Good Korea move - US policy to reinforce its military presence in South Korea as part of effort to combat North Korea's refusal to cooperate in inspection of its nuclear weapons - Editorial

National Review, June 27, 1994

The Clinton Administration is gradually waking up to the fact that its illusory diplomacy over a year and a half has utterly failed to stop North Korea's deadly nuclear-weapons program. On June 3, the International Atomic Energy Agency formally declared that North Korea's obstruction of inspection and diversion of plutonium from its Yongbyon reactor have rendered it irrevocably in violation of non-proliferation obligations. Some of the mushy-headedness persists - The door is still open for them to become part of the world's community, and that's what we want," Mr. Clinton lamely declared - but meanwhile the United States has begun to explore economic sanctions at the UN Security Council. The U.S. has also begun to reinforce its military presence in South Korea and has also indicated that it might work with friendly nations outside the Security Council if it is unable to agree on sanctions. As the North threatens war, the Administration coolly stands its ground.

For the Clinton Administration, this is gutsiness of a high order. And they did all this without Sam Nunn going on a hunger strike.

They will now discover that a display of resolve works wonders diplomatically. South Korea is finding new courage. Russia and China, though still fending off U.S. pressures for sanctions, are pulling in their horns: Boris Yeltsin took pains to assure the South Korean president that Russia no longer felt bound by the old Soviet North Korean Friendship Treaty; and a Peking-controlled newspaper in Hong Kong warned North Korea that it would not be able to withstand sanctions if they were imposed by China, Japan, and the United States.

Economic sanctions, we all know, don't usually work very effectively. But in this case, the military alternatives for the U.S. are not attractive, and the isolated North Korean economy - and aging regime might be more vulnerable than most. In any case, it must be made clear that there is some cost imposed for defying the world community in the nuclear realm. The other rogue nations (Iran, Iraq, Libya) are watching closely.

What is needed now is a single-minded U.S. diplomatic drive for an economic blockade. No further dilatory or watered-down resolutions can be tolerated. We need to demonstrate to China and Russia that the political costs to them, too, of foot-dragging have now gone up steeply. We have consulted scrupulously with them; further nay-saying on their part is evasion and obstruction. We need also to reinforce our 38,000 troops in South Korea more rapidly and impressively than heretofore - it's a scandal that we have waited so long.

Conservatives will support the President if he acts decisively in this case, where significant U.S. strategic interests are involved. Representative Benjamin Gilman's bill supporting the President's use of "any