Reprinted with permission from Financial Times
By Stephen Bosworth and Morton Abramowitz

The North Korean nuclear problem may be rapidly approaching the point at which the US will have to develop a concerted policy, not just a posture. The so-called Six Party process, the much hailed multilateral approach to dealing with North Korea and its nuclear weapons programme, is many things - but it is not a policy.

Whenever something is described as a "process" we should be suspicious. In foreign policy, processes are often designed to buy time or fudge responsibility. This is certainly true in the Bush administration's approach to North Korea. Unable to deal with North Korea and Iraq at the same time, and divided over whether to do a deal with Pyongyang or to pursue regime change to end its nuclear threat, the administration wrapped itself in the flag of multilateralism. Washington argues that dealing directly with North Korea ignores past experience, is immoral and/or allows China, with the biggest influence in North Korea, to evade responsibility.

The basic problem with the Six Party process, other than that five - Japan, China, Russia, the US and South Korea - mostly negotiate with one another and not with North Korea, is that each country has different interests at stake. They all agree - even Pyongyang has said it does - that North Korea should not become a nuclear weapons state. Beyond that, the issue is seen through the prism of individual national interests. The amount of risk that countries are willing to run to prevent a nuclear armed North Korea is quite different.

For the US, a nuclear-armed North Korea would represent not only a major breach in the global non-proliferation regime but also what could be termed an existential threat. North Korea, desperately poor, has a record of selling virtually anything from missiles to drugs on global markets, and we know there are potential customers for nuclear know-how or devices.

Beijing fears that a nuclear North Korea would destabilise the region, possibly prompting Japan to reconsider its ban on nuclear weapons. Seoul also understands this. But in neither case is there much concern that North Korea would use nuclear weapons against them. While the Bush administration hopes Beijing will somehow ride to its rescue, China and South Korea fear the consequences of a US policy of sanctions and international isolation of Pyongyang. Neither Beijing nor Seoul wants to see North Korea collapse. Seoul believes more aid and economic interaction with the North will moderate Pyongyang's behaviour and ultimately lead to political change. Beijing fears North Korean reaction to any upheaval and also believes it would become a serious source of instability on China's periphery. Japan, facing the reality that North Korean missiles can reach its cities, has reason to feel threatened. Notwithstanding its tough rhetoric, Japan too has been dealing with North Korea on a bilateral basis outside the Six Party process.

The curious paradox in all this is that as the Bush administration insists on dealing with North Korea multilaterally, America's partners - particularly China and South Korea - not only urge Washington to engage with Pyongyang but are also pressuring the US as much as they are North Korea to change its position. They also deal directly with the North. In other words, while the US tries to isolate North Korea, America's partners engage Pyongyang. It is four years since the US had any sustained bilateral contact with North Korea and eight months since the last Six Party meeting. Meanwhile North Korea is running free, claiming to have extracted plutonium from spent nuclear fuel and even, it seems, selling uranium hexafluoride to Libya.

Only the US can give North Korea what it says it wants: a commitment not to attack and proof that it is willing to deal with Pyongyang. This is not to argue that the US should go it alone. The other parties are also necessary as the principal source of economic assistance in any deal with Pyongyang and for ongoing verification and enforcement.

The US must persuade the other parties to act in concert. Otherwise, Washington will be left to act unilaterally, proceeding aimlessly with talks, or seriously testing North Korea's willingness to negotiate. Conceivably, a serious if unsuccessful US negotiation with North Korea might elicit a tougher posture from the other parties. That is uncertain. But it is the only course that stands some chance of bringing the five together on a concerted tougher approach.

Ultimately, the world may be forced to deal with North Korea as a nuclear weapons state. If so, the active co-operation of China, South Korea, Japan and Russia is still essential to limit the risks we will all face.

Stephen Bosworth, Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, is former US ambassador to South Korea and the Philippines; Morton Abramowitz, senior fellow at Century Foundation, is former US ambassador to Thailand and Turkey, and former president of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace