North Korea’s agreement to curb its nuclear and weapons programs is welcome diplomatic news. But it stops far short of addressing the world’s concerns about the isolated and unstable dictatorship.

Stanford experts David Straub and Siegfried S. Hecker discuss Pyongyang’s deal with Washington that will allow nuclear inspectors into North Korea and deliver much-needed nutritional assistance to the impoverished country.

Straub is the associate director of the Korean Studies Program at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is a former State Department senior foreign service officer who worked for more than 12 years on Korean affairs. He travelled to North Korea in 2009 with former President Bill Clinton as part of a delegation to secure the release of two journalists from Current TV.

Hecker is co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation and a senior fellow at FSI. Hecker has visited North Korea four times since 2004. During his last trip in 2010, he was shown a new light-water reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear center and a uranium enrichment facility.

What are some of the key factors that led North Korea to agree to this deal?

Straub: This year marks the 100^th anniversary of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung’s birth, which the entire country will be celebrating April 15. The government has also said that this is the target year for North Korea to become a “strong and prosperous country.” Kim Jong Un is a brand-new leader, and presumably he and his advisors want to show that he is capable of feeding his people and at least managing the relationship with the United States.

How do you assess the agreement? Where does the moratorium put relations between the U.S. and North Korea?

Hecker: The moratorium demonstrates that North Korea is once again interested in diplomacy with the United States. The fact that they are willing to halt the nuclear operations at Yongbyon, especially the uranium enrichment activities, is a big step in the right direction. I believe the U.S. now wants to achieve a permanent halt to all nuclear weapons activities in North Korea, then roll them back, and eventually achieve complete, verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Straub: There is no perfect deal when it comes to North Korea, but overall I think it is worth giving this one a chance. It will probably slow down the pace of nuclear and missile development in North Korea. In addition, it will give us time to explore whether there is any prospect that the new leadership in North Korea may be willing to take a different, more positive approach toward the United States and South Korea than its predecessors.  If history is a guide, the likeliest outcome is that after a period of several months to a few years the six-party talks will again break down, after which North Korea will create a new crisis.

How hopeful are you that this will lead to the capping of North Korea's nuclear capabilities and perhaps even its ultimate denuclearization?

Hecker: My advice to our government since November 2010, when I was shown the Yongbyon centrifuge facility, was to take immediate action so that the nuclear situation does not get worse. I advocated three no’s: no more bombs, no better bombs and no exports. The current agreement will limit the number of bombs because the Yongbyon nuclear facilities will observe a moratorium. We are still not certain of what they can produce at an undisclosed site, but I believe it is limited. The nuclear testing and missile launch moratorium will constrain the sophistication of their nuclear weapons. Denuclearization is important, but it remains a more distant goal.

Why does the United States call this “important, but limited progress”?

Straub: It is significant, in part, because since North Korea threw out international nuclear inspectors in 2009 there has been no outside monitoring of what is going on at the Yongbyon facility. But most of the things North Korea has agreed to could be reversed at will. Apart from the nuclear tests, the suspension of North Korean nuclear activities applies only to Yongbyon. Dr. Hecker and other experts have concluded there is no way North Korea could have constructed its uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon so soon after the departure of international inspectors if had not already had another facility elsewhere. The agreement also does not address a number of non-nuclear issues, such as North Korea’s military attacks on South Korea in 2010. For there eventually to be lasting progress on the Korean Peninsula—including a resolution of the nuclear issue—there will have to be great improvement in relations between North and South Korea.

Based on what your 2010 visit to the Yongbyon nuclear facility, how much progress could they have made in terms of uranium enrichment?

Hecker: They told me they just brought up the centrifuge facility a week before we arrived in November 2010. They may have perfected the operations and produced some low enriched uranium feed material for the light-water reactor they are constructing (which is still at least a couple of years away from completion). It is also possible that they are still struggling to make the centrifuge facility work smoothly. It is very important to have the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors get into the facility to see what progress has been made and to get a measure of how sophisticated their operations are. The North, in my opinion, still has only four to eight primitive plutonium bombs. I don’t believe they have the confidence to put a warhead small enough to fit on one of their missiles. We have little information on whether they have made highly enriched uranium or have tried to build a bomb fueled with highly enriched uranium.

What does this agreement say, if anything, about the new North Korean leadership?

Hecker: From what I know, this was pretty much the deal worked out the week before Kim Jong Il’s death. I think it’s a good sign; Kim Jong Un appears to be in control as indicated by the fact that he is able to offer up a similar deal even with his father gone.

Straub: This deal suggests that there is a great deal of continuity in North Korea’s leadership. The substance of this agreement is actually quite consistent with North Korean policies and priorities over the last 20 years. While there is no evidence to suggest that Kim Jong Un will adopt major new policies, there is always at least the possibility he might eventually.

The deal includes the provision of 240,000 metric tons of “nutritional assistance” to North Korea. What does the country’s food situation look like right now?

Straub: There is no doubt that many ordinary North Koreans are going hungry. The United States has termed this “nutritional assistance” to distinguish it from “food aid,” because officials are concerned that the provisions of bulk grain – especially rice – might be siphoned off by the North Korean elite. The U.S. government had said earlier that nutritional assistance would not involve bulk grain, and that it would be targeted toward especially vulnerable groups, such as lactating mothers, children, and the elderly.

The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University is pleased to welcome Karl Eikenberry as the 2011 Payne Distinguished Lecturer. 

Eikenberry comes to Stanford from the U.S. State Department, where he served between May 2009 and July 2011 as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan. In that role, he led the civilian surge directed by President Obama to reverse insurgent momentum and set the conditions for transition to full Afghan sovereignty. Earlier, he had a 35-year career in the U.S. Army, retiring in April 2009 with the rank of lieutenant general.

“I am delighted that he has joined us,” says Coit D. Blacker, FSI’s director and the Olivier Nomellini Professor in International Studies. “Karl Eikenberry’s international reputation, vast experience, and on-the-ground understanding of military strategy, diplomacy, and the policy decision-making process will be an enormous contribution to FSI and Stanford and are deeply consistent with the goals of the Payne Lectureship.”

Eikenberry is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, and has master’s degrees from Harvard University in East Asian Studies and from Stanford University in Political Science. He was also a National Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and he earned an Interpreter’s Certificate in Mandarin Chinese from the British Foreign Commonwealth Office while studying at the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense Chinese Language School in Hong Kong. He has an Advanced Degree in Chinese History from Nanjing University in the People’s Republic of China.

"Karl Eikenberry first came to Stanford as a graduate student in the Political Science Department in the mid-1990s, and we are extraordinarily happy to have him back," says Stephen D. Krasner, deputy director at FSI and Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations. "He has an exceptional, actually unique, set of experiences and talents that will greatly enrich the intellectual community at FSI and throughout the university."

Eikenberry's work in Afghanistan includes an 18-month tour as commander of the U.S.-led coalition forces. He has also served in various strategy, policy, and political-military positions, including deputy chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military committee in Brussels, and director for strategic planning and policy for U.S. Pacific Command.

His military operational posts included service as commander and staff officer with mechanized, light, airborne, and ranger infantry units in the continental United States, Hawaii, Korea, and Italy. His military awards and decorations include the Defense Distinguished and Superior Service Medals, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Ranger Tab, Combat and Expert Infantryman badges, and master parachutist wings.

Eikenberry has also published numerous articles on U.S. military training, tactics, and strategy, on Chinese ancient military history, and on Asia-Pacific security issues. He was previously the president of the Foreign Area Officers Association and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

At Stanford, Eikenberry will also be an affiliated faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).

He will deliver this year's inaugural Payne Distinguished Lecture on Oct. 3 at the Cemex Auditorium at the Knight Management Center. The public address will be given in conjunction with a private, two-day conference that will bring to Stanford an international group of political scientists, economists, lawyers, policy-makers, and military experts to examine from a comparative perspective problems of violence, organized crime, and governance in Mexico.

President Obama's vision of a "world free of nuclear weapons" -- first enunciated in Prague in April 2009 -- has been derided by his critics as a utopian fantasy that will have no influence on the nuclear strategies of other nations.

But in a special issue of The Nonproliferation Review, entitled Arms, Disarmament, and Influence: International Responses to the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, 13 prominent researchers from around the world examined foreign governments' policy responses to Obama's 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the landmark document published a year and a day after his Prague speech.

They found that many nations, though not all, had been "strongly influenced by Washington's post-Prague policy and nuclear posture developments," which reduced the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national strategy, and assured non-nuclear nations that the U.S. would never use nuclear arms against them provided they remained in compliance with their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Indeed, the 11 case studies presented "demonstrate that U.S. pronouncements and actions influenced bureaucratic infighting and domestic debates inside a number of important foreign governments, and that some of these governments have adjusted their own policies and actions accordingly."

Read the full report here.

See a presentation about the report here, or listen to a different one here.

Read CISAC co-director Scott Sagan's essay on "Obama's Disarming Influence" in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.  

Read Thomas Fingar's essay on "How China Views U.S. Policy" in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 

Highlights:

* Russia adopted a nuclear doctrine that was considerably more moderated than it would have been had the United States not pushed ahead with its own policy changes. In the run up to the April 2010 publication of the NPR, Washington "reset" relations with Russia, ended the deployment of missile defense components in Poland and the Czech Republic, and resumed the disarmament negotiations that ultimately led to the ratification of the New START treaty. As a result of this process, and continuous consultation with Russia about the NPR, Moscow narrowed the role of nuclear weapons in its policy and the range of circumstances in which it would consider using them. (page 39)

* "The most important short-term success of Obama's nuclear weapons policy," along with the "Prague Spirit," has been to halt the erosion of the NPT. "Obama's policies helped extract a minimum positive result from the 2010 NPT Review Conference, a favorable outcome compared to the chaos that his predecessor's representatives had created at the 2005 conference." The Obama policy was welcomed as a positive development, which allowed "key players, such as Egypt and Brazil, to strive for compromise, and others, such as Russia and China, not to block it." (page 219)

* The U.S. effort to encourage other governments to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their policy was successful in the United Kingdom, which adopted a nuclear posture that was very similar to that to the U.S. (page 238)

* Due in large part to the Obama policy, some of the non-nuclear weapons states in NATO began to push for the removal of sub-strategic nuclear weapons from Europe. At the November 2010 NATO summit, members agreed to a new Strategic Concept that called for negotiations with Russia and a linkage between the reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons in NATO Europe to comparable reductions in western Russia. (page 238)

* Obama's new nuclear doctrine was a driving force behind a May 2010 agreement among 189 nations at the Nonproliferation Review Conference to a set of disarmament objectives and steps to reinforce the nuclear non-proliferation regime. (page 238)

* The Obama disarmament initiatives encouraged Indonesia's decision to begin the process of ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. (page 238)

* China continues to view Washington's nuclear doctrine with suspicion. Although Beijing viewed the 2010 NPR favorably compared to its 2001 predecessor, it still found serious cause for concern. This is partly the result of timing: the NPR came out amid a period of rising tension between U.S. and China. It also reflected a tendency among Chinese leaders to view virtually all U.S. doctrine and actions as part of a concerted effort to constrain its rise. In this view, the NPR would foster comparisons between nuclear decreases in Russia and the U.S., and increases in China, and be used as leverage to force Beijing to engage in an expensive conventional arms race. In keeping with this China-centric view, Chinese officials were also concerned about the U.S. military's continued development of missile defense capabilities. (page 243)

* Many non-nuclear weapons states--such as Egypt, Brazil, and South Africa--emphasize their opposition to any constraints being placed on their right to enjoy the benefits of civilian nuclear energy. Some of their opposition is "due to post-colonial sensitivity about any apparent inequality in the terms of international agreements that divide the world into 'haves' and 'have-nots.'" Others are engaged in bargaining, waiting to see what nuclear-weapons states will do regarding disarmament before offering to accept more constraints on nuclear technology development. Some governments also appear to be engaged in "hedging behavior--protecting their ability to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium" to be closer to acquiring nuclear weapons in the future, should they choose to do so. This may be disappointing for Washington policymakers, but it should not be surprising. After all, the U.S. employs a similar "hedging strategy" in its management of its own nuclear stockpile. As a result, it is imperative to begin discussions of how to reduce the danger of both kinds of nuclear hedging behavior. (page 255)

* The Obama administration must continue "to ensure there is consistency and discipline in the messages" emanating from the military and the government bureaucracy. Some foreign governments viewed the NPR's guarantees as mere rhetoric. "Such a skeptical view is encouraged whenever a senior US military officer makes statements that reflect a lack of understanding or lack of discipline regarding nuclear use policy." Even after the NPR was released, a top U.S. general insisted that the United States had not altered its "calculated ambiguity" policy. (page 258)

The special issue of the Nonproliferation Review was coordinated by Scott D. Sagan, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, and Jane Vaynman, a PhD candidate at the Department of Government at Harvard University, and a National Security Studies Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. The journal is published by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and it is edited by Stephen Schwartz.

Authors:

Irma Argüello is founder and chair of the NPSGlobal Foundation, a private nonprofit initiative that focuses on improving global security and reducing risks stemming from WMD proliferation.

Ralph A. Cossa is President of the Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu. He is senior editor of the Forum's quarterly electronic journal, Comparative Connections. 

Ambassador Nabil Fahmy is the founding Dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo. He is also the Chair of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies' Middle East Project.

Thomas Fingar is the Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow and Senior Scholar in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.

Brad Glosserman is Executive Director of the Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu. Mr. Glosserman is co-editor of Comparative Connections, the Pacific Forum's quarterly electronic journal, and writes, along with Ralph Cossa, the regional review.

S. Paul Kapur is associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and a faculty affiliate at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Mustafa Kibaroglu is an Assistant Professor at Bilkent University.

Michael Krepon is the co-founder of the Stimson Center, a Washington-based think tank specializing in national and international security problems. 

Harald Müller is executive director of Peace Research Institute Frankfurt and Professor at International Relations at Goethe University Frankfurt.

Pavel Podvig is an independent analyst based in Geneva, Switzerland, where he manages the research project Russian Nuclear Forces.

Scott D. Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, co-director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute. He also serves as the co-chair of the American Academy of Arts and Science's Global Nuclear Future Initiative.

Scott Snyder is Director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at The Asia Foundation, Senior Associate at Pacific Forum CSIS, and Adjunct Senior Fellow for Korean Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Jane Vaynman is a PhD candidate at the Department of Government at Harvard University and a National Security Studies Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

^{The Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), is an interdisciplinary university-based research and training center addressing some of the world's most difficult security problems with policy-relevant solutions. The Center is committed to scholarly research and to giving independent advice to governments and international organizations.}