Should Kim Jong-un Be Given His Dream Deal for a Nuclear Freeze?

Bonnie Kristian writing in Business Insider makes this one claim I can agree with in her article, that the Kim regime will not denuclearize:

If Biden and his team are serious about making headway on their first two strategic goals – threat reduction and humanitarian gains on the Korean Peninsula – they must drop the third. For progress with North Korea, forget denuclearization.

Business Insider

I have been saying this for many years that North Korea will never completely denuclearize. The Kim regime has seen what happened to Saddam and Gaddafi after they gave up their WMD programs, plus nukes is one military advantage they have over the South Koreans to level the military playing field with them. Nuclear weapons are clearly extremely important to regime security.

With that all said the rest of Kristian’s article I do not agree with:

Working-level diplomacy by the Biden administration could accomplish a nuclear freeze, regular inspections of Kim’s arsenal, or even some reduction of his nuclear stockpile or missile systems. It could produce, seven decades late, a peace treaty to officially end the Korean War. It could bargain for concessions from Pyongyang by offering cessation of US sanctions that harm ordinary North Koreans. It could permit expanded, Korean-directed engagement between North and South Korea, including trade and reconnection of divided families.

A nuclear freeze does not cost the Kim regime anything and in return they get sanctions dropped, all the free money from South Korean engagement, and a Korean War peace treaty to advance their confederation strategy. This is Kim Jong-un’s dream deal!

This is where Kristian is totally wrong:

Working-level diplomacy by the Biden administration could accomplish a nuclear freeze, regular inspections of Kim’s arsenal, or even some reduction of his nuclear stockpile or missile systems. It could produce, seven decades late, a peace treaty to officially end the Korean War. It could bargain for concessions from Pyongyang by offering cessation of US sanctions that harm ordinary North Koreans. It could permit expanded, Korean-directed engagement between North and South Korea, including trade and reconnection of divided families.

A nuclear freeze costs the Kim regime nothing and they can end it at a time of their choosing. In return for essentially doing nothing they would get sanctions dropped, free money from South Korean engagement, and a Korean War peace treaty to advanced their Confederation Strategy; this is Kim Jong-un’s dream deal!

Kristian is willing to give Kim Jong-un his dream deal because she thinks this will happen:

It could take steps toward making North Korea a far more normal country, opening the “hermit kingdom” to the global culture and economy and giving its people a shot at deprograming themselves from their government’s sadistic brainwashing. And it could ultimately lay the groundwork for a new era in North Korean foreign relations, one which might mature someday, probably long after this administration is over, into a denuclearized and even democratic Pyongyang.

As long as the Kim regime is in power North Korea is never going to be normal no matter what deal is cut with them. The Kim regime is never going to be democratic either. The engagement crowd has for decades been making these claims.

They continue to make these claims even when dropping sanctions and engagement deals with South Korea have been done before and all the Kim regime did was use the money to modernize their military and advance their nuclear & ballistic missile programs. The regime is not interested in greatly increasing the living standards of the North Korean people other than the regime elite in Pyongyang. They want to keep the general population poor and reliant on the regime and indoctrinated with their propaganda.

I believe any deal with North Korea should focus on the removal of their frontline artillery systems and troop deployment along the DMZ. This should be followed by scrapping their intermediate and intercontinental ballistic missile programs. There are many other concessions I think the regime should make, but these two are both real concessions by the regime that improves both ROK and American security.