Squeeze Play

In the wake of the recent news that Japan has imposed economic sanctions in the disguise of a new insurance requirement for incoming ships, the United States is also looking for ways to amplify the shock. The New York Times reports:

In the months before North Korea announced that it possessed nuclear weapons, the Bush administration began developing new strategies to choke off its few remaining sources of income, based on techniques in use against Al Qaeda, intelligence officials and policy makers involved in the planning say.

The initial steps are contained in a classified “tool kit” of techniques to pressure North Korea that has been refined in recent weeks by the National Security Council. The new strategies would intensify and coordinate efforts to track and freeze financial transactions that officials say enable the government of Kim Jong Il to profit from counterfeiting, drug trafficking and the sale of missile and other weapons technology.

The motivations are even more interesting as the planning:

White House officials have declined to say what role President Bush has played in the new strategy. But his dislike for Mr. Kim is well known, and his involvement in strategies to deal with him was described by one former official as “a lot more intense than you might think.”

Advisers, military officials and American and foreign diplomats who deal with Mr. Bush on North Korean issues say he frequently criticizes Mr. Kim’s human rights abuses, referring to him as “immoral” and “a tyrant,” according to one official who sat in on a recent meeting. In a meeting in December with President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea, Mr. Bush spoke about how Mr. Kim lets his people starve.

“Roh said to him, ‘Yeah, he’s a bad guy, but we don’t have to say it in public,’ ” said one official who has reviewed notes of the session. Mr. Roh’s point was that turning the nuclear dispute into a personal confrontation, the way the Bush administration did with Saddam Hussein, could undercut any chance of diplomatic success in disarming North Korea.

Mr. Bush, the official recounted, responded, ” ‘Alright, I won’t say it publicly,’ or words to that effect, and so far he hasn’t.”

Officially, the Bush administration has never declared that “regime change” is its objective in North Korea, and Mr. Bush has expressed a willingness to offer a “security assurance” to North Korea pledging that the United States will not invade. Such an attack is considered nearly impossible, given North Korea’s ability to destroy Seoul, South Korea’s capital, about 40 miles from the border, and the fact that American intelligence does not know where the North’s nuclear arms or all of its nuclear facilities are. But Mr. Bush has never made any such assurances about attacking North Korea’s economic lifelines.

Finally, take note of this on-the-record exchange with a man who may be in the know:

On Sunday, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who served under Mr. Bush’s father when North Korea was making what the C.I.A. later concluded were its first two nuclear bombs, raised the possibility of a broad economic crackdown.

Appearing on ABC News program “This Week,” Mr. Baker told the host, George Stephanopoulos, that “there’s a big gap” between abandoning the six-nation negotiations that had been sporadically under way for the past 18 months “and going to military force.”

“There are many things we can do,” Mr. Baker added.

“Quarantine?” Mr. Stephanopoulos asked.

“Quarantine is one,” Mr. Baker said. “And perhaps the best one, of course, is sanctions by the United Nations Security Council for North Korea’s violation of her promises to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the global community.”

Baker, of course, is a die-hard Scowcroftian realist, so don’t take this as an endorsement of regime change. Still, there’s a refreshing, if belated, willingness to inflict some consequences on the North.

The reporter, David Sanger, notes the history of sanctions not working very well against Cuba and Burma. Two responses–first, he’s partially right. Economic weakness alone can create political vulnerabilities, but it can’t translate them into political action. We must be prepared to help the North Korean people get rid of the regime, if they so choose. Second, North Korea is in much worse economic and political shape than Cuba or Burma. It simply doesn’t have the minimal exports (sugar and nickel for Cuba, oil and gas for Burma) to keep the regime afloat without illegal exports that we can interdict.

More here in the Chosun, including “fears” that this will disrupt the harvest of slave labor at Kaesong. Perish the thought!