Ankit Panda: “A Trump-Kim Summit Could Be Risky…But It’s Still Worth Pursuing” - 경향신문
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At the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., Ankit Panda, a senior fellow and expert on North Korea nuclear issues, gives an interview to the Kyunghyang Shinmun on the 1st (local time). Washington | Jeong Yu-Jin, Special Correspondent
Expectations as well as concerns have grown since U.S. President Donald Trump expressed his willingness to resume U.S.-North Korea talks. What will North Korean State Affairs Commission Chairman Kim Jong Un demand as conditions for engaging in dialogue? If a U.S.-North Korea summit takes place without denuclearization on the agenda, what will be discussed?
In a Kyunghyang Shinmun interview on Sept. 1, Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said expectations for a summit should be modest. One of the leading experts on North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, Panda said he does not expect U.S.-North Korea diplomacy to reach the level of detail needed to begin discussing missiles for the next five to 10 years. He also cautioned, “I don’t necessarily think that if Trump meets Kim, he’s going to have a thoughtful negotiation about coexistence.”
Even so, Panda argued that the opportunity created by Trump’s push for renewed engagement is worth pursuing. “The alternative is that nothing happens and then we wait until 2029 for a new American president,” he said, warning that by then North Korea could possess “maybe 160 nuclear weapons, maybe closer to 200.” He said the real opportunity would be to “fundamentally reframe the terms of the conversation between the United States and North Korea” so that future administrations could build on it.
- Do you think North Korea will agree to talks?
“North Korea is not going to come back to the table to talk about its nuclear weapons or denuclearization. But I do believe it could return if the talks are about the nature of the relationship between the United States and North Korea. If North Korea does come back to the table, it would have a much better chance, for the first time in its history, of maintaining good relations with Moscow, Beijing and Washington at the same time. That would give Pyongyang considerable leeway. It could also create an opportunity to have multilateral sanctions imposed through U.N. Security Council resolutions adjusted or removed.”
- Kim Jong Un likely watched the U.S.-Iran negotiation process; does he really trust President Trump?
“I wouldn’t say he trusts Donald Trump. But North Korea has been careful since Trump returned to office. It has criticized the United States and U.S. policy, but it has not criticized Trump personally. I think that speaks to a deliberate choice on North Korea’s part not to alienate him. Kim will also have watched the Iran war very closely, as well as the United States’ removal of Maduro from power. At the same time, he has seen the Trump administration lift sanctions on Syria and move toward essentially renormalizing relations with the new Syrian government. All of that could lead Kim to conclude that there are benefits to engaging with the United States.”
- You have argued that the United States should focus on establishing a relationship of ‘stable coexistence’ rather than North Korean denuclearization. But some worry that such an approach would amount to recognizing North Korea as a de facto nuclear-armed state like Pakistan.
“North Korea will never be a nuclear-weapon state under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But in my view, it already has essentially all the sources of nuclear status it will ever have in the international system. South Korea and Japan may not politically accept North Korea’s nuclear weapons, but they already accept them as a matter of reality in their national intelligence assessments and military planning. Denuclearization was the vocabulary of the 20th century into the early 21st century. I think that era fundamentally ended at the start of this decade. We need a new vocabulary centered on some form of coexistence. President Lee Jae Myung has spoken of ‘peaceful coexistence,’ but I think that is too high a bar. I prefer the more modest term ‘stable coexistence.’ It means that we may remain adversaries and North Korea may have nuclear weapons for a long time, but moments of crisis do not spiral into a major conflict or a nuclear conflict. I want to be clear that I am not advocating doing away with denuclearization. South Korea, the United States and Japan can privately maintain the long-term objective of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. But in the short term, saying it out loud and making it the basis of policy pretty much ensures that North Korea’s door will remain shut. I do not think that is a pragmatic way to approach the problem.”
A photo of the Singapore summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that U.S. President Donald Trump posted on social media in June. Truth Social
- How serious is the North Korean nuclear threat?
“The United States has three nuclear adversaries today: Russia, China and North Korea. Of the three, North Korea has the lowest threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. And it is the only one with which we have zero contact, zero diplomatic engagement and no ability to manage nuclear risks. North Korea is a weak and resource-poor country without good strategic situational awareness or early-warning capabilities. So if a war begins, it has an incentive to use nuclear weapons very quickly, because otherwise it could lose the ability to use them or even lose them in a preemptive attack. The main sources of risk are not just on the North Korean side, but in the strategic interactions among the United States, South Korea and North Korea. U.S. concepts for preemptive strikes against North Korean nuclear forces, potential preemptive cyberattacks and South Korea’s Kill Chain capability all create incentives for North Korea to rely more on nuclear weapons and to use them early in a conflict. Reducing those risks requires all three countries first to recognize that they exist and then try to address them cooperatively.”
- If complete denuclearization is no longer a realistic near-term goal, what should be the first objective in future negotiations?
“As much as I think freezing the production of fissile material in North Korea would be a very good thing, I think it is completely infeasible that North Korea will agree even to talk about that. Realistically, dialogue would have to begin with building a relationship between the United States and North Korea - initially through regularized contacts, a liaison office or some other form of political relationship. Of course, doing so does not immediately reduce the risk of war. I think that for the next five to 10 years, U.S.-North Korea diplomacy is unlikely to reach the level of detail necessary to start talking about missiles. We are very far from that today. However, as bilateral contacts build over time, there will be more space for Washington and Pyongyang to discuss each other’s security threats and threat perceptions.”
- There is concern that President Trump could simply meet Chairman Kim, shake hands, take photos, and then give something in return.
“There is a real risk. To be polite about it, Trump is not very detail-oriented, so I don’t necessarily think that if he meets Kim, he is going to have a thoughtful negotiation about coexistence. But there is something Trump does have the ability to do: spend political capital on this issue. Joe Biden had no interest in spending political capital on North Korea, which is why essentially nothing happened during his administration. And I think most plausible presidents after Trump would be similar. The real opportunity is to fundamentally reframe the terms of the conversation between the United States and North Korea in a way that gives future administrations something to build on. I do not think a Trump-Kim meeting would immediately produce a meaningful arms-control agreement. But it could make North Korea more willing to invest in building a different type of relationship with the United States. I think that is worth trying to pursue. The alternative is that nothing happens and we wait until 2029 for a new American president. By that time, North Korea could have maybe 160 nuclear weapons, maybe closer to 200. That would be a very bad outcome. The threat continues to grow essentially linearly, so the earlier we can intervene and change the trajectory of the North Korea problem, the better it will be for our interests.”
On the 2nd, President Lee Jae Myung speaks at the 22nd Democratic Peaceful Unification Advisory Council meeting for the Americas, held at a hotel in Incheon, saying, “We must create the conditions for resuming U.S.-North Korea dialogue.” Cheong Wa Dae Press Photographers
- In that case, do you think President Trump’s reduction of South Korea-U.S. joint exercises to draw North Korea to the negotiating table was worth accepting?
“No, I think that was a bad idea. The decision to adjust the military exercises did more harm to the alliance with South Korea than it benefited the prospect of engagement with North Korea. The right approach was not to preemptively give North Korea a concession that, as Kim Yo Jong herself indicated, they did not value very much. If Trump wants to meet Kim, it should not be about hurting South Korea or pulling back exercises. He should give an address-a prepared, written address and not off-the-cuff comments-that lays out a new vision for what the US-North Korean relationship could be.
- The South Korean government faces a difficult situation due to the hostile North Korean regime and concerns about President Trump and ‘Korea passing.’
“If a Trump-Kim summit becomes possible, the South Korean government needs small, dedicated ‘fire teams’ preparing for a range of possible outcomes. Some of those outcomes could be genuinely bad for Seoul - exercises could be canceled or the alliance could be harmed - while others might be acceptable. South Korea needs to plan for what the day after a Trump-Kim summit, the week after and the month after would look like from its own perspective. That requires creativity, initiative and intelligence resources to understand how North Korea might change its behavior. South Korea should even be thinking about what would happen if the United States and North Korea established diplomatic relations. The U.S. president has the ability to recognize other countries without Congress. If Washington and Pyongyang were to establish diplomatic relations, that would be a huge development. What would that mean for South Korea? How would it affect the alliance with the United States? And how would South Korea then pursue its own interests and build a relationship with North Korea? Seoul needs to begin preparing for those possibilities now.”
