'The Sum of All Fears'

Kim Jong-han, The Korea Herald, Asia News Network, Seoul

To the political leaders of the United States and North Korea, I highly recommend watching an American movie called The Sum of All Fears, starring Ben Affleck, before escalating the tension on the Korean Peninsula. The movie based upon a novel by Tom Clancy vividly describes devastating consequences that potentially arise when political leaders miscalculate and make rash decisions based on inaccurate information and wrong assumptions.

Ever since the North Korean leadership surprised the world by disclosing its nuclear weapons program to the visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, Pyongyang and Washington, trading accusations and distrusting each other, have been on a collision course.

A few more escalating steps such as Pyongyang's testing of long-range missiles over Japan or Washington's dispatching of an aircraft carrier and B-1 bombers to Korean shores, could create a real military conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

How did this all happen? Certainly, the initial trigger was pulled by North Korea when it secretly started its nuclear weapons program in an overt violation of an international agreement. One wonders, however, whether the prior moves taken by the U.S. could have been perceived by Pyongyang as belligerent and a real threat to its national security.

In a reversal of the Clinton administration policy, the Bush team from the very outset refused to talk to North Korea, announced a policy of preemptive strikes against terrorist groups and rogue states, and branded North Korea as part of an "axis of evil." The isolated North Korean leadership holed up in Pyongyang could hardly not have felt threatened.

Whatever the cause may have been, that's water under the bridge, and the U.S. now has a real crisis at hand. Resolving this crisis short of a war must be an overriding objective for the U.S. The U.S. must utilize all diplomatic means possible to resolve the crisis, not because it is scared of little North Korea, not because it is weak, not because it cannot carry on two regional conflicts at the same time, not because it is appeasing a ruthless dictator -- but because diplomacy must be exhausted before resorting to military means and a war must be an option of last resort. That's Diplomacy 101.

In pursuing diplomacy, the U.S. should consider steps that could bring permanent peace to the Korean Peninsula and not just an unsettling temporary one that can be breached once again. An idea could be borrowed from two of America's foremost national security experts. In a joint article published in the Asian Wall Street Journal on Feb. 13, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcraft urge President George W. Bush to lay out a road map to peace in the Middle East by outlining a process that sets forth a truly viable Palestinian state.

The two former U.S. national security advisors argue that all previous efforts to end the violence and turn to a political process have failed because each side has maintained that the first step must be taken by the other. They also argue that the negotiation over provisional borders is unnecessary and ill advised since it prevents the parties from ever getting to final negotiation over the permanent borders.

What they recommend is crafting a road map to peace that clearly spells out the steps that will bring permanent peace to the region. The arguments advanced by the two American security experts appear to be just as applicable in Korea as in the Middle East.

To date, the U.S. and North Korea have exchanged accusations that the other party is at fault and that the other must take the first steps. The U.S. charges that since Pyongyang violated the 1994 Agreed Framework, it must stop all violations before there can be any meaningful dialog.

North Korea, on the other hand, accuses the U.S. of threatening its security and demands that the U.S. agrees to a nonaggression treaty.

Even the peace proposals have not offered any meaningful hope. The U.S. has proposed to talk with North Korea and to renew certain energy and food aid if Pyongyang would dismantle its nuclear program.

Unfortunately, however, such a proposal would not bring permanent peace. Even if North Korea agrees to the U.S. demand and shuts down its nuclear weapons program, it would still have a hostile North Korea with long-range missiles that could strike the western U.S.

On top of that, it has a vast stockpile of chemical and biological weapons that can be loaded onto the missile warheads, and it would still have one of the largest standing armies in the world that could destabilize the region at any time.

As in the Middle East, the right solution for peace on the Korean Peninsula is to spell out in a road map the steps that will bring permanent peace.

Permanent peace in Korea will require addressing North Korea's nuclear weapons program together with long-range missiles, chemical and biological weapons and large conventional forces positioned in a hostile formation near the border.

Permanent peace will require not only food and energy aid from the U.S., South Korea and other Western nations, but also normalization of diplomatic relations between Pyongyang and Washington (and other Western nations), lifting of the trade embargo and other economic restrictions, and the signing of a peace treaty.

Incidentally, many conservatives in South Korea shiver at the idea of a peace treaty between Washington and Pyongyang. Many see a peace treaty as the raison d'etre for the withdrawal of the U.S. troops from South Korea. This cannot be the right approach. If so, there can never be a peace treaty between the two adversaries. There are tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Germany even though there is no hostile adversary.

The peace treaty can be concluded without the withdrawal of all of the U.S. troops from South Korea.

Of course, it will be nearly impossible for the U.S. and North Korea to negotiate all of the outstanding issues at the same time. Resolution of those issues could take years. Consequently, there is the need for a road map to peace.

The U.S. can specifically outline in such a map the steps (one by one) that can be taken with North Korea.

If North Korea can truly see that by giving up its nuclear weapons program, by restricting the development and export of its long-range missile program, and by reducing its chemical and biological weapons and conventional forces, its security will be guaranteed, its diplomatic relations will be normalized with the U.S., Japan and other Western nations, and its economic conditions will vastly improve due to external aid and vibrant cross-border trade, then perhaps it will be less belligerent and give peace a real chance.

The situation on the Korean Peninsula is evolving rapidly into a very grave one. A road map is needed urgently before the political leaders on both sides make tragic miscalculations based upon fears.