What “Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” Really Means.

The Biden administration has finally announced its North Korea policy after having completed a three-month long policy review. And the policy it has decided on is a bit of a surprise.

That’s because its stated end goal is apparently the same as Pyongyang’s: “The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

That specific phrase, “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” is one the North Korean government likes to use a lot. To Pyongyang, it means that it is willing to dismantle its nuclear program if and only if South Korea also denuclearizes.

But South Korea doesn’t have any nuclear weapons. What it does have is what’s called the US “nuclear umbrella.” That basically means that the US promises to defend South Korea from the North — up to and including with the use of US nuclear weapons. (There are also currently 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea to defend it from potential aggression from the North.)

So what North Korea understands from this phrase is, “Sure, we’ll give up our nukes, just as soon as you (President Biden) withdraw all US military support for South Korea.”

That is a very different end goal than what the US has traditionally, at least until President Donald Trump came along, sought: the “denuclearization of North Korea.” That phrasing implies Pyongyang is the only one that must make nuclear concessions. It’s an end goal that would see North Korea give up all of its nuclear weapons while South Korea is still under US nuclear protection.

If you’re Kim Jong Un, that’s one hell of a difference. In the first scenario, he gives up his nuclear arsenal, which makes his regime more vulnerable, but it’s offset by the US no longer supporting South Korea with its nukes, either. In the second scenario, he just gives up his nukes, making his regime more vulnerable. Period.

So the difference of a couple of words here isn’t just semantics — the wording really, really matters.

Which brings us to another question: Why would the Biden administration adopt wording on the perennially thorny nuclear issue that North Korea likes?

Partly because it might make Kim happy — and that’s potentially a good thing.

Three reasons why Biden probably adopted North Korea’s favorite nuclear phrasing

When Biden announced that US troops would be leaving Afghanistan, he noted that one reason for his decision was that former President Trump made a deal with the Taliban that a full withdrawal would happen.

“It is perhaps not what I would have negotiated myself, but it was an agreement made by the United States government, and that means something,” the president said.

Biden may have come to a similar conclusion here. In 2018, Trump met with Kim in Singapore and signed a declaration which stated they would “work towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

That may not be the formulation Biden would like, but it is the latest US-North Korea deal on the books, and so he may have honored that. Anything else would look like a unilateral backtrack in the diplomatic process, experts said.

“It’s the right formulation to use because both sides agreed to it,” said Vipin Narang, an expert on North Korea’s nuclear program at MIT.

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in also adopted this phrase in his yearslong efforts to broker a deal between Pyongyang and Washington. He supported it in an April interview with the New York Times, noting that it was “clearly an achievement” for Trump and Kim to have met in Singapore and signed an agreement.

Moon is coming to the White House on May 21, and it would’ve been awkward if the US dropped the formulation he backs just weeks before his arrival.

by Alex Ward, Vox |  Read more:

Image: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

[ed. They should just get on with it. In this day and age, nobody is going to nuke anybody (Israel excluded). And if a nuclear war did break out, a broken treaty would be the least of our concerns. North Korea is suffering economically and this is a prime opportunity.]