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Theorizing a Pyongyang prognosis

Rumors of the North Korean bomb's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Hope flared briefly last fall when the protagonists in the "six-party talks" announced that they had agreed in principle on a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. But last week's unofficial meeting in Japan among representatives from North and South Korea, China, the US, Japan and Russia ended without a breakthrough.

More such disappointments are in store -- and the armistice negotiations ending the Korean War help explain why.

Some common features: high stakes, the same parties, irreconcilable interests, and a strong "zero sum" dynamic, meaning that any gain for one side is -- or appears to be -- a loss for the other. In zero-sum situations, success goes to the side that manages to parley national power into a decisive advantage at the bargaining table.

This is trickier than it sounds.

Even a nation with vast physical power won't prevail in negotiations if it can't apply its power. Case in point: Americans recoil from hard bargaining, while North Koreans revel in it. The administration of US president Harry Truman repeatedly relaxed the military pressure on North Korean and Chinese forces -- an army of "Chinese People's Volunteers" had intervened to rescue the North -- hoping to foster goodwill during armistice talks.

General Matthew Ridgway, the UN commander, privately fumed at Washington's proclivity to stop "that proud army in its tracks at the first sign that the Reds might be ready to sue for peace."

The military historian Bernard Brodie agreed the administration should have applied "maximum pressure on the disintegrating Chinese armies as a means of getting them to conclude an armistice."

Warfare is an instrument of negotiation. In The Strategy of Conflict, drawing in part on the lessons of Korea, Thomas Schelling declared that "most conflict situations are essentially bargaining situations." Specialists now take Schelling's theorizing a step further, defining "bargaining power" as the ability to modify the parties' alternatives to a settlement.

The side that enjoys an acceptable "best alternative to negotiated agreement" (BATNA) can retire without undue pain; the side not so blessed has little choice but to strike the best deal it can. In hard bargaining, bolstering one's own BATNA is essential, as anyone who has bickered over a house price will attest.

An unusual confluence of events broke the Korean War stalemate. General Dwight Eisenhower won the 1952 Republican nomination, and then the White House. He traveled to South Korea to survey conditions and mused publicly about using the atomic bomb to break the impasse. As the victor of Europe, his words carried enormous credibility in Soviet-bloc capitals. Coincidentally, Soviet Premier Josef Stalin died in early 1953, throwing the communist bloc into upheaval.

In short, Eisenhower presented China and North Korea with an unpalatable choice: hold out for additional minor concessions and risk provoking US nuclear strikes, or relent. Absent a good BATNA, the communist coalition gave in, and the fighting halted in mid-1953.

If anything, prospects for a near-term deal in the six-party talks are worse than they were in 1952-1953. First, like the Truman administration before it, the administration of US President George W. Bush has telegraphed its reluctance to use force to modify alternatives. This won't have escaped Pyongyang. No latter-day Eisenhower is on the horizon to shift the negotiating dynamics.

Second, North Korea is hemmed in, while the Iranian nuclear standoff has fixed US attentions elsewhere. Just as the US worried about the Soviets invading Europe during the Korean War, it worries today about a high-stakes clash in the Persian Gulf region. For now, events have relegated a nuclear settlement in Northeast Asia to secondary importance.

Third, Pyongyang is in a stronger position than it was during the Korean War talks. Kim Jong-il's regime has proved surprisingly resilient. Unlike the shattered North Korean army of 1952-1953, Kim's military (probably) boasts a small nuclear deterrent, allowing Pyongyang to take a course independent of Beijing. Hopes that China will use its influence to force a deal thus could go unfulfilled.

Prognosis? More haggling until something happens to shift the balance of alternatives in Washington's or Pyongyang's favor.

James Holmes is a senior researcher at the University of Georgia Center for International Trade and Security.
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