Time for Jimmy Carter to Go Back to North Korea | The Diplomat https://thediplomat.com/2017/05/time-for-jimmy-carter-to-go-back-to-no...

U.S. policymakers are working with a menu of

policy options to meet President Donald Trumps commitment that Pyongyang will not threaten
the United States homeland with the most destructive of weapons. These options range from
pressuring and persuading China to turn off its vital economic support and toughening UN
Security Council sanctions to threatening military action. Trumps public threats via Twitter have
assumed greater significance against the backdrop of the annual U.S.-Republic of Korea (ROK)
military exercises to test defense preparations in the event of a conflict with North Korea.

Given the heightened tensions, this years U.S.-South Korean military exercise might well create
fears in the minds of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as to whether the United States was
preparing to attack the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK). U.S. decisions to send the
aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and the nuclear powered guided missile submarine USS
Michigan to join the existing force in the area, the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude
Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system to South Korea, and the deployment of U.S. drones
clearly have done little to reassure the North Korean leadership about U.S. intentions.

Meanwhile, North Koreas provocative response in the form of nuclear threats against the United
States and South Korea, and its test-firing of missiles into the sea near Japan, as well as
preparations for yet another nuclear test, have upped the ante even further. Perhaps realizing that
the game of nuclear chicken that the United States and the DPRK are playing is in danger of
leading to a fatal collision, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James
Mattis, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo have suggested in recent days that the United States is
open to diplomatic negotiations. However, they have made clear that negotiations would have to
follow North Korea agreeing to suspend its nuclear and missile testing, where the ultimate aim of
the negotiations would be North Koreas full denuclearization.

This negotiating stance is a recipe for deadlock. It is instructive in the light of the current crisis to
think about how an earlier nuclear crisis between the two sides was resolved. In the summer of
1994, the DPRK was threatening to reprocess plutonium at its Yongbyon facility and to end

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. Fearing that the DPRK was preparing to
build nuclear weapons, the Clinton administration considered a range of coercive policy options
similar to those being weighed by Trump today, including sanctions in the UN Security Council
and a pre-emptive military strike on the Yongbyon complex. The North Koreans responded as
today with threats of pre-emptive military action against South Korea that pushed the peninsula
toward war. While current public policy discussion has not included talking to the North Koreans
without preconditions, this is exactly how the 1994 nuclear crisis was de-escalated.

Former President Jimmy Carter, an experienced negotiator and mediator, having successfully
crafted the Camp David Accords 15 years earlier, offered his services to the Clinton
administration. Although Clinton was uncomfortable with Carters mission to Pyongyang, he
approved it. Carters interlocutor was the father of the DPRK, Kim Il-sung. Marion Creekmore,
Jr., who accompanied Carter on his mission, wrote in his 2006 book, A Moment of Crisis,
that Kim told Carter, The central problem is that we lack trust, and creating trust is our most
important task. The distrust comes from the lack of contacts between us.

Carter was able, through two face-to-face meetings, to both understand Kims intentions and
develop interpersonal trust with a leader who was ideologically the antithesis of everything Carter
stood for. As a result, Carter secured Kims agreement that there would be no reprocessing of
plutonium at the Yongbyon facility and a freeze on the major elements of the nuclear program
whilst a new round of talks proceeded. The North Koreans also agreed that the IAEA inspections
could continue. In return, Carter secured Clintons agreement to Kims request that the United
States support the sale of two light water proliferation-resistant reactors. Kim had told Carter,
according to Creekmores account, that if a commitment is made to furnish us a light water
reactor, then we will immediately freeze all our nuclear activities.

The Carter mission to Pyongyang was successful because he and Kim were able to better
understand one another by sitting down face-to-face. They developed, during these personal
meetings, a bond of trust that helped to bridge the distrust between their two nations. As we
argue in our new books, this is not a one-off example. Face-to-face diplomacy has long allowed
leaders and policymakers to both better understand each others intentions and develop trust in
one another that they will live up to commitments. Crucially, by meeting for face-to-face
negotiations, leaders, or their representatives in the case of Carter, can often find ways to meet
the interests of both sides without resorting to military action.

In short, it may be time to send Carter, or a similar surrogate more amenable to the president,
back to Pyongyang. A crisis that threatened to engulf the region over two decades ago was defused
by face-to-face diplomacy and it is time to explore whether the current crisis can similarly be de-
escalated.

Critics of this position will retort that the deal that Carter and Clinton negotiated in 1994 failed to
stop the DPRK from developing nuclear weapons because the North Koreans cheated, and would
cheat again if given the opportunity. Blaming the DPRK for the collapse of the cooperation that
Carters mission made possible ignores the history of broken promises and strategic blunders on
both sides, as each came to believe the other was exploiting the agreement for unilateral
advantage. Consequently, it is wrong to assume that because 12 years later, North Korea tested
and developed nuclear weapons, this was an inevitable outcome of the negotiations Carter and
Clinton entered into in 1994.

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Diplomacy of the Carter kind in 1994 is an exercise of power, not weakness. It could today allow
the United States to both pressure the DPRK to abandon its nuclear ambitions and defuse the
current crisis without costly intended, or unintended, military action. If reports that the Trump
administration has asked Carter not to attempt any type of mediation on this occasion are true,
the administration should reconsider its position on negotiating face-to-face with the North
Koreans.

Marcus Holmes is Assistant Professor of Government at The College of William & Mary. His
book, Face Value: Face-to-Face Diplomacy, Social Neuroscience, and International Relations, is
under contract with Cambridge University Press.

Nicholas J. Wheeler is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Institute for
Conflict, Cooperation and Security at the University of Birmingham. His latest book, Trusting
Enemies is forthcoming with Oxford University Press.

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