As the world’s nuclear showdown with North Korea heads into a new and even more dangerous phase, we should ask a simple question: How did we ever get to such a perilous juncture?

How could the world community grant a rogue government so many years of unobstructed leeway in which to develop components for atomic bombs? Why were responsible governments taken by surprise when Kim Il-sung began to destroy the evidence that could have told inspectors about the size of his nuclear arsenal? And what set the stage for the diplomatic spectacle we are currently witnessing: timid talk of limited economic sanctions by Great Powers, countered by fierce warnings from Pyongyang that even the fairly mild measures being contemplated would mean war?

The nuclear drama now unfolding is a problem entirely of North Korea’s making. That much is clear. What is also obvious, unfortunately, is that the international response to this mounting menace underscores a failure of American leadership. The United States, after all, is the only country willing--and able--to lead others in concerted action against common threats to international security. Flawed policies toward North Korea are nothing new in Washington. Mistakes in dealing with the nuclear ambitions of this hostile and troublesome regime, moreover, have been distressingly bipartisan. The Reagan administration, for example, all but ignored North Korea’s nuclear program, even after Pyongyang’s 1985 accession to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) provided legal grounds for pointed inquiries. North Korea’s first unsupervised refueling of its reactor at Yongbyon--from which it may have gathered materials for a few atom bombs--took place in 1989, on George Bush’s watch.

The blunders of the Clinton administration, however, have been in a league of their own. President Clinton and his team inherited a difficult and dangerous problem -but they have made it markedly worse. Indeed: Their actions -and inactions--regarding North Korea have very likely increased the chances of a new war on the Korean peninsula.

To date, the Clinton administration’s approach to the North Korean nuclear issue seems to have been guided by five perverse precepts.

• Underestimate your adversary and his objectives. Kim Il-sung has ruled North Korea for nearly half a century--no mean accomplishment, considering the neighborhood. For two generations, moreover, North Korea’s diplomatic behavior has shown that Kim and his state view the acquisition of power as a paramount objective. No matter: The Clinton team imputed to Pyongyang the desire for a “bargaining chip”--not atomic weapons themselves. The Clinton team further presumed that the U.S. State Department could negotiate this “bargaining chip” out of the hands of their hardened communist counterparts. Only last month, according to reports in the New York Times, did it finally begin to dawn on some “senior officials” in the Clinton administration that North Korea really might want the nuclear weapons it has striven so long to create.
• Speak loudly--carry a tiny stick. President Clinton’s warning last July that the development and use of nuclear weapons by North Korea would mean “the end of their country” is one of the most forceful and specific statements of security policy ever uttered by an American leader. In the months that followed, however, these words were contradicted by his administration’s obvious unwillingness to take actions that might actually dissuade North Korea from her nuclear quest. The strongest security measure announced by the White House in the wake of the Clinton warning was a shipment of a few dozen defensive Patriot missiles to Seoul--and even these were sent by surface mail. Recent statements by the president have further undermined his own earlier verbal resolve. Last week, for example, he offered this half-hearted endorsement for economic sanctions: “The question of sanctions has to be at least taken up by the United Nations Security Council and discussed.”
• Confuse your friends; antagonize potential allies. Over the past 18 months, Pyongyang has threatened Tokyo with “a grave consequence from which it would never recover” if it continued to press for nuclear inspections, and has told officials from South Korea that Seoul would become “a sea of fire.” The Clinton administration listened to these threats, and then reacted: with warnings of possible trade penalties against Japan. As for China--a valuable ally for any pressure campaign against North Korea--the administration trapped itself in an extended quarrel over trade and human rights. Ultimately, the White House agreed to renew most favored nation (MFN) trade status for Beijing--arguably a sensible decision. Unfortunately, since China’s leaders concluded that they had forced the president to reverse himself on the issue, Washington gained no credit for the move--and may even have earned contempt at a time when it wants Beijing’s help.
• Reward intransigence and bad-faith bargaining. As an NPT signatory, North Korea is legally obliged to submit to full International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. Instead of insisting that Pyongyang honor its IAEA obligations in their own right, the Clinton administration has gotten into the business of offering rewards to North Korea for compliance--or even partial compliance. Among the bribes that have been dangled to date: cancellation of U.S.-South Korean “Team Spirit” exercises (initiated, remember, to counter Pyongyang’s conventional military threat); normalization of relations with Washington and Tokyo; provision of less dangerous light-water nuclear reactors; and a package of aid and trade benefits for North Korea’s strapped economy. Not surprisingly, with each new offer, Pyongyang has held out for more.
• Advertise your weakness in other global arenas. Isolated though they may be, North Korea’s leaders do read the newspapers. They have read about the Clinton administration’s fiasco in Somalia; its indecision in Bosnia, its humiliating retreat from the docks of Port-au-Prince; its toothless response to the news that Iraq had targeted former President Bush for assassination; its “Tarnoff Doctrine.” North Korean leaders, like all newspaper readers, also know about ongoing U.S. military cutbacks--and of the administration’s enthusiasm for reducing U.S. military expenditures still further.

How does North Korea assess the Clinton administration’s moves? Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is no secret. The regime broadcasts its estimate almost every day. Take, for example, this transmission a few months back: “Our people . . . know of the vulnerability of the United States better than anyone else . . . [and] regard it not as a ‘superpower’ but as a bluffing paper tiger.”

It is in such declamations that the dangerous folly of our current North Korea policies is registered. For signs of weakness, inconsistency or vacillation in Washington can only encourage fateful miscalculations in Pyongyang. In the final analysis, there can be no doubt that the United States will defend South Korea against naked aggression, no matter who our president is. North Korea, however, has miscalculated about this before. The last time she did--in June of 1950--she launched a war that claimed as many as 4 million lives. Unless Washington takes the lead in disabusing North Korea’s leaders of their terrible fantasies, there is a growing risk that history will repeat itself. 

Nicholas Eberstadt is a visiting scholar at AEI.