No Plan B Under Discussion for North's Denuclearization

By Park Jin-ho

While both President Moon Jae-in and President Donald Trump are attempting to strike a deal with North Korea, it is their common strategic failure that there is no Plan B under discussion between the two governments to cope with unsuccessful results from their current diplomatic engagements in denuclearizing the North.

The failure in managing potential risks is likely to help North Korea lead the negotiations toward increasing its strategic interests.

If this happens, Moon and Trump could encounter difficulties in sustaining their strategic efforts.

Although the results of the upcoming US-North Korea Hanoi summit will definitely have a significant impact on the trajectory of South Korea's rapprochement toward the North, including economic cooperation, there is a serious lack of strategic coordination between Seoul and Washington.

The Trump administration does not care much about the interests of the Moon administration nor even the ROK-U.S alliance.

Some think that Trump might be tempted into trading in the interests of the alliance to realize his 'ego' in the top-down US-North Korea negotiations.

Trump's uncertain leadership looks like gambling on making a deal with Chairman Kim Jong-un.

He is personalizing and improvising negotiations on the final, fully verified denuclearization of the North. It is a general observation in Washington that there is no right person who has a clear understanding of Trump's strategic mindset in dealing with Pyongyang.

He denies intelligence analyses questioning the credibility of North Korea's efforts toward denuclearization. It is very dangerous for political leaders to cherry pick intelligence to increase the credibility of their decisions.

And, the US State Department of State has not welcomed the somewhat rapid changes in South-North relations, which it believes are setbacks in negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang. The unbalanced diplomatic progress with North Korea made respectively by the ROK and the US could undermine the two allies' strategic coordination in dealing with the North.

At the same time, the international community is deeply concerned that South Korea's engagement in economic cooperation with North Korea destabilizes the foundation of international sanctions against Pyongyang.

The Moon administration, rather than developing a new approach to North Korea has a strong obsession with incomplete projects which former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun tried, but...