The imminent prospect of North Korea becoming a nuclear power is the most severe threat to the security of the United States and the rest of the Western world today. The anxiety that this prospect brings with it is compounded by the fact that there are no realistic prospects of solution to this threat being offered.
Under pressure from allied and domestic opinion, the Bush Administration has reluctantly entered into multilateral negotiations with Pyongyang. While there may be very good political and military reasons for negotiating with such an intractable enemy at this moment, there is little prospect for these negotiations succeeding. The reason is simple: any agreement to ensure North Korean nuclear disarmament entails intrusive international inspections, and Pyongyang will never allow such inspections--regardless of past or future treaty obligations. If the United States is serious about preventing North Korea from becoming a nuclear power, it must face the necessity of regime change in Pyongyang.
Regime change does not necessarily entail the overthrow of communist party rule in North Korea. What it does entail is the replacement of the current totalitarian dictatorship led by Kim Jong-il. For both strategic and moral reasons, a democratic North Korea is in America's best interest. But an authoritarian dictatorship on the Chinese model, committed to economic and social reforms, would be an acceptable second choice. While some Western analysts recognize the necessity of a structural transformation of North Korea's economy, they do not comprehend that this entails a regime change, imagining instead that the necessary reform process could be transacted by the present leadership.
