Outsourcing Korea

The Six‐party agreement on North Korea's nuclear program on September 19‐20, 2005, despite its insistence upon an end to North Korea's nuclear activities, is in reality a major sign of significant regional trends that betoken a significant loss of U.S. power over the issues connected with security on the Korean peninsula. This agreement represents the first tangible outcome of the growing distancing of the ROK and the United States, and thus the fraying of their alliance. It also signifies a major diplomatic triumph for China which has forged an apparent alliance with Russia against American policy in Northeast Asia and is becoming increasingly closer to South Korea on issues relating to the Korean peninsula's security, than America. This agreement could thus represent a milestone in China's efforts to multilateralize security on the peninsula and effectuate a corresponding reduction in U.S. power in Asia. This outcome owes much to the American failure to understand and take account of regional dynamics, namely, that to be an effective player here one must have a relationship with North Korea. It also stems form the excessive partisan politicization of this issue in Congress and the Bush Administration's inability to overcome its unilateral and moralizing tendencies to forge a coherent policy among all branches of the government. Indeed, Washington spurned its interlocutors' pleas to engage North Korea directly, an engagement that would have allowed it to retain the preponderant position vis‐à‐vis Korean security issues that it has enjoyed since 1953. Although these talks are hardly concluded and the outcome remains uncertain, even somewhat precarious, it is clear that the prospects for a new security system in Northeast Asia, built at Washington's expense are very much in sight .