Did Kim Jong-un really seek to denuclearize?

Did North Korean leader Kim Jong-un really seek denuclearization?

Former South Korean President Moon Jae-in claims in his recent memoir that Kim was sincere in promising to denuclearize in 2018, and Moon believed him. Moon sees the failure to follow through on Kim's wishes as a major lost opportunity. Can we believe such a statement?

Of course, we'll never know for sure, but the evidence suggests that Kim was hardly being sincere.

Just a year after Kim's alleged denuclearization offer, President Trump said at the 2019 Hanoi summit that the North Korean dictator was only willing to dismantle the Yongbyon nuclear weapons complex in exchange for an almost complete lifting of economic sanctions against North Korea.

Trump later said he had identified five key nuclear weapons production sites and that Kim was only proposing to dismantle one or two of them, apparently leaving Kim with substantial nuclear weapons production capacity. The United States has leveled widespread criticism of Trump's 2018 Singapore Accord because it heavily favored North Korea, and Kim's Hanoi proposal was even more lopsided.

Kim had apparently hoped his other key production facilities would be secret, and he was surprised when Trump identified some of them. Trump asked Kim to dismantle another nuclear weapons production site, but Kim would not do so. It is therefore unlikely that Kim will consider halting his overall nuclear weapons production and freezing his nuclear weapons stockpile.

And even a freeze on nuclear weapons production is far from denuclearization, which would also require the elimination of all existing North Korean nuclear weapons. So how could Kim claim he wanted to denuclearize when he wasn't even prepared for a freeze on nuclear weapons production at the Hanoi summit?

A North Korean document obtained after the Hanoi summit indicates that Kim's real goal at the Hanoi summit was to get the United States to recognize North Korea as a nuclear-armed state. If Trump had reached a deal with Kim ending most sanctions on North Korea while leaving the North with all of its nuclear weapons and significant nuclear weapons production capacity, he would indeed have done so.

Trump left the Hanoi summit believing he had Kim's agreement to build on the progress made in Hanoi and continue negotiations. That certainly wasn't Kim's point of view. Kim has essentially halted the negotiation process for more than five years. Kim apparently carried out retaliation against many of his aides who had participated in the planning of Hanoi, apparently blaming them for the embarrassment he suffered by failing to achieve his goals.

Moon should never have assumed that Kim sincerely wanted to denuclearize given North Korea's policies on the issue. Even when Kim's father ruled North Korea, the North repeatedly said things like “it will never give up its nuclear weapons, no matter the circumstances,” and “only fools will entertain the illusion that we trade our nuclear deterrent for petty economic aid.” .” Shortly before Kim allegedly promised Moon that the North would denuclearize, the North declared that “possessing nuclear weapons is 'irreversible' and 'inevitable' to strengthen its 'war deterrence'.”

By telling Moon he wanted to denuclearize, Kim was able to buy time to develop his nuclear weapons. Moon should have remembered that the Kim regime is prone to deception, such as claiming that the South started the Korean War, that the North does not violate human rights, or that the North is a “utopia.” surrounded by a hellish outside world. In 1992, the North agreed with the South “not to test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, stockpile, deploy or use nuclear weapons.” Yet long before canceling that deal in 2013, the North was doing most of these things.

Moon may have believed that Kim did not need nuclear weapons to deter war and therefore believed that nuclear weapons were useless to the North. After all, Moon was in no way interested in attacking the North, and he knew that the United States had nothing to gain from attacking the North. But if that's what Moon thought, he overlooked the real reasons for North Korea's nuclear weapons: They create a powerful image of Kim inside the North that he needs for the regime's survival, and Kim wants nuclear weapons to coerce and coerce South Korea.

Ultimately, memoirs often suggest a lot about what a leader hoped for. Clearly, Moon wanted peace with North Korea through denuclearization and chose to interpret events favorable to that possibility. But it would be a mistake to interpret Kim's denuclearization promise as sincere.

About the Author: Dr. Bruce W. Bennett

Bruce W. Bennett is a senior international and defense researcher at RAND, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research institution. He primarily works on research topics such as strategy, force planning, and counterproliferation at the RAND International Security and Defense Policy Center.