The diplomatic result of the North's predicament, intones Eberstadt correctly, is that it has relied on arms and threats. It once vowed to go nuclear until Washington signed an "Agreed Framework" in 1994; the US now supplies oil in exchange for the North's "no nukes" pledge. Two years ago, the North hinted at nuclear activity at a remote site called Kumchang-ri, permitting inspection only when America anted up 500,000 tons of food aid. In addition, the North has been playing the role of arms merchant, selling weapons in the Middle East. Eberstadt rues that the North is committed to refurbishing its army, whose canons cast a long shadow over a vulnerable Seoul.
The author's strategy for dealing with the North is early d彋ente. Western strategists, he insists, are too used to thinking of security in bipolar, North-South terms. As long as the West procrastinates on unification, we are told, the Worker's Party will retail weapons. Also, the North's modus operandi of "win concessions through intimidation" will increasingly become the sole life jacket keeping thrashing Pyongyang afloat in a surging capitalist sea.
However, Eberstadt does not offer a road map for early unification. He writes confidently that it is desirable, without giving much of a blueprint. His argument is also contradictory, for he asserts that nothing indicates the North will reform gradually on the Chinese model, which is the hope of the "slow d彋ente" camp. If Pyongyang is truly so intransigent, then what basis is there for favoring an early, real d彋ente?
Finally, President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea has leapfrogged Eberstadt. Kim persuasively calls for a mixture of visionary diplomacy, as evidenced by the June summit between the North and South in Pyongyang, and patience, as when he predicts that unification is a ways off. Kim knows that the North must change first. Pyongyang is gingerly, yet surely, signaling its desire for increased investment and Chinese-inspired reform, and more cordial relations with America, Canada, Australia and others. Kim's policy, based on bold hands and a patient heart, has won the support of 97 percent of South Koreans, and most Americans.
Eberstadt's book is worth reading because of its detailed examination of the North's decline, his intelligent review of the several phases of its unification policy, and because orthodoxy should always be challenged and tested by a coherent, counter-intuitive argument. However, Kim Dae-jung's adroit, ironic strategy of bold gradualism indicates that he has the best crystal ball of all.
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