United States, and China. Such a
format would involve the modern representatives of the
Korean War belligerents. It would also allow each Korea’s
major-power backer to be directly involved in talks, and
for US negotiators to act as proxy for Japanese interests
and Chinese negotiators for Russian interests.
A second option would be for talks to continue as a
series of bilateral meetings, possibly complemented
by a few trilateral or quadrilateral meetings to address
strategic issues related to the Korean Peninsula. In
addition, a consultative mechanism could be set up
that includes all six parties to tackle issues that have
broader regional implications.
A third option would be to bring in parties from outside
the region to act as neutral intermediaries for the region-
al states and to provide nuclear expertise and economic
assistance. One possible arrangement along these
lines would be to reassemble the P5+1 grouping (the
permanent five members of the UN Security Council—
plus Germany) that negotiated the Iran deal. This time it
would include both Koreas, the P5+1, and perhaps Japan
as well. Another possibility would be to involve the UN
Secretary-General’s oce as an independent mediator
as the peace process moves toward a final agreement.
45
However, given the two Koreas’ desire to limit foreign
influence in peninsular aairs and the ability of relevant
major powers to act as proxies for multilateral interests,
it is unlikely that outside actors beyond the six parties
would play a major role except in narrowly defined,
supplementary capacities (such as nuclear dismantle-
ment verification and facilitation) or to serve a procedural
function (such as Security Council sanctions waivers and
UN resolutions supporting a peace agreement).
REPLACING THE ARMISTICE AGREEMENT
A peace treaty is generally considered the appropriate
instrument for replacing the 1953 Armistice Agreement
and codifying a permanent peace on the Korean
Peninsula. This emphasis stems from the conventional
approach under customary international law in which
wars were first terminated by military cease-fires and
then permanently settled by peace treaties.
46
Reinforcing
this approach was the basic understanding of the most
fundamental principle under international law, pacta sunt
servanda (“treaties must be complied with”).
However, the word treaty has dierent meanings under
international and US law. In the context of international
law, specifically Article 2(1) of the Vienna Convention,
any agreement between states, however designated,
constitutes a treaty if it is intended to be binding on
the parties. Although none of the major agreements
and statements regarding the Korean Peninsula have
explicitly articulated a peace treaty, their references to
a peace settlement, mechanism, arrangement, or re-
gime should all be construed as a treaty (or a broader
framework that includes a treaty) that is intended to be
binding on the relevant parties.
From the US perspective, a treaty is a narrower subcate-
gory of binding international agreements. An agreement
could take two principal forms under US law. The first is
a treaty, an agreement negotiated and signed by a mem-
ber of the executive branch that enters into force if ap-
proved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate. Although
the president maintains the constitutional power to make
treaties, the Senate has the authority to condition its con-
sent on reservations, declarations, understandings, and
provisos concerning the treaty’s application.
47
The second form, known as an executive agreement,
does not require the Senate’s advice and consent but
is equally binding on the United States. Since the end
of World War II, the challenge of securing a two-thirds
majority in the Senate has led to the growth of executive
agreements. That trend has continued at a rapid pace
in more recent years due to the heavy workload of the
Senate and the volume of business conducted between
the United States and other countries.
Between 1977
and 1996, 93 percent of the more than four thousand US
international agreements, including the 1994 US-DPRK
Agreed Framework, were executive agreements.
48
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The type of instrument used to codify the final peace
settlement could have important implications for diplo-
matic negotiations, long-term sustainability, and congres-
sional-executive relations. The State Department’s Oce
of the Legal Adviser is responsible for deciding how an
international agreement should be classified based on
criteria outlined under the Circular 175 procedure.
49
In
practice, however, the decision is often a political matter,
taking into account the likelihood of Senate approval.
50
An executive agreement oers a more expedient path to a
peace settlement than a treaty but may not be as sustain-
able. A future president can terminate such an agreement
without congressional approval, which is what happened
when President Trump withdrew from his predecessor’s
2015 nuclear agreement with Iran.
51
Also, Congress could
use its power of the purse to withhold funds for commit-
ments that have not received the Senate’s advice and
consent or broader congressional input. This is what
occurred when the Republican Party took control of the
House of Representatives two weeks after the Clinton
administration signed the Agreed Framework in October
1994, turning the agreement into a “political orphan.”
52
A treaty can help ensure congressional support in
ratifying and implementing the agreement, but also
has disadvantages. If Senate consent depends on
North Korea’s acceptance of an exacting list of re-
quirements related to denuclearization, human rights,
financial transparency, and other good behavior, then
a potential deal might not be reached in the first place.
Furthermore, a treaty does not guarantee durability,
even with initial Senate support. Despite an ongoing
legal debate about the constitutional requirements
for the termination of Senate-approved treaties, the
president’s ability to withdraw unilaterally from such
US Army General William K. Harrison, left, and North Korean General Nam Il sign armistice documents ending the three-year-old Korean conflict on
July 27, 1953. (Photo by Alpha Stock/Alamy Stock Photo)
26
PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
treaties is the accepted norm.
53
Recent examples of US
treaty withdrawals, including from the Mutual Defense
Treaty with Taiwan, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and
the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, demon-
strate that treaties, although enjoying broader legiti-
macy and support than executive agreements, are not
necessarily permanent or binding on future presidents.
Administration ocials have, at times, conveyed that
the White House’s intent is to seek Senate approval of
a North Korea deal.
54
However, the White House Oce
of Legal Counsel has also reportedly advised senators
that ratification may not be necessary.
55
In any case, US
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has signaled in testimony
before the House Foreign Aairs Committee that a deal
with North Korea would be submitted to the Senate as a
treaty.
56
Current Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
has expressed hope that any agreement with North Korea
would take the form of a treaty.
57
Meanwhile, the current
Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, James Risch, has stated that the Senate will
assert its right to approve such an accord.
58
Ultimately, the
White House will need to strike a balance between what
is acceptable to the parties to an agreement, especially
North Korea, and what is acceptable to Congress.
TERRITORIAL AND BORDER ISSUES
Replacing the Armistice Agreement will require the
resolution of thorny territorial and border disputes
that have been potential flashpoints for a broader
conflict on the Korean Peninsula. Under the Armistice
Agreement, the US-led UN Command maintains mili-
tary control of five islands in the Yellow Sea o North
Korea’s southwest coast (the Northwest Islands).
59
Although North Korea has not actively contested the
UN Command’s ongoing control over this territory,
it does claim ultimate sovereignty—as does South
Korea—over the entire Korean Peninsula, which
includes these islands. The elimination of the UN
Command and the armistice would present Pyongyang
with an opportunity to revisit this issue and make it an
agenda item in inter-Korean peace discussions.
Discussions about the Northwest Islands will have
important implications for the volatile Northern Limit
Line dispute. Shortly after the end of the Korean War,
the UN Command unilaterally established the NLL as a
military control measure, setting a northern limit for UN
Command and South Korean vessels to avoid the poten-
tial of military clashes (see map 2). This line extends west
from the Han River estuary through twelve coordinates
equidistant between the Northwest Islands and the North
Korean coast and at least three nautical miles from the
coast. Around 1973, North Korea began to contest the
NLL, with fishing boats and KPA vessels crossing the line
twenty to thirty times a year by the late 1970s, serious
inter-Korean naval clashes occurring near Yeonpyeong
Island in 1999, 2002, and 2009, and the ROK corvette
Cheonan being sunk o Baengnyeong Island in 2010.
60
For its part, South Korea argues that the NLL is a de facto
maritime boundary in which North Korea acquiesced
through its conduct until 1973.
61
Although the NLL is
neither a part of the Armistice Agreement nor intended
to be an international maritime boundary, it has become
“an eective means of separating ROK and DPRK military
forces and preventing military tensions.”
62
The NLL carries significant value for several reasons.
From a security viewpoint, it allows the South Korean
military to access and defend the Northwest Islands
and monitor North Korean military installations on the
coast. Shifting the NLL further south, on the other hand,
would allow North Korean vessels to patrol closer to
the Han River estuary and Seoul and prevent South
Korean ships from conducting surveillance close to the
North Korean shore. For both countries, the maritime
area around the NLL provides valuable fishing grounds
and shipping routes to the Yellow Sea.
Although Seoul has little present interest in adjusting
the NLL, significant progress in peace discussions could
create political and legal momentum for adjudicating
the territorial and maritime disputes. Currently, the two
Koreas have outlined initial steps under the September
2018 inter-Korean military agreement to reduce tensions
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Yellow Sea
(West Sea)
Kyonggi
Bay
Haeju
Bay
Yeonpyeongdo
NORTH KOREA
SOUTH
KOREA
INCHEON
INTERNATIONAL
AIRPORT
HAN RIVER ESTUARY
NEUTRAL ZONE
NORTHERN LIMITLINE
NORTHKOREA
-
DECLARED
MILITARY DEMARCATION LINE
NORTHWEST ISLANDS
Kaesong
Panmunjom
Seosan
Munsan
Ongjin
Songang-ni
Changyon
Sinchon
Chaeryong
Sohae-ri
Haeju
Sariwon
Songnim
Hwangju
Nampo
010 MILES
0 10 KILOMETERS
Socheong
Daecheong
Baengnyeong
Incheon
Bucheon
Gimpo
SOUTH
KOREA
NORTH
KOREA
JAPAN
CHINA
AREA
ENLARGED
Map 2. Northern Limit Line
Artwork by Lucidity Information Design
28
PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
near the NLL, including establishing a peace zone that
prohibits all live-fire and maritime maneuver exercises
and creating a pilot joint fishing zone between one of
the Northwest Islands and the North Korean coast.
63
However, any change in control over the Northwest
Islands would aect the NLL. A final resolution of the
NLL and Northwest Islands issues could be reached as
part of inter-Korean negotiations or through international
arbitration under the framework of the UN Convention
on the Law of the Sea, which North Korea signed in 1982
but has not ratified. The US-ROK Alliance will need to
determine the extent of US participation in settling these
issues given the UN Command’s role in establishing the
NLL and managing the Northwest Islands.
PEOPLETOPEOPLE EXCHANGES
People-to-people engagements and initiatives—such as
academic, cultural, sports, health, and humanitarian-
related exchanges—can over time help strengthen
mutual trust under a peace regime and establish the
new US-DPRK relations envisioned in the Singapore
agreement. Sustained lower-level contact may also
help enhance broader domestic support for peace
in each country and reinforce the political conditions
conducive to progress on the diplomatic track. Previous
examples of US exchanges with adversaries include
science diplomacy with the Soviet Union before the fall
of the Berlin Wall, ping-pong diplomacy that paved the
way for President Nixon to open relations with China,
and more recently limited exchanges with Myanmar,
Cuba, and Iran. At the height of the Six-Party Talks in
2008, the New York Philharmonic performed at the East
Pyongyang Grand Theater, the largest contingent of US
citizens in the country’s capital since the Korean War.
64
Starting with the Obama administration and expand-
ed under the Trump administration, the United States
has tied humanitarian exchanges to political progress
with North Korea. Since September 2017, US bans on
American travel to North Korea (except for journalists,
humanitarian aid workers, and visits that advance US
national security interests) and North Korean travel
to the United States have significantly restricted peo-
ple-to-people exchanges. The restrictions came at the
height of the recent tensions between the two countries
and were intended to reinforce the maximum pressure
campaign against North Korea. The Trump administration
imposed the US travel ban amid concerns about North
Korea’s arbitrary detentions following American student
Otto Warmbier’s death after falling into a coma while in
North Korean custody and the detention of two other
US citizens in the spring of 2017. Prior to the restriction,
an estimated eight hundred to a thousand Americans
visited North Korea each year.
65
About two hundred US
citizens lived there.
66
The ban on North Korean travel to
the United States was implemented as part of a wid-
er eort to protect US citizens from terrorist attacks.
67
However, that only a handful of North Korean ocials
and academics visited the United States each year led
some to question the purpose and impact of the order.
68
People-to-people initiatives could help build mutual
confidence leading up to, and as part of, a peace process.
The 2018 Singapore agreement already emphasized a bi-
lateral commitment to resume joint US-DPRK operations in
North Korea to recover the remains of US prisoners of war
and missing in action (POW/MIA) from the Korean War.
69
One month after the Singapore Summit, North Korea
handed over fifty-five boxes of presumed US remains,
but the eort was suspended after negotiations stalled at
the February 2019 Hanoi summit. Another initiative some
activist groups advocate is family reunions for Americans
of Korean descent separated from relatives in North Korea
after the Korean War. Although twenty-two ocial inter-Ko-
rean family reunions have been held since 1985, American
citizens have lacked a state-sponsored pathway to reunite
with their family members in North Korea.
70
Advocates
say as many as a hundred thousand Korean Americans
have relatives in North Korea who could be part of such
a program.
71
Last, the easing or termination of the travel
bans to and from North Korea would open up a broader
range of potential people-to-people exchanges, such as
the participation of North Korean professionals in the State
Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program,
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and the resumption of US congressional delegation visits
72
to North Korea and US citizens teaching at the Pyongyang
University of Science and Technology.
73
HUMAN RIGHTS
The North Korean regime’s status as one of the world’s
worst human rights abusers poses a significant chal-
lenge for diplomatic normalization under a peace
regime. US administrations have tended to segregate
human rights concerns because raising them could
complicate and protract security-related negotiations.
However, after many years of defector accounts and the
2014 UN Commission of Inquiry’s conclusion of “sys-
tematic, widespread and gross human rights violations”
by the North Korean regime, many analysts argue that
human rights must be an inextricable component of
peace and denuclearization talks.
74
Without progress on
human rights, it could be politically dicult for two-thirds
of US Senators to provide consent on a peace treaty.
Even with an executive agreement, various US laws
with human rights provisions, such as the North Korea
Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act (NKSPEA), make
it legally dicult for the United States to grant the per-
manent sanctions relief necessary for a full normalization
of relations unless North Korea takes substantive steps
to address its human rights violations.
75
Human rights issues can be incorporated into the
peace negotiation process in various ways. Initial,
incremental steps on issues of humanitarian concern,
such as allowing more reunions between families sepa-
rated by the Korean War, particularly first-time reunions
with Korean American families, could lend credibility to
North Korea’s commitment to an improved relationship
with its neighbors and the United States under a peace
regime. Such measures would not bring about signif-
icant change in North Korea’s human rights situation
but would indicate a commitment to establishing a new
and closer relationship with the United States.
Next, any peace settlement should incorporate broad
commitments to human rights principles that lay the
groundwork for future discussions and reforms as well
as the monitoring of human rights issues. This approach
could follow the model of the 1975 Helsinki Accords,
which established the foundation for later reforms in
Soviet Bloc states in Eastern Europe (see box 2). Certain
issues that North Korea has already agreed to address
as part of the UN’s Universal Periodic Review process,
such as improving the rights of women and children and
increasing access to food and health services, could be
the basis for immediate cooperation.
76
The commitments should address the concerns out-
lined in the NKSPEA and Commission of Inquiry, includ-
ing accounting for and repatriating foreign abductees
and service member remains, allowing humanitarian
aid workers greater access in North Korea, and improv-
ing living conditions in the political prison camps that
house those considered disloyal to the regime. Greater
North Korean willingness to engage with the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Special
Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North
Korea, and a US special envoy for North Korean human
rights would help build congressional support for nor-
malizing ties with Pyongyang. In this regard, the White
House should appoint a human rights envoy immedi-
ately—a position vacant since January 2017—to begin
coordinating the integration of human rights measures
into eorts toward a peace regime.
Getting Pyongyang to engage on human rights, which
it perceives as an indirect attempt to pursue regime
collapse, will not be easy. Beijing would also have no
interest in backing an incremental human rights agen-
da. Washington needs to demonstrate how human
rights progress can strengthen regime security and
improve US-DPRK relations, including greater oers
of humanitarian assistance, partial sanctions relief,
and a tangible pathway to diplomatic normalization.
At the same time, experience indicates that North
Korea responds to public shaming. In response to the
Commission of Inquiry, the regime issued its own report
defending its human rights practices, acknowledged
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PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
some multilateral recommendations from the Universal
Periodic Review process more sincerely, and enhanced
its senior-level diplomatic engagements on human
rights, including the first visit by a North Korean foreign
minister to the UN General Assembly in fifteen years.
77
In the long run, the United States will seek broad
reforms to North Korea’s political system, including
dismantlement of the prison camp system and the
songbun social classification system, as well as greater
access to outside information and decriminalization of
“hostile” information. However, because these types
of measures are the most sensitive for North Korea,
Washington will need to calibrate how it broaches and
seeks implementation of these reforms.
THE HELSINKI ACCORDS
The 1975 Helsinki Accords—an agreement, signed by thirty-five states representing the rival Eastern and Western blocs
of the Cold War, that introduced the concept of universal human rights as a basis for relations between states—may
prove a useful model for how the United States can address human rights issues in a Korean Peninsula peace regime.
Through the accords, Europe and the United States secured the Soviet Union’s agreement to a number of human rights
provisions as part of a broader deal that allowed Moscow to consolidate its control over Eastern Europe and receive
economic trade benefits from the West. The first basket of the accords included ten principles to guide relations between
participating states, including Article VII, which stated that “the participating States recognize the universal significance
of human rights and fundamental freedoms” such as freedom of thought, conscience, religion, or belief. The third basket
related to improving humanitarian concerns such as family reunification, marriages, travel, people-to-people exchanges,
working conditions for journalists, information access, and cultural exchanges.
At the time of signing, the Soviet Union’s leadership recognized the risks posed by international human rights norms but be-
lieved that the Helsinki principles of sovereignty and non-intervention would let Warsaw Pact members, as “masters in our
own house,” neglect compliance with Helsinki norms.
a
Over time, however, the provisions proved to be eective in securing
improvements in human rights after activists in the Soviet Union and Europe set up monitoring groups to track and draw
international attention to violations of the accords, and a process was introduced to review Helsinki implementation.
b
Pyongyang will likely be averse to a Helsinki-type framework, viewing it as a Trojan horse. But much like the Soviet Union,
the leadership may regard commitments as unenforceable and thus a small price to pay for receiving desired benefits and
being seen as a more responsible international actor. As dicult as it is to envisage at the moment, over time, circumstanc-
es could develop that lead to greater adherence to universal human rights standards in North Korea.
Notes
a. Daniel C. Thomas, The Helsinki Eect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Demise of Communism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, September 1, 2001), 93.
b. US Department of State, Oce of the Historian, "Helsinki Final Act, 1975," https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/helsinki.
Box 2.
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Security and Military Issues
To be robust and durable, diplomatic agreements
enshrining peace need to be accompanied by tangible
measures that reduce military tensions and enhance
mutual security. One of the greatest challenges for a
peace regime on the Korean Peninsula will be crafting
measures that can address the seventy years of mistrust
between North Korea and the US-ROK Alliance as well
as the security concerns of major regional stakeholders.
The process will also raise dicult and larger questions
about the future of the Alliance, the strategic orientation
of North and South Korea, the role of the United States
and China on the Korean Peninsula, and the overall
security framework for the Northeast Asian region.
SECURITY GUARANTEES
A permanent peace settlement will require mutual security
guarantees among the two Koreas, the United States, and
China. Security guarantees could come in the form of both
negative security assurances (promising not to attack) and
positive ones (promising to protect from attack by others).
Over three decades of negotiations, the United States
has extended negative security guarantees to North
Korea numerous times. In the 1994 Agreed Framework,
Washington expressed intent to provide “formal assuranc-
es to the DPRK, against the threat or use of nuclear weap-
ons.” It took an additional step in the September 2005
Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks by “arm[ing] that
it has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and
has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nucle-
ar or conventional weapons.” In this statement, the ROK
also “rearmed its commitment not to receive or deploy
nuclear weapons . . . while arming that there exist no
nuclear weapons within its territory.”
78
Most recently, the
Singapore Statement underscored that “President Trump
committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK.”
79
Despite these instances, the United States will need
to rearm explicitly through a formal agreement
its commitment not to attack North Korea using ei-
ther conventional or nuclear weapons. Washington
could also argue that once relations have improved,
the presence of a sizable number of US civilians in
Pyongyang, including diplomats, aid workers, business
people, academics, and tourists, would help reinforce
the security guarantee. Likewise, North Korea would
need to forswear all threats and aggression against
South Korea, Japan, and the United States. Russia has
also identified the possibility of developing a “system
of international security guarantees for North Korea,”
perhaps a continuation of the Six-Party Talks proposal
for a Northeast Asia Peace and Security Mechanism.
80
Analysts have pointed out, however, that multilateral
security guarantees do not have great track records.
81
An end-of-war declaration could further strengthen the
credibility of mutual security guarantees. The Moon
administration as well as some analysts have argued
that declaring an end to the Korean War could send an
encouraging signal to North Korea about US intentions,
help Kim Jong Un counter hard-liners at home, and
boost momentum for ongoing negotiations.
82
Other ex-
perts, however, have warned against such a declaration,
arguing that it would be premature without greater North
Korean concessions and could unravel the rationale and
support for a US military presence on the Peninsula.
83
President Trump reportedly promised Chairman Kim
that he would sign an end-of-war declaration soon after
their meeting in Singapore, but this debate continued
to play out within the US government.
84
Washington
apparently decided to put a joint end-of-war declaration
on the table at the February 2019 Hanoi summit, but
it was sidelined when the two sides could not agree
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PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
on denuclearization and sanctions relief measures.
85
Even if a declaration is made, Washington and Seoul
should stress that existing arrangements that ensure
security, such as the Armistice Agreement, the Military
Demarcation Line, and the UN Command, will remain in
place until a formal peace agreement is reached.
Analysts have also pointed out that beyond just prom-
ises of nonaggression, Kim Jong Un seeks his regime’s
guaranteed security.
86
Setting aside that Congress would
never support the idea of protecting the Kim regime, it is
unclear how the United States would extend such a guar-
antee, other than vowing not to intervene in the face of
internal unrest in North Korea or pledging to ensure Kim’s
personal safety in the event of a coup. One measure of
reassurance, which does not cross the line into regime
support, could be for Washington to underscore the po-
litical and symbolic value of ocial US recognition of the
DPRK and normalization of relations. Washington could
argue that the political legitimacy and economic develop-
ment that flows from diplomatic normalization would help
prevent domestic instability in North Korea.
Ultimately, security guarantees are necessary but not suf-
ficient measures for the establishment of a peace regime
on the Korean Peninsula. Oral and written guarantees
are only the first step in a longer process and need to be
substantiated through further discussions and tangible ac-
tions that reduce military tensions and build confidence.
CONFIDENCEBUILDING MEASURES
Concrete measures by both sides that reduce military
tensions, the likelihood of conflict, and the potential for
miscommunication can strengthen mutual confidence
in security guarantees.
Military Exercises
Cancellation of major US-ROK military exercises, which
North Korea views as rehearsals for invasion, has some-
times served as a confidence-building measure during
periods of diplomacy. The suspension of the massive
spring field training exercise Team Spirit in January
1992, in conjunction with the US withdrawal of its tactical
nuclear weapons from South Korea and the granting of a
high-level US-DPRK meeting, led directly to Pyongyang
ratifying an International Atomic Energy Agency safe-
guards agreement. North Korea had dragged its feet
on that agreement since signing the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty in 1985. Similar cancellations in 1994,
1995, and 1996 maintained the diplomatic space that
allowed the Agreed Framework to be signed in October
1994 and remain in eect throughout the 1990s. More re-
cently, President Trump’s unilateral decision at the June
2018 Singapore Summit to suspend the fall command
post exercise—although problematic from an Alliance
coordination perspective—likely helped ensure a
positive summit outcome as well as confirm that a “dual
freeze” was in eect. Conversely, the Alliance decision
to modify rather than suspend the major 2019 spring
and fall exercises provided a basis for North Korea to
pull back from working-level negotiations and conduct
several short-range ballistic missile tests in response.
87
Experts at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, however, have found Alliance military exercises
to have no eect on US-North Korea relations (the state
of relations prior to the exercises were the primary de-
terminant of North Korean behavior after them).
88
If negotiations advance, the US-ROK Alliance will need
to consider the role of military exercises in the peace-
building process as well as in a future security environ-
ment. Washington, Seoul, and Pyongyang should have
a clear understanding that all militaries, including their
own, conduct exercises for training and readiness pur-
poses. The question is the extent to which military exer-
cises should and can be adjusted to build trust under
a peace regime while preserving necessary defense
and deterrence objectives. US military ocials have as-
serted that though a reduction in exercises can cause
slight degradations to military readiness, the diplomatic
leverage or traction that comes from such adjustments
may make this trade-o a prudent risk.
89
Other analysts
warn, however, that long-term cancellations and modifi-
cations could have a more severe impact.
90
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Scaling back major exercises remains a potential,
though limited, option for reducing tensions and
building trust. Further eorts to alter the current Dong
Maeng exercise series may be dicult given that
they are already reduced versions of the former Key
Resolve/Foal Eagle and Ulchi Freedom Guardian
exercises. In addition, the exercises need to be com-
prehensive enough to test the operational and mission
capabilities of the South Korean military, a requirement
for giving Seoul wartime operational control of its
troops by the Moon administration’s goal of 2022. As
the peace process unfolds over time, however, exer-
cises could be modified to train for less threatening
objectives, such as humanitarian assistance and search
and rescue, or reduced in scope and size and moved
o the Peninsula to be less threatening to Pyongyang.
The potential transition of wartime operational control,
which includes establishing a future combined com-
mand structure with a South Korean four-star general
as the commander, would also give Seoul greater
authority and confidence to shape the exercises. And
though Pyongyang should not have a vote in Alliance
matters, having discussions with the Korean People’s
Army through the North-South joint military committee
could help clarify tension reduction measures, includ-
ing reciprocal modifications to the KPA’s winter and
summer training cycles.
US Military Presence
The potential for improved US-DPRK relations and
an eventual peace agreement would raise important
questions about the future of the US military presence
on the Korean Peninsula. Currently, the United States
stations approximately 28,500 troops in South Korea,
concentrated in two major hubs: Camp Humphreys,
which is the largest US military base overseas and
located fifty-five miles south of Seoul in Pyeongtaek,
and a constellation of bases around the southeastern
city of Daegu. This forward-deployed presence reflects
not only the US treaty commitment to defend its ally but
also the broader goals of projecting power and serving
a stabilizing function in the region.
USROK COMBINED
MILITARY EXERCISES
US-ROK combined military exercises play a piv-
otal role in maintaining peace and stability on the
Korean Peninsula. Since 1955, the two countries’
militaries have conducted them to maintain military
readiness, test command and control capabilities,
strengthen interoperability, and train for a range of
contingency operations, including defending South
Korea against North Korean aggression.
a
These
exercises also serve a signaling function, demon-
strating Alliance resolve and military superiority
to help deter, or at least minimize, North Korean
adventurism. The scope, size, and function of these
exercises, which number in the dozens annually
and range from computer-assisted, command post
exercises to tactical-level, field training exercises,
have evolved over the years depending on the se-
curity environment. Typically, two major combined
exercises occur each year during the spring and fall.
Notes
a. Robert Collins, “A Brief History of the US-ROK Combined
Military Exercises,” 38 North, February 26, 2014,
www.38north.org/2014/02/rcollins022714.
US and South Korean soldiers cross the Namhan River during a
May 2013 joint military exercise in Yeoncheon near the border
with North Korea. (Photo by Ahn Young-joon/AP)
Box 3.
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PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
If negotiations progress toward a peace agreement, the
US and South Korean governments could face external
and internal pressure to review and justify continuing
US troop presence. As discussed, North Korea and
China may call for the outright withdrawal of US troops
from South Korea or at least a significant reduction in
size and a reorientation toward peacekeeping and
stability.
91
According to a 2018 survey, 74 percent of
Americans support maintaining long-term bases in
South Korea, but a significant number also support a
partial (54 percent) or complete (18 percent) withdrawal
of troops if denuclearization occurs.
92
In South Korea,
views will likely diverge along liberal and conservative
fault lines. It is conceivable, however, that if inter-Korean
relations advance rapidly, the rationale for allowing and
providing funding for US troops and bases on Korean
territory could be questioned, and South Korea could
ask the US troops to leave, revise its presence, or
remain only on a rotational basis. According to recent
survey results, a majority of the South Korean public
supports US troop presence (67.7 percent) but between
2013 and 2017 this number has trended downward from
an average of more than 75 percent.
93
The support
drops to 43.5 percent in a post-unification scenario, and
could further dip during periods of anti-Americanism.
94
The current situation has been complicated by
President Trump’s own criticism of the US military pres-
ence in South Korea. Since before taking oce, he has
talked about withdrawing large numbers of troops from
the Korean Peninsula. Prior to the June 2018 summit, he
reportedly ordered the Pentagon to review options for
drawing down US troops in South Korea.
95
Fearing the
potential for arbitrary reductions in US troop presence,
Congress restricted the president’s ability to cut troops
below current levels unless the secretary of defense
first certifies that the reduction is in the national security
interests of the United States and its allies and that
Washington has appropriately consulted with allies.
96
The US and ROK defense establishments should begin
discussions about how the size, posture, and role of
the US military in South Korea might change depending
on future scenarios and threat environments. US troop
presence on the Peninsula has constantly adapted to the
political, strategic, and military needs of the times, from
more than seventy thousand troops immediately after the
Korean War to thirty-eight thousand in the 1990s to the
current 28,500.
97
Some experts believe that the current
force posture is warranted given the prevailing goals of
deterrence and reassurance, but believe Alliance discus-
sions about future modifications could be helpful.
98
Others
go a step further to suggest signaling to China and North
Korea that future force levels could be calibrated com-
mensurate with the severity of the North Korean threat.
99
If this threat is diminished, various levels of US troop
deployments and US-ROK security arrangements could
be employed, including nonpermanent, base access
agreements (similar to the ones used with the Philippines
and Australia) or a reduced posture oriented toward ex-
peditionary, disaster relief, and humanitarian operations.
100
Some US analysts even argue for modifying the force
structure today, either because a significant US presence
is no longer necessary given the readiness of the South
Korean military or because deterrence against a nuclear
North Korea requires a dierent approach than against a
larger or a nuclear-armed adversary.
101
Opinions will be split within the United States, particu-
larly within the broader debate between those who
seek a more restrained foreign policy and a smaller
global military footprint and those who value US power
projection capabilities and general military engagement
around the world. However, reexamining the rationale
If negotiations progress toward a peace agreement, the US and South Korean governments could face
pressure to review and justify continuing US troop presence: North Korea and China may call for the
outright withdrawal of US troops or at least a significant reduction in size and a reorientation toward
peacekeeping and stability.
35
USIP.ORG
for the current disposition of US troops in South Korea
and the appropriate force posture for addressing specif-
ic missions can help shift the conversation away from a
simplistic, all-or-none, stay-or-withdraw framework to a
more nuanced and eective prescription tailored toward
the current and future security environment.
Conventional Force Reductions
Reducing the size and scope of conventional military
forces on both sides of the Military Demarcation Line
could help lower the potential for sudden, large-scale
conflict and build confidence toward a permanent
peace. North Korea has the fourth-largest military in the
world (1.2 million serving as active-duty personnel), with
a significant portion of its ground, naval, and air forces
forward-deployed near the DMZ.
102
Although undergoing
defense reform that will reduce its military personnel to
a half a million troops by 2025, South Korea maintains
a combined defense posture with US forces and fields
more advanced military weapons, technology, and sys-
tems to achieve its defense and deterrence objectives.
103
The two Koreas already outlined an approach to reduc-
ing military confrontation in the 1991 Basic Agreement.
They agreed to resolve disputes peacefully through
dialogue and negotiation, not use force against each
other, and create an inter-Korean joint military com-
mission to further identify and implement measures
to decrease military tensions. These steps included
discussions of major movements of military units and
major military exercises, the peaceful use of the DMZ,
exchanges of military personnel and information,
phased reductions in armaments and attack capabili-
ties, and verification measures.
Although the 1991 measures were not implemented,
they provided a foundation for subsequent progress on
tension reduction achieved under the September 2018
Comprehensive Military Agreement.
104
Within months of
this accord, the two Koreas enacted a range of actions to
minimize conflict along the DMZ and in the Yellow Sea.
These steps included ceasing all live-fire artillery and field
training drills near the Military Demarcation Line, withdraw
-
ing guard posts within the DMZ, demilitarizing the Joint
Security Area in Panmunjom (including land mine and fire-
arms removal), establishing no-fly zones along the MDL,
halting live-fire and maritime maneuver exercises in West
and East Sea buer zones, and adopting revised opera-
tional procedures to avoid accidental military clashes.
Both in the course of peace negotiations and once a
treaty is signed, the United States and the two Koreas
could engage in additional, phased confidence-building
measures to increase transparency, restrict operations,
and reduce conventional arms. Although Washington
has never ocially discussed which conventional force
reduction measures would be appropriate as part of a
peace agreement, analysts have pointed to the approach
taken by the Conference on Security and Co-operation
in Europe (now the Organization for Security and Co-
operation in Europe) under Vienna Document 1990 and
the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE).
105
This path would include confidence- and security-building
measures that provide greater transparency and informa-
tion sharing on military activities, organization, and plans
(such as notification of major military activities; exchange
of information on defense policy, manpower, and major
conventional weapons and equipment systems; reciprocal
observer visits to bases and exercises; and so on) and
restrict peacetime operations and exercises (withdrawing
North and South Korean artillery back from their forward
positions, for example).
106
In addition, the two sides could
adopt the CFE focus on eliminating or reducing major
weapons and equipment (such as attack helicopters,
heavy artillery, combat aircraft, or tanks) to decrease the
possibility of large-scale, surprise attacks.
107
These security-related discussions should occur through
direct military-to-military engagement with North Korea,
primarily through the inter-Korean joint military committee.
In addition, establishing a senior-level, policy-oriented
dialogue between the Defense Department and the
KPA—rather than just revitalizing the defunct colonel- and
flag ocer–level discussions that occurred intermittently
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PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
through the Military Armistice Commission at the DMZ dur-
ing the 1990s and 2000s—would also provide a regular
forum for addressing strategic tension reduction meas-
ures, enhancing communication and transparency, and
preventing miscalculations and accidents that could esca-
late into larger conflict.
108
A dialogue with the North Korean
military could also help build a relationship with one of the
most powerful constituencies within the regime, enhance
its buy-in to the peace regime process, and strengthen US
understanding of its interests and motivations.
US-ROK Alliance
The United States and South Korea will decide the
future of the Alliance on a bilateral basis, regardless
of North Korean, Russian, and Chinese interests. Still,
a potential peace regime raises dicult questions
for policymakers in Washington and Seoul about the
Alliance’s role and scope. Although the 1953 US-ROK
Mutual Defense Treaty never mentions North Korea
and only declares a “common determination to defend
themselves against external armed attack,” the Alliance
has existed primarily to deter North Korean aggression
and ensure South Korean and regional security.
109
A
peace process that ostensibly promises to resolve
North Korean threats and aggression could undermine
a significant part of the rationale for the Alliance and the
US troop presence. More immediately, as a part of the
negotiations, North Korea may demand concessions
that detract from military readiness and deterrence.
Those could include reductions in US troop presence,
an end to US extended deterrence, and limitations on
nuclear and strategic asset deployments to the area.
Washington and Seoul have argued that since its found
-
ing, the Alliance has grown global in nature, beyond the
North Korean threat. The two countries have worked
South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo, left, greets US Defense Secretary Mike Esper as he arrives at the Security Consultative Meeting
in Seoul on November 15, 2019. (Photo by Lee Jin-man/AP)
37
USIP.ORG
together under the Alliance framework to address the
common interests of human rights, democracy, a market
economy, and trade liberalization while tackling shared
threats such as terrorism, climate change, piracy, and
epidemic disease.
110
Alliance supporters in Washington
and Seoul would take a skeptical view of any moves
within a peace process that weaken the legal or politi-
cal underpinnings for the US-ROK Alliance, encourage
Alliance “decoupling” overall, or degrade readiness and
deterrence while a threat still exists. Another argument
for continuing the Alliance even after denuclearization
would be that Pyongyang’s conventional weapons,
even if reduced considerably as part of an agreement,
still pose a threat to Seoul’s security.
In addition, Washington and Seoul would need to con
-
sider how a peace regime would aect the US strategic
position in Northeast Asia, which is built on a framework
of strong regional alliances. US policymakers believe that
the American-led order in Asia provides the foundation
for peace, stability, and economic growth in the region,
including for South Korea.
111
A peace regime necessarily
means revising existing security arrangements and may
therefore be greeted by some camps with skepticism.
If the threat from North Korea eases through a peace
regime, US regional strategy will require a reassessment,
including whether the US-ROK Alliance should reorient
toward balancing Chinese power in Northeast Asia and
the Indo-Pacific region overall. In this regard, the recent
bilateral eort to examine a forward-looking joint vision
for the Alliance in light of dynamic changes in the securi-
ty environment are encouraging.
112
Long-Term Regional Security Architecture
A comprehensive Korean peace agreement would likely
transform the status quo security environment in the
region. The two Koreas and the other major regional
stakeholders should therefore begin discussions on a
regional security mechanism (or a series of mechanisms)
that can serve as a venue for discussing, implement-
ing, and monitoring various multilateral aspects of the
peace regime as well as building mutual confidence and
regional peace and stability. This mechanism could ad-
dress Peninsula-specific issues, from tracking progress
on denuclearization to coordinating actions to facilitate
North Korea’s integration into the regional economy, as
well as help mitigate some of the conflicting security in-
terests in the region by functioning as a venue for frank
dialogue and confidence-building exchanges. Further,
such a mechanism could later potentially be broad-
ened to address other regional issues, from managing
outstanding territorial disputes in the East China Sea to
coordinating eorts on transregional issues.
Creating such a regional security mechanism will be no
easy task given the existing rivalries, mistrust, and his-
torical grievances in the region. The closest analogue,
the Six-Party Talks, ended without success and not all
parties are willing to revive it at this juncture. A Northeast
Asia Peace and Security Mechanism (one of the propos-
als from the Six-Party Talks) that focuses more on region-
al peace and stability could avoid some of the resist-
ance. Significant bilateral and four-party progress toward
a peace deal on the Korean Peninsula could serve as
an impetus for the major stakeholders to explore the
creation of such a mechanism, and a mechanism with
mutual backing would in turn serve as a valuable asset
for ensuring continued progress on peace.
Denuclearization
A sustainable peace regime will depend heavily on a
common understanding about what is included under
the definition of denuclearization. Debating the term
goes beyond semantics. Instead, agonizing over the
meaning of denuclearization is a proxy for negotiating
the fundamental trade-os inherent in a deal. The areas
of disagreement relate to the substantive, geographic,
and temporal scope of denuclearization, as well as
whether the term includes nonnuclear weapons.
Regarding denuclearization’s scope inside North Korea
itself, each party has its own view on which capabilities
would be restricted or eliminated. Assembled nuclear
devices would clearly fall under this rubric, as would
38
PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
stockpiles of weapons-grade fissile material that could
be used to make bombs. However, including a range of
other capabilities is less clear. For example, negotiators
would need to determine which categories of ballistic
missiles would be regulated. They would also need
to agree on whether Pyongyang could retain a civilian
nuclear or space program that uses dual-use technol-
ogies. Cooperative threat reduction measures related
to the disposition of nuclear expertise and records as
well as the transition of nuclear scientists to civilian
programs could fall under the denuclearization defi-
nition as well.
113
Moreover, an intrusive monitoring and
verification mechanism would be needed to ensure
compliance with those commitments.
Beyond North Korean territory, definitions of denuclear-
ization proposed by North Korea, China, and Russia—
and recognized in principle by South Korea—broaden
the geographic scope to include the entire Korean
Peninsula. Accepting a broader scope could mean re-
strictions on South Korean and US activities, including
agreeing not to station, rotate, or deploy nuclear-ca-
pable platforms such as B-52 bombers in South Korea.
North Korea has even demanded the withdrawal of US
troops that hold the authority to use nuclear weapons
from South Korea.
114
In addition, Pyongyang would likely
expect Seoul (and Tokyo) to rearm its commitment not
to develop or acquire nuclear weapons in the future.
115
North Korea may also take issue with the US extended
deterrence commitments to South Korea. Although
Pyongyang has long called on Washington to remove
US strategic assets from the Korean Peninsula, it has
not explicitly stated that the United States must retract
its nuclear umbrella over the ROK, which suggests
some flexibility in North Korea’s position.
Three post-peace regime possibilities exist regarding the
US nuclear umbrella: retract, extend, or remain. Some
experts have advocated the first scenario, envisioning a
Korean Peninsula as a nuclear-free zone with guarantees
from all P5 states never to use a nuclear weapon against
the Peninsula.
116
Others have cautioned that such devel-
opments, without verification of denuclearization, would
only play into North Korea’s hands, enabling it to forcibly
unify the Korean Peninsula or otherwise coerce South
Korea.
117
Furthermore, such a decision would have broad-
er implications for other US alliances and could raise
questions about US extended deterrence commitments.
Theoretically, the two Koreas could seek the exten-
sion of the US nuclear umbrella over the entire Korean
Peninsula as well as North Korea’s tacit aliation with
the US-ROK Alliance, given the concerns about China’s
growing influence in the region. Such an alternative se-
curity arrangement is not implausible considering North
Korea’s deep distrust of China, but it would face fierce
opposition from Beijing.
An arrangement could also be made for the US nuclear
umbrella to remain over South Korea, and for China and
Russia (or both) to extend nuclear umbrellas over North
Korea. China, despite growing signs of a more ambitious
regional role, has never extended such guarantees to
any other state and has generally eschewed playing
the role of a traditional great power security provider.
Furthermore, Washington, Seoul, and Pyongyang itself
would oppose expanding Chinese or Russian security
roles on the Korean Peninsula. At the conventional level,
it is unclear where Pyongyang stands on US extended
deterrence guarantees that are backed by nonnuclear
strike and missile defense capabilities.
At times, North Korea has expanded its conception of
denuclearization beyond the Peninsula to include military
assets stationed throughout East Asia, such as those on
Japan and Guam.
118
Accepting a region-wide geograph-
ic scope for denuclearization would create a dilemma
for the United States for a variety of reasons, foremost
because those forces serve essential missions beyond
deterring North Korea. Even if the United States removed
nuclear-capable assets from all of East Asia, its changed
posture would provide only symbolic security reassuranc-
es. All three legs of the US nuclear triad—intercontinental
39
USIP.ORG
ballistic missiles, submarines, and bombers—can reach
North Korea from the continental United States. Refraining
from basing nuclear forces in East Asia places only mini-
mal operational constraints on US nuclear forces. In other
words, if the US nuclear “threat” to North Korea is based
on capabilities rather than intent, the only way to make
Pyongyang invulnerable is total US disarmament. To be
sure, the symbolism of security guarantees can still be
meaningful, but only as indicators of benign intent.
Washington and Pyongyang also disagree on the time
span of denuclearization. Chairman Kim called for the two
countries to take “phased and synchronous measures” to
“eventually achieve denuclearization and lasting peace
on the peninsula,” reflecting a desire for a protracted,
incremental process.
119
Washington initially envisioned an
accelerated time frame for denuclearization but lowered
its expectations after the failed Hanoi meeting.
120
Developing a common understanding about which
types of nonnuclear assets fit under the denuclearization
definition may be another variable in negotiations. North
Korea has called for an end to the deployment of US
conventional “strategic assets” on or near the Peninsula
that could defeat its air defense systems and conduct
regime “decapitation” operations intended to take out
the leadership (such as F-35 and F-22 stealth fighters
and B1-B bombers).
121
The regime has also complained
about South Korea’s taking possession of US-made
F-35 stealth fighters. For its part, the United States has
at times interpreted denuclearization to include North
Korea giving up all weapons of mass destruction (WMD),
including chemical and biological weapons.
122
A compromise working definition of denuclearization
could leave out nonnuclear capabilities. The United
States would need to address North Korean chemical
and biological weapons later; North Korea would have
to accept highly capable conventional weapons being
stationed on and around South Korea. Choosing this ap
-
proach would allow the denuclearization process to be-
gin with a relatively narrow scope and be expanded over
time. Some analysts have argued that, rather than getting
mired in defining denuclearization up front, it is more
important to focus immediately on achieving tangible
security benefits and beginning the confidence-building
process
123
Yet if a near-term definition is necessary, one
of the existing definitions from the 1992 Joint North-South
Declaration or the 2005 Joint Statement of the Six Party
Talks could be used as a starting point.
Dismantlement and Verification
US policymakers have set a high bar for the end-state
they want to achieve for North Korea’s nuclear pro-
gram: complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement.
This concept dates back to the early 2000s and is cod-
ified into UNSCR 1718.
124
Trump administration ocials
use “final, fully verified denuclearization” as an alterna-
tive phrasing for the same goal. Achieving it will require
a phased, step-by-step process. The sheer scope of
North Korea’s nuclear program and the regime’s unwill-
ingness to make security concessions until greater trust
is established demands as much.
Experts generally agree that the first step in the disman-
tlement process is freezing and capping North Korea’s
nuclear and ballistic missile activities.
125
Although the
regime has demonstrated a significant level of nucle-
ar weapons development and testing, it has yet to
demonstrate a fully integrated and reliable capability.
Implementing a freeze on further nuclear and missile
activities—including nuclear tests, fissile material produc-
tion, long-range missile and solid-fuel rocket tests, and
weapons export and proliferation, would halt the most
concerning aspects of North Korea’s nuclear program.
Once a freeze is implemented, the next phase would
seek to roll back and then completely dismantle North
US policymakers have set a high bar for the end-state they want to achieve for North Korea’s nuclear
program: complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement.
40
PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
Korea’s nuclear weapons facilities and programs. This
goal would address two major categories of activities.
The first is dismantling and removing North Korea’s ex-
isting arsenal of nuclear devices, ready-made compo-
nent parts that can be assembled into nuclear devices,
and stockpiles of fissile material. North Korean nuclear
technicians could potentially dismantle some or all of
those weapons with the appropriate monitoring. P5
countries could provide related technical support.
The second area is neutralizing North Korea’s nuclear
infrastructure and ways of operating a nuclear weapons
program. Major capabilities to be destroyed would include
Pyongyang’s declared and undeclared facilities that pro-
duce weapons-grade fissile material, mine and mill such
material, assemble nuclear weapons, and build certain
ballistic missiles. Finding alternative employment for the
scientists and engineers who build and operate these
weapons would also have to be taken into consideration.
Addressing North Korea’s remaining nuclear infrastruc-
ture would pose a more technically dicult challenge
because some would fall under dual-use provisions (such
as supporting a civilian nuclear or space program). Other
facilities may build types of weapons that may fall outside
the restrictions of a denuclearization agreement (such as
short- and medium-range conventional ballistic missiles).
Because of their dual-use roles, many facilities would have
to be continuously monitored rather than destroyed.
Monitoring and verification are perhaps the greatest
challenges in the dismantlement process. During
the Six-Party Talks, an inability to agree on a written
verification procedure for North Korea’s declared
nuclear activities and stockpiles led to the demise of
the negotiations. The significant growth of the coun-
try’s nuclear program since then has exacerbated the
verification problem. The main issue is that verification
with a 100 percent level of certainty across the entirety
of North Korea’s nuclear program would be extremely
dicult, if not impossible, given the resources required
to conduct monitoring and verification and the access
constraints that the regime would likely impose. North
Korea also maintains an extensive network of covert
and underground facilities, tunnels, and sites that can
be used to hide activities and materials.
Nevertheless, an extensive and stringent verification
and monitoring regime will be necessary to enforce any
agreement, keep tabs on North Korea’s denuclearization
progress, and prevent any backsliding or reconstitu-
tion.
126
Verification activities could potentially start small
and ramp up over time in coordination with political pro-
gress on both sides toward a peace regime.
127
One op-
tion might be to accept as a first step dismantlement and
removal of major components of North Korea’s nuclear
arsenal (that is, steps that undeniably reduce its arsenal
or reduce its production capabilities) in lieu of transpar-
ency on the entire nuclear and missile complex. Experts
have proposed a “probabilistic” approach to compre-
hensive verification to supplement traditional verifica-
tion of major objects or activities. This approach would
subject a wider, though not exhaustive, list of items and
activities for monitoring, each of which by itself could
have a low probability of detection but in the aggregate
would provide a higher monitoring confidence.
128
Eventually, North Korea would need to provide a full
declaration of its nuclear and missile complex to enable
verification and monitoring of Pyongyang’s compliance
with any agreements. Over time, the United States and
the international community would expect North Korea
to adhere to robust safeguards, including by negotiating
an Additional Protocol agreement with the International
Atomic Energy Agency.
129
Pyongyang would also need to
join or return to compliance with several relevant treaties,
including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons, which it withdrew from in January 2003; the
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty; and the Missile
Technology Control Regime. The technically complex
process of verification will take many years to complete,
and each side will require both political commitments
and concrete actions early in the process to sustain the
political momentum and diplomatic credibility required
for adhering to the process until completion. Creating the
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necessary trust this process requires can best be accom-
plished by steps in parallel toward a peace regime.
Chemical and Biological Weapons
As noted, the United States has at times interpreted
denuclearization to include North Korea giving up all
weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and
biological weapons. During the February 2019 Hanoi
summit, President Trump reportedly handed Chairman
Kim a document that called for fully dismantling not just
North Korea’s nuclear infrastructure but also its chemi-
cal and biological warfare program.
130
North Korea is party to the Biological and Toxin Weapons
Convention and the Geneva Protocol, but not to the
Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The government
denies having biological or chemical weapons, but the
United States and others worry that the Kim regime
could turn to these weapons as a cheaper alternative or
complement to its burgeoning nuclear capability.
North Korea is believed to have an indigenous capabil-
ity to develop chemical weapons, as well as the world’s
third-largest stockpile, and an estimated 2,500 to 5,000
metric tons of chemical weapons agents. Concerns about
Pyongyang’s willingness to use them were heightened in
February 2017 when Kim Jong Un’s half-brother Kim Jong
Nam died from exposure to the VX nerve agent in the
Kuala Lumpur airport. Pyongyang denied responsibility for
the murder, but Washington imposed additional sanctions
on North Korea in response to the incident.
North Korea can indigenously cultivate many types of
biological agents, including anthrax and smallpox, and
produce biological weapons in various dual-use facili-
ties.
131
Little data exist to confirm the existence and size
of potential stockpiles, but signs indicate that Kim may
be reviving eorts to weaponize and deliver the agents.
According to former Pentagon ocial Andrew Weber,
“North Korea is far more likely to use biological weapons
than nuclear ones.”
132
Still, experts warn against exag-
gerating North Korea’s capabilities in the absence of
reliable evidence. Most information comes from de-
fectors, and the US government has been increasingly
cautious in its estimates of North Korea’s capabilities.
133
To address these risks, a peace agreement might
include a no-first-use pledge on biological and chemical
weapons, as well as a requirement that North Korea join
the CWC. The parties should also identify additional con-
fidence-building measures, such as technical exchanges
among scientists or medical personnel, and mechanisms
for improved transparency and monitoring.
United Nations Command
The UN Command has played both a stabilizing and con-
troversial role on the Korean Peninsula since the Korean
War. In July 1950, the Security Council authorized a US-led
unified command of multilateral forces to repel North
Korean aggression. Throughout the next two decades, the
UN Command maintained nominal responsibility for South
Korea’s defense. However, the majority of the fifteen
sending states, which made up only 4 percent of the total
UN Command forces at peak strength in 1953, withdrew
most of their troops by 1956, and the defense mission was
fulfilled by ROK and US forces.
134
The UN Command’s role
diminished further with the establishment of a US-ROK
Combined Forces Command in 1978. Today, in the ab-
sence of active hostilities and an adequate distinction be-
tween its role and Alliance functions, the UN Command’s
existence engenders ongoing dispute.
For the United States and its allies, the UN Command
continues to serve important functions related to peace-
keeping, multilateral cooperation, and contingency
readiness. It helps enforce the Armistice Agreement
and maintain communications with the Korean People’s
Army through its participation in the Military Armistice
Commission.
135
The UN Command would also serve as a
force provider in the case of a contingency on the Korean
Peninsula. Its subordinate command, UN Command-Rear,
has nominal authority over seven rear bases in Japan,
which provide administrative and logistics support,
allow multilateral forces to conduct missions (such as
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monitoring and preventing North Korea’s illicit ship-to-ship
transfers), and would manage force flows in a contin-
gency scenario.
136
In recent years, the UN Command has
undergone a formal “revitalization” process to strength-
en the role of sending states in a potential crisis.
137
The
Moon administration has expressed concern, however,
that Washington could use the UN Command to maintain
control over the Combined Forces Command and ROK
forces during a military crisis, even after the transition of
wartime operational control, by defining the situation as a
violation rather than nullification of the armistice.
138
For Pyongyang, Beijing, and Moscow, however, the
UN Command is a shell construct propped up by
Washington to maintain the pretense of international sol-
idarity against North Korea. They have long questioned
the UN Command’s legitimacy given that the Security
Council voted to establish the command when a key
permanent member, the Soviet Union, was boycotting
council proceedings. North Korea in particular has called
for the UN Command to be dissolved, arguing that
the United States is trying to transform it into an “Asian
version of NATO.”
139
In addition, critics argue that UN
Command-Rear, which maintains just four personnel, is
merely a fig leaf entity used to prevent the termination of
the UN-Japan Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and
ensure US control over the rear bases.
For its part, the United Nations has distanced itself from
the UN Command.
140
Former UN Secretary-General
Boutros Boutros-Ghali noted in 1994 that the “Security
Council did not establish the unified command as a
subsidiary organ under its control but merely recom-
mended the creation of such a command, specifying
that it be under the authority of the United States.”
Therefore, Washington alone has the authority to
Military ocers from the US-led United Nations Command, South Korea, and North Korea (clockwise from left) attend an October 16, 2018 meeting in the
Demilitarized Zone to discuss eorts to ban weapons in the border village of Panmunjom. (Photo by South Korea Defense Ministry via AP)
43
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“decide on the continued existence or the dissolution
of the United Nations Command.”
141
As US-DPRK and inter-Korean negotiations made
headway in 2018, the UN Command demonstrated its
ability to play a facilitating role in tension reduction. It
met trilaterally with military ocials from both Koreas in
October to advance the implementation of the in-
ter-Korean comprehensive military agreement. Later, it
verified the removal of dozens of landmines and twen-
ty-two front-line guard posts in the DMZ as part of the
agreement. Throughout 2018, it approved the move-
ment of more than six thousand people through the
DMZ between the two Koreas, versus zero in 2017.
142
The UN Command’s role will continue to evolve as a
peace process moves forward. It could play a role in
coordinating the various international entities that would
be involved in implementing peace arrangements.
143
Some experts argue that, even after a peace agree-
ment is reached, the command could continue in the
capacity of a peace guarantor, managing peacekeeping
operations and various North-South confidence-build-
ing measures.
144
However, its historical baggage as a
belligerent in the Korean War would potentially un-
dermine its argument for a new, neutral role. Also, the
two Koreas’ desire to minimize foreign encroachment
on their sovereignty may reinvigorate calls for it to be
dissolved or replaced rather than reformed.
145
A formal end to the Korean War would render the UN
Command’s original rationale under UNSCR 84 moot or
obsolete. If it were dissolved, the UN Command-Rear
would also need to be dissolved, and UN forces would
need to be removed from Japan pursuant to the UN-
Japan SOFA.
146
Currently, the UN Command-Rear oers
a streamlined way to provide visiting forces access to
bases in Japan, exercise multilateral cooperation, and
supply political cover for sensitive ROK-Japan security
cooperation. In its place, Japan would need to negotiate
bilateral access and SOFA agreements with relevant
countries (the United States already has a SOFA with
Japan), which it has already begun doing with the United
Kingdom and Australia, two of the UN-Japan SOFA
signatories.
147
Given the implications for regional security,
the United States, South Korea, Japan, and other inter-
ested parties would need to begin discussions on how
to replace the force management functions of the UN
Command-Rear in the new environment.
New Peace Management System
The peace agreement that replaces the Armistice
Agreement would need to help establish a new
framework for maintaining the peace. Currently, the
Armistice Agreement mandates the Military Armistice
Commission, along with representatives from the KPA
and the UN Command, to implement the truce as
well as a Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission to
monitor armistice implementation outside of the DMZ.
However, both commissions have largely been de-
funct since the mid-1990s. In practice, a fragile peace
has been maintained on the Peninsula through mutual
deterrence by the military capabilities of the KPA and
US-ROK Combined Forces Command.
A central question is how to structure the new peace
system to institutionalize and improve on the de
facto way peace is maintained today, as well as how
to account for the preferences of the main parties
involved. Most likely, the two Koreas would prefer a
Korea-only framework that ensures Korean sovereignty
over security matters and minimizes foreign influence.
The inter-Korean joint military commission established
under the 1991 Basic Agreement and rearmed under
the 2018 inter-Korean military agreement would be one
potential body for addressing and resolving security
issues, though it would need to be further developed
during the negotiation process. Another possibili-
ty would be to add the United States and China as
members or supervisors to the management system
given their direct interests on the Peninsula and ability
to underwrite the peace process. A third, though least
likely, option would be to establish a formal UN peace-
keeping operation in the DMZ.
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Economic and
Humanitarian Issues
North Korea has long prioritized the economic aspects
of regime security alongside military security in diplomat-
ic negotiations. Previous negotiations with Pyongyang
have all featured demands to address the regime’s
economic security, including sanctions relief, provision
of heavy fuel oil, and the promise of light-water reactors
(as part of the Agreed Framework and Six-Party Talks);
the additional relaxation of sanctions after North Korea’s
1999 moratorium on missile tests; the release of $25
million in North Korean funds from the sanctioned Banco
Delta Asia (to reinvigorate Six-Party Talks discussions);
the removal of North Korea from the state sponsor of ter-
rorism list in 2008; and 240,000 metric tons of nutritional
assistance (as part of the 2012 Leap Day Deal).
North Korea’s economy, already in disarray after the fall
of the Soviet Union and years of mismanagement, has
deteriorated further since the imposition of robust UN
sanctions in 2016 and 2017. According to the Bank of
Korea, North Korea’s economy contracted by 4.1 percent
in 2018, the worst drop in twenty-one years and the
second consecutive year of decline (see figure 1). In ad-
dition, its international trade dropped by 48.4 percent in
2018, the largest fall in exports in nearly thirty years.
148
In
this regard, measures that reassure Pyongyang about its
economic security, including sanctions relief, economic
assistance, and humanitarian aid, will play an important
role in peace and denuclearization negotiations.
DISMANTLING SANCTIONS
Relieving and ultimately ending US and multilateral
economic and financial sanctions against North Korea is
the most significant element in addressing Pyongyang’s
concerns about its economic security. Kim made sanc
-
tions relief his top demand during the second summit with
President Trump in Hanoi, which suggests that Pyongyang
may be prioritizing sanctions relief in much the same way
Washington emphasizes denuclearization. Economic de-
velopment and hard currency generation are critical to the
regime’s survival, and sanctions impede these aims.
Currently, a robust regime of multilateral and unilateral
sanctions are imposed on North Korea on the basis of
its illicit activities and violations of international law.
149
Between 2006 and 2017, the Security Council passed
eleven resolutions imposing sanctions against North
Korea.
150
The sanctions started with bans on exports of
military items and luxury goods to North Korea, authori-
zation for inspections of North Korean cargo, and other
measures specifically tailored to curtail Pyongyang’s nu-
clear program. During 2016 and 2017, when North Korea
conducted three nuclear tests and multiple long-range
missile launches, the Security Council introduced a
series of escalating sanctions that cumulatively banned
exports from vast sectors of the North Korean civilian
industry, including coal, iron ore, minerals, seafood, tex-
tiles, and labor. These sectors accounted for 99 percent
of North Korea’s export revenues.
151
North Korea’s import
of refined petroleum was also capped at half a million
barrels per year. It was these civilian sectoral sanctions
that Kim sought to end during the Hanoi negotiations.
152
The United States also maintains a complex web of
unilateral sanctions that restricts most commercial and fi-
nancial activities by US companies, entities, and individu-
als with North Korea.
153
Trade is generally limited to food,
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medicine, and other humanitarian exports. Financial
transactions involving US persons are prohibited, as are
new US investments in North Korea and arms sales and
transfers. Even US travel to North Korea is not permitted
except for journalists, humanitarian aid workers, and
others receiving special validation passports from the
State Department for visits said to advance national
interests. A new US law signed in December 2019, the
Otto Warmbier Nuclear Sanctions Act, tightened the
sanctions regime further by prohibiting non-US entities
that facilitate business with North Korean enterprises
from having access to the US financial system.
154
US sanctions reflect the independent but overlapping
roles of the legislative and executive branches of the
federal government. Congress has delegated some of
its authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations
to the president under the National Emergencies Act,
the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and
the Patriot Act. Pursuant to that authority, US presidents
have issued various executive orders related to North
Korea. Congress has also enacted a series of North
Korea–related statutes, including the NKSPEA; Title III of
the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions
Act of 2017; the Warmbier Act; the Iran, North Korea,
and Syria Non-Proliferation Act of 2000; and the North
Korea Human Rights Act of 2004. The NKSPEA and the
Warmbier Act, in particular, mandated the exclusion of
North Korea and its third-party enablers from the US finan
-
cial system and the freezing of their assets. The power of
this sanction derives from the fact that most internation-
al transactions are denominated in dollars, the world’s
Source: Bank of Korea
Figure 1. Annual Percentage Change in North Korea's GDP and Exports
In disarray after the fall of the Soviet Union and years of mismanagement, North Korea's economy deteriorated further
following the imposition of robust UN sanctions in 2016 and 2017.
0
+10%
-50%
+20%
-40%
+30%
-30%
+40%
-20%
+50%
1991
2015
1995
2000
2005
2010
2018
-10%
GDP GROWTH RATE
(% change from previous year)
EXPORT GROWTH RATE
(% change from previous year)
46
PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
primary reserve currency, and even dollar transactions that
are not between US persons or banks must be cleared
through correspondent banks within US jurisdiction.
155
Multilateral sanctions can be lifted by specific Security
Council resolutions. Although any one of the five per-
manent members could veto such a measure, China
and Russia have been calling for sanctions relief for
North Korea so a veto would not likely be an issue. The
Security Council can also waive sanctions for a specific
period and adopt so-called snapback provisions that
condition an extension of relief on continued denu-
clearization progress, as was the case in the Iran Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action.
156
More narrowly, US
administrations can engage the UN’s 1718 Sanctions
Committee to allow for exemptions related to specific
activities. For example, the United States has support-
ed exemptions for limited inter-Korean projects, such
as a joint railway inspection at the end of 2018.
Removing US sanctions will be more complicated. Some
will be easier to lift, such as presidential executive orders
that can be canceled by subsequent ones. Certain laws
include waivers (such as for national security interests)
or other flexible authorities for the executive branch.
157
Others, such as certain restrictive proliferation-related
sanctions, do not.
158
The NKSPEA—the first compre-
hensive North Korea–related sanctions law—requires
Pyongyang to demonstrate progress on a range of
areas, including denuclearization, human rights, financial
transparency, and counterfeiting, for a temporary one-
year suspension of its sanctions. “Significant progress” in
those areas is needed for sanctions to be permanently
lifted.
159
The Warmbier Act also requires that North Korea
take certain steps toward permanently and verifiably
limiting its WMD and ballistic missile programs before
the law’s provisions are suspended or terminated. In the
absence of legislative flexibility, an administration may
find that ocial actions to test the viability of a peace
regime or undertake related confidence-building meas-
ures (such as certain people-to-people exchanges) may
be prohibited. Overlapping sanctions requirements of
dierent legislation could introduce another complication
that makes the piecemeal provision of relief dicult. For
example, certain North Korean commercial activities could
be sanctioned for a number of divergent reasons enu
-
merated in separate legal authorities. These challenges
arose in the context of US sanctions relief in response to
Myanmar’s democratic opening a few years ago.
The critical challenge in US deliberations over sanctions
relief will be how to encourage North Korean progress
toward denuclearization and peace while minimizing any
premature loss of the leverage that sanctions provide.
Since the Hanoi summit, North Korea has made it clear,
without being explicit, that no deal is possible without at
least some form of sanctions relief. On the other hand,
Secretary Pompeo has reiterated that no sanctions relief
is possible until Pyongyang gives up its nuclear weapons.
Given the lack of mutual trust and the likelihood of a
phased process, if Washington decides to consider
sanctions relief in conjunction with corresponding
North Korea denuclearization measures, it could begin
with easing UN multilateral sanctions on a temporary
and limited basis. This could be done through waiv-
ers for specific North Korean sectors or inter-Korean
projects, and include snapback provisions rather than
outright sanctions removal. In a step-by-step process
that emphasizes parallel and simultaneous actions to
establish trust, an administration might prefer to allow
activities that generate a limited amount of reve-
nue for the regime or require disturbing the minimal
number of sanctions. It could also focus on activities
that are narrower in scope and humanitarian in nature
or, relatedly, issue general licenses authorizing cat-
egories of action that previously required a specific
license.
160
The president would potentially have more
flexibility in these circumstances and is not as likely to
encounter staunch congressional opposition. During
past instances of denuclearization progress in 2000
and 2008, US administrations have lifted sanctions on
North Korea under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the
Export Administration Act, the Defense Production Act,
47
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and related executive orders.
161
As North Korea makes
progress on denuclearization steps and US confidence
builds, the sanctions relief process could possibly ac-
celerate, depending on the circumstances. Washington
and its partners will also want to ensure sanctions relief
does not inadvertently allow Pyongyang to further
develop or reconstitute its nuclear and other WMD
programs while continuing to minimize North Korean
sanctions circumvention and access to hard currency
that can finance illicit activities.
ECONOMIC AND ENERGY ASSISTANCE
Even after sanctions relief, North Korea would still need
significant assistance from the international community
to develop its economy and build peace in a sustainable
way. North Korea has been ambivalent, however, about
accepting foreign assistance, recognizing it both as a
necessity and a threat. Internally, the regime contin-
ues to trumpet the pursuit of a self-sucient economy
“without any external assistance or any others’ help.”
162
In
practice, however, it has taken steps to attract foreign in-
vestment, including creating dozens of special economic
zones, seeking membership in the Asian Development
Bank, and permitting equity and joint venture invest-
ments from foreign companies. North Korea has also
made gradual moves over the last three decades to
enhance marketization, private entrepreneurship, and
decentralized planning, but it still appears reluctant to
take the full economic reform and transparency meas-
ures required for foreign assistance.
At the bilateral level, Seoul would take the lead in aiding
Pyongyang given their shared interests, culture, lan-
guage, and future. The Moon administration has already
proposed a new economic road map for the Korean
Peninsula that envisions—once significant progress on
denuclearization has been made—various infrastructure
investments and joint ventures connecting not only the
two Koreas but also the Peninsula to China, Russia, and
Europe. This vision draws inspiration from the European
Coal and Steel Community, which enhanced economic
and social ties among six European nations after World
War II and established the foundation for the European
Union.
163
Japan and China, as well as various European
and Pacific Rim countries, would also seek to be in-
volved at the appropriate time.
International financial institutions (IFIs), such as the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, can
also help provide North Korea with the funds, technical
assistance, and international legitimacy to better inte-
grate into the global economy. All major UN member
states—and every country that has transitioned from
central planning to a market economy—have become
members of the IMF, except for Cuba and North Korea.
If North Korea decides to pursue international assis-
tance seriously, it must first join the IMF, which is a
prerequisite for membership in the World Bank and its
aliates. There are two main factors for IMF member-
ship. First, the country would need to gain approval
from major IMF shareholders, particularly the United
States and Japan. As long as North Korea maintains
its WMD programs, the path to membership will be
blocked.
164
The experiences of other socialist countries
that acceded to the IMF, such as China, Russia, and
Vietnam, have also shown that significant economic re-
form, in addition to mended ties with the United States,
always accompanies IMF membership.
165
Second, the country needs to satisfy certain technical
requirements, such as removing restrictions on curren-
cy exchange flows and providing information regard-
ing its fiscal health and economic performance. North
Korea would be unlikely to jeopardize its monetary
stability by relaxing its currency exchange policy or
meet reporting requirements that reveal too much in-
formation about its economic vulnerabilities. However,
an inability to meet these technical requirements has
not prevented other underdeveloped countries from
joining the IMF, so major shareholder approval is likely
the decisive factor.
Even without membership, North Korea could still
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PEACEWORKS | NO. 157
receive assistance from IFIs. The IMF could begin
providing technical advice to North Korean ocials on
standardizing economic information and adapting to
the international economic system in preparation for
future membership.
166
Likewise, the World Bank and the
United Nations Development Program could collabo-
rate to conduct needs assessments as they did for a
donors meeting on Iraq in 2003.
167
The World Bank has
also administered international trust funds to finance
development projects for nonmembers, such as Gaza
and the West Bank, East Timor, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
168
Private capital markets are another important source
of long-term funding. A 2019 Korea Society report by
Thomas Byrne and Jonathan Corrado argues that, be-
cause neither South Korean financing nor IFI assistance
can support North Korean development on a sustain-
able basis, the regime will eventually need to turn to
private markets. To access these markets, North Korea
must resolve its international debt arrears and demon-
strate sovereign creditworthiness. Pyongyang currently
owes approximately $14.5 billion to external creditors,
including foreign governments and Western banks.
169
Potential avenues for debt relief include negotiations
with Paris Club lenders (for foreign government debt),
London Club creditors (for private bank debt), and the
World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative.
Another component related to economic and develop-
ment aid is the provision of energy assistance. North
Korea continues to struggle to meet its energy demands,
relying on its considerable coal reserves as well as hydro-
power and Chinese petroleum imports to meet its needs.
During both the Agreed Framework period and Six-Party
Talks, the United States and other partners oered the
construction of light-water nuclear reactors, which are
less ecient in producing weapons-usable plutonium,
to induce North Korea to give up its nuclear program.
Washington also provided North Korea with heavy fuel
oil ($400 million between 1995 and 2003; $146 million
between 2007 and 2009) as interim measures until the
reactors were built.
170
It is possible that energy assistance
could again provide a similar incentive to North Korea in
future negotiations. However, due to growing US fear of
“buying the same horse twice,” Washington may insist
that Seoul and Beijing pick up more of the tab unless
Pyongyang oers additional concessions.
171
HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
Humanitarian assistance to North Korea, including food,
medical, and development aid, can potentially reinforce
a peace regime process but presents dicult challenges.
A March 2019 UN report assesses that about 10.9 million
North Koreans, around 40 percent of the population, have
unmet food, nutrition, health and water, sanitation, and
hygiene needs.
172
Donor fatigue stemming from an unwill-
ingness to support the North Korean regime and its con-
tinued development of nuclear weapons, however, has
depressed US and international support for food aid.
173
Pyongyang’s restrictions on donor agencies’ distribution
and monitoring of food shipments have compounded the
problem. As a result, US assistance to North Korea, which
peaked in the early 2000s following a devastating famine
in the mid-1990s, has dwindled to virtually zero since
2009. A 2018 appeal by UN agencies and international
nongovernmental organizations for $111 million to meet
North Korean humanitarian needs was only 24 percent
funded, one of the lowest-funded appeals in the world.
174
North Korea has been skillful in rotating through
donors to secure assistance on the best terms.
175
In
response to the US-led maximum pressure campaign,
Pyongyang turned to Beijing, securing a promise of
one million tons of rice and corn assistance without
any access requirements as part of President Xi’s first
state visit to North Korea, in June 2019. This, in turn,
allowed Pyongyang to dismiss an oer from Seoul of
fifty thousand tons of rice, citing displeasure over the
continuation of US-ROK joint military drills.
176
A viable humanitarian assistance program will need to
overcome the challenges related to distribution, access,
and monitoring. The North Korean government impos-
es well-documented hurdles for aid workers, including
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limiting movement, restricting contact with aid recipients
or relevant ocials, surveillance, and failing to provide
requested data.
177
The UN Commission of Inquiry found
in 2014 that after two decades of humanitarian opera-
tions in the country, aid workers “still face unacceptable
constraints impeding their access to populations in dire
need.”
178
Aid organizations have sought compromises to
overcome these restrictions, but even with better access,
their eorts would still be hampered by concerns about
providing aid to a state that is reluctant to make economic
and political reforms that could increase food production
and ensure more equitable distribution of resources.
US and multilateral sanctions and US licensing and travel
restrictions pose additional, unintended obstacles to the
provision of aid. International banking controls intended
to ban transfers to support North Korea’s nuclear program
have constrained UN agencies’ access to funds within the
country; transportation bans have delayed aid shipments
in customs inspections; and UN Sanctions Committee and
US Treasury licensing requirements to export medical
and other equipment have created a lengthy approval
process for exemptions. UN Sanctions Committee guide
-
lines were introduced in August 2018 to expedite the
approval of humanitarian goods, leading to a decrease
in approval times from an average of ninety-nine days in
2018 to fifteen days the following year.
179
Still, “life-saving
programmes continue to face serious challenges and
delays” even though sanctions “clearly exempt humanitar
-
ian activities,” according to the UN resident coordinator.
180
The US government’s unclear standards for the compel-
ling humanitarian considerations that would warrant an
exemption from the travel ban have also impeded the
ability of American aid workers to do their work.
181
Both
US-based nongovernment organizations and internation-
al humanitarian organizations will continue to need to
grapple with these restrictions even if humanitarian aid to
North Korea is stepped up under a peace process.
Despite the US government's stated aspiration to
abide by the principles of neutrality, impartiality, and
independence from political objectives, its provision
of humanitarian assistance will likely continue to be
politicized. In this context, humanitarian aid will contin-
ue to have value as a confidence-building measure in
peace discussions with North Korea, as was the case
in the scuttled 2012 Leap Day Deal, which would have
provided 240,000 tons of US nutritional assistance in
exchange for a moratorium on North Korean nuclear
and missile activities. Nevertheless, Pyongyang will
prioritize sanctions relief and other economic con-
cessions that enhance its security while minimizing
intrusive foreign monitoring and access.
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Principles to Guide the Process
The component parts of a peace regime on the Korean
Peninsula are connected and need to be considered
holistically. The parties will need to determine the
appropriate timing and manner for addressing them,
as well as how they relate and are prioritized. Several
general principles for a cohesive and eective peace-
building process follow.
Prioritize peace with denuclearization. The ultimate
goal for all sides is peace and stability on the Korean
Peninsula. Denuclearization—although a significant com-
ponent of peace widely regarded as the sine qua non—is
only one part of a peace process. Although North Korea
views immediate, unilateral denuclearization as incompat-
ible with peace, it has committed several times to working
incrementally toward denuclearization in parallel with
peace. The success of a peace regime, however, de-
pends on the level of political will and resources devoted
to it. The United States should maintain an approach that
treats steps toward peace and denuclearization as simul-
taneous and inseparable—an approach hinted at but nev-
er fully realized by the Singapore Statement and previous
agreements. Even without a comprehensive agreement
on denuclearization and peace, the two sides should still
take steps that enhance peace and minimize the poten-
tial for conflict, including a freeze on nuclear and missile
activities, an end-of-war declaration, military-to-military
dialogues, partial sanctions relief, humanitarian assis-
tance, easing or ending the travel bans on US and DPRK
citizens, and other confidence-building measures.
Ensure reciprocity and proportionality. Relatedly, all as
-
pects of negotiations should proceed based on reciproc-
ity and proportionality. No party should expect the other
or others to make concessions without receiving equal
concessions in return. Historical experience shows that
negotiations predicated on one side caving will ultimately
prove unsustainable. A mutually acceptable deal with
proportional commitments toward denuclearization and
guaranteeing regime security (such as sanctions relief)
will decrease the chances of one or more sides viewing
backing out of that deal as a better alternative to using
diplomatic engagement to overcome disputes. A sincere
desire for peace in Washington and Seoul will not be
enough if Pyongyang refuses to countenance real denu
-
clearization. Likewise, a willingness by Pyongyang to take
denuclearization steps will not be adequate if Washington
and its allies refuse to oer proportional incentives. The
key challenge will be determining how each side values
its demands and oers and then negotiating and match-
ing them in a mutually acceptable way.
Approach peace as a long-term process, not a single
event. Denuclearization and peace cannot be achieved
quickly. Overcoming seventy years of animosity will
require many years of negotiations, multiple setbacks,
confidence-building measures, and reconciliation. This
history of enmity and mistrust, along with the two coun
-
tries’ desire to maintain leverage as long as possible
(that is, maintaining nuclear weapons and withholding
sanctions relief and normalization), means the peace
and denuclearization process will likely unfold in phases
and across the tenure of multiple US administrations.
The process must persist through changes in adminis-
tration and intermittent breakdowns. One of the failures
of the Agreed Framework and Six-Party Talks, in addi-
tion to nonperformance or insincerity by one or both
parties, was an inability to overcome setbacks through
the negotiating process itself. Disagreements about
noncompliance should be resolved within a consistent
negotiating framework rather than by scrapping the
process altogether.
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Create the conditions for a sustainable diplomatic
path forward. Given that a peace regime will take
years to create, it is imperative to create the environ-
ment and institutions necessary for extensive negoti-
ations. Leader-level summits, though at times pivotal,
cannot replace regular, institutionalized working-level
meetings to address technical details in a thorough
and sustained manner. Instead, bilateral and multilateral
working-level groups should be created to address
various aspects of the peace regime. These groups
should be founded on the mutual understanding that
they will serve as stable coordinating mechanisms that
meet consistently despite setbacks in negotiations.
Clear rules of engagement should be mutually defined
and agreed upon by all parties so that they have an
explicit understanding of what actions are considered
o limits, what countermeasures to expect if and when
either side violates these rules, and what procedures
exist to restart negotiations when the process stalls
or falls apart. Admittedly, experience indicates that
keeping Pyongyang and Washington committed to di-
plomacy will be dicult when both sides have at times
viewed engagement itself as leverage or a liability.
However, as much as possible, both sides must know
what is required to keep diplomacy alive and how to
jumpstart it if and when the process falters.
Build momentum and trust through pragmatic, ac-
ceptable measures. Given the severe lack of trust, each
side will seek to maintain leverage and avoid making
concessions that it cannot reverse if someone violates an
agreement. Therefore, maximalist demands from either
side, such as complete, unilateral denuclearization or
complete relief from economic and financial sanctions,
will be unproductive. Instead, negotiators should build
trust and momentum early by targeting low-hanging-fruit
measures that are reversible or less sensitive. A practical
first step would be to establish an interim agreement that
commits North Korea to denuclearization and freezes its
nuclear and missile activities (including nuclear and missile
testing and fissile material production) in exchange for ap-
propriate security guarantees, such as partial, time-limited
sanctions relief; greater modification of major joint military
exercises; a moratorium on the deployment of US strate
-
gic and nuclear assets to the Peninsula; and an end-of-war
declaration. As trust builds, thornier areas can be tackled
in a proportional fashion through comprehensive negoti-
ations. It is encouraging that the United States and South
Korea have disavowed any policy of near-term unification
by force or absorption, which raises existential questions
for the Peninsula, and decided to focus on building mutual
security. Eorts that can facilitate inter-Korean cooperation
and remain consistent with US national security interests,
such as military tension reduction and limited economic
cooperation, should also be supported.
Incorporate appropriate multilateral negotiating
tracks. Although some issues are better addressed
bilaterally, many will benefit from multilateral consulta-
tions. Formal multilateral negotiations housed in region-
al security mechanisms can provide an eective and
reliable forum for talks across the range of issue areas
covered in this report. Further, multilateral processes
can help garner support, resources, and buy-in from
all major powers with interests on the Peninsula and
preclude forum shopping by Pyongyang.
Keep the broader strategic context in mind while
advancing the peace regime process. Many aspects of
the peace regime process, including security guarantees,
denuclearization, economic concessions, conventional
force reductions, and adjustments in the US-ROK defense
posture, must be considered within the broader regional
strategic context. US-ROK Alliance coordination mech-
anisms (such as the 2+2 Ministerial Meeting, Security
Consultative Meeting, Korea Integrated Defense Dialogue,
and the US-ROK working group on nuclear negotiations),
trilateral consultative groups (such as the US-ROK-Japan
Defense Trilateral Talks), and other bilateral and multilat-
eral dialogues with relevant partners should be strength-
ened. In addition, the United States should quickly seek
to help resolve the ongoing historical and trade disputes
between its two regional allies, which could complicate
and even undermine a peace process if left to fester.
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Notes
The authors gratefully acknowledge the many individuals who have commented on various drafts of this report, including Scott Snyder,
Ambassador Kathleen Stephens, David Maxwell, and Tom Sheehy, and those organizations and individuals that convened or participat-
ed in workshops in support of the report, including the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, the Japan Institute of International Aairs,
Keith Luse, Mark Tokola, Ambassador Robert Gallucci, Ambassador Joseph DeTrani, Tony Namkung, Tong Zhao, and Professors Ouyang
Wei, Li Nan, Cheng Xiaohe. The authors also thank those individuals that helped edit, assemble, and publish the report, including
Richard Walker, Helen Glenn Court, Colin Cookman, Jake Harris, and Chris Brown. The authors take full responsibility for any errors.
Lastly, the authors are grateful to Paul Lee and Lucy Stevenson-Yang for their invaluable assistance in various aspects of the report.
1. US Bureau of Arms Control, “Korean War Armistice Agreement,” July 27, 1953, https://2001-2009.state.gov/t/ac/rls/or/2004/31006.htm.
2. Mark Tokola, “The 1954 Geneva Conference on Korea: From Armistice to Stalemate,” The Asia Forum, February 14, 2019,
www.theasanforum.org/9324-2.
3. Charles Kartman, “A Peace Treaty for the Korean Peninsula: Will the Past be Prologue?,” 38 North, June 11, 2018, www.38north.org
/2018/06/ckartman061118.
4. BBC News, “Third time lucky for Korea peace talks,” October 21, 1998, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/197787.stm.
5. Wendy R. Sherman, “Talking to the North Koreans,” New York Times, March 7, 2001, www.nytimes.com/2001/03/07/opinion
/talking-to-the-north-koreans.html.
6. Bill Clinton, My Life: The Presidential Years (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 615, 627.
7. US Department of State, “Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of the Six-Party Talks,” September 19, 2005, https://2009-2017.state.gov/p
/eap/regional/c15455.htm. Despite the commitment-for-commitment approach, the United States still believed that significant denucleari-
zation steps had to come before peace talks could begin. Christopher Hill, the lead State Department negotiator during the Six-Party Talks,
stated that “discussions of a Korean Peninsula peace regime could begin among the directly related parties once the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea (DPRK) has disabled its existing nuclear facilities, has provided a complete and correct declaration of all of its nuclear
programs, and is on the road to complete denuclearization” (US Senate, “Status of the Six-Party Talks for the Denuclearization of the
Korean Peninsula,” February 6, 2008, 110th Congress, 2nd session, www.foreign.senate.gov/download/hearing-transcript-020608).
8. Leon V. Sigal, “For North Korea, Verifying Requires Reconciling: The Lesson from a Troubled Past—Part II,” 38 North, December
28, 2018, www.38north.org/2018/12/lsigal122818.
9. White House, “Joint Statement of President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the Singapore Summit,” June 12, 2018, www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/joint-state
ment-president-donald-j-trump-united-states-america-chairman-kim-jong-un-democratic-peoples-republic-korea-singapore-summit.
10. Although President Trump himself has not articulated the “simultaneous and in parallel” approach explicitly, he appears to have
endorsed it through the commitments in the Singapore Agreement and his support of a comprehensive deal at Hanoi, which
would have included an end-of-war declaration and complete sanctions relief in return for North Korea’s dismantlement of its
entire weapons of mass destruction program. However, other key ocials in the Trump administration, notably Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo and then National Security Advisor John Bolton, have promoted the traditional approach of requiring signifi-
cant North Korean denuclearization steps first before taking measures toward reconciliation. See Stephen Biegun, “Remarks on
DPRK at Stanford University,” US Department of State, January 31, 2019, www.state.gov/remarks-on-dprk-at-stanford-university.
11. Jane Perlez, “On U.S.-North Korea Talks, China May Hold the Cards,” New York Times, May 11, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/world
/asia/north-korea-china-nuclear-trump-sanctions.html; Megan Specia and David E. Sanger, “How the ‘Libya Model” Became a Sticking
Point in North Korea Nuclear Talks,” New York Times, May 16, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/world/asia/north-korea-libya-model.html.
12. National Committee on North Korea (NCNK), “Kim Jong Un’s 2019 New Year’s Address,” January 1, 2019, www.ncnk.org
/resources/publications/kimjongun_2019_newyearaddress.pdf.
13. Joel S. Wit, Daniel B. Poneman, and Robert L. Gallucci, Going Critical (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2004), 12–13.
14. Robert L. Gallucci, “Lessons to be Learned from Negotiating with North Korea,” 38 North, September 17, 2019, www.38north.org
/2019/09/rgallucci091719.
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15. After the Hanoi summit, DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho clarified that “even though the security guarantee is more impor-
tant for us as we take denuclearization measures, we understood that it could be more dicult for the United States to take
measures in the [military field.] That is why we proposed the removal of partial sanctions as corresponding measures” (CGTN
America, "DPRK Foreign Minister disputes U.S. reason for breakdown at Trump-Kim summit, YouTube video, February 28, 2019,
www.youtu.be/o-NWGHQt_rk.
16. KCNA Watch, “Report on 5th Plenary Meeting of 7th Central Committee, Workers’ Party of Korea,” January 1, 2020, www.kcna
watch.org/newstream/1577829999-473709661/report-on-5th-plenary-meeting-of-7th-c-c-wpk.
17. Uri Friedman and Krishnadev Calamur, “The Nuclear Game Theory of the India-Pakistan Crisis,” The Atlantic, February 27, 2019,
www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/02/pakistan-india-nuclear-north-korea-trump/583723.
18. Uri Friedman, “North Korea Says It Has ‘Completed’ Its Nuclear Program,” The Atlantic, November 29, 2017, www.theatlantic.com
/international/archive/2017/11/north-korea-nuclear/547019.
19. White House, “Joint Statement Between the United States and the Republic of Korea,” June 30, 2017, www.whitehouse.gov
/briefings-statements/joint-statement-united-states-republic-korea.
20. Sang-hun Choe, “South Korean President, Called ‘Ocious’ by Kim Jong Un, Still Wants Another Summit,” New York Times, April
15, 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/world/asia/kim-jong-moon-jae.html.
21. Min-hyung Lee, “Gov’t seeks revision on laws concerning N. Korea,” Korea Times, March 21, 2019, www.koreatimes.co.kr/www
/nation/2019/03/356_265781.html.
22. Van Jackson, “Risk Realism,” Center for a New American Security, September 24, 2019, www.cnas.org/publications/reports/risk-realism.
23. In President Trump’s first sixteen months in oce, the Treasury Department issued 182 sanctions designations; during the two
terms of the Obama administration, it issued 154 (Mathew Ha, “Let’s face it, North Korea won’t yield without more pressure,” The
Hill, March 21, 2019, www.thehill.com/opinion/international/435056-lets-face-it-north-korea-wont-yield-without-more-pressure).
24. John Irish, “China urges UN action to make North Korea ‘pay price,’” Reuters, February 12, 2016, www.reuters.com/article/us
-china-wangyi-korea-usa-idUSKCN0VL15S.
25. Patricia M. Kim, “China’s Quest for Influence in Northeast Asia,” in Strategic Asia 2019: China’s Expanding Strategic Ambitions,
ed. Asheley J. Tellis, Alison Szalwinski, and Michasel Willis (Washington, DC: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2019), www.nbr
.org/publication/chinas-quest-for-influence-in-northeast-asia-the-korean-peninsula-japan-and-the-east-china-sea.
26. Simon Denyer and Amanda Erickson, “Beijing warns Pyongyang: You’re on your own if you go after United States,” Washington
Post, August 11, 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-warns-north-korea-youre-on-your-own-if-you-go-after-the-us/2017
/08/11/a01a4396-7e68-11e7-9026-4a0a64977c92_story.html.
27. Michelle Nichols, “China, Russia propose lifting some UN sanctions on North Korea, U.S. says not the time,” Reuters, December 16, 2019,
www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-un/china-russia-propose-lifting-of-some-u-n-sanctions-on-north-korea-idUSKBN1YK20W.
28. David Fouse, “Japan’s Post-Cold War North Korea Policy: Hedging Toward Autonomy?” Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies,
February 2004, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a446653.pdf.
29. Wada Haruki and Gavan McCormack, “The Strange Record of 15 years of Japan-North Korea Negotiations,” Asia-Pacific Journal,
Japan Focus 3, no. 9 (September 28, 2005), www.apjjf.org/-Gavan-McCormack--Wada-Haruki/1894/article.pdf.
30. Ministry of Foreign Aairs of Japan, “Japan-DPRK Pyongyang Declaration,” September 17, 2002, www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia
-paci/n_korea/pmv0209/pyongyang.html.
31. Ministry of Foreign Aairs of Japan, “The Inter-Korean Summit, Statement by Foreign Minister Taro Kono,” April 27, 2018, www
.mofa.go.jp/press/release/press4e_002016.html.
32. Maaike Okano-Heijmans, “Japan as Spoiler in the Six-Party Talks: Single Issue Politics and Economic Diplomacy Towards North Korea,”
Asia-Pacific Journal, Japan Focus 6, no. 10 (October 3, 2008), www.apjjf.org/-Maaike-Okano-Heijmans/2929/article.html.
33. Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Random House, 2012), 648.
34. Tim Kelly, “Japan lists China as bigger threat than nuclear-armed North Korea,” Reuters, September 26, 2019, www.reuters.com
/article/us-japan-defence/japan-promotes-china-as-bigger-threat-than-nuclear-armed-north-korea-idUSKBN1WC051.
35. Marcus Noland, “Between Collapse and Revival: A Reinterpretation of the North Korean Economy,” Peterson Institute for
International Economics, March 15, 2001, www.piie.com/commentary/speeches-papers/between-collapse-and-revival
-reinterpretation-north-korean-economy.
36. Russian Federation, “The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation,” November 30, 2016, www.rusemb.org.uk/rp_insight.
37. Artyom Lukin, “Russia’s Game on the Korean Peninsula: Accepting China’s Rise to Regional Hegemony?” Special Report no. 78,
National Bureau of Asian Research, March 2019, 21–30, www.nbr.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/publications/sr78_china_russia
_entente_march2019.pdf.
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38. Van Jackson, “Putin and the Hermit Kingdom,” Foreign Aairs, February 22, 2015, www.foreignaairs.com/articles/east-asia
/2015-02-22/putin-and-hermit-kingdom.
39. Jerey Manko, “Russia’s Asia Pivot: Confrontation or Cooperation?” Asia Policy 19 (January 2015): 65–88, www.nbr.org
/publication/russias-asia-pivot-confrontation-or-cooperation.
40. Alexander Gabuev, “Bad Cop, Mediator or Spoiler: Russia’s Role on the Korean Peninsula,” Carnegie Moscow Center, April 24,
2019, https://carnegie.ru/commentary/78976.
41. An end-of-war declaration was first contemplated by South Korea and the United States in 2006 and then explicitly articulated
by the two Koreas in the October 2007 Joint Declaration as well as the April 2018 Panmunjom Declaration (Duyeon Kim, “What’s
in a Name? Korean ‘Peace’ and Breaking the Deadlock,” War on the Rocks, September 14, 2018, www.warontherocks.com
/2018/09/whats-in-a-name-korean-peace-and-breaking-the-deadlock).
42. Uri Friedman, “Inside the Dispute Derailing Nuclear Talks with North Korea,” The Atlantic, August 29, 2018, www.theatlantic.com
/international/archive/2018/08/north-korea-war-declaration/568603.
43. It is also unclear whether the United States needs to participate in a peace agreement given that President Truman never
received congressional authority to declare war when he committed US troops to Korea in June 1950. See Louis Fisher, “The
Korean War: On What Legal Basis Did Truman Act?,” American Journal of International Law 89, no. 2 (1995): 21–39.
44. Patrick M. Norton, “Ending the Korean Armistice Agreement: The Legal Issues,” Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability,
March 1997, www.nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-policy-forum/napsnet-policy-forum-online-2-norton-ending-the-korean-armistice.
45. UNFold Zero, “Can the UN Command and Security Council play roles for peace in Korea?,” November 18, 2018, www.unfoldzero
.org/can-the-un-command-and-security-council-play-roles-for-peace-in-korea.
46. Patrick M. Norton, “Ending the Korean Armistice Agreement: The Legal Issues,” Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability,
March 1997, www.nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-policy-forum/napsnet-policy-forum-online-2-norton-ending-the-korean-armistice.
47. Stephen P. Mulligan, “International Law and Agreements: Their Eect upon U.S. Law,” Report no. RL32528, Congressional Research
Service, September 19, 2018, 4, www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32528.pdf.
48. Andrew Rudalevige, “Executive agreements and Senate disagreements,” Washington Post, March 10, 2015, www.washingtonpost
.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/03/10/executive-agreements-and-senate-disagreements.
49. US Department of State, “Considerations for Selecting Among Constitutionally Authorized Procedures,” section 11 FAM 723.3,
Foreign Aairs Manual and Handbook, https://fam.state.gov/FAM/11FAM/11FAM0720.html.
50. The 1973 Paris Peace Accords, which eectively ended US involvement in Vietnam, was not submitted to the Senate for ratifica-
tion. Alexander Haig, who helped negotiate the agreement, later noted that he was “not quite sure that the American Congress,
had they been asked to ratify the Paris Accords, could ever have arrived at a consensus” (Nixon Center, “The Paris Agreement
on Vietnam: Twenty-Five Years Later,” conference transcript, April 1998, www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/paris.htm).
51. Stephen P. Mulligan, “Withdrawing from International Agreements: Legal Framework, the Paris Agreement, and the Iran Nuclear
Agreement,” Report no. R44761, Congressional Research Service, May 4, 2018, 6, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R44761.pdf.
52. Stephen Bosworth, the executive director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization from 1995 to 1997, stated that
after the Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress in 1994, “conservative Republicans, particularly in the House, who hat-
ed the Agreed Framework, believed that it was basically an example of the U.S. paying extortion, began to oppose it very fiercely”
(interview, PBS Frontline, February 21, 2003, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kim/interviews/bosworth.html).
53. Mulligan, “Withdrawing from International Agreements,” 11.
54. Ken Dilanian, “Senator: Trump admin agrees that Congress must approve any North Korea nuke deal,” NBC News, June 5, 2018,
www.nbcnews.com/news/north-korea/senator-trump-admin-agrees-congress-must-approve-any-north-korea-n880196.
55. Mark Landler, “Peace Treaty, and Peace Prize, for North Korea Appear to Tempt Trump,” New York Times, February 21, 2019,
www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/us/politics/trump-kim-north-korea.html.
56. Mariam Khan, “Pompeo Says US wants a treaty with North Korea: What one might look like,” ABC News, June 3, 2018,
www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/pompeo-us-treaty-north-korea/story?id=55538240.
57. Jordain Carney, “McConnell: Any North Korea deal should be submitted to Congress,” The Hill, June 12, 2018, https://thehill.com
/homenews/senate/391902-mcconnell-submit-north-korea-deal-to-congress.
58. Bill Gertz, “Senate to Review Any Future North Korea Arms Treaty,” Washington Free Beacon, June 13, 2018, www.freebeacon
.com/national-security/senate-review-future-north-korea-arms-treaty.
59. Article II, 13(b) of Armistice Agreement, https://2001-2009.state.gov/t/ac/rls/or/2004/31006.htm.
60. International Crisis Group, “North Korea: The Risks of War in the Yellow Sea,” Asia Report no. 198, December 23, 2010, 4,
www.crisisgroup.org/asia/north-east-asia/korean-peninsula/north-korea-risks-war-yellow-sea.
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61. Terence Roehrig, “The Northern Limit Line, National Committee on North Korea,” NCNK, September 2011, www.ncnk.org
/resources/briefing-papers/all-briefing-papers/northern-limit-line.
62. US Department of Defense, “Joint Communique of the 51st ROK-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting,” press release, November 16, 2019,
www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2018651/joint-communiqu-of-the-51st-rok-us-security-consultative-meeting.
63. NCNK, “Agreement on the Implementation of the Historic Panmunjom Declaration in the Military Domain,” September 21, 2018,
www.ncnk.org/sites/default/files/Agreement%20on%20the%20Implementation%20of%20the%20Historic%20Panmunjom
%20Declaration%20in%20the%20Military%20Domain.pdf.
64. Daniel J. Wakin, “North Koreans Welcome Symphonic Diplomacy,” New York Times, February 27, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008
/02/27/world/asia/27symphony.html.
65. Matthew Lee and Josh Lederman, “US bans travel for Americans to NKorea after Warmbier death,” Associated Press, July 21,
2017, www.apnews.com/11c39275b9eb42399ba7ce8a0d2d746e.
66. Elizabeth Dias, “The 200 Americans Living in North Korea Have Little Time Left to Leave,” Time, August 24, 2017,
www.time.com/4913703/americans-living-north-korea-have-little-time-left.
67. White House, “Presidential Proclamation Enhancing Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry into the United
States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats,” September 24, 2017, www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential
-proclamation-enhancing-vetting-capabilities-processes-detecting-attempted-entry-united-states-terrorists-public-safety-threats.
68. Emily Rauhala, “Almost no North Koreans travel to the U.S., so why ban them?” Washington Post, September 25, 2017,
www.washingtonpost.com/world/almost-no-north-koreans-travel-to-the-us-so-why-ban-them/2017/09/25/822ac340-a19c-11e7
-8c37-e1d99ad6aa22_story.html.
69. From 1996 to 2005, the Department of Defense conducted thirty-three joint field activities with the Korean People’s Army
(KPA) to search for the remains of the approximately 5,300 soldiers lost in North Korea (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency,
“Progress on Korean War Personnel Accounting,” June 25, 2019, www.dpaa.mil/Resources/Fact-Sheets/Article-View/Article
/569610/progress-on-korean-war-personnel-accounting).
70. Soojin Park, “‘Farewell Reunions’: Time is running out for Korea’s divided families,” Wilson Center, September 4, 2018,
www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/farewell-reunions-time-running-out-for-koreas-divided-families.
71. Natalie Seo, “Korean-Americans Push for Reunions with North Korea Family Members,” VOA News, August 19, 2018,
www.voanews.com/usa/korean-americans-push-reunions-north-korea-family-members.
72 According to a former congressional staer who last visited North Kore in November 2008, visits of US congressional delega-
tions to North Korea occurred fairly regularly until 2008 (email correspondence, August 3 and 10, 2019).
73. The US travel ban aected approximately half of the seventy-five professors at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology
(Ju-min Park, “Crisis-plagued Pyongyang university seeks revival after Trump-Kim summit,” Reuters, June 19, 2018, www.reuters.com
/article/us-northkorea-usa-university/crisis-plagued-pyongyang-university-seeks-revival-after-trump-kim-summit-idUSKBN1JF0OG).
74. The 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea concluded that North Korea’s
systematic, widespread, and gross violations of human rights, some of which constituted crimes against humanity, present “a State
that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world” (UN General Assembly, “Report of the commission of inquiry on human
rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” A/HRC/25/63, February 7, 2014, para. 80, www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC
/CoIDPRK/Pages/ReportoftheCommissionofInquiryDPRK.aspx). On the inclusion of human rights, see, for example, Roberta Cohen,
“A Serious Human Rights Negotiation with North Korea,” 38 North, February 1, 2017, www.38north.org/2017/02/rcohen020117.
75. Section 401 of the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act (NKSPEA) allows the president to suspend sanctions under
that law if North Korea has made progress toward, among other things, accounting for foreign abductees, accepting internationally
recognized standards for the distribution and monitoring of humanitarian aid, and improving living conditions in its political prison
camps. Section 402 states that these sanctions will terminate when the president has certified that North Korea has met all the
conditions in Section 401 and has made significant progress toward, among other things, releasing all political prisoners, ceasing
its censorship of peaceful political activity, establishing an open, transparent, and representative society, and accounting for and
repatriating the remains of all Americans from North Korea (Pub. L. No. 114-122 [2016] [codified at 22 U.S.C. Ch. 99], § 401, 402).
76. Cohen, "A Serious Human Rights Negotiation."
77. David Hawk, “North Korea Responds to the UN Commission of Inquiry,” 38 North, October 16, 2014, www.38north.org/2014/10
/dhawk101614.
78. US Department of State, “Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of the Six-Party Talks,” September 19, 2005, https://2009-2017
.state.gov/p/eap/regional/c15455.htm.
79. White House, “Joint Statement.” June 12, 2018.
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80. President of Russia, “News conference following Russian-North Korean talks,” April 25, 2019, http://en.kremlin.ru/events
/president/news/60370.
81. Patrick M. Cronin and Ryan Neuhard, “Guaranteeing Peace with North Korea,” Hudson Institute, August 21, 2019, www.hudson.org
/research/15263-guaranteeing-peace-with-north-korea.
82. Frank Aum and Nathan Park, “After 65 years of ‘armistice,' it’s about time to end the Korean War,” CNN, October 2, 2018,
www.cnn.com/2018/10/02/opinions/north-korea-declaration-end-war-aum-park/index.html.
83. Abraham Denmark, “The Implications of Declaring an End to the Korean War,” Wilson Center, February 26, 2019, www.wilsoncenter
.org/blog-post/the-implications-declaring-end-to-the-korean-war.
84. Alex Ward, “Exclusive: President Trump promised Kim Jong Un he’d sign an agreement to end the Korean War,” Vox, August 29,
2018, www.vox.com/2018/8/29/17795452/trump-north-korea-war-summit-singapore-promise; Josh Rogin, “Why Trump Canceled
Pompeo’s Trip to North Korea,” Washington Post, August 27, 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2018/08/27
/why-trump-cancelled-pompeos-trip-to-north-korea.
85. Oliver Hotham, “One year since the Singapore Summit: what’s changed and what could happen next?,” NK News, June 12, 2019,
www.nknews.org/2019/06/one-year-since-the-singapore-summit-whats-changed-and-what-could-happen-next.
86. Victor Cha, The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), 304.
87. Sang-Hun Choe, “North Korea Hints at More Nuclear Tests Unless U.S. Ends Troop Drills with South,” New York Times, July 16,
2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/world/asia/north-korea-us-military.html.
88. Beyond Parallel, “How Provocative Are U.S.-ROK Exercises,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, May 27, 2016,
https://beyondparallel.csis.org/do-u-s-rok-exercises-provoke-dprk.
89. General Vincent Brooks, “What a 2nd Trump-Kim summit could mean for the push to denuclearize North Korea,” PBS NewsHour,
January 18, 2019, www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-a-2nd-trump-kim-summit-could-mean-for-the-push-to-denuclearize-north-korea.
90. Carla Babb, “US, South Korea Again Call O Major Drill,” VOA News, October 19, 2018, www.voanews.com/usa/us-south-korea
-again-call-major-drill.
91. Mark Landler and Sang-Hun Choe, “North Korea Drops Troop Demand, but U.S. Reacts Warily,” New York Times, April 19, 2018,
www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/world/asia/north-korea-american-troops-withdrawal-trump.html.
92. Karl Friedho, “The American Public Remains Committed to Defending South Korea,” Chicago Council on Global Aairs, October
2018, www.thechicagocouncil.org/sites/default/files/brief_north_korea_ccs18_181001.pdf.
93. Scott Snyder et al., “South Korean Attitudes Toward U.S.-ROK Alliance and USFK,” Asan Institute for Policy Studies, February 22,
2019, http://en.asaninst.org/contents/south-korean-attitudes-toward-the-u-s-rok-alliance-and-us.
94. For example, South Korean support for the US-ROK Alliance dropped temporarily from 80 to 90 percent to 40 percent in 2002 after
the death of two schoolgirls that involved US forces in Korea (Scott A. Snyder, “South Korean Public Opinion and the U.S.-ROK Alliance,”
Council on Foreign Relations, October 17, 2012, www.cfr.org/blog/south-korean-public-opinion-and-us-rok-alliance).
95. Mark Landler, “Trump Orders Pentagon to Consider Reducing U.S. Forces in South Korea,” New York Times, May 3, 2018,
www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/world/asia/trump-troops-south-korea.html.
96. Section 1254, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, www.congress.gov/116/bills/s1790/BILLS-116s1790enr.pdf.
97. Larry Niksch, “Potential Sources of Opposition to a U.S. Troop Withdrawal from South Korea,” NCNK, April 2019, 3, www.ncnk.
org/resources/briefing-papers/all-briefing-papers/special-report-us-troop-withdrawal.
98. Council on Foreign Relations, “A Sharper Choice on North Korea: Engaging China for a Stable Northeast Asia,” Independent
Task Force Report no. 74, September 2016, 46–7, www.cfr.org/report/sharper-choice-north-korea.
99. Doug Bandow, “Oer to Withdraw America’s Troops from South Korea to Seal a Nuclear Deal with the North,” Cato Institute, April
14, 2018, www.cato.org/publications/commentary/oer-withdraw-americas-troops-south-korea-seal-nuclear-deal-north.
100. Richard Sokolsky and Daniel R. DePetris, “Imagining a New U.S.-South Korean Security Architecture,” 38 North, November 15,
2018, www.38north.org/2018/11/rsokolskyddepetris111518.
101. Todd South, “Will we stay or will we go? A look at removing US troops from South Korea,” Army Times, May 3, 2018,
www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/05/03/will-we-stay-or-will-we-go-a-look-at-removing-us-troops-from-south-korea;
Van Jackson, On the Brink: Trump, Kim, and The Threat of Nuclear War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 203–4.
102. James Hackett, “The Conventional Military Balance on the Korean Peninsula,” International Institute for Strategic Studies, June
2018, 12, www.iiss.org/blogs/research-paper/2018/06/military-balance-korean-peninsula.
103. South Korean Ministry of National Defense, 2018 Defense White Paper, 118, www.mnd.go.kr/user/mndEN/upload/pblictn
/PBLICTNEBOOK_201908070153390840.pdf.
104. NCNK, “Agreement on the Implementation.”
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105. See Richard Sokolsky, “Convention Threat Reduction on the Korean Peninsula: Toward a More Ambitious Agenda,” 38 North,
March 8, 2019, www.38north.org/reports/2019/03/rsokolsky030819.
106. Organization on Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), “Vienna Document 1990,” November 17, 1990, www.osce.org/fsc/41245.
107. OSCE, “Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe,” November 19, 1990, www.osce.org/library/14087.
108. Section 1675, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, www.congress.gov/116/bills/s1790/BILLS-116s1790enr.pdf.
109. US Department of State, “Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the Republic of Korea,” CITIA no. 4228.000,
October 1, 1953, https://photos.state.gov/libraries/korea/49271/p_int_docs/p_rok_60th_int_14.pdf.
110. White House, “Joint vision for the alliance of the United States of America and the Republic of Korea,” June 16, 2009,
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-oce/joint-vision-alliance-united-states-america-and-republic-korea.
111. White House, “National Security Strategy of the United States of America,” December 2017, www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content
/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf.
112. US Department of Defense, “Public Summary of Future Defense Vision of the Republic of Korea (ROK)-U.S. Alliance,” November
2019, https://media.defense.gov/2019/Nov/19/2002213369/-1/-1/1/PUBLIC-SUMMARY-OF-VISION-FOR-THE-FUTURE-OF-THE
-ALLIANCE-FINAL.PDF.
113. Lynn Rusten and Richard Johnson, “Building Security Through Cooperation,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2019, 33–35,
https://media.nti.org/documents/NTI_DPRK2019_RPT_FNL.pdf.
114. This request may reveal North Korea’s lack of understanding of the US national command authority, under which only the pres-
ident can direct the use of nuclear weapons (Robert Carlin, “North Korea Said It Is Willing to Talk About Denuclearization . . . But
No One Noticed,” 38 North, July 12, 2016, www.38north.org/2016/07/rcarlin071216).
115. President Trump has suggested that the United States would not necessarily oppose Seoul and Tokyo pursuing nuclear weap-
ons. See CNN, “Full Rush Transcript: Donald Trump, CNN Milwaukee Republican Presidential Town Hall,” March 23, 2016,
http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2016/03/29/full-rush-transcript-donald-trump-cnn-milwaukee-republican-presidential-town-hall.
116. Morton Halperin et al., “From Enemies to Security Partners: Pathways to Denuclearization in Korea,” Nautilus Institute for Security
and Sustainability, July 6, 2018, www.nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-policy-forum/from-enemies-to-security-partners-pathways-to
-denuclearization-in-korea.
117. Uri Friedman, “The Mystery at the Heart of North Korea Talks,” The Atlantic, June 26, 2018, www.theatlantic.com/international
/archive/2018/06/denuclearization-korean-peninsula-moon/562601.
118. As a December 2018 KCNA statement said, “When we talk about the Korean Peninsula, it includes the territory of our republic
and also the entire region of (South Korea) where the United States has placed its invasive force, including nuclear weapons.
When we talk about the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, it means the removal of all sources of nuclear threat, not only
from the South and North but also from areas neighboring the Korean Peninsula” (Tong-hyung Kim, “N. Korea insists US act first
before it gives up nukes,” Associated Press, December 20, 2018, www.apnews.com/9ad490e005458daa98edb9745aa27e).
119. Xinhua, “Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un hold talks in Dalian,” May 8, 2018, www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-05/08/c_137164420.htm.
120. Je Mason and Josh Smith, “Trump wants North Korea to denuclearize, but is in no hurry,” Reuters, February 19, 2019, www.reuters
.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-trump/trump-says-he-wants-north-korea-to-denuclearize-but-is-not-in-a-hurry-idUSKCN1Q82H9.
121. Yong-in Yi, “North Korea reportedly makes specific denuclearization proposal during working-level talks with US,” Hankyoreh,
April 13, 2018, http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/840509.html.
122. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “A Conversation with Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun,” 2019
Nuclear Policy Conference, March 11, 2019, https://s3.amazonaws.com/ceipfiles/pdf/NPC19-SpecialRepresentativeBiegun.pdf.
123. Richard Johnson, “Stop Trying to Define ‘Denuclearization’ and Just Start Doing It,” 38 North, December 17, 2019, www.38north
.org/2019/12/rjohnson121719.
124. Under UN Security Council Resolution 1718, the Security Council decided that “the DPRK shall abandon all nuclear weapons and
existing nuclear programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner.” For more background on the term, see Cha, The
Impossible State, 256.
125. Siegfried S. Hecker, Robert L. Carlin, and Elliot A. Serbin, “A technically-informed roadmap for North Korea’s denuclearization,”
Stanford University, Center for International Security and Cooperation, May 28, 2018, https://fsi-live.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws
.com/s3fs-public/hecker_carlin-serbin_denuc_rlc.pdf.
126. David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, “Verifying the End of a Nuclear North Korea ‘Could Make Iran Look Easy,’” New York
Times, May 6, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/05/06/us/politics/nuclear-north-korea-iran-inspections.html.
127. Hecker, Carlin, and Serbin, “A technically-informed roadmap.”
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128. Mareena Robinson Snowden, “Probabilistic Verification: A New Concept for Verifying the Denuclearization of North Korea,” Arms
Control Today, September 2019, www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-09/features/probabilistic-verification-new-concept-verifying
-denuclearization-north-korea.
129. International Atomic Energy Agency, “IAEA Safeguards Overview: Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements and Additional
Protocols,” www.iaea.org/publications/factsheets/iaea-safeguards-overview.
130. Lesley Wroughton and David Brunnstrom, “Exclusive: With a piece of paper, Trump called on Kim to hand over nuclear weap-
ons,” Reuters, March 29, 2019, www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-document-exclusive/exclusive-with-a-piece-of
-paper-trump-called-on-kim-to-hand-over-nuclear-weapons-idUSKCN1RA2NR.
131. Nuclear Threat Initiative, “North Korea: Biological (last updated: July 2018),” www.nti.org/learn/countries/north-korea/biological.
132. Emily Baumgaertner and William J. Broad, “North Korea’s Less-Known Military Threat: Biological Weapons,” New York Times,
January 15, 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/01/15/science/north-korea-biological-weapons.html.
133. John Parachini, “Why We Should be Skeptical About Recent Reports on North Korea’s Biological Weapons Programs,” 38 North,
January 30, 2019, www.38north.org/2019/01/jparachini013019.
134. Col. Shawn P. Creamer, “The United Nations Command and the Sending States,” International Council on Korean Studies, July
28, 2012, 12, http://icks.org/n/data/ijks/2017FW-4.pdf.
135. The KPA stopped attending formal Military Armistice Commission meetings in 1991 after the UN Command (UNC) appointed a South
Korean general as the UNC delegation’s senior member. Since then, the KPA has since continued to meet intermittently with the United
Nations Command Military Armistice Commission delegation at the colonel and general ocer level during periods of diplomacy.
136. United Nations Command-Rear, "Fact Sheet,” www.yokota.af.mil/Portals/44/Documents/Units/AFD-150924-004.pdf.
137. The UNC has increased the number of sending states, created a separate sta, and designated non-US ocers to serve as the
deputy commander and United Nations Command-Rear commander.
138. Kang-moon Yoo, “Defense Ministry and UNC discuss UNC’s role after OPCON transfer,” Hankyoreh, September 18, 2019,
www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/909986.html.
139. UN Security Council, “Letter from the Permanent Representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the United Nations
addressed to the President of the Security Council,” S/2013/20, January 14, 2013, www.undocs.org/pdf?symbol=en/S/2013/20.
140. Currently, the UNC has no relationship with UN Headquarters other than submitting an annual report on armistice maintenance (Tim
Shorrock, “Can the United Nations Command Become a Catalyst for Change on the Korean Peninsula,” National Interest, November
1, 2018, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/can-united-nations-command-become-catalyst-change-korean-peninsula-34857).
141. Selig S. Harrison, Korean Endgame: A Strategy for Reunification and U.S. Disengagement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2002), 163.
142. Tim Shorrock, “Can the United Nations Command Become a Catalyst.”
143. In-bum Chun, “The Future of the UN Command,” 38 North, September 12, 2017, www.38north.org/2017/09/ibchun091217.
144. Halperin et al., “From Enemies to Security Partners.”
145. Some sectors of the South Korean public have criticized the UNC in the past because of perceptions that it has limited South
Korean sovereignty, including preventing it from sending a train to Sinuiju, North Korea, in August 2018 as part of a joint ROK-DPRK
railway project and hampering its ability to deliver an eective military response to the March 2010 sinking of the Cheonan.
146. Article 24 of the UN-Japan SOFA states that “All the United Nations forces shall be withdrawn from Japan within ninety days af-
ter the date by which all the United Nations forces shall have been withdrawn from Korea.” Article 25 states that the SOFA “shall
terminate on the date by which all the United Nations forces shall be withdrawn from Japan.” UN Forces Japan, “Agreement
regarding the Status of the United Nations Forces in Japan,” February 19, 1954, www.perma.cc/UUL4-A5NL.
147. Michael Bosack, “Relevance Despite Obscurity: Japan and UN Command,” Tokyo Review, February 1, 2018, www.tokyoreview.net
/2018/02/relevance-despite-obscurity-japan-un-command.
148. Choonsik Yoo, “North Korea’s economy tanks as sanctions, drought bite: South Korea,” Reuters, July 25, 2019, www.reuters.com
/article/us-northkorea-economy-gdp-idUSKCN1UL08G.
149. The litany of North Korea’s proscribed activities includes conventional and nuclear weapons proliferation, tests of nuclear weap-
ons and ballistic missile technology, cyberattacks, hostile acts in the region, international terrorism, narcotics distribution, human
rights violations, money laundering, counterfeiting of goods and currency, and bulk cash smuggling.
150. UN Security Council Resolutions 1695, 1718, 1874, 2087, 2094, 2270, 2321, 2356, 2371, 2375, and 2397.
151. US Embassy & Consulates in China, “U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley at the Adoption of UN Security Council
Resolution 2397,” December 26, 2017, https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/fact-sheet-un-security-council-resolution-2397-north-korea.
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152. Philip Rucker, Simon Demyer, and David Nakamura, “North Korea’s foreign minister says country seeks only partial sanctions
relief,” Washington Post, February 28, 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-and-kim-downplay-expectations-as-key
-summit-talks-begin/2019/02/28/d77d752c-3ac5-11e9-aaae-69364b2ed137_story.html.
153. For a comprehensive discussion, see Dianne E. Rennack, “North Korea: Legislative Basis for U.S. Economic Sanctions,” Report
no. R41438, Congressional Research Service, June 11, 2018, www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41438.pdf.
154. Otto Warmbier North Korea Nuclear Sanctions and Enforcement Act of 2019, Sections 7111–7147, www.congress.gov/116/bills
/s1790/BILLS-116s1790enr.pdf.
155. Joshua Stanton, Sung-yoon Lee, and Bruce Klingner, “Getting Tough on North Korea,” Foreign Aairs, May/June 2017,
www.foreignaairs.com/articles/north-korea/2017-04-17/getting-tough-north-korea.
156. UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015), para. 11, www.undocs.org/S/RES/2231(2015); European Parliament, “Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action,” July 14, 2015, para. 37, www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/122460/full-text-of-the-iran-nuclear-deal.pdf.
157. NKSPEA, Section 208(c), which allows the president to waive sanctions under that law on a case-by-case basis for renewable
periods of between thirty days and one year if the waiver is important for national security interests.
158. Leon V. Sigal, “Sanctions easing as a sign of non-hostility,” Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, February 23, 2015,
www.nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-policy-forum/sanctions-easing-as-a-sign-of-non-hostility.
159. Sections 401 and 402, NKSPEA.
160. Sigal, “Sanctions easing as a sign of non-hostility.”
161. Morton Halperin et al., “Ending the North Korean Nuclear Threat by a Comprehensive Security Settlement in Northeast Asia,”
Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, June 26, 2017, www.nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-policy-forum/ending-the-north
-korean-nuclear-threat-by-a-comprehensive-security-settlement-in-northeast-asia.
162. NCNK, “Kim Jong Un’s 2019 New Year's Address.”
163. Oce of the President of the Republic of Korea, “Address by President Moon Jae-in on Korea’s 73rd Liberation Day,” August 15,
2018, https://english1.president.go.kr/briefingspeeches/speeches/61.
164. Rennack notes that “by law, U.S. representatives in the international financial institutions (IFI) are required to vote against any
support for North Korea due to its nuclear weapons ambitions and international terrorism” (“North Korea: Legislative Basis,” 5).
165. Daniel P. Erikson, “Bridging the Gap: IMF and World Bank Membership for Socialist Countries,” Association for the Study of the
Cuban Economy, November 30, 2003, www.ascecuba.org/asce_proceedings/bridging-the-gap-imf-and-world-bank-membership
-for-socialist-countries.
166. Thomas Byrne and Jonathan Corrado, “Making North Korea Creditworthy: What Will It Take for North Korea to Finance Its Post-
Nuclear Development?” Korea Society, June 19, 2019, 34, www.koreasociety.org/images/pdf/Making.North.Korea.Creditworthy
-Final.Report__Byrne-Corrado.pdf.
167. Bradley O. Babson, “Designing Public Sector Capital Mobilization Strategies for the DPRK,” in A New International Engagement
Framework for North Korea, ed. Ahn Choong-yong, Nicholas Eberstadt, Lee Young-sun (Washington, DC: Korea Economic
Institute of America, 2004), 234, http://keia.org/sites/default/files/publications/04Babson.pdf.
168. Yoon-shik Park, “Political Economy of Denuclearizing North Korea,” paper presented at the 2005 International Council on
Korean Studies Annual Conference, Crystal City, VA (August 5–6, 2005), https://home.gwu.edu/~yspark/Files/7.pdf.
169. Byrne and Corrado, “Making North Korea Creditworthy,” 20.
170. Mark E. Manyin and Mary Beth D. Nikitin, “Foreign Assistance to North Korea,” CRS Report no. R40095, Congressional Research
Service, April 2, 2014, www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40095.pdf.
171. Jake Sullivan and Victor Cha, “The right way to play the China card on North Korea,” Washington Post, July 5, 2017, www.washington
post.com/opinions/the-right-way-to-play-the-china-card-on-north-korea/2017/07/05/6d223aa0-6187-11e7-a4f7 -af34fc1d9d39_story.html.
172. UN Resident Coordinator for DPRK, “2019 DPRK Needs and Priorities,” March 6, 2019, www.reliefweb.int/report
/democratic-peoples-republic-korea/2019-dpr-korea-needs-and-priorities.
173. Manyin and Nikitin, “Foreign Assistance to North Korea,” 15.
174. UN Resident Coordinator, “2019 DPRK Needs and Priorities Report.”
175. Manyin and Nikitin, “Foreign Assistance to North Korea,” 11.
176. Han-na Park, “N. Korea rejects food aid over S. Korea-US military drills,” Korea Herald, July 24, 2019, www.koreaherald.com
/view.php?ud=20190724000638.
177. Roberta Cohen, “Sanctions Hurt but Are Not the Main Impediment to Humanitarian Operations in North Korea,” Asia Policy 13,
no. 3 (July 2018): 35–41, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/700148/pdf.
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178. UN Human Rights Council, “Report of the Detailed Findings of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea,” A/HRC/25/CRP.1, February 7, 2014, 194, www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK/Pages
/CommissionInquiryonHRinDPRK.aspx.
179. United Nations, “Security Council 1718 Sanctions Committee Approves Implementation Assistance Notice on Humanitarian
Exemption for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” press release, August 6, 2018, www.un.org/press/en/2018/sc13445.doc.
htm; Jessup Jong and Kee Park, “Humanitarian exemptions for North Korean aid work: crunching the numbers,” NK News, July
16, 2019, www.nknews.org/2019/07/humanitarian-exemptions-for-north-korean-aid-work-crunching-the-numbers.
180. United Nations, “Statement by Mr. Tapan Mishra, UN Resident Coordinator in DPRK, on the release of the 2019 Needs and Priorities Plan,”
March 6, 2019, www.reliefweb.int/report/democratic-peoples-republic-korea/statement-mr-tapan-mishra-un-resident-coordinator-dprk.
181. In December 2018, Special Representative Stephen Biegun announced the United States would review American citizen travel
to the DPRK for the purposes of facilitating the delivery of aid, saying the travel ban imposed in 2017 “may have impacted the
delivery of humanitarian assistance” (US Department of State, “Remarks on Humanitarian Assistance to the DPRK,” December 19,
2018, www.state.gov/remarks-on-humanitarian-assistance-to-the-dprk).
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Executive Vice President, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Washington, DC
MEMBERS EX OFFICIO
Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State • Mark T. Esper, Secretary of Defense • Frederick J. Roegge, Vice Admiral,
US Navy; President, National Defense University • Nancy Lindborg, President & CEO, United States Institute
of Peace (nonvoting)
THE UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE PRESS
Since its inception in 1991, the United States Institute of Peace Press has published hundreds of influential
books, reports, and briefs on the prevention, management, and peaceful resolution of international
conflicts. All our books and reports arise from research and fieldwork sponsored by the Institute’s many
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Making Peace Possible
NO. 157 | FEBRUARY 2020
Few serious efforts have been made since the end of the Korean War in 1953 to achieve
a comprehensive peace on the Korean Peninsula. The current deadlock in negotiations
means that a broader discussion may remain out of reach. Nevertheless, the need to exam-
ine a peace regime, and its challenges and risks, remains. Peace is a process, however, not
an event. For the Korean Peninsula, it involves not only the two Koreas but also four major
powers—the United States, China, Japan, and Russia. This report outlines the perspectives
and interests of each country before describing the diplomatic, security, and economic com-
ponents necessary for a comprehensive peace, and how the United States can strategically
and realistically approach the challenge.
• Afghan Women’s Views on Violent Extremism and Aspirations to a
Peacemaking Role by Haseeb Humayoon and Mustafa Basij-Rasikh
(Peaceworks, February 2020)
• The India-Pakistan Rivalry in Afghanistan by Zachary Constantino (Special
Report, January 2020)
• Understanding Pakistan’s Deradicalization Programming by Arsla Jawaid
(Special Report, January 2020)
• The Challenges for Social Movements in Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe by Gladys
Kudzaishe Hlatywayo and Charles Mangongera (Special Report, January 2020)
• Displacement and the Vulnerability to Mobilize for Violence: Evidence from
Afghanistan by Sadaf Lakhani and Rahmatullah Amiri (Peaceworks, January 2020)
OTHER USIP PUBLICATIONS
