The latest sorry twist in the Clinton administration’s policy toward North Korea has brought us to an extraordinary pass—one where the North Koreans are describing the deliberations between the two states more honestly than the Americans are. This remarkable threshold was crossed in mid-March, when a State Department spokesman denied that food aid is being given to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in return for permission to inspect a facility suspected of being built to develop nuclear weapons. A North Korean counterpart expressed a different view: "There was sufficient debate on and agreement on the payment of the ‘inspection fee.’ The United States, though belatedly . . . decided to adopt politico-economic measures as demanded by the D.P.R.K."

The South Korean government, which was kept closely abreast of the negotiations, confirmed the North Korean line. Sources in Seoul told the Korea Times that the agreement contains "a ‘confidential document,’ which includes the [U.S.] provision of a total of 600,000 tons of grain this year in return for its access to the Kumchang-ri site": 500,000 tons directly from Washington, and another 100,000 tons from "[American] non-governmental organizations, possibly including the Carter Center and religious bodies."

Appeasing the Unappeasable

So why the obfuscation? The answer, quite simply, is that the Clinton administration cannot bear to acknowledge that its approach to Pyongyang is, in fact, a policy of appeasement. There is more at stake than embarrassment, however. The same mental gymnastics that allow the administration to deny the basic nature of its North Korea policy also blind it to the ominous consequences of attempting to appease an unappeasable state.

Like the 1994 Agreed Framework, which was supposed to freeze the North Korean nuclear weapons program, the Kumchang-ri deal implicitly presumes that it is possible to bribe a troublesome power into permanently desisting from a particular unpleasant behavior through a fixed, predetermined compensation. That conception defines classic appeasement policy, which in certain circumstances has been known to work. Yet despite all the uncertainties in the outside world about the disposition of Pyongyang’s leadership, there is little reason to believe that North Korea would ever voluntarily abandon its quest for nuclear weaponry.

North Korea has made the acquisition of atomic weaponry a top priority for decades. With the precipitous decline of the North Korean economy and the erosion of its conventional military force during the past decade, the nuclear option is even more essential to Pyongyang’s own objectives than in the past. If North Korea’s leaders regard nuclear status as indispensable to the very survival of their state, it is most unlikely that they would consider bargaining it away.

Thus the 600,000-ton Kumchang-ri grain award, far from signifying a final settlement to the North Korean nuclear dispute, likely represents instead merely the latest installment in the continuing stream of dividends Pyongyang expects to reap by keeping that nuclear problem alive. If indeed the promised inspection takes place this coming May, this will at most answer questions about past activities in that site. Monitoring the site satisfactorily in the years ahead will necessitate additional inspections—and additional payments.

Under the Kumchang-ri precedent, moreover, foreigners will be obliged to pay to visit any of the (perhaps many) other suspicious North Korean sites they manage to detect in the future. And should Pyongyang succeed meanwhile in accumulating a satisfactory inventory of atomic weapons through unreported initiatives, then all previous deals will be off—and a new, very much higher schedule of demands will be on.

Consequences for North-South Relations

Although neither the Clinton administration nor the Kim Dae Jung administration in South Korea seems to recognize it, the Kumchang-ri deal also has immediate and adverse implications for dialogue between North and South Korea. Through-out the 1990s, Seoul has attempted to engage Pyongyang diplomatically, the "four party talks" and the "sunshine policy" being just the latest instances. Those efforts have led nowhere. Indeed, Kim Dae Jung’s policy of "separating business from politics" in North-South relations has made it easier for Pyongyang to brush off South Korean officialdom. For as the almost $1 billion inter-Korean tourism venture ratified last October by North Korea’s "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il and Hyundai founder Chung Ju-yung vividly demonstrated, the North can now separate South Korea’s businessmen from its politicians, drawing resources from the former without making concessions to the latter.

To make matters worse, the Kumchang-ri deal validates extortionist techniques that North Korea by no means limits to nuclear diplomacy. Last June, after years of denying that it was an international merchant of missiles, Pyongyang suddenly publicly proclaimed that fact—and warned the United States that if it "really wants to prevent missile exports it should . . . make a compensation." It is rumored Pyongyang has a $3 billion package in mind.

Former Secretary of Defense William Perry has indicated that he will present Congress with his report on North Korea policy this month. What he will recommend remains to be seen. But the task of framing an effective response to the stratagems of this dangerous state will require more than simply haggling over the price of appeasement.

Nicholas Eberstadt is a visiting scholar at AEI and at the Center for Population Studies at Harvard University. His latest book, The End of North Korea, will be published this summer by the AEI Press.