Published : Dec. 18, 2017 - 16:22
A former US nuclear negotiator on Monday blamed the Donald Trump administration's lack of "message discipline" for conflicting remarks from its top officials over how to handle a provocative North Korea.
During a forum at Seoul's National Assembly, Robert Gallucci, who brokered the 1994 nuclear deal with Pyongyang, also cautioned against military options and a sanctions-only approach for its denuclearization.
"I think we have an administration which has less message discipline than the previous American administrations have had in the area of national security, the only area I really know pretty well," said Gallucci, the chief of the US-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
"Not having that discipline and having intelligent, capable people, they will have different views, and if those views are not sorted out in what we would call an interagency process, then they are put out on the one hand and on the other hand," he added.
Robert Gallucci, a former U.S. nuclear negotiator, speaks during a forum at the National Assembly in Seoul on Dec. 18, 2017. (Yonhap)
Last week, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that the US was ready to talk with the North without preconditions. But the White House later contradicted the proposal, saying now is not the time for dialogue with the recalcitrant regime.
The conflicting messages have created concerns about possible dissonance between the White House and the State Department, and complicated efforts by Seoul to figure out Washington's coherent policy stance over the pugnacious regime.
Gallucci dismissed the speculation that the different stances were purposeful or calculated.
"Is this a good cop or bad cop thing where the White House says nasty things and the State Department says nice things? Is this planned or do they wish to confuse South Koreans or Americans?" he said. "I don't think it is any of that."
Touching on the heightened tension sparked by the North's Nov. 29 launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, Gallucci pointed out that it is a crisis between the North and the entire international community.
"It is a crisis because if military activity were to begin in days, indeed just days, no one in this room could be surprised, or should be surprised. That I think is a fair definition of crisis," he said.
The crisis stems from the fact that the North is on the verge of developing a nuclear-tipped ICBM, which could undermine the credibility of America's extended deterrence -- the US commitment to defend its allies by mobilizing all military capabilities, nuclear and conventional, against the North's aggression, he noted.
"This North Korean capability raises a question about whether the US will fulfill its alliance responsibilities to its allies," he said. "It raises a question about whether the US will put Washington D.C. and New York City at risk in order to prevent North Korea from blackmailing South Korea and to deter any attack on Seoul specifically."
But he noted the military dominance of the South Korea-US alliance, saying Pyongyang cannot hold Seoul "hostage" with its artillery or nuclear weapons unless it is "suicidal." He also voiced skepticism about the existence of a "good" military option without any cost or risk.
"Its nuclear weapons are good for one thing only to deter an effort at changing their regime. That is plausible," he said.
"But the North cannot plausibly blackmail, it cannot deter a military response to its adventurism, it cannot compel the ROK (Republic of Korea) or the US to do anything, it cannot break our alliance," he added.
He, moreover, cautioned against an obsession with sanctions.
"The North knows how to circumvent the sanctions ... Don't imagine that sanctions would cause so much pain that the North would abandon its nuclear weapons. Don't imagine sanctions will bring the regime crashing down," he said.
"Most of all, don't let your enthusiasm for sanctions undercut the purpose of sanctions, which is diplomacy," he added.
The 1994 agreement he negotiated called for North Korea to freeze and ultimately dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for political and economic concessions. It later fell through with the outbreak of the second nuclear crisis in 2012 after the North was found to have been running a clandestine program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. (Yonhap)