Top U.S. Expert Urges Shift from North Korea Denuclearization to 'Cold Peace' Strategy

By Song Sang-ho

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Yonhap) -- A prominent American expert has urged the United States to abandon its longstanding but unsuccessful focus on North Korea's denuclearization and shift toward "immediate" goals, including arms control, stressing that Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament is "unattainable for now."

In a recent written interview with Yonhap News Agency, Victor Cha, president of the geopolitics and foreign policy department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called for the shift to pursue a "cold peace" with the North -- a relationship prioritizing dialogue to prevent miscalculation and escalation.

His proposal was in line with growing calls for a more realistic approach to tackle Pyongyang's nuclear and missile threats, but could fuel concerns that it might amount to a de facto recognition of North Korea's nuclear status amid lingering doubts over the credibility of America's deterrence commitment to its allies.

"Denuclearization is a noble goal, but past policy failures and North Korea's dogged determination to obtain weapons have made it unattainable for now," Cha said. "Washington needs to shift the logic of its strategy from disarming North Korea's nukes to achieving immediate goals that will make the United States more secure against those weapons."

His proposal reflects rising concerns about North Korea's advancing nuclear and missile programs, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of striking the U.S., and submarine-launched ballistic missiles that would enable Pyongyang to hit back after an enemy's first attack.

Adding to the urgency of tackling the security quandary, Pyongyang has amassed 50 nuclear bombs, stockpiled enough plutonium and highly enriched uranium to build 40 to 50 more, and developed nearly 20 different delivery systems, including ICBMs, Cha said.

"Washington needs to reorient its strategy toward North Korea so that it can achieve more immediate gains, reduce tensions, and make the world safer now," he said. "The best strategy for avoiding a hot war with a nuclear North Korea is to preserve a cold peace."

Cha underscored that a new strategy for North Korea should not let the denuclearization goal get in the way of immediate national security needs. The immediate needs include protecting the U.S. homeland, reducing the number of U.S. adversaries, minimizing the chances that North Korea would launch nuclear weapons first, and weakening the relations between Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang, he said.

"Instead of making denuclearization a prerequisite for any negotiation, the U.S. should open conversations with Pyongyang on arms control agreements, limits on nuclear testing and missile production, crisis management mechanisms and bans on the transfer of nuclear weapons or technology to others," he said. "It should also strengthen deterrence and defense with regional allies to gain their support for this new strategy. In other words, the U.S. needs a cold peace with North Korea."

Cha said America's strategy on Pyongyang has been driven by the logic of preventing nuclear proliferation or the so-called CVID -- complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization -- and that it has relied heavily on sanctions to bring the North to dialogue and pressure it to abide by nonproliferation accords.

But the size and sophistication of the North's current nuclear arsenal shows that these approaches have failed, he said.

Touching on the ongoing U.S. military operation against Iran, Cha pointed to the risks of using military force to demand North Korea's denuclearization.

"North Korea is not Iran: It is a proven nuclear weapons state that could retaliate against the United States and its allies," he said, "North Korea's nuclear arsenal is far too large to eliminate without risking devastation. And targeting weapons facilities near the border with China could lead to wider escalation with Beijing."

He also highlighted the decreasing effectiveness of sanctions against North Korea, accusing China and Russia of undercutting the sanctions regime.

To better deter the North's threats, Cha proposed a series of measures, including an American policy declaration that any use of North Korean nuclear weapons would prompt the U.S. to destroy its regime, and South Korea-U.S.-Japan missile defense efforts, to name a few.

"Ideally, all three allies would commit to a collective defense declaration so that an attack on any one of them would constitute an attack on all of them," he said. "Such an agreement would upset Pyongyang but it will help shift dynamics toward a cold peace on the peninsula by signaling that any North Korean belligerence would be met with an exponentially larger response from the three allies."

He also called for the U.S. to develop direct communication channels with the North to avoid accidental escalation, and align its potential move to reduce U.S. troops in South Korea with future negotiations with the North on measures, including arms reductions, caps on the deployment of multiple rocket launchers and no-fly zones for drones.

"If North Korea were not already loaded with nuclear weapons, there might be better choices available. What the U.S. faces in reality, however, is the need for an interim solution to protect U.S. homeland security and prevent nuclear escalation in the Indo-Pacific," Cha said. "A cold peace is hardly an ideal solution, but it could bring much-needed stability to an increasingly dangerous relationship."

His proposal is delineated in his article published in Foreign Affairs magazine early Tuesday.