Modern diplomacy on North Korea may be fundamentally wrong - but history points to a better way
- International diplomacy between nuclear nations doesn't rate as an easy task for even the most seasoned statesmen, but for some reason they still talk about it like training a horse with carrots and sticks.
- In diplomacy, carrots are benefits you can offer a country and sticks are punishments.
- A Harvard researcher blows apart this way of thinking by offering an alternative: Build physical infrastructure in North Korea that implies a path to peace and normal relations, rather than cutting a check or rescinding a threat.
International diplomacy between nuclear nations, like the US and North Korea, doesn't rate as an easy task for even the most seasoned statesmen, but for some reason it's commonly discussed in horse racing terms - carrots and sticks.
In diplomatic negotiations, a nation will offer another nation a carrot, or some kind of benefit, while threatening a stick, some kind of mobilization of leverage.
Carrots can be economic benefits or normalizing relations. Sticks can be military force or economic sanctions. Today's diplomats still talk about North Korea in these terms, or as you would talk about training a horse.
But Christopher Lawrence of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government told Business Insider that approach could be all wrong, and hidden in the history of failed talks with North Korea could be a better way forward.
North Korea won't trade missiles for carrots
"If the regime ever agrees to give up nuclear weapons, it will not be for fleeting rewards or written security guarantees, but for a long-term, completely different political relationship with the United States going forward," Lawrence wrote in his new paper on North Korean diplomacy.
In other words, carrots won't solve the crisis. Demonstrably, sticks, in the form of sanctions and military threats, haven't solved it either.
Instead, Lawrence proposes looking back to 1994, when North Korea's nuclear program was in its infancy and the US actually got plutonium, which could be used to make weapons, out of the country in exchange for building light water reactors, which are used for nuclear power.
No other acts of diplomacy with North Korea ever had the same level of physical results. Instead of the US cutting a check, or promising not to strike North Korea, building infrastructure in the country actually created a physical bond that implied a path toward peace.
Therefore, US carrots to North Korea "will only be meaningful if they speak credibly about the political future - and physical, real-world manifestations of a changing relationship, such as shared infrastructure investments, often speak more credibly than written words," writes Lawrence.
Talk is cheap. Infrastructure isn't.
Kim Jong Un apparently wants the US to guarantee his security, but "written security assurances are less than credible," Lawrence told Business Insider. "If we get what we want out of North Korea, why would we follow through?"
North Korea seems sensitive to shifting US rhetoric, as its reaction to being compared to Libya and Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal clearly show.
Instead, Lawrence said the US and its allies should focus on building real infrastructure in North Korea to improve the country. The US's carrot here would happen at a synchronized pace to North Korea taking steps to denuclearize.
"I think think the main insight is we should not be thinking in terms of gifts to the regime, but points of US skin in the game," Lawrence said.
A slow push of US investment and infrastructure in North Korea would allow Kim to control the propaganda narrative, and own the achievements as his own, rather than handouts from Trump, which could help sell the deal.
This could potentially solve the issue of North Korea opening up to the outside world too fast and becoming destabilized when its impoverished, closed-off population gets a taste of outside life.
Also, Kim seems to genuinely want infrastructure help, reportedly telling South Korea's President Moon Jae-in "I feel embarrassed about the poor transit infrastructure," in his country.
The continuing US relationship with North Korea and the physical presence of US investment in the country provides a mechanism for keeping the talks on track. If North Korea doesn't make good on its end, the US "can turn the lights out" on its investments, according to Lawrence.
Far from thinking about who will win or lose the upcoming summit by counting up the carrots and sticks at the end of the horse race, Lawrence offers a vision of what building a lasting peace in Korea could look like.