MANAGING NORTH KOREA.

I'll admit to suffering a John Bolton moment at the news that North Korea had, once again, threatened to drop out of the Six Party talks and restart its nuclear program. This nonsense will never end; it's pretty clear that the North Korean leadership hasn't the faintest interest in good faith negotiation. Is the answer, then, to break off any further contact with North Korea, and let the chips fall as they may?

I don't think so. The "answer" to the North Korea problem is that there is no answer; there will be no resolution until North Korea ceases to exist. Indeed, a North Korean collapse produces a host of new problems, which is one reason why North Korea's neighbors are terrified at the prospect of general state failure. That said, being unable to produce an "answer" doesn't absolve the U.S., Japan, China, Russia, and South Korea of the responsibility for managing the situation. In foreign policy generally, I think, there is too much focus on the idea that problems can be resolved, rather than on the idea that "problems" are endemic to life in the international system. For example, over the past few days we've seen many proposals for "ending" the piracy problem, when in fact it might be most sensible simply to manage the problem as well as we can.

In the case of North Korea, we have a state that is never going to be "normal" in the sense that the term means a fully participating member of international society. However, the management of North Korea's status as a "problem" can be better or worse, which is to say that North Korea can cause more or less general mischief, depending on how the U.S. and its allies behave. For example, the U.S. has thus far failed to solve the problem of North Korea's nuclear program, or the problem of its ballistic missile program. Both remain a threat, especially in terms of wider proliferation of technology. Nevertheless, it was a positive good that the U.S. restrained North Korea from plutonium production between 1994 and 2002, and from 2006 to the present. Didn't solve the problem, but limited its extent. Moreover, the price of such management was pretty cheap. Similarly, the U.S. has failed to stop North Korea from testing ballistic missiles, but it has managed the situation such that the tests North Korea conducts evoke international outrage and condemnation, and that North Korean efforts at proliferation of missile technology have been limited. Each year that North Korea goes without restarting the Yongbyon facility is a victory for the United States, even if North Korea retains the capability to reopen it in the future.

Time is not on North Korea's side. Kim Jong-Il isn't getting any younger, and while leadership change hardly guarantees reform, the two are often associated in Communist states. North Korea's military continues to deteriorate in comparison with that of South Korea, Japan, and the U.S., and its economy continues to stagnate. North Korea is getting weaker, while those around North Korea get stronger. As I suggested earlier, South Korea's central concern is no longer that North Korea will attack but rather that it will collapse, creating a problem much worse than that faced by West Germany in 1990. Management, not resolution, should be key to U.S. North Korea policy. North Korea's unproductive behavior is irritating, but whatever minor concessions it extracts from the United States can't change the fact that North Korea is on the wrong side of history.

--Robert Farley