Seoul and Washington have made the Korean peninsula a more dangerous place. Yes, it was North Korea that launched the rocket. And yes, the regime in Pyongyang — now under the guidance of its enigmatic and boyish leader Kim Jong Un — has its own unknowable motives for continuously provoking the United States and the international community. But American and South Korean political leaders could have done a lot more to prevent the scenario that has now unfolded.
In recent months, North Korea has been the problem that nobody in the Obama administration wants to deal with. Since the Kim regime defied Washington last April and went ahead with its previous rocket launch attempt, the United States has had no consistent approach for dealing with the reclusive regime. South Korean strategy has not been much better. Guided by the conservative Lee Myung-bak government, Seoul has often rung alarm bells about North Korea's behavior without a workable plan for changing it. Together, their policies have served only to confirm the adage that ignoring problems makes them worse.
Now Pyongyang has scored a significant propaganda victory both at home and abroad. Having become one of a handful of nations to put a satellite in orbit, the regime can boast of a technological achievement that will help to mobilize its people. And it has embarrassed South Korea, which recently suspended its own effort to launch a rocket. Most ominously, Pyongyang has come one step closer to being able to hit the United States, South Korea or Japan with a nuclear payload. It is impossible to know if this is what the Democratic People's Republic of Korea really intends. But it would be the height of foolishness to wait and find out.
The situation desperately demands a new approach. Unfortunately, this is not the direction that the Obama administration seems to be moving in. It will go to the United Nations again and the U.N. is likely to condemn and perhaps impose new sanctions on North Korea. This is likely to have the same effect on North Korean behavior that it has had in the past — almost zero. As the media clamor over the launch dies down, Washington will probably go back to wishing that the DPRK would just disappear.
But right now North Korea is too dangerous to ignore and it deserves a much higher place on the Obama administration's list of strategic priorities. After next week's presidential election in South Korea, President Barack Obama should sit down with Seoul's new leader and hammer out a comprehensive framework for dealing with the DPRK.
Any new approach to the North Korean issue should make engagement rather than containment or confrontation its centerpiece. The potential human and economic costs of war are simply too great for the use of force to be considered. Recent events have made it more than obvious that sanctions and other efforts to isolate the regime are likely to backfire. Engagement, on the other hand, has the potential to expose North Korea's people to new ideas and ways of thinking through promoting cultural exchange and greater interaction between North Koreans and the rest of the world. Ultimately, this approach has the potential to make the isolated country less threatening by changing it from the bottom up.
Most important, Washington and Seoul must act. If they do not, it will only be a matter of time before another even more dangerous North Korean provocation.
Gregg Andrew Brazinsky is an associate professor of history and international affairs at The George Washington University.