It's Difficult to Thwart N. Korea's Nuclear Option

Washington's impatience toward North Korea is apparently wearing thin, and it appears that John Bolton's nomination may not be the only radical bet that shakes up the United Nations. As we approach the one-year anniversary of the six-party talks this June, the Bush administration could be finding the game tiresome and turning its hopes instead to the United Nations.

Amid suspicion that North Korea is producing additional plutonium for nuclear warheads or preparing a nuclear test, the administration is mulling the idea of a U.N. Security Council resolution that could impose economic sanctions on North Korea. Could this change the odds for success? Probably not. Changing course this late in the game presents many obstacles and, in the end, simply will not work. Reinventing the talks in June offers better odds, especially when the stakes are this high.

The first obstacle is the U.N. itself. North Korea has been a major concern for some time. In February 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency passed a resolution that accused North Korea of violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and referred the issue to the Security Council. China and Russia later prevented the passage of a Security Council resolution condemning Pyongyang, believing that it would only provoke Pyongyang unnecessarily.

Since then, the U.N. has remained low-profile in the long shadow left from the Korean War. The 1950 intervention marked the first time that U.N. members acted collectively in a conflict. But the U.N.'s peacekeeping role was undermined by the power struggle for the Korean Peninsula. The latest era of talks among the United States, two Koreas, China and Russia are an effort to redeem themselves from the vestiges of the war — divided families, perpetual hostility and widespread mistrust — in the new shadow of nuclear weapons.

Secretary General Kofi Annan has lent his full support to the Beijing process with the six-party talks at the core. The second obstacle is that the six-party talks are not dead. During her March visit to Beijing, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed to Chinese President Hu Jintao that the six-party talks are still the best channels to resolve this nuclear issue.

Intensive shuttle diplomacy is reviving the talks. Pyongyang echoed Beijing's sense of urgency that they have never given up on the six-party talks; and all are willing to go back to the negotiating table once conditions are ripe. Yes, Pyongyang has declared that it has nuclear weapons, but they are also ready to give up the weapons for a price. This, at least, is better than starting from scratch.

The third obstacle is success. Security Council sanctions simply won't work. Pyongyang has decided that the current nuclear standoff is business between itself and Washington. Even the active involvement of China was categorized as nothing more than facilitation. If U.S. defense hawks force their North Korean agenda onto the U.N., Pyongyang would only strengthen its rhetoric against the perceived hostile U.S. policy, and against U.S. hegemony through the facade of multilateralism. China and Russia, wary of Pyongyang's potentially merciless retaliatory measures, would vote once more against potential U.N. sanctions or blockade.

In contrast, this June, which marks the one-year anniversary of the last round of six-party talks, offers an opportunity to restart the stalled talks, which thus far have proven somewhat successful. It is surely not a safe bet, but the odds for success are certainly higher in the Beijing process than by changing the game to the United Nations. With the stakes as high as they are, this is a match that the Bush administration cannot afford to lose.

Anne Wu is a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.