Senators Call for Stronger U.S. Actions to Undermine North Korean Regime

WASHINGTON – Senators and longtime diplomatic hands on Thursday called for the United States to take stronger action against North Korea, including measures aimed at loosening the Kim Jong Un regime’s hold on power.

Washington’s growing frustration with North Korea’s behavior and bombastic threats – including Thursday's warning of a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the United States – was on full display at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

Ranking Member Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) called for U.S. policy-makers to “pay closer attention to the nonmilitary aspects of deterrence, including efforts to weaken and debilitate the North Korean regime. In particular, we ought to do more to expose the North's brutality towards its own citizens as a means to influence the Kim regime.”

The Obama administration has applied a policy of “strategic patience” in which the U.S. government is prepared to negotiate but refuses Pyongyang’s demands to first provide concessions such as economic aid or a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War.

This policy has yet to produce any notable alteration in North Korea’s longtime “military first” posture, which emphasizes development of a deliverable nuclear weapon as quickly as possible. In recent months, the Stalinist regime has shown it is making headway on this objective, carrying out its first ever successful long-range rocket launch into space and detonating a third nuclear device.

“Changing North Korea’s calculus is proving to be a challenge,” Glyn Davies, the State Department’s special envoy for North Korea, acknowledged to the panel.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday unanimously passed a new sanctions resolution that aims to end North Korea’s ability to secure financing for its continued nuclear weapons development -- namely through money laundering,  smuggling of hard foreign currency, and illegally exporting weapons.

Security Council Resolution 2094 also adds to the list of products the Stalinist state is prohibited from importing including items that can be adapted for use in ballistic missile, nuclear and chemical weapons programs.

Though these sanctions go beyond anything Pyongyang has yet faced, there is not much optimism they will halt the North’s nuclear weapons development. That effort has survived Security Council resolutions passed in the wake of the country’s 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests that also included measures specifically targeting its nuclear and ballistic missile development.

“North Korea by and large has continued to exceed reasonable expectations as to what they could accomplish technologically” with their strategic missile and nuclear arms development, said Stephen Bosworth, Davies’ predecessor in leading Obama administration policy on North Korea.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said he perceives that North Korea’s ultimate goal is to be acknowledged as a de facto nuclear power. “They want to be accepted and they want to be insulated from foreign interference in their affairs. And they've concluded that the only way they can accomplish these things is by being a nuclear power.”

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty only recognizes five nuclear powers -- China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. India, Israel, and Pakistan are viewed as nuclear-armed nations. The Obama administration has pledged to never acknowledge the North as a nuclear-weapon country even as Pyongyang has pursued the technical capabilities and infrastructure necessary for an atomic arsenal.

The North’s first two nuclear tests involved plutonium-fueled devices, and the nation is believed to hold enough material for about six weapons.

Pyongyang in 2010 revealed a uranium enrichment plant that could provide a second route for producing nuclear arms material; many experts suspect there are additional uranium facilities that have not yet been declared. The country is also speeding construction of a light-water reactor that could be used to produce fissile material and is expanding a missile launch complex at Musudan-ri.

As the North continues to expand its program, Corker said the international community was approaching a point when the goal of achieving North Korea’s irreversible denuclearization would no longer be feasible. Six-nation talks with that goal have not been held since December 2008.

“It feels to me like we’re at a real crossroads. It isn’t about new sanctions. If something doesn’t happen soon there is no way we can talk about verifiable denuclearization,” the Tennessee lawmaker said.

Senator Mark Udall (D-Colo.) wondered whether the United States should attempt to subvert the North Korean government’s digital firewall, which prevents citizens from unrestrictedly surfing the Internet. “One of the things we're seeing around the world when you see democracy movements is the Internet playing a role, the people being connected, people turning out in the streets as a result of that interconnectedness.”

Davies replied that he does see a changing media landscape in the isolated country, due largely to trade with China. “I think we do need to look at entrepreneurial ways to promote more of that [media openness], get more information in. I think broadcasting is a big part of that.”

Former Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph in prepared testimony for the Senate panel called for a return to the policies the United States pursued from 2001 to 2006, “including interdiction through the Proliferation Security Initiative, freezing regime funds abroad, and curtailing its illicit activities, such as cutting off its customer base for missiles and cooperating with other countries to end its drug and counterfeiting activities.”

Joseph, now with the National Institute for Public Policy, said the tools of financial pressure, law enforcement, diplomacy and intelligence must be used in concert against North Korea. “We need to move beyond diplomacy focused primarily on negotiating tactics or on the ‘carrots’ for the next round of six-party or bilateral discussions.”

In the diplomacy realm, Washington should focus its energies on persuading China to do more to pressure its ally into changing its behavior, he said.

The Senate late last month passed the “North Korean Nonproliferation and Accountability Act,” which would mandate a wholesale U.S. government assessment of the effectiveness of its North Korea policy. “The report shall include recommendations for such legislative or administrative action as the secretary [of State] considers appropriate in light of the results of the review,” reads the bill, which is awaiting consideration by the House.