The Denuclearization of North Korea: Is It a Bridge Too Far?

I commend President Trump for reaching out to Chairman Kim Jong Un in an effort to eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons from North Korean. The President’s strategy of building a relationship with Chairmen Kim is how the man does business. It appears to me that the President wants to know, and have an understanding of, the people on the other side of the table. This type of approach is a way to break the ice and start the ball rolling. As my Aunt Kitty used to say, “You get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.” This makes the process of negotiation better for both sides and increases the possibility of a successful outcome.

My limited understanding of the proposed deal is basically that North Korea would relinquish its nuclear weapons and enriched uranium stockpiles and dismantle any support facilities, such as uranium enrichment plants, missile development facilities, launch pads (both stationary and mobile), and any other facilities that would be needed to launch an armed missile at any country. I’m sure that there are items that I’ve failed to include in the above list, but you get the idea. The world wants North Korea to have zero capability of launching a nuclear weapon.

In return, President Trump would lobby the world community to help finance the development of the North Korean coastline into a beachfront paradise. North Korea, for the most part, is very mountainous and rugged. There is quite a bit of coastline, some of which would be suitable for development as a beachfront resort. Chairman Kim is already building a beachfront resort which he is personally supervising. I have seen pictures of the sandy beaches with large hotel type structures in the background. In addition to the multi-story hotels, there are also plans for cinemas, arcades, a waterpark, and an all-purpose stadium. The completion has been hampered by sanctions imposed on North Korea because of its weapons program. Completion is currently scheduled for October of 2019.

The coastline of North Korea (Courtesy of SurferToday.com)

I don’t know exactly what the President had in mind when he talked about helping North Korea develop its coastline. I did, however, hear him comment that he had seen pictures of the beautiful beaches in North Korea and that the coastline would be a great place to build condos. There is currently a tourist industry in North Korea with an estimated one hundred thousand tourists traveling there every year. Most of these people come from China.

As I stated above, I applaud the President for exploring the possibility of reaching a deal with Chairman Kim to denuclearize North Korea. That said, I very much doubt that it will ever happen. The obstacles that would need to be overcome in order to complete this deal are too many and too great. One issue that comes to mind before the parties can even sit down at the table is the trustworthiness of Mr. Kim. Can he be trusted to keep his end of the bargain? 

The United States has dealt with members of the Kim family before. President Clinton and President G.W. Bush both made deals with Chairman Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il. Kim’s father reneged on both deals. It is my belief that the old adage, “Like father, like son,” holds true here. Kim Jong Il reneged on deals with presidents Bush and Clinton. He was not an honest negotiator—and it would not be outlandish to assume that the current Chairman Kim is cut from the same cloth as his father. He is therefore not a person who can be trusted to comply with any negotiated deal made with President Trump and/or the world community. 

Convincing Chairman Kim to relinquish his nuclear arsenal and dismantle all the support facilities that go with it is the easy part of this deal. When this is done, and it is by no means a certainty, the real work will begin. By the real work, I’m talking about President Trump convincing representatives from both the public and the private sectors to invest tens of billions, possibly hundreds of billions, of dollars into the development of the North Korean beachfront paradise and its economy in general.

It would be the President’s task to sell the feasibility of this entire project to the UN, the IMF, the US Congress, and as many of our allies as possible. I would also expect that North Korea’s closest allies, Russia and China, would contribute to the cause.

These billions upon billions of dollars would first need to be spent on infrastructure such as, but not limited to, the following: water and sewer systems, waste water plants, roads and bridges, a new and more modern, higher capacity electrical grid, gas lines, and new, and larger power plants. These improvements would be needed to support the new hotels, condos, recreational venues, such as amusement parks, golf courses, shopping centers, torcher chambers, and, of course, restaurants. After all, when people go on vacation, they want to do other things besides go to the beach. 

In addition to the public sector, it will be necessary for private industry to step up. There would be a need for business executives from hotel chains, recreation companies such as Disneyland or Six Flags, and the other industries listed above to invest in the North Korean economy. This is where the entire project could run into difficulty. Getting all these private sector companies to invest the amount of money necessary is going to be a really tough sell when it comes to North Korea.

Chairman Kim Jung Un

All the initiatives noted above (and then some) would need to be done in order to close the deal that would denuclearize the country of North Korea. There are also many stumbling blocks that would impede finalizing this agreement. One problem that I foresee, and it’s a major one, is what business would stick their neck out for the honor and privilege of investing millions of dollars in the People’s Paradise of North Korea. I bring this up because the country is run by a brutal egomaniac who would kill his own mother if he thought she was trying to usurp his authority. He is an authoritarian communist dictator who has no allegiance to anyone other than himself.

Assuming that my impression of Chairman Kim is correct, what would prevent North Korea’s illustrious leader from nationalizing the world community’s entire investment and throwing everyone out on their ear? I’m talking about both public and private sector funds. Besides the possibility that tourists might stop coming, the short answer is nothing.

Another glaring obstacle that could adversely affect the success of the project is the country of North Korea itself. It is a communist police state. Who in their right mind would want to vacation there, given their current legal system? It would be difficult to convince me, and I dare say, most tourists from the West, to vacation there. If you were a tourist weighing your options of where to spend your next vacation, it would be easy to find a venue more welcoming than North Korea. I say this because you might spit on the sidewalk or flick a cigarette butt on the street and be arrested. If this were to happen there is no doubt in my mind that you would be found guilty as charged. You could quite possibly spend five years in prison at hard labor. It’s simply not worth the risk.

Before anyone would ever consider vacationing in the North Korean version of Nirvana, the entire legal system would have to be scrapped. It would need to be replaced with something more along the lines of a Western-style legal system. It would have to be a system similar to that of Japan or South Korea. This type of legal system would guarantee the freedoms and the fundamental rights that people in the West currently enjoy. 

All people, regardless of where you’re from, go on vacation to relax and enjoy. I don’t see people eating, drinking, and making merry in North Korea under its current legal system. It would take a lot more than a nice beach to entice prospective tourists to vacation in a police state. Given its history and reputation, it would be my guess that it would take the better part of a generation for the world to warm up to a communist country like North Korea and actually risk vacationing there.

There is a very real possibility that the worst possible scenario would be for a deal to be made. Billions would be invested in infrastructure and tourism assets, such as hotels, condos, amusements parks, and golf courses. In addition, money would also be invested in peripheral businesses, such as shopping centers and restaurants. Investment would be made in everything that would be needed for tourism to flourish. Years would pass with billions flowing into Kim’s pockets, and he could wake up one morning and decide that he wants nukes. There are those who would question this and ask: Why would Chairman Kim do this? He has billions going into government coffers, which are basically his pockets. Why would he screw up a good thing? The answer is that sometimes it’s not about money. It’s about power, negotiating position, and prestige. Right now he’s a big fish (literally) in a small pond. Having nukes makes him a little fish in a big pond, but at least he’s in the big pond. 

Chairman Kim would still be in charge of North Korea. He would still be a liar and a communist,  and he would have a good-sized and well-trained army. He could do whatever he wants within his country. The difference would be that he would then have the financial resources to do whatever he wants, including buying nukes. With this scenario in mind, it would be my vote to keep him poor.

One other comment that I believe is worth mentioning is that China is North Korea’s closest ally. If there were to be a regime change, it would most likely be approved by them. Therefore, even if Chairman Kim were to be replaced, the new leadership would have the same communist ideology and would be just as brutal. In short, he or she (I don’t want to be accused of being a sexist) would not be the type of person I would be comfortable with having nuclear weapons. 

The goal of President Trump was to denuclearize North Korea. I don’t think that anyone, even the most rabid Trump-hater would disagree with that goal. However, given the number, scale, and type of obstacles that would need to be overcome to complete this agreement, I very much doubt that a deal to denuclearization North Korea will ever be struck.

The massive amount of investment that would be needed to transform the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) into even a moderately modern country would be a problem for the private sector investors. Public sector money is generated from taxpayers. As is well known in every country in the world, politicians love to spend taxpayer money. It is also even more well known that many politicians are not good stewards of taxpayer funds. Politicians make decisions on whether or not to spend taxpayer dollars based on the politics of the issue. These decisions should be made on the basis of whether the chances of the project being a success are larger than the chances of it being a failure. In this particular case, the chances of success are at best 50/50 and there is the additional risk of dealing with a communist dictator whose family has already shown themselves to be untrustworthy. To invoke another one of Aunt Kitty’s famous sayings, “You can trust a thief, but you can’t trust a liar.”

Unlike the public sector, the decision of any private sector company to invest in any project would be based on the merits of the project. Criteria such as return on investment and perceived risk are two of the more important issues looked at. As I alluded to above, there is an enormous amount of risk involved when dealing with a country like North Korea and a man such as Kim Jong Un. Also, it may take the better part of a generation for these private sector investments to realize an acceptable rate of return. 

The difference between public sector investment and private sector investment couldn’t be more obvious. When a government invests money in a project, the funds are generated by taxpayers. In other words, other people’s money. If the investment goes south, no one is ever held accountable. In the private sector, the opposite is true. If a private sector business invests in a project, it is using its own money. In this case, if the project goes south, it is the private sector company who takes the financial hit, and the company executives who proposed the project are accountable. In some cases, accountability takes the form of people losing their jobs. Accountability is the main difference between public sector and private sector investment.

The goal of convincing Chairman Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear weapons is certainly a worthwhile endeavor. However, the chances of reaching such an agreement, in my opinion, are slim and none. There are multiple reasons why this deal will never be reached and each and every one of those is a potential deal breaker. One of the major reasons is Kim Jong Un himself. He likes his nukes and he likes the attention. If he were to give up his nukes, he would descend into relative obscurity. There would be no more interviews on TV and no more photo ops with the president of the United States. Another reason is the vast amount of investment that would need to be put up by both the public sector and the private sector. It is my belief that the risk that would need to be taken is too much to justify the return on investment. 

Secondly, this would be made in a country which is run by a murdering egomaniac who could wake up one morning and nationalize the entire investment put up by the public and the private sectors. This type of behavior is not unprecedented. The very same scenario took place in Venezuela about twenty years ago. We all know how that worked out. 

For these reasons I feel that a deal to denuclearize the DPRK will never happen under this regime or any other regime of a similar nature. It’s mainly a matter of too much risk and not enough return on investment.

Charles Colson (1931-2012), former White House Counsel