The May 13 edition of the Baltimore Sun ran a very thought provoking opinion piece by Michael O'Hanlon and Mike Mochizuki ("We need to make North Korea a big deal") in which the two scholars call on Washington and Seoul to propose a "grand bargain" with that last outpost of Stalinism otherwise known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). In contrast to the approaches so far articulated by Presidents Bush and Noh, O'Hanlon and Mochizuki advise:

Negotiate without preconditions and without excessive concern about who else participates. But negotiate from a position of strength and resolve, Reagan-style. We should offer North Korea substantial incentives, well beyond what has been provided or discussed to date, to end dangerous weapons programs and begin to reform its economy and way of governance. But we should also insist that any increase in outside aid will require compliance with a much broader set of demands than we have made so far.

In other words, Washington and Seoul should propose a "grand bargain" that the United States and its regional security partners should pursue with North Korea. Although accords could be negotiated and implemented step by step, they would be guided by a clearly articulated and broad vision. That vision should help grab the attention and focus the imagination of North Korean leaders, who would be presented with a clear alternative to their present dangerous and self-destructive path.

Such an approach, the two writers explain, would place the Bush Administration in a much better position than it is now to convince other regional powers of the need for stronger policies should such a "grand bargain" be turned down. However, O'Hanlon and Mochizuki feel that:

there is also very good reason, based on the history of negotiations with North Korea, to think an ambitious plan could succeed. North Korea has concluded even unpalatable deals in the past when it thought it was getting enough in return, and it has indicated an awareness that it must reform its economy for years even if it has failed miserably in the attempt to do so.

As far as what such a "big deal" would encompass, North Korea would be expected to fully denuclearize, and its ballistic missile program will need to be addressed. But that's not all:

... the broad plan would go much further than the nuclear question. Consistent with Mr. Bush's instincts that any deal with North Korea's current government is unappealing and unpromising, it would seek to begin to change the basic nature of that regime.

One aspect of the broader plan would emphasize human rights issues such as the return of Japanese kidnapped by North Korea decades ago and even the internal practices of the North Korean regime toward its people. And of course Washington would offer a nonaggression pledge, peace treaty and diplomatic relations as well, provided North Korea agrees to the rest of the package.

The centerpiece of O'Hanlon and Mochizuki's plan, however, is a "combination of deep conventional arms reductions on the peninsula and assistance to North Korea to help it reform its economy." China, "which has navigated the road from a communist command system to an entrepreneurial economy," would be expected to provide guidance and advice, while Japan, South Korea, China, and the United States would provide aid. The two writers explain:

Only such a policy could reduce the enormous economic burden that North Korea's oversized military places on the country. Without such weapons cuts and economic reform, North Korea will probably continue to provoke future crises in order to extort resources from the international community simply because its leaders will see no other way to stay financially afloat.

As I said earlier, O'Hanlon and Mochizuki's proposed approach does provide us with much food for thought (or at least it should). However, I find it flawed in a number of crucial areas. Firstly, despite the two analysts' observation that North Korea has shown a willingness to conclude "even unpalatable deals in the past when it thought it was getting enough in return," North Korea has also shown a distinct willingness to violate those very same deals whenever it felt doing so might prove profitable. The histories of both inter-Korean relations and US-DPRK relations are littered with the debris of agreements that the North moved to undermine before the ink on them had even dried. If there is any dount about this, remember that we are still negotiating with the North Koreans over a nuclear issue that was supposedly dealt with by three seperate agreements in 1985, 1991, and 1994.

A more fatal flaw, however, is O'Hanlon and Mochizuki's assumption that the North Korean system can somehow be "reformed." I think it can be rightly assumed that after over a decade of negative economic growth and nearly two million deaths due to starvation, the North Korean leadership knows something is amiss in the Workers' Paradise. The fact that it has not undertaken even modest economic reforms, however, reflects certain limitations in North Korea's socio-economic structure. Unlike the rural societies of China and Vietnam, two socialist nations that have successfully pursued market reforms, North Korean society is urban and industrialized. In this regard, Pyongyang's relevant precedent of reform is not China, but the Soviet Union. The North Korean leadership is well aware of this; even as inter-Korean "reconciliation" and "cooperation" accelerated following the election of Kim Dae-jung in the South, the DPRK's official media repeatedly cautioned Seoul against taking measures to "undermine the North's socialist system."

Pyongyang will rebuff any attempts to encourage meaningful economic or political reform in North Korea, because it rightly equates such reforms with the death of the regime. Likewise, massive cuts in North Korea's oversized but politically important military are unlikely; not only would they alienate Kim Jong-il from one of his most important bases of support, but they would effectively destroy one of the two ideological pillars of the North Korean regime - its destiny to unify the peninsula under the banner of the Korean Workers Party. That the KCNA (Korean Central News Agency) now makes reference to the North's "Songun" (Army-first) policy as much as it does to "Juche" should not be ignored.

With reform out of the question, the North Korean leadership has most likely decided that it is through aid, and aid alone, that the regime's survival can be ensured. With this in mind, it has provoked crisis after crisis on the Korean peninsula with the aim of extracting increasinly large amounts of aid from its wealthier neighbors. O'Hanlon and Mochizuki correctly noted this cycle of behavior. Unfortunately, North Korea's previous attempts at brinkmanship have proved all too profitable, and it's unlikely that Pyongyang can be dissuaded from continually employing such a strategy as long as the regime exists; O'Hanlon and Mochizuki's "grand bargain" would serve only to confirm to North Korea's leaders what they already know - that crime pays. Moreover, like in Orwell's 1984, the crises that the DPRK provokes may very well serve a very important domestic function: by keeping the nation on a perpetual war-footing, Pyongyang is better able to justify the material deprivations its citizens must endure in order for the regime to survive. If this is the case, it is highly unlikely that any "big deal" with the DPRK can be struck that will lead to real peace in the region.

It can be argued that it's in the interests of all concerned to pay increasing amounts of "blackmail" to North Korea in order for it to freeze (but not terminate) its nuclear program. This seems to be the postition of Seoul, and to a lesser (and dimishing) extent, Tokyo. But if we do decide to go down that road, let's not kid ourselves about what we're doing - putting on life-support a regime that lacks the means of reform, and views crisis as its very source of life.