Pitt’s Asian Studies Center will sponsor a roundtable discussion, “North Korea in the World Community,” from 6 to 8 p.m. Nov. 16 in 532 Alumni Hall. The event is free and open to the public, but preregistration is requested. To preregister, e-mail name, affiliation, and mailing address to kcarlitz@ucis.pitt.edu. For more information, call 412-648-7371 or visit www.ucis.pitt.edu/asc/news/northkorea.html.

Evelyn Rawski, Pitt professor of history and University Center for International Studies research professor, will moderate the discussion. Panelists will include Bruce Cumings, Norman and Edna Freehling Professor of History at The University of Chicago, giving an address titled “Decoupled from History: North Korea in the ‘Axis of Evil’”; David C. Kang, associate professor of government and research director in the Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College, presenting a talk titled “Nuclear Weapons vs. Economic Reforms: Are We Focused on the Right Issue?”; and Chae-Jin Lee, BankAmerica Professor of Pacific Basin Studies, professor of government, and director of the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College, who will give a talk titled “The Changing Relations Between North Korea and South Korea.”

William W. Keller

Serving as discussant will be William W. Keller, Wesley W. Posvar Chair in Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and director of the University’s Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies.

Keller studies the intersection of security, technology, and commercial issues, publishing on terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, Asian innovation, multinational corporations, internal security, the FBI, the arms trade, and international security theory and practice. He talked recently with Pitt Chronicle staff writer Leigh Ann Wojciechowski about North Korea and its place in the world community.

WOJCIECHOWSKI: Would it be fair to describe North Korea as a dysfunctional, rogue state?

KELLER: Who are the so-called rogue states? Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Cuba? It depends on who is asked, and when. Before 1980, we called them “pariah” states, a term that usually referred to Uganda under Idi Amin, Cambodia under Pol Pot, and South Africa under the apartheid regime. The point is that states are marginalized and demonized by this kind of labeling. Note that there is little or no overlap between yesterday’s “pariahs” and today’s “rogues.” More important, we need to tone down the rhetoric and support the Six Party talks about North Korea’s nuclear capabilities.

Is North Korea a dysfunctional state? Certainly. They have insufficient energy. They don’t have enough food to feed their people. They do not even have rural electrification. Millions are living in huts, scratching the earth for subsistence. They have one of the lowest per-capita incomes in Asia. The people are isolated, living under a dictatorship, and slaves to a defunct ideology, Communism. The apt comparison is with South Korea, a technologically advanced, literate, rich country that is now largely integrated into the global economy.

Just how dangerous is North Korea to South Korea, Japan, and other neighboring countries? And how dangerous is it to the West, as a source of weapons of mass destruction for terrorists?

No one can say how dangerous North Korea is without specifying the timing of events and the political context. Several years ago, North Korea took the unprecedented step of withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. This constituted a real threat to the integrity of the treaty and so, I suppose, in this regard North Korea posed a threat to the international regime for the control of nuclear weapons. Beyond that, it is almost all blind speculation. Are American forces and the city of Seoul, South Korea, within range of North Korean artillery? Of course, and an outbreak of hostilities could be catastrophic for South Korea. Is it likely to happen after 50 years of peaceful, if cool, coexistence? Probably not. The South Koreans don’t think so, at any rate. On the contrary, they seem poised to open additional transportation links across the DMZ, and South Korean business leaders increasingly see a potential for investment and access to cheap labor in North Korea.

Underlying your question, of course, is the fear that North Korea might use its relatively sophisticated missiles as delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons. While there is considerable debate on this subject, most experts agree that North Korea has enough fissile material and the technology to make from one to five rather crude nuclear devices. Have they done so? We don’t know. Would they transfer fissile materials or nuclear weapons to a terrorist group? Not likely. North Korea has a great deal to gain by opening up to the world—trade, investment, technology, peace, and prosperity. Our task is to convince the North Korean leadership that by renouncing nuclear weapons, they can gain access to security and a higher standard of living for their country.

Where do you foresee North Korea being at the turn of the next decade—or century? Do you think today's college students will see the reunification of Korea and/or the collapse of the Pyongyang regime in their lifetimes?

On Sept. 19, the Six Party talks issued a joint statement of principles for achieving “the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” The question now is how to turn principle into practice. There is still considerable discord regarding the sequencing of rewards and concessions that would have to be made. If the United States follows a hard-line approach, insisting that all nuclear installations be dismantled prior to any concessions, then talks are likely to stall or to suffer serious delays. It is a situation that requires constant monitoring and assessment on a day-to-day basis. So, it is very difficult to think in terms of the next decade or century.

There is at least one optimistic scenario in which diplomacy wins out over ideology, and the North Koreans trade their nuclear ambitions for recognition and access to the global economy. We can only hope that Washington gains the wisdom to exchange ideology for pragmatism and to continue to negotiate. This is an extraordinarily complex issue, and there are many players involved. The Americans should listen very carefully to what the Chinese and South Korean diplomats have to say. As to the collapse of the Pyongyang regime, students of international relations would do well not to make these sorts of prognostications. After all, none of us had the prescience to foresee the collapse of the Soviet Union until it was a fait accompli.