home > by publication type > must reads > WashPost: Up Close and Personal, Here's What I Learned
Email
| Author: | Victor D. Cha |
|---|
June 14, 2009
"The Americans are serious," the head of the Russian delegation told the North Koreans in a meeting in Beijing in September 2005. "You see this? This is called a negative security assurance. We tried to get this from them throughout the Cold War and were unsuccessful."
We'd been negotiating since 2004 -- the famous "six-party" talks featuring the United States, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and, of course, the North -- trying to hammer out an agreement that would end Pyongyang's nuclear program. The issue of the moment was a clause that had just been approved in Washington, stating that the United States "would not attack North Korea with nuclear or conventional weapons."
It was a big step for the Americans, and the Russians, at least, recognized that. It meant that Kim Jong Il had finally received the security guarantee -- and the end to alleged American hostility -- that he'd always sought. But when the North Korean delegates later brushed off the clause as a mere piece of paper that did nothing to truly assure North Korean security, it dawned on me that things that seem exquisitely important to the North Koreans at one moment can suddenly become unimportant the next. Their demands and their desires can diverge considerably.
For years we've debated whether North Korea is willing to trade nukes for security, or whether it considers nuclear weapons the ultimate security guarantee. But that misses the point. North Korea's aims, as I've come to understand them through my years studying the country and negotiating with its diplomats, are much bigger than that. We need to grasp them if we're going to break through the current crisis.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.