North Korea's tendency to escalate its demands during the course of political bargaining is often seen as provocative by the rest of the world, says Jeffrey Lewis, Director of the Nuclear Strategy and Non-proliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation in Washington DC. In his exclusive interview with Shyam Bhatia of asianaffairs, Lewis, however, questions the description of North Korea as a 'rogue state', describing the trend as 'short hand' with which he does not feel comfortable.

AA: How would you assess North Korea as a nuclear military power?

JL: North Korea has a small stockpile of plutonium, enough for a handful of nuclear weapons. It's basically a capability that works today as a deterrent. There are a lot of stings that they haven't demonstrated that they can do yet in terms of fashioning a device that's small enough to go on a missile. So in a sense the threat posed at this moment of time by their nuclear power is existential in the sense it arises from them having capability in the abstract, rather than at this point in them having large numbers of deliverable weapons.

AA: Who threatens the North Koreans? Why do they think they need nuclear weapons?

JL: Well I think they feel threatened by the United States and I think that often reasons change. Whatever reasons the North Koreans had in their minds when they pursued those weapons, starting in the 1980s, nuclear weapons have a way of becoming embedded in a country's politics. So certainly I think they felt pressed by the United States and my guess is that with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, I'm sure they felt more isolated. Once a country goes down this route and actually invests the money, it no longer becomes a question of why are you getting nuclear weapons. The question becomes why should the country stop. Often various factions, whether they are associated with the atomic energy bureaucracy or the military, pick up these weapons as symbols and I think they use them in their own internal politics.

AA: Does the proliferation of North Korea's nuclear technology make it a global threat?

JL: Global threat is one of those words that require certain responses. But I think it's very worrisome and I think the North Koreans would sell just about anything to anyone. And the fact that they seem to have been involved in this reactor in Syria is pretty worrisome. I can think that there are ways to address this problem and that the North Koreans tend to escalate in the course of bargaining. And I think that sometimes comes off as irrationality and to the rest of the world as extraordinarily provocative. But I think that's true not just in the nuclear area. I am still to this day stunned by the largely successful attempt to assassinate most of the South Korean cabinet about 25 years ago (1983). There is a distinct side to North Korean bargaining that's not very pleasant.

AA: Do you subscribe to the description of North Korea as a rogue state?

JL: I think that description has a lot to do with American politics rather than the politics of any country. My guess is that 99 per cent of the people who call North Korea a rogue state don't follow the politics of the country. It's a kind of a short hand and I don't feel comfortable with that description. I wouldn't want to live in North Korea and I don't think its government is much of a model. The term 'rogue state' does capture a certain sense that North Korea lives outside the bounds of international norms and in that sense it is somewhat accurate.

AA: Are Syria and Myanmar the only countries so far to have accessed North Korea's nuclear knowhow?

JL: As far as I can tell Syria is the only clear case. We have serious suspicions about Myanmar — it's not clear if it's nuclear or missile related, but it's not good. I don't think the North Koreans are going to withhold nuclear technology from Myanmar on principle. It's a question of details and practicality. Those are the only two (Syria and Myanmar) that I know of, but having said that North Korea does seem quite willing to sell ballistic missiles rather broadly. So in addition to the kinds of things we hear about Pakistan and Iran, there was a shipment of North Korean ballistic missiles that the U.S. picked up on their way to Yemen. I'm willing to say that Syria is the only one I know of, but because I don't know of it, that doesn't necessarily help me sleep better at night.

AA: Why does the U.S. appear to tread softly where North Korea is concerned? Is Washington concerned about upsetting China?

JL: No, I see a much greater vacillation in U.S. policy. I see the U.S. as having a tendency to take a very hard line with North Korea. But as a colleague of mine says, we have very few options with North Korea and none of them are any good. I think at the end of the day, regardless of the administration, North Koreans have a tendency to escalate to the point where it's a much bigger problem for us. Obviously, China is a part of that. But the opposite is also true. Managing the North Korea relationship can harm U.S. relations with Japan. There is a constant effort to try and find the right balance.

AA: How much influence does China have on North Korea?

JL: I think China has some influence, but the nature of that influence is complex. I believe the Chinese can put a lot of pressure on North Korea, but not every day and not over every issue. What the Chinese are terrified of is ending up in a position like what the United States finds itself in with some countries where they put so much pressure on them that they have no positive relationship left. It's like doing all you can with sanctions and then being left with no options. I think the Chinese influence over North Korea comes from providing some measure of assistance and support for the regime. And so they can squeeze the North Koreans, but they can only do it so often and they can only go so far.
It's the kind of influence that needs to be used strategically and used at the right moment. But I don't think they can just snap their fingers and make the North Koreans jump. There are signs of politics in North Korea, politics about what sort of economic model, what sort of political model is needed for going forward. And China is part of that debate. There are people who want the Chinese model and others who don't. It's not easy for the Chinese to say, 'Take the path we take.'

AA: Would you like to predict what might happen on the Korean peninsula in a decade from now?

JL: I'm happy to guess. I can imagine two responses to that question. One is that you have to bet on some incremental change to the status quo. The most likely outcome, but of course not the most interesting, is that the leadership will not survive another leadership transition. It's also possible that after a leadership transition the regime will be more insular and so I think what we have to do is think analytically about the linkage of options and be prepared to act decisively in order to influence things. Frankly speaking, I tend to think that what looks to be the kind of twilight years of Kim Jong Il, this is a very special period. It's not clear to me that we are going to be able to get a deal, but it's certainly going to be a very unique period thinking about his legacy, his succession.

AA: What is your sense of what the North Koreans say to high level U.S. visitors like Jimmy Carter and, more recently, to Bill Clinton?

JL: I really don't know. My sense is that the meetings are cordial. There is a good book about North Korea written by a Japanese who says that visits by the Japanese prime minister to North Korea were the only ways to break the bureaucratic logjam. Once he got in front of Kim Jong Il, they could do business, they could say, 'We want x, y and z because'. And at that level he (Kim) could say okay. But at the bureaucratic level there is stonewalling and a reluctance to take a decision. So l don't think these high level meetings are just show, there is a lot of preparation that has to go into them. Everything I have read about Kim Jong Il indicates that he is quite intelligent. Perhaps cosmopolitan is too strong a compliment, but he's not unaware of the wider world.

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