Los Angeles ¨C North Korea¡¯s recent public displays of new intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles have raised fresh concerns about the risks the regime in Pyongyang poses to the U.S. mainland. As President Joe Biden¡¯s administration reviews U.S. policy toward the DPRK over the past four years and draws what lessons it can from Donald Trump¡¯s nuclear summitry with North Korean leader Kim Jong un, it should consider a new arms-control approach.
The failure of Trump¡¯s efforts should surprise no one. After all, prior U.S. administrations¡¯ initiatives to stop North Korea¡¯s nuclear-arms program ¡ª including Bill Clinton¡¯s Agreed Framework, the six-party talks during George W. Bush¡¯s administration and Barack Obama¡¯s ¡°Leap Day¡± agreement ¡ª came to naught. Quite the contrary: North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003, and has failed to abide by a 1992 accord with South Korea pledging to keep the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons.
All this diplomatic activity leading nowhere raises a fundamental question: Does nuclear-arms control have a future on the peninsula?
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