Failed Diplomacy: The Tragic Story of How North Korea Got the Bomb - Hardcover

Pritchard, Charles L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0815772009 ISBN 13: 9780815772002

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press, 2007

Synopsis

North Korea's development of nuclear weapons raises fears of nuclear war on the peninsula and the specter of terrorists gaining access to weapons of mass destruction. It also represents a dangerous and disturbing breakdown in U.S. foreign policy. Failed Diplomacy: The Tragic Story of How North Korea Got the Bomb offers an insider's view of what went wrong and allowed this isolated nation —a charter member of the Axis of Evil —to develop nuclear weapons. Charles L. "Jack" Pritchard was intimately involved in developing America's North Korea policy under Presidents Clinton and Bush. Here, he offers an authoritative analysis of recent developments on the Korean peninsula and reveals how the Bush administration's mistakes damaged the prospects of controlling nuclear proliferation. Although multilateral negotiations continue, Pritchard proclaims the Six-Party Talks as a failure. His chronicle begins with the suspicions over North Korea's uranium enrichment program in 2002 that led to the demise of the Clinton-era Agreed Framework. Subsequently, Pyongyang kicked out international monitors and restarted its nuclear weapons program. Pritchard provides a first-hand account of how the Six-Party Talks were initiated and offers a play-by-play account of each round of negotiations, detailing the national interests of the key players —China, Japan, Russia, both Koreas, and the United States. The author believes the failure to prevent Kim Jong Il from "going nuclear" points to the need for a permanent security forum in Northeast Asia that would serve as a formal mechanism for dialogue in the region. Hard-hitting and insightful, Failed Diplomacy offers a stinging critique of the Bush administration's manner and policy in dealing with North Korea. More hopefully, it suggests what can be learned from missed opportunities.

About this title

About the Author:

Charles L. "Jack" Pritchard is currently president of the Korea Economic Institute and was formerly a visiting fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. He has served as U.S. ambassador and special envoy for negotiations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and as U.S. representative to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization under George W. Bush. He also served as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and as senior director for Asian affairs under Bill Clinton. He served for twenty-eight years in the U.S. Army.

From Publishers Weekly:

There are weapons of mass destruction after all, merely in a different country with a ruler wackier than Saddam Hussein. Pritchard, a former envoy to North Korea, writes that a sensible diplomatic approach to dictator Kim Jong-Il would have eliminated his nuclear program, then carefully recounts 15 years of diplomatic maneuvers that failed to achieve this. Readers with the persistence to finish will learn a great deal. The story begins with a 1994 agreement between America, its allies and North Korea. In exchange for the North Koreans dismantling a plutonium reactor (purportedly being built for electricity) under international inspection, the allies would build two proliferation-resistant light water reactors and ship fuel oil to the country to tide it over. Taking office in 2001, President Bush denounced that agreement as a bribe that rewarded bad behavior. We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it, added his vice-president. Hurling insults in return, Kim resumed North Korea's nuclear program; 2006 saw both a missile and a bomb test. Pritchard supports his argument with extensive quotes from communiqués, speeches and diplomatic exchanges plus detailed explanations of the subtleties of Asian diplomacy and much less subtle views of Bush hard-liners. The author is too diplomatic to express strong feelings, but even readers tempted to skim will detect his depression because he tells a depressing story. (June)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0815772009
• ISBN 13: 9780815772002
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 228