North Korea's revelation last week that it has been pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of 1994 arms control is unlikely to lead to war on the peninsula or affect the U.S. stance towards Iraq, according to Dartmouth foreign affairs experts.
North Korea previously claimed to be developing its nuclear programs only for sources of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, although the latest revelation of the country's developing uranium enrichment program proves otherwise.
"We had a bunch of agreements with them that neither side thought was being followed, but now we are genuinely going to start over," government Professor David Kang said. "We are going to review everything from nuclear programs to how we are going to approach food aid."
For "hardliners," however, Korea's announcement "will be taken as confirmation of their worst fears," according to government professor Ned Lebow, and some have expressed concern that the financially-strapped nation would sell nuclear technology.
But despite talk since last week's stunning revelation of a two-front war involving both Iraq and North Korea, Kang said such a situation is not at all likely.
"We're not about to get in a crisis or particularly a war. That's just not going to happen," Kang said, pointing out that no members of the Bush administration have discussed the possibility.
"Everybody, including the U.S., realizes that a war in the Korean peninsula would be bad for everyone involved," Kang said. "It's hard to imagine that China could tolerate that."
Lebow, Kang and fellow government faculty member Dirk Vandewalle all agreed that the recent news from the Korean peninsula will not alter the Bush administration's approach to the Middle East.
"It's not going to affect it at all. The administration obviously has made up its mind that Iraq is a direct threat," Vandewalle said. "Whatever happens in policy with one country will not affect the other."
North Korea's motivation may in fact have been its desire to strengthen its diplomatic ties, government professors said, suggesting that the announcement might lead to greater American involvement in North Korea.
"The North Koreans knew that the U.S. now had good evidence that they were secretly violating the accords. It's better for the Koreans to announce it themselves than to have the U.S. do it for them," Lebow said. "Possible war with Iraq gave them just the time needed."
"North Korea, as everybody knows, is a country that is falling apart, Lebow said. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the loss of its backing, "the Koreans have nowhere to turn other than the U.S., together with Japan and South Korea."
The United States may ask North Korea to renounce its nuclear program professors predicted. Then, according to Kang, "The question would be how would North Korea respond." North Korea already has a voluntary moratorium on developing missile technology until 2003.
North Korea was included in President Bush's "axis of evil" comment during his State of the Union speech this year. Yet the approach the administration seems to be taking in dealing with this country and its regime is remarkably different from the one it is taking against Iraq, another suspicious country.
Kang attributed the disparities in the Bush administration's handling of the two situations to two major differences between North Korea and Iraq. "One, North Korea, unlike Iraq, admitted what everyone already suspected. Two, North Korea is desperately poor ... This gives the U.S. a different type of leverage on it."
In any case, Dartmouth experts said, the U.S. does have to make a decision about how to deal with North Korea in the near future.
"Do you engage with North Korea or do you draw back and let them wallow in their isolation?" Lebow asked. He suggested that isolating the North Korean regime was a poor option because of the number of the country's citizens on the edge of starvation, who he said would pay the price if their nation was cut off.
But Lebow and other professors said that there is no easy answer to the situation.
"What the goal for the long term should be," Lebow said, "is finding some peaceful way of getting rid of the regime. How you do that isn't obvious, and I don't know anybody who claims to have the correct answer."
