Nobody knows what it's like when you're down and out... and a nuclear power

Subtitle: A Few Obligatory Thoughts on Mr. Kim's Nuclear Brinkmanship

The current round of UN sanctions targeting North Korea, now approved by the United Nations Security Council, are pretty much what I expected. They're also mostly useless, and continue to point out a flaw in U.S. strategies toward North Korea: sanctions simply won't work because the only countries that can sanction North Korea really, really don't want to.

China and Russia have refused to allow a UN Chapter VII citation, which would make enforcement of the sanctions through threat or use of arms completely legal under international law. Chapter VII references have therefore been dropped from the sanctions document to avoid a veto at the UNSC table. The rest of the document involves inspecting cargo and attempting to prevent illegal anything from getting in and out of the DPRK.

Russia has very little trade with North Korea, but China and South Korea do. And they will do very little, since they'd essentially be sanctioning their own investment. The big ol' North Korean investment, that is. Both China and South Korea support the North Korean regime because an immediate collapse would be a nightmare for either country -- in military terms, in humanitarian terms, in political terms, what have you. North Korea makes a lot of money off of illegal dealings, and although both the PRC and the ROK would rather North Korea open up and pursue the "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" driving the Chinese economy, neither country want to deprive North Korea of its livelihood, either.

As for the other two countries involved in the region -- Japan and the U.S. -- very little can be done. Japan has already imposed its own set of unilateral sanctions on Japan-North Korea trade, most of which came in the form of remittances from Korean nationals in Japan. And the U.S. involvement at this point is essentially irrelevant, since it does not trade with North Korea whatsoever.

So what's going on here? Nothing new. A now-confirmed North Korean nuclear test is a major loss of face in Beijing. We would presume the Chinese would be more willing to push North Korea around, and by the looks of things, they are, as they were after the July 4, 2006 missile launches, and as they have been on occasion.

But Chinese patience with North Korea is deep and wide, especially considering sanction might make Kim's regime go belly-up.

Ashton Carter, an Assistant Secretary of Defence under Bill Clinton, asked an apt question today on CNN: where do we want these sanctions to go? Unfortunately, the answer to his question is a resounding "nowhere." If the sanctions are supposed to encourage North Korea to go back to the Six-Party negotiating table, they will probably fail miserably. Only two things can get North Korea back to the multiparty format: (1) increased pressure from South Korea and/or China; and/or (2) a Six-Party recommitment to carrots-and-sticks-based "rewards for cooperation" negotiation strategies.

The first is very politically difficult to do, even after the nightmare scenario nuclear test. The problem is that the PRC or ROK don't want Kim's regime to collapse, and they think that the U.S. is pushing for such an end, even in the multilateral format. So they'll only really push North Korea on anything if they know the regime will not be put in danger as a result. And chances are Beijing is now trying to get North Korea back to the Six-Party Table as best as it can.

The reality is, however, that the U.S. does not see (2) as a tenable strategy. It doesn't swim well in circles where North Korea is considered a "cheater for life," and is (perhaps rightly) seen as too likely to use any economic concessions to sustain its illiberal self and further develop its nuclear programme.

The bottom line: the growing China-DPRK split still hasn't widened to the point where Chinese and Russian leaders have decided that taking hardline against North Korea is in their best interests. Sanctioning North Korea into a hard-landing collapse (or near-to) may work in that it will force the regime to recalculate the benefits of its nuclear plans. But China, Russia and South Korea are still unwilling to risk such a maneuver because of the immense strategic loss that could come as a result of a failing North Korean regime.

What comes next? A PRC-DPRK or ROK-DPRK divide that would make additional sanctions useful isn't likely to happen unless things go really haywire (i.e., more haywire than a live nuclear test). This would entail either:

• Some impending military action on North Korea's part, or;

• A shift in China or South Korea's greater East Asian strategy away from supporting the North Korean regime.

The second point is where the U.S. may be able to build more negotiating room, and is partly aided by the first. A new government in South Korea could usher in cooler DPRK-ROK ties; a new set of leaders in the standing committee of the CCP's politburo could have a similar effect.

China-U.S. relations, which are much more important to the politburo than PRC-DPRK relations, may change in the future so that Chinese support for Kim Jong-Il and his successors becomes less and less cost-effective or politically desirable for China's decisionmakers.

On the other hand, support for the DPRK may become more and more politically desirable in China's highest political corridors if the U.S. further pushes China on issues such as Taiwan, cross-Pacific trade, and Japan's remilitarization.

Whatever the case, trust issues between the U.S. and North Korea stemming from the 1994 Agreed Framwork continue to obstruct a viable alternative -- the soft-landing strategy -- under which North Korea is rewarded for cooperation. North Korea may cheat, but as I've felt all along, a cheating North Korea with a limited nuclear programme will be an easier nut to crack than a sanctioned, noncompliant North Korea that has lifelines from China and South Korea and can develop its nuclear programme as it pleases.

Let's hope the international community's dealings with Iran go a little better....