Before the Commission on US-China Economic and Security Review

July 24, 2003

A Strategy for Success after the Current Impasse Is Overcome

John Olsen, Ph.D.

Sandia National Laboratories*

The unfrozen and unsafeguarded nuclear weapons program in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is the most serious issue confronting the international community in East Asia. While US government attention focuses on returning the DPRK to "frozen" status and dismantling the apparent dual-breakout strategy in plutonium production and high-enriched uranium (HEU), there is also a need to plan for verification of a nuclear-weapons-free Korean peninsula. The current impasse may end in a broad agreement, a "grand bargain," with the DPRK that addresses nuclear weapon, missile, and conventional force issues, and offers the North security guarantees and substantial economic aid in exchange. The strategy for arriving at a "grand bargain" and the tradeoffs that might be included are not the subject of this discussion. Those issues properly are the concern of elected officials and their appointees at the highest levels. Rather, this paper will emphasize the requirements for effective verification of the nuclear htmects of the bargain, leaving verification of the other elements to further development within the same general framework.

A new approach to verification will be required for several reasons: First, verification tasks in the DPRK would include certain nuclear weapon issues that are outside the scope of the IAEA mission and would require direct involvement of the nuclear weapons states. Second, the new agreement may involve increased aid from the international community, and contributing countries will insist on assurances that the DPRK is complying with its agreements. Third, a security guarantee to North Korea will necessarily involve several East Asian nations, suggesting a multilateral approach to verification. Finally, a new approach would be needed to avoid the pitfalls of previous bilateral (US-DPRK, IAEA-DPRK, and ROK-DPRK) agreements, all of which have failed to weather the vicissitudes of regional volatility.

As a scientist who studies the situation in Northeast Asia, my goal is to suggest a broad framework for verification of the terms of this as-yet-determined bargain. Even without knowing exactly how we will find our way through this difficult time, we know that certain verification needs are bound to arise. Moreover, this presentation does not attempt to list the verification requirements in detail. A comprehensive catalogue of requirements is available through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as one competent authority. In addition, other experts are compiling verification lists for each htmect of the suspected DPRK nuclear weapons program.

Assuming that the DPRK agrees to verifiably dismantle its nuclear weapons and freeze its long-range missile programs, we suggest that a regionally managed verification regime, staffed and sustained by all interested parties (Russia, China, ROK, DPRK, Japan, IAEA, and the US) could be an effective and durable solution. This regime’s charter could be verification of all present and future nuclear agreements for both North and South Korea: The initial task of the regime would be verification of the elimination of the North Korean weapons program. Following that phase, the regime could be charged with monitoring of routine international safeguards in cooperation with the IAEA and monitoring compliance with provisions for a non-nuclear Korean peninsula, similar to those contained in the 1992 North-South Denuclearization Agreement. These latter tasks would involve inspectors from the DPRK as partners in the regime.

In addition, the "grand bargain" may require verification of missile and conventional force terms. In order to contribute to a lasting and broadening reduction of inter-Korean tensions, a role in monitoring agreements on biological or chemical weapons could be considered for the future. These topics should be handled within the framework of the regional regime in order to maximize the leverage of the security guarantee contained in the bargain and, at the same time, minimize the opportunity for external pressures to upset the denuclearization process.

China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the US all have strong interests in a peaceful, nuclear-weapons-free peninsula and all have called on the DPRK to return to compliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). In addition to supporting global nonproliferation regimes, these countries also have strong national interests:

• Russia’s President Putin is pursuing an ambitious plan to expand economic growth in the Far East using the Trans-Siberian Railway to connect through North Korea to South Korea. Russia’s Far East would be more secure without the instability that would be caused by a continuing North Korean nuclear weapons program.
• China is concerned that a nuclear threat from the DPRK could overturn the Japanese commitment to strong limits on its military forces and renunciation of nuclear weapons, swiftly threatening the Asian balance of power. As Shambaugh points out:

• Japan faces the prospect of a nuclear threat from a nuclear-weapon-armed North and remembers the Taepodong missile test of 1998 that overflew Japan. Japanese policymakers realize that Japan may be a target in a confrontation resulting from DPRK nuclear adventurism. Developing a more active defense posture to face an aggressive, nuclear-armed and missile-wielding Korean neighbor would be very unpopular with the Japanese public.
• The Republic of Korea is most threatened, if not by the nuclear weapons themselves, then by the souring effect that North Korea’s nuclear program has had on North-South relations and on the ROK economy. The political split concerning responses to the proliferation policies in the North is having a corrosive effect on ROK society and on the US-ROK Alliance. President Roh Moo-hyun is currently taking some steps to close ranks with the US and to strengthen our bilateral relations.
• The US, as guarantor of the ROK’s and Japan’s security and foremost advocate of nonproliferation, faces an adversary who is determined to convert every issue into a bilateral confrontation. The US needs a comprehensive solution that leverages the shared interests of all regional parties, while effectively and verifiably eliminating the threat.

For its part, the DPRK is primarily concerned with regime survival and may exchange verifiable denuclearization for a multilaterally guaranteed security pact. If such a grand bargain can be made at the highest levels, the DPRK may accept multilateral participation in future assurances of security on the peninsula. Verification is essential because it is possible that North Korea intends to negotiate over its overt nuclear program but keep a covert effort. This verification regime might be more acceptable because it would include the traditional DPRK allies, China and Russia.

Each country plays a role and brings special assets to a regional verification regime:

A regional verification regime could have the following responsibilities:

• Monitor refreezing/dismantling the DPRK nuclear weapons facilities and removal of fissile material
• Verify Compliance with NPT
• Resolving the past history of the Yongbyon radiochemistry plant, the IAEA retaining the lead responsibility in this
• Administering and conducting all normal safeguards activities on the peninsula
• Implementing Strengthened Safeguards agreements on the peninsula
• Verify Dismantlement and Reduction Terms
• Receiving, dismantling and safeguarding any nuclear weapon components that DPRK possesses. Weapon state members of the regional regime, and potentially all Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council (the P-5), must take the lead in this until the materials can be placed under normal safeguards
• Verifying freeze on the facilities for developing and producing long range missiles
• Verify provisions similar to the 1992 North-South Denuclearization Agreement
• Subsuming roles envisioned for the Joint Nuclear Control Commission (JNCC) under the 1992 Denuclearization Declaration for North-South mutual inspections and including IAEA presence
• Inspecting and freezing the HEU program and safeguarding or removing any products
• Instituting comparable verification of non-enrichment and non-reprocessing compliance in the ROK
• Verification of mutual reductions or redeployment of conventional forces and other elements of the overall bargain

Specific verification requirements are too numerous to list here. As one example, Fred McGoldrick lists a number of requirements for the verifying a freeze and dismantlement of the highly enriched uranium program. It is clear that the scope of the verification effort will be dependent upon the degree of cooperation and veracity of the North Korean authorities.

For a sustainable solution, the regional verification regime would be embodied within a dedicated institution. The institution as a formal entity should be located conveniently close to, but not on the Korean peninsula. Two competing options might be considered in Vladivostok, Russia or Shenyang, China. Both locations have air connections to both Koreas. Location outside the Korean peninsula would avoid the appearance of bias that might be associated with basing in one or the other of the inspected parties. If the new institution is located in Vladivostok, a RF nuclear laboratory might manage it conveniently. This would benefit from extensive US-RF cooperation on nuclear security in the last decade and feature Russian technical expertise. Additionally, Russian leadership and basing might qualify for financial support from Japan, along the lines of the recent Japanese decision to fund dismantlement of 41 nuclear submarines in the Russian Far East.

China’s Shenyang is also close at hand and has a US consulate, in fact. A city of 8 million, it has good air connections and is about four hours by road from the North Korean border. While China is typically reluctant to take a leadership role, perhaps a multilateral format may be more attractive. In case Japan offers financial support for strong Russian participation, a joint Chinese-Russian leadership may evolve, where China leads in logistics and institutional development and Russia leads in technical verification.

The U.S. will need to maintain confidence that this institution satisfies its nonproliferation and security goals, whether located in Russia or China. That requirement will probably be addressed in the form of governance established for the institution. The U.S., as the prime mover in the nonproliferation effort, will lead in determining the composition and responsibility of the institution’s governing body.

An informal critique of this paper by a well-known academic in China, offered that an institution in Shenyang "is very interesting" because "it helps strengthen US-China cooperation." This scholar, who unofficially represents Chinese opinion in many nongovernmental fora, hopes that this proposal "receives attention from these two countries, so that everyone will be both a stakeholder and a contributor."

Another reviewer of the proposal, writing from a US think tank, questioned whether Russia brought very much to such a regional organization. He suggested that "China was far and away the most important." That might suggest a US-China joint effort to establish a regional verification regime might be more effective

The size of a regional institution would be relatively small. CScaling up from the ABACC precedent to considering the difficulties of inspecting inside the DPRK, and also the breadth of nuclear industry in the ROK, we might estimate that a permanent Russian or Chinese management staff of about ten would be sufficient, supported by about 20 secretarial and clerical staff. Roughly 25-30 inspectors would be needed for combined industries of North and South Korea; these could be drawn from 3-5 inspection experts each from China, ROK, RF, Japan, DPRK and the US. The IAEA’s Tokyo center could also assign 6 inspectors.

The initial phase of the regime will require a careful transition, recognizing that the IAEA has the prime role in returning North Korea to compliance with the NPT. Therefore, when the IAEA returns to the DPRK to clarify the past history of the Yongbyon radiochemistry facility, the new regime would merely assist the IAEA. Furthermore during the initial phase, if nuclear weapons must be dismantled, a team of weapon specialists from the P-5 countries would be carrying out elimination duties, perhaps independently from the regional regime. While these initial efforts will be heavily dependent upon IAEA and P-5 leadership, the verification regime might concentrate on other elements of the security bargain, for example, missiles, conventional forces, and chemical/biological weapons issues.

Once the new institution was fully staffed and carrying out long-term duties, a technical support staff (about 20) would be needed to provide communications, database capabilities, reporting to the IAEA, calibration of instruments, and laboratory testing of samples. If in Vladivostok, most of these staff would be assigned from a RF institution, perhaps supplemented by DPRK and ROK technicians. If in Shenyang, the support staff would be assigned from Chinese institutions, supplemented by DPRK and ROK technicians. Establishing a new institution in Vladivostok or Shenyang, training regional inspectors, and transferring appropriate inspection responsibilities from IAEA-Tokyo would be the initial tasks of the organization. Once the organization was functional, it would be able to progressively assume more routine international safeguards duties, especially as the IAEA concludes its responsibilities for the Yongbyon inspections. The fully mature institution would carry out safeguards inspections, with the IAEA as a partner, and with the responsibility to determine and report NPT compliance in both Koreas to the IAEA.

The first and foremost goal is to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Preventing a nuclear arms race in Northeast Asia would be a significant success for the US and the international community. A regional verification regime for a non-nuclear Korean peninsula could be a new, positive htmect of future US relations with China, Russia, South Korea and Japan. It could address critical ROK, Japanese, Chinese and US security concerns, and return the US-ROK alliance to smooth cooperation. Furthermore, a Russian-based institution would also cement ties that have developed between the US and the RF over the last decade of cooperation. All of these are substantial gains toward US policy goals.

Although the verification regime would initially focus on the nuclear issues, the charter of the overarching agreement should include missiles and conventional forces. We might conclude from the KEDO/Agreed Framework experience that a narrow charter is efficient in carrying out a well-defined goal, but brittle when subjected to stresses from a new direction. That is, while the KEDO organization effectively solved many construction problems in the nuclear power area, each new adventure by the DPRK outside of the nuclear area, spy subs against the ROK or drug-running against Japan, would threaten support for KEDO in the affected countries. Cooperation with North Korea might be more stable if more of these areas of volatility were explicitly linked in a all encompassing package, rather than available for separate exploitation. Therefore, verification of cessation of long-range missile programs and defensive deployment of conventional forces may have to be linked to the nuclear issue in a comprehensive regime. Moreover, multilateral security guarantees and economic assistance may be more robust and credible when offered within the multilateral framework.

In closing I should also address some explicit topics posed by this Commission. One of these is "What role should we expect of China?" The following is purely my own personal opinion: We should be cautious not to overestimate Chinese influence on the North Korean leadership. Doing so might put prospective Chinese partners in an untenable position wherein we implicitly expect more than they can deliver, or more than they can guarantee to deliver. In fact, we could discourage them from cooperating if our expressions of faith in their influence are too strong. Writers such as Joseph Kahn caution us that China has steadily lost influence with the North as Beijing has emphasized economic growth and rapid development of relations with South Korea. Despite supplying vital aid to the North, Beijing reaps no benefit of gratitude. According to DPRK history, the North defeated the U.S. in the Korean War all by itself. To the North Korean masses there is no mention of massive Chinese intervention. Therefore, while recognizing that China has applied pressure on the North, let us be cautious in hoping for a Chinese-led breakthrough.

Finally, we come to the important question of "US or multilateral policies that are most likely to affect Chinese behavior in a more positive direction?" Foremost, in my personal opinion again, has to be considering their primary goal of a peaceful periphery as a basis for economic growth — the economic growth, in fact, that is essential to their regime stability. We found in the War on Terrorism that China would side with the US and make unprecedented concessions, like agreeing to an FBI office in Beijing, when we acknowledged their core interest in a peaceful border with the Central Asian states. Similarly, in the North Korean crisis we should recognize how volatile the situation looks from their close proximity and solicit their thorough involvement in a solution. A regional verification regime with a strong Chinese partnership could be one step in that direction.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge constructive comments from colleagues at Sandia Laboratories and by experts at nongovernmental think tanks in South Korea and China, as well as in the U.S. However, I take personal responsibility for the opinions expressed here and hope that they may contribute to developing a useful dialogue on these issues.

Contact: John Olsen (505) 284-5052, jnolsen@sandia.gov