CHAPTER 4

Presidents 41 and 42 Engage North Korea’s Nuclear Program

The US response to the nuclear program of North Korea, officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), was puzzling, as the response was characterized first by a lack of presidential concern and then by rapid escalation to the brink of war. I argue these two sets of behaviors, relative lack of prioritization in the late 1980s and early 1990s and then escalation in 1993–1994, can be explained by the nuclear beliefs of Presidents George H. W. Bush and William J. Clinton. I demonstrate that Bush was a (weak) nuclear optimist, focused on stability and largely confident in deterrence. Accordingly, Bush did not consider a preventive attack against North Korea. By contrast, Clinton, a nuclear pessimist generally and regarding North Korea, seriously considered the use of preventive military force to forestall the North Korean program.

Compared with the China case, the North Korean case presents a more difficult environment for analysis: scholars must confront a relative lack of available archival evidence, as significant amounts of material remain classified. Thus, this chapter leans on public statements, contemporaneous accounts, and the secondary literature, itself dependent on limited archival material. Public statements can be difficult to evaluate given leaders’ incentives to misrepresent beliefs, especially while campaigning for elected office. Accordingly, I compare across multiple sources when possible, in order to corroborate the material I marshal.

Assessing Bill Clinton’s prepresidential period is especially difficult because of his lack of prepresidential experience in foreign policy. Although his gubernatorial career has been well documented in archives, these records are unhelpful for the issues at hand because governors focus primarily on domestic matters. Instead, I rely on campaign materials, contemporaneous accounts, and personal memoirs, with their concomitant challenges. Nevertheless, what is available—from a variety of individual and administration sources—is helpful in determining Clinton’s early foreign policy perspective.

Despite data limitations, the observed outcomes are consistent with the model’s theoretical expectations. Consequently, the North Korean case offers an important test of the leader-centric model’s generalizability beyond the Cold War. Especially since the model offers traction in a difficult information environment, the conclusions should only strengthen with time as more documentary evidence becomes available.

Alternative Explanations

Existing explanations posit that structural considerations, bureaucratic political haggling, or cost considerations might explain US decision making vis-à-vis North Korea. The evidence, however, does not support such explanations. Recall that a traditional structural argument theorizes that a state will act preventively to forestall another state’s nuclear acquisition and avoid a negative change to the first state’s relative position. Accordingly, North Korea can be understood as pursuing nuclear weapons to augment its power vis-à-vis the United States and others in the international community. Consequently, the United States should have been inclined to use preventive war to forestall North Korea’s effort. The empirical facts challenge the structural logic, however: the United States at first did not consider prevention despite knowledge of the North Korean program and later refrained from attacking despite serious consideration of doing so.

Instead, the suspected high costs of an attack on North Korea’s nuclear program may have prevented a US intervention. As Debs and Monteiro argue, states with superpower protectors and those that can exact high punishment costs on a would-be attacker can successfully prevent an attack.¹ If true, the corollary proposition would suggest that only weak states (those lacking a superpower patron for protection or of weak relative military position and lacking significant conventional military capabilities) are those targeted by preventive military force as a counterproliferation strategy. This proposition might help explain the North Korean case, with high costs anticipated to accompany any US attack and potentially preventing the United States from intervening. North Korea maintained significant conventional capability and was expected to inflict substantial damage to US regional allies and assets.

Though plausible on the surface, unpacking this narrative reveals reason for skepticism: feasibility concerns did not drive Clinton’s decision-making process. Military options came with both predictions of a high likelihood of success and estimations of associated high costs and great risks, especially for escalation to a wider peninsular war.² Nevertheless, Clinton moved forward with military plans. As Secretary of Defense Perry said regarding the principals’ meeting on June 16, 1994, participants were about to give the president of the United States the “choice between a disastrous option—allowing North Korea to get a nuclear arsenal which we might have to face someday—and an unpalatable option, blocking this development, but thereby risking a destructive non-nuclear war.”³ Despite this dilemma, Clinton appeared inclined to proceed. From the president’s perspective, the threat of a nuclear-armed North Korea was worth the potential risks and associated costs of a military intervention. Hence, cost assessments and the relative weakness of the potential target alone cannot explain preventive war behavior in the North Korean case.

A third structural alternative suggests that specific characteristics of the United States–North Korea dyad explain the outcome. Following Kreps and Fuhrmann, we should expect preventive war between a democracy and an autocracy with a history of violent conflict and divergent foreign policy goals. Indeed, the United States and DPRK have fought over security on the Korean peninsula and in East Asia and have clashed over communism’s regional influence. These very issues were central to the Korean War. While President Clinton’s serious consideration of preventive military force accords with this logic, the theory remains unable to explain President George H. W. Bush’s different approach.

A fourth alternative, drawn from bureaucratic politics, would expect bureaucratic haggling or an interagency logroll to explain US behavior toward the DPRK. Such an argument is problematic for multiple reasons. First, President Clinton was an engaged and active participant in the decision-making process, not one to go along with the bureaucracy absent much participation or discussion. Second, while Defense Secretary Perry supported the military option, he and others were deeply concerned about the costs of an intervention and the risks of escalation to wider war. This concern suggests a more nuanced Defense Department position than one might expect from the classic bureaucratic maxim that “where you stand depends on where you sit.”⁴ Likewise, President Bush did not argue against an overly active Defense Department, or advisers singularly focused on attacking North Korea, in order to avoid the use of force. In fact, despite his institutional position, Defense Secretary Richard Cheney opposed even discussing military options in 1991 out of concern that doing so would derail the administration’s engagement strategy. The evidence from the North Korean case therefore calls each variant of bureaucratic political explanations into question.

Finally, there are factors specific to this case that might explain the decision-making process leading to the (non) use of preventive war. None, however, offers better leverage on the outcome than the leader-centric argument.

One likely possibility raised by this case concerns concurrent distractions for the administrations: perhaps both Bush’s and Clinton’s behavior vis-à-vis North Korea can be explained by something else that was happening simultaneously. One could argue, for example, that Bush avoided the use of force in North Korea because of the Persian Gulf War, and similarly, that Clinton pursued the military option to distract the US population from the government shutdown that occurred during his tenure.

With Bush, however, although it is easy to imagine the sizable Gulf War intervention drawing resources away from any potential North Korean endeavor, the timing does not match. The Gulf War occurred from August 1990 to February 1991; Bush had ample time to respond to the challenge of North Korea before or after the Gulf War, had he seen fit. Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, nearly a year after the United States discovered the North’s high explosives testing. After the Gulf War concluded, Bush had almost two years left in office to consider military options. During both periods (and during the intervening months) there is no evidence that President Bush considered military action. Had Bush found the situation alarming, we would expect the record to reflect his interest in using force to confront the North Korean threat. That Bush refrained reveals not that the Gulf War was an unwelcome distraction from the real problem of North Korea, but rather that his attention was focused on Iraq.⁵ Furthermore, that Bush was willing to use overwhelming force elsewhere in the new post–Cold War environment suggests that there would have been no reason to stand down in the Korean context had it been necessary. The United States used the new freedom of mobility offered by the dissolution of the Soviet Union to intervene in Iraq, but Bush felt no similar need to draw upon this freedom regarding the DPRK.

Likewise, for Clinton, we would similarly expect private internal administration deliberations to reveal his true sentiments, namely, that political rather than national security considerations drove the intervention preparations under way in mid-1994. Thus far, there is no compelling evidence to support this claim. Most significantly, because the government shutdown did not occur until late 1995 and early 1996, and the most important military deliberations happened in spring and early summer 1994, this argument is chronologically nonviable.

The DPRK case also raises questions regarding the role that the end of the Cold War played in preventive decision making. One could argue that Clinton’s behavior and willingness to consider force was driven by a post–Cold War environment that recognized the dangers of proliferation with a loose and unprotected former Soviet arsenal. In this case, it was the new environment that conditioned Clinton’s behavior, rather than his individual beliefs. Such an argument does not withstand scrutiny, however, as we would expect Bush to likewise internalize or at least recognize a new global norm against proliferation. Had this been the case, we would expect evidence of Bush’s recognition in the two-plus years of his administration after the end of the Cold War. Especially given improving intelligence on and consensus regarding the nature of the North’s nuclear intentions during this time period, the normative alternative is problematic. Furthermore, because Bush’s presidency spans the end of the Cold War, we would have expected him to address such a change in the threat environment, either because a new threat emerged or because an opportunity for action presented when the Soviets disappeared. That Bush did not engage on either element suggests that the end of the Cold War did not do much causal work.

Despite qualitative circumstantial differences between the two administrations—given that North Korea advanced its nuclear program and withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) only during Clinton’s tenure—there are important parallel developments between the Bush and Clinton terms that make the comparison worthwhile. Certainly, facts on the ground were changing between 1990 and 1994, more than is preferable for a perfectly analogous comparison.⁶ However, a series of intelligence discoveries from 1989 to 1992 should have been sufficient for the Bush administration to show some increased level of alarm once the extent of the North’s proliferation attempt was revealed. First, in May 1989, the CIA identified a covert plutonium reprocessing facility and a third research reactor, both previously undeclared by the North Koreans to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Second, in May 1992, IAEA inspector Hans Blix returned to North Korea and revealed significant discrepancies between the amount of separated plutonium (useful for nuclear bomb fuel) the North reported to the IAEA and the amount expected by Blix’s calculations. Furthermore, the spent fuel withdrawal that occurred in 1989 under Bush is analogous to the 1993–94 withdrawal that took place under Clinton, providing an opportunity to see how both administrations responded to the same on-the-ground developments. That Bush’s only response was a policy review and an engagement strategy suggests that these developments were insufficient to elevate the situation’s threat level in his mind. Conversely, Clinton viewed the spent fuel withdrawal as incontrovertible evidence that the North intended to weaponize and took the necessary steps to consider military options. Therefore, I argue that the broad threat perceptions of Bush and Clinton and the threat they perceived from North Korean nuclear weapons were sufficiently different, that even had Bush been reelected president in 1992 and presided over the crisis period in 1993–94, he would not have considered force. Thus, in the North Korean case, as with China, the leader-centric argument offers the most compelling explanation for when leaders consider preventive military force as a counterproliferation strategy.

The United States and the North Korean Nuclear Program

The United States used the first nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. During the Korean War, US officials entertained the idea of using nuclear weapons against North Korean and Chinese adversaries. Though President Eisenhower did not authorize the use of nuclear weapons, in 1953 he did hint that the United States would employ them if the ongoing armistice negotiations failed to end the Korean conflict.⁷

Following repeated nuclear threats from the United States and the development of a self-reliant military policy, North Korean leader Kim Il Sung became interested in an indigenous nuclear capacity.⁸ In 1956, Pyongyang and Moscow inked two nuclear cooperation agreements, and Korean scientists began nuclear physics training at the Soviet Dubna Nuclear Research Complex.⁹ Over time, continuing assistance included a Soviet-supplied research reactor at Yongbyon, research facility construction, and training for Korean engineers.¹⁰

Subsequent to the Chinese test in 1964, North Korea also sought Chinese nuclear assistance. Kim sent a delegation to Chairman Mao for help producing a parallel program, “as brother countries who shared dying and fighting on the battlefield, China and North Korea should also share the atomic secret.” Mao rejected this plan, replying that a nuclear program was unnecessary and far too expensive for such a small country.¹¹ Despite the Chinese rejection, the North’s program continued, as the original Soviet-built reactor became operational in 1967, and construction began on a five-megawatt graphite-moderated reactor for the production of plutonium—the pathway the DPRK would ultimately pursue to nuclear weapons acquisition.¹²

The 1970s brought not only the global oil crisis but also an intensification of global nuclear ambitions.¹³ The North sought to upgrade its nuclear capacity, building multiple large reactors. In April 1982, US intelligence photographed the vessel of a large nuclear reactor under construction at the Yongbyon nuclear complex.¹⁴ By 1984, US satellite imagery showed the outline of a cylindrical nuclear smokestack. In June, the images showed a reactor, cooling tower, power lines, and electrical grid connections for the purpose of local energy transmission.¹⁵ Alone, the pieces could have been civilian in nature. But by 1986, satellites identified cylindrical craters and residue of experimental high-explosives detonation “in a certain pattern familiar to nuclear weapons experts: the precisely simultaneous explosions that are basic to implosion” weapons design.¹⁶

Additional details regarding the North’s program came into focus as the 1980s progressed.¹⁷ In 1987, the United States identified a building that exhibited the typical configuration for a plutonium separation plant.¹⁸ By 1989, the US detected a plutonium reprocessing plant, additional evidence of high-explosives testing, and a third reactor at Yongbyon with a two-hundred-megawatt output. This giant facility could churn out enough plutonium for several weapons a year.¹⁹ In light of these discoveries, the United States pressured the Soviet Union to help stem the flow of nuclear materials to the DPRK.²⁰ They also encouraged the DPRK to expand their Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations; the North had acceded in 1985 in exchange for four full-size nuclear power plants.²¹ The US also pushed for International Atomic Energy Agency inspections. While North Korea had signed the NPT and submitted to IAEA inspections, the North did so while retaining its nuclear ambitions, reprocessing nuclear materials, and hiding critical fuel supplies from inspectors.²² Despite the North’s secretive behavior, by the time the presidency of George H. W. Bush began, there remained no doubt about the nature of the North’s initiative.

George H. W. Bush

Unlike those who have succeeded him, George Herbert Walker Bush came to presidential office with extensive international and political experience. This was not a lifelong interest, however, as both his passion for international affairs and his political activism developed over time. Beginning with his first political position as a member of Congress and continuing through to the vice presidency, Bush internalized certain core principles that he carried with him to the Oval Office. He felt a strong sense of internationalism and need for US leadership abroad, an aversion to aggression, and a belief that global instability was a serious threat to US interests.

Bush and International Affairs

From his youth, Bush stood up for others in the face of older or bigger kids. He did so formally after graduation, enlisting in the US Navy during World War II.²³ As David Halberstam argues, this service led Bush with his “instinct to resist overt aggression” to hawkish views on Vietnam and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, discussed in chapter 5.²⁴

Bush’s formal political experience spanned four decades from his time as Representative for Texas’s 7th Congressional District to the forty-first president of the United States. When he successfully ran for Congress in 1966, Bush campaigned on a platform that mixed the Eastern establishment and internationalist Republicanism of his youth with the “stringent frontier conservatism” then developing in Texas.²⁵ Once in office, he was exposed to many of the key foreign policy issues of the time and, later, to the key agencies of US foreign and national security policy making. However, the Congressional Record during Bush’s tenure reveals no evidence of overarching concern for nuclear weapons or regarding North Korea. Instead, his remarks over the four-year period center on domestic matters, including drugs, crime, government oversight, population growth and control, natural resources, and environmental issues.

After Bush served only two terms in Congress, President Gerald Ford appointed Bush as chief of the US Liaison Office, the de facto US embassy in Beijing.²⁶ During this tenure, Bush developed the foreign policy principles that would guide him through executive office. In the preface to a published compilation of the diary he kept while in China, Bush described his experience at the Liaison Office as “one of the greatest adventures of [his and wife Barbara’s] lives.”²⁷ Among other things, it inspired his passion for foreign affairs.²⁸

During this period, Bush adopted the domino theory as a guiding principle to international politics. Witnessing events in South Asia, he feared the collapse of Asian dominoes to communism in the same way that Europe had previously fallen to fascism. As he had in the European context, Bush articulated the need to confront tyrannical aggression in Southeast Asia with resolve and commitment.²⁹ Where Bush perceived threats, he met them resolutely and with force; where no threats manifest, no consideration of force should be required. Bush’s early career reveals no focus on either nuclear proliferation or North Korea, intimating that these issues were not salient for him until he entered presidential office.³⁰

General Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation

Prior to assuming presidential office, George H. W. Bush said little about nuclear proliferation, in stark contrast to JFK, who spoke, acted, and wrote in Congress and throughout his prepresidential career about nuclear weapons. It is perhaps odd that Bush paid little attention to nuclear matters, given his significant international experience. Nevertheless, there are some data points useful for assessing Bush’s early nuclear beliefs.

During his first (unsuccessful) run for US Congress in 1964, Bush opposed the first US-Soviet arms control agreement—the Partial Test Ban Treaty—which President Kennedy negotiated with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1963 in hopes of preventing Chinese and French proliferation.³¹ This opposition could represent nuclear optimism on Bush’s part, if he thought the treaty would have irresponsibly limited proliferation by limiting testing.³² Conversely, his opposition could be a matter of politics, with Bush’s acting against the Democratic president’s initiative as a means to securing congressional office.³³ During this period, Bush’s behavior did not offer any reason to suspect he was concerned about the dangers of nuclear proliferation. While Bush was a member of Congress in 1967, 1968, and 1969, the United States debated and negotiated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Bush’s colleagues, including William Proxmire and Albert Gore Sr., offered many comments for the record and statements on the floor. That Bush was not similarly vocal reveals a lack of focus on what was perhaps the key nuclear issue of the time.³⁴

While Bush was in Beijing as chief of the US Liaison Office, the Australian ambassador, Steve Fitzgerald, informed Bush that Taiwan was trying to procure nuclear weapons. In an editorial footnote to the diary entry dated May 18, 1975, in The China Diary of George H.W. Bush, Jeffrey Engel describes how Bush cabled this information to Washington “with little comment.”³⁵ At face value, this action suggests that Bush had no precise concern for the proliferation attempt then underway in Taiwan, perhaps indicating that additional nuclear proliferation was not seen as dangerous or threatening from his vantage point, or that allied proliferation was not cause for concern.³⁶

Beyond Taiwan, however, the evidence reveals no utterances by Bush regarding the Indian, Chinese, and Soviet nuclear tests that had occurred in 1974, 1964, and 1949, respectively. One could argue that in 1949 Bush was too young to have taken note of the Soviet test. However, given that this test broke the US nuclear monopoly and that it occurred just after Bush’s World War II service, such an explanation is not compelling. Regarding China, it is more difficult to argue that the 1964 Chinese test should have been inconsequential for Bush, as he was running for Congress in its immediate aftermath and was stationed in the region just a few short years later. Although Bush’s China diary mentions the growing Indian nuclear capability, it is only in the context of Australia’s concern that there was a greater miscalculation risk between India and China with India’s newfound nuclear power and China’s overall growth. The tone of Bush’s writing, however, suggests he viewed Australia’s concern as overblown, and the issue received no additional discussion.³⁷ While a lack of concern about the individual Soviet, Chinese, Indian, and Taiwanese attempts at proliferation may not be revealing, taken together, the lack of concern on Bush’s part suggests that horizontal proliferation was not salient for him between the late 1940s and the mid-1970s.

Writing in Looking Forward, Bush supported President Truman’s use of two nuclear weapons to end World War II and described their decisive nature on the battlefield: “Now, years later, whenever I hear anyone criticize President Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I wonder whether the critic remembers those days and has really considered the alternative: millions of fighting men killed on both sides, possibly tens of millions of Japanese civilians. Harry Truman’s decision wasn’t just courageous, it was far-sighted.”³⁸

In the first months of his presidential administration, Bush made consecutive speeches that shed additional light on his nuclear views. First, while addressing the commencement ceremony of the United States Coast Guard Academy, Bush told his audience, “Our task is clear: We must curb the proliferation of advanced weaponry.”³⁹ There was no additional mention of proliferation or the type of weaponry he was identifying as cause for concern. However, just one week later, President Bush offered remarks to the citizens of Mainz, Germany, that carried the discussion forward. He said, “We’re also challenged by developments outside of NATO’s traditional areas of concern. Every Western nation still faces the global proliferation of lethal technologies, including ballistic missiles and chemical weapons. We must collectively control the spread of these growing threats. So, we should begin as soon as possible with a worldwide ban on chemical weapons.”⁴⁰ Here, Bush specifies what advanced and lethal weapons are cause for concern—ballistic missiles and chemical weapons, not nuclear weapons.⁴¹ Taking the two remarks in conjunction, we can begin to conclude that it is not nuclear weapons that Bush found threatening to the United States or to international stability.

In academic scholarship, stability is intimately connected to the idea of deterrence.⁴² Especially in the post–World War II environment, stability and deterrence are often associated with nuclear weapons.⁴³ Early in his presidency, Bush connected these two issues: “How we and our allies deal with these diverse challenges depends on how well we understand the key elements of defense strategy … two points in particular: first, the need for an effective deterrent, one that demonstrates to our allies and adversaries alike American strength, American resolve; and second, the need to maintain an approach to arms reduction that promotes stability at the lowest feasible level of armaments.”⁴⁴ Bush continued: “Deterrence is central to our defense strategy. The key to keeping the peace is convincing our adversaries that the cost of aggression against us or our allies is simply unacceptable. In today’s world, nuclear forces are essential to deterrence.”⁴⁵ Bush’s description of nuclear weapons and deterrence together demonstrate the connection he perceived, and to some extent, confidence in the US deterrent capability. It underscores his focus on and confidence in peace through (nuclear) deterrence and suggests optimist tendencies.⁴⁶

At the same time, Bush made other remarks that seemed to suggest a relatively weak proliferation pessimist attitude. Addressing a question-and-answer session for White House journalists on March 31, 1989, Bush remarked, “I strongly stand against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We must strengthen IAEA safeguards to be sure that there is as much inspection as possible.”⁴⁷ In July, Bush called nonproliferation an “important element of our overall national security policy, which seeks to reduce the risk of war and increase international stability.”⁴⁸ And yet there is little to suggest that the administration’s actions followed up on this pessimist rhetoric, indicating it was only rhetoric.

It is worth noting the additional nuclear activity Bush undertook during his presidency. As I argue later, George H. W. Bush was largely confident in the US deterrent as time went on and focused on maintaining and improving stability. The steps he took elsewhere in the nuclear arena seem consistent with his broader set of strategic concerns. Much of this work focused on increasing stability, reducing the nuclear stockpile, and improving the US-Soviet strategic situation. First, in the realm of nuclear testing in 1989 and 1991, Bush authorized the Aqueduct and Sculpin Nuclear Test Programs.⁴⁹ Second, in terms of the nuclear stockpile, Bush renewed a Strategic Defense Initiative project adopting new missiles and satellites. With Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Bush signed new protocols to Nixon’s 1974 Threshold Test Ban Treaty to provide for additional advanced notifications and onsite inspections. Through verification procedures, the treaty sought to improve stability between the United States and the USSR and to foster continued cooperation.⁵⁰ Also in 1991, Bush and Gorbachev signed the START II Treaty, cutting long-range nuclear warheads from both the US and Soviet arsenals.⁵¹ Later in 1991, Bush unilaterally cut some tactical nuclear weapons from the US arsenal including the MX and SCRAM II programs. He also took the B-1B and B-52 bombers off alert status.⁵²

Last, other critical nuclear events occurred during this period. Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar initiated the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act, which aimed to manage and destroy the nuclear capacities of former Soviet states. The multibillion-dollar program deactivated more than 7,500 warheads, disposed of chemical weapons, safeguarded fissile materials, and converted critical pieces of weapons complexes for peaceful use.⁵³ A critical component of this effort started with the Lisbon Protocol, which helped denuclearize Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine—newly independent states “born” with enormous segments of the former Soviet arsenal.

Especially for a president serving during the Cold War and ultimately overseeing its end, it is not surprising that Bush dealt with a sizable number of nuclear matters. The actions are understandable when perceived as achieving the goal of stability between the Soviet Union and United States. Cutting the number of warheads in the arsenal and terminating individual weapons types were reasonable steps if these weapons were unnecessary for US strategic goals or destabilizing within the United States–Soviet Union dyad. It is unclear to what extent such decisions are indicative of related proliferation considerations, if at all, beyond the possibility that Bush perceived the US arsenal as creating deterrence—a perception potentially consistent with a nuclear optimist perspective.

None of these pieces of evidence offers a smoking gun for determining Bush’s views on the consequences of nuclear proliferation as a clear optimist or a pessimist. In aggregate, the evidence suggests he was focused neither on nuclear proliferation nor nuclear weapons. When Bush did mention the issue, especially before becoming president, what he said or wrote points toward a very weak nuclear optimist perspective. Additionally, the overall paucity of data regarding this issue from his prepresidential period further supports the idea that nuclear weapons were not an early focus.⁵⁴ On balance, I code Bush as a (weak) optimist, despite the ambiguity in the record, and turn later to the empirical record to explore to what extent this attitude continued through his presidency.

Probability of Deterring the Proliferator

Stemming from his deterrence confidence, Bush saw North Korea not as a threat or problem for the United States, but rather as a marginal challenge for regional stability following US withdrawal from Vietnam. Bush’s first reference to North Korea appears in 1969, following the downing of a US plane flying in international air space. Supporting President Nixon’s decision to have all future flights receive adequate protection, Congressman Bush called the North’s behavior “criminal” and the leadership “outrageous.”⁵⁵ While he also said that the North Koreans respond only to shows of force, this is the strongest utterance he made in reference to North Korea throughout his career.

Two diary entries from Bush’s time in Beijing document his early focus on stability and the negative consequences of North Korea’s behavior for regional instability and US interests. First, on April 22, 1975, Bush wrote in his private diary, “I worry about the fall of [South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van] Thieu—no personal attachment whatsoever. I have complete conviction that there is such a thing as a domino theory. Thailand and the Philippines and others rushing toward new alignment. Kim Il Sung of Korea talking much tougher now about the South in Peking.”⁵⁶ This highlights Bush’s focus on the domino theory.

A week later, Bush again described the role of North Korea in destabilizing the Asian theater: “The Kim Il Sung communiqué with China came out. It … blasts against the United States, glorification of revolution in Africa, strong anti-Israel position, strong anti-imperialistic language.… Yet nobody focuses in on the ridiculous leadership role of Kim Il Sung, with its self-adulation and its totalitarianism. A communiqué like this makes us realize how far we have got to go in our work with China.”⁵⁷ Combined with Bush’s focus on the totalitarian nature of the North Korean state, this suggests that he viewed North Korea as fomenting regional instability and making US relations with China and other regional actors more difficult. At the same time, it is consequential that there was no specific mention of any threat posed by the North Koreans to the United States itself. Rather it was a consequence of the shifting balance of power and growing regional instability that the North could act in ways that could undermine US interests. Furthermore, Bush called Kim’s regime ridiculous, perhaps emphasizing a lack of serious, direct threat emanating from the state.

Together, these two diary entries suggest a regional focus for Bush at this time, which is unsurprising given that he was writing from Beijing at the end of the Vietnam War. However, they also demonstrate a larger focus on stability as consequential for US security. In the mid-1970s, North Korea was on Bush’s radar, but only in a limited way.⁵⁸

It is also worth recalling the contours of the US defense apparatus during Bush’s time as vice president and early in his tenure as president.⁵⁹ Reagan had come to office as a long-time critic of arms control and détente with the Soviets and quickly initiated a massive military buildup and increase in defense spending.⁶⁰ Out of growing fears of falling behind the Soviets and concern for the vulnerability of US long-range weapons, Reagan accelerated nuclear modernization and led efforts to build national missile defense. He authorized funding for advanced aircraft, including the B-2 bomber and stealth technology; resurrected the B-1 bomber; and initiated a significant modernization of US nuclear options, including submarine-launched ballistic missiles, air- and sea-launched cruise missiles, and the MX missile. This campaign to upgrade weapons research, production, and testing was supported by the controversial view that nuclear superiority would provide greater military and political leverage vis-à-vis the Soviets and also allow the United States to win a nuclear war.⁶¹ While it is difficult to definitively show that Bush was supportive of these programs as vice president, he was temperamentally inclined to support the president following a decision.⁶² That Bush continued improving these capabilities during his own administration suggests at least some support for strengthening the US deterrent to promote peace and stability.⁶³

Combined with his limited early attention to North Korea (beyond the Southeast Asian context), this support leads to the conclusion that during his pre- and early presidential years, Bush was confident in the deterrent capability of the United States and was not threatened by North Korea, viewing it instead as a regional nuisance. In light of Bush’s weak proliferation optimism, confidence in deterrence, and limited focus on North Korea as a threat to the United States, the leader-centric model predicts that Bush would be unlikely to consider preventive military force against North Korea.⁶⁴

William J. Clinton

Observers of the 1992 presidential campaign noted a high degree of foreign policy position similarity between candidate Clinton and President Bush, describing both as committed internationalists.⁶⁵ Digging into the details reveals differences between the two perspectives that lead to contrasting approaches on a variety of issues, including North Korea’s nuclear program.⁶⁶ As I argue, Clinton demonstrated an early proliferation pessimism and focused on the danger of rogue regimes, including North Korea, pursuing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. He prioritized nonproliferation and counterproliferation, including the very serious consideration (and almost the use of) preventive military force against North Korea’s nuclear program. This stands in contrast to Bush, whose limited focus on nuclear issues and North Korea made him unlikely to consider the use of preventive force.

Clinton and International Affairs

Though exclusively holding state-level offices during his early political years, Clinton kept focused on national politics, emerging eventually as a national figure in the Democratic Party. Though Clinton mentioned international affairs only infrequently, when he did so, the domestic sphere still claimed half his attention. Over time, however, hints of an internationalism similar to Bush’s emerged, as Clinton transformed his commitment to democracy and freedom at home to a similar commitment abroad. In a major foreign affairs pronouncement Clinton proclaimed, “Retreating from the world or discounting its dangers is wrong for the country and sets back everything we hope to accomplish as Democrats. The defense of freedom and the promotion of democracy around the world aren’t merely a reflection of our deepest values; they are vital to our national interests.”⁶⁷

On the campaign trail in 1992, Clinton recognized his deficit in international affairs and constructed his campaign accordingly. While the other presidential candidates took an almost deferential view to President Bush’s abundant international experience, Clinton engaged head-on. To distinguish himself from the Bush administration and distance himself from other Democratic hopefuls, Clinton offered a full enunciation of his foreign policy views in a speech entitled “A New Covenant for American Security.”⁶⁸ He described three foreign policy objectives: “First, we must restructure our military forces for a new era. Second, we must work with our allies to encourage the spread and consolidation of democracy abroad. And third, we must reestablish America’s economic leadership at home and in the world.”⁶⁹ Clinton highlighted changes in the post–Cold War international environment that required action from the United States, including the dangers posed by nuclear weapons.

General Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation

The earliest hints of Clinton’s views on nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation appeared in the 1980s. When combined with the early agenda and overall accomplishments of the Clinton administration in the field of nuclear proliferation and security, these views suggest that Clinton should be coded as a proliferation pessimist.

In a 1984 speech entitled, “Remembering Truman: Be Bold in Fighting for America’s Future,” Clinton called for the United States to be strong defensively and to act boldly in reducing the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. He said, “America needs both a strong defense and a strong effort to aggressively reduce the chances of nuclear war.”⁷⁰ While this approach is similar to Bush’s attitude toward the US deterrent, the similarities end there.

Clinton’s comments exemplify the nuclear pessimist logic. First, suggesting the pessimist’s “more will be worse,” Clinton said: “We can dramatically reduce our nuclear arsenals through negotiations and other reciprocal actions.” Second, zeroing in on the proliferation threat of loss, theft, or sale of nuclear weapons or material, Clinton said, “we must do more to stop the threat of weapons of mass destruction from spreading. We must clamp down on countries and companies that sell these technologies, punish violators, and work urgently for all countries for tough enforceable, international nonproliferation agreements.” He singled out China as an offender, calling Chinese exports of nuclear and missile technology “irresponsible.” Third, homing in on a critical post–Cold War national security challenge, Clinton said, “no national-security issue is more urgent than the question of who will control the nuclear weapons and technology of the former Soviet empire. Those weapons pose a threat to the security of every American, to our allies, and to the republics themselves.”⁷¹

Beyond the “New Covenant” speech, Clinton warned elsewhere of proliferation’s challenges. Addressing the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, he identified the spread of WMD to the Third World as dangerous and spoke of the need to prevent such technology transfers through a multipronged approach, hinting at the preventive logic: “One of the most dangerous new threats is the spread of military technology, especially weapons of mass destruction. We can’t afford to wait until a host of Third World nations acquires full arsenals of First World weapons.… We need to clamp down on countries and companies that sell proscribed technologies, punish violators, and work urgently with all countries for tough, enforceable, nonproliferation agreements. We need better intelligence to identify at an earlier stage foreign nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs.”⁷²

Early in his presidency, Clinton upheld his campaign promises and maintained combating proliferation as a top priority.⁷³ Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in September, Clinton spent nearly a quarter of his speech discussing proliferation and efforts to combat it.⁷⁴ Journalistic accounts from this period offer additional evidence to support the idea that Clinton’s proliferation pessimism continued through to his time in the Oval Office. As one example, a November 1993 article captured the foreign policy priorities of the nascent administration, as described in congressional testimony by Secretary of State Warren Christopher. The article claimed the administration’s priorities were “US economic interests abroad; reform in Russia; renewing the NATO alliance; relations with Asia; Middle East peace; and nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.”⁷⁵

Additional early activities suggested a continued focus on the threat posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In February 1994, National Security Advisor Anthony Lake described the most serious challenge facing the United States as the “proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, and the missiles that can deliver them.”⁷⁶ Later, on November 14, 1994, Clinton issued Executive Order 12938 and declared a national emergency in light of the fact that the “proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons … constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”⁷⁷ The order initiated multilateral negotiations, tightened export controls, and granted sanctions-authorization permission—all designed to curb the spread of WMD.

Clinton himself and other high-ranking administration officials offer support for the view of him as a proliferation pessimist. According to former secretary of defense William Perry and Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, the Clinton administration set a high and early priority of removing “the lethal legacy” from Ukraine, which would have been the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world after Russia and the United States following the collapse of the Soviet Union.⁷⁸ Further, Perry and Carter describe how the Nunn-Lugar program to remove Ukrainian nuclear weapons and additional loose nuclear material received “constant support and intervention [by] President Clinton and Vice President Gore.”⁷⁹ Also in 1994, speaking at a joint press conference with Indian prime minister P. V. Narasimha Rao, Clinton verbalized the pessimist logic when he said, “We also believe very strongly that the fewer countries who become nuclear powers, the better off we’re all going to be.… What we’re trying to do is to keep the number of people in the nuclear club as small as possible and then reduce the arsenals that they have, including our own.”⁸⁰ Thus nonproliferation efforts continued in the administration subsequent to the campaign promises, and the President prioritized the issue both personally and for his administration.⁸¹ In his memoirs, Clinton describes how “their nuclear arsenals made both India and Pakistan less secure,” explicitly connecting nuclear weapons to insecurity and expressing deep regret that he was unable to stop the Indians and Pakistanis from conducting tests.⁸² Thus, the evidence demonstrates a consistent pessimist attitude from Clinton’s early prepresidential career, to the presidential campaign, through his administration, and even subsequent to his presidency.

Probability of Deterring the Proliferator

During the 1992 presidential campaign, candidate Clinton described what he found threatening and likely to require proactive action. In his “New Covenant for National Security” speech, Clinton said: “A new consensus is emerging on the nature of the post-Cold War security. It assumes that the gravest threats we are most likely to face in the years ahead include … the spread of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical, and biological, as well as the means for delivering them … [and] enduring tensions in various regions, especially the Korean peninsula and the Middle East.”⁸³ These significant remarks articulate the various forms of WMD threat that confronted the United States, including nuclear weapons; they singled out challenges in the Middle East and North Korea that he would later confront. This concern stands in contrast to Bush, who did not include nuclear weapons or North Korea among his priorities despite a similar context and similar developments in the North Korean nuclear program during his tenure in the Oval Office.

In the same speech, Clinton described the Republican-led Star Wars initiative as a “futile pursuit of a fool-proof defense against nuclear attack.” In contrast to Bush, who supported the initiative as Reagan’s vice president and expanded it himself as president, Clinton advocated limiting nuclear weapons to “an irreducible minimum” to deter any conceivable threat. Together, this evidence suggests that Clinton saw defense against nuclear attack as nearly impossible but also believed in some deterrent ability for nuclear weapons.

Clinton also identified North Korean as problematic from an alliance perspective but did not yet go so far as calling it a national security or direct threat to US interests. Clinton remarked, “We should continue to keep some US forces in Northeast Asia as long as North Korea presents a threat to our South Korean ally.”⁸⁴ That he identified no threat to the US directly is telling in its own right, since it indicates only a moderate challenge to US interests, not a threat to the safety of the homeland.

In the nuclear context, Clinton characterized which nuclear elements were threatening to the United States and which were not. He drew a distinction between nuclear-armed states that he perceived as threatening and those that were not problematic for US security, and he did so according to their regime type. “It should matter to us how others govern themselves,” he said. “Democracies don’t go to war with each other. The French and British have nuclear weapons, but we don’t fear annihilation at their hands. Democracies don’t sponsor terrorist acts against each other. They are more likely to be reliable trading partners, protect the global environment, and abide by international law.”⁸⁵ Echoing the tenets of democratic peace theory, Clinton argued that nuclear-armed democracies are not cause for concern and, by extension, implied that autocracies with nuclear weapons were dangerous to the United States and its interests. Presumably, therefore, he should view a nuclear program in the hands of a totalitarian state like North Korea as relatively dangerous for the United States.⁸⁶

Recall the distress Clinton expressed at being unable to prevent India and Pakistan from testing nuclear weapons in 1998. Combining the democratic peace theory with this episode suggests two points. First, new nuclear states, even democratic ones, are cause for concern when part of a hostile dyad. Second, Clinton’s nuclear pessimism dictated a logic whereby his first-order preference was for fewer countries to have nuclear weapons rather than more, but if some states were going to be nuclear, then it was preferable for those states to be democracies rather than authoritarian regimes. Thus, nuclear-armed dictatorships were the most vexing of all possibilities.

The 1992 campaign also illustrates how Clinton thought he might react to future problems. First, similarly to Bush, Clinton “pledged to maintain military forces strong enough to deter and when necessary to defeat any threat to our essential interests.”⁸⁷ Additionally, he spoke of the US ability to “dramatically reduce our nuclear arsenals.… But as an irreducible minimum, we must retain a survivable nuclear force to deter any conceivable threat.”⁸⁸ These two utterances together suggest that Clinton connected a survivable second-strike nuclear capability to a strong deterrent posture for the United States. However, Clinton was not completely comfortable with US deterrent capability in 1992; he thought the end of the nuclear arms race would allow the United States to slow down its strategic modernization but also required “R & D on missile defense within the framework of the ABM treaty—a prudent step as more and more countries acquire missile technology.”⁸⁹

Thus, for Clinton, the post–Cold War environment ushered in many challenges for US security: weapons of mass destruction, loose nuclear materials, and rogue states with advancing missile capabilities. He pledged that the United States would combat these international threats, by maintaining a secure and survivable nuclear capability at the minimum number of weapons possible and by continuing to improve its deterrent capacity with missile defense. Commentators at the time identified many of these themes in the opening months of the administration. In a September 1993 column, Thomas Friedman described the administration’s policy principles as, among others, strengthening democracies, expanding the circle of democracy and markets, and minimizing the rogue state threat.⁹⁰ Furthermore, members of the administration characterized their proactive approach to the new century’s problems in a similar manner. As Defense Secretary Perry and Deputy Secretary Carter describe, Clinton argued that the US “must approach the new terrorist challenges of the 21st century with the same rigor and determination we applied to the toughest security challenges of this century.”⁹¹

The available evidence thus demonstrates that the problem of North Korea was a salient aspect of Clinton’s international awareness prior to becoming president. Especially given the new threat environment of the post–Cold War world and Clinton’s focus on the threats from rogue states, nonstate actors, and weapons of mass destruction, my a priori expectation is that when these issues arose, Clinton is likely to have been worried by them; given his proactive approach to confronting threats, he also would have been likely to meet them head-on, through the consideration of preventive military force. Stated differently, Clinton’s nuclear beliefs—his nuclear pessimism and lack of confidence in deterring rogue and nonstate actors armed with nuclear weapons—would be expected to lead him to the consideration of preventive military force to confront North Korea’s nuclear program.

The Bush Administration and the North Korean Nuclear Program

Within three months of entering office, Bush ordered an assessment of all major policies and priorities. In March 1989, with National Security Review (NSR) 12, Bush instructed his team to conduct a “Review of National Defense Strategy.”⁹² The language of the review spoke of the need to keep focused on US strength as a key to maintaining a successful deterrent. Unsurprisingly, since the Berlin Wall would not fall for another eight months, the review maintained the central US focus on the dangers posed by the Soviet Union.

Throughout the language of NSR 12, Bush described other challenges for the United States and spoke of “Third Country Threats” that merited consideration. Iraq was explicitly mentioned given its pursuit of chemical weapons. North Korea, by contrast, garnered no attention, despite improved intelligence regarding its nuclear program. This suggests that while Iraq featured early in the Bush administration’s consciousness, North Korea did not.

Bush maintained his focus on peace and stability during his first year in office. Offering the commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy in May, he emphasized his commitment to maintaining an effective nuclear deterrent while also promising to seek arms reductions that would allow for stability at lower numbers.⁹³ Around this time, some members of the administration expressed concern over the North Korean construction activities. Under Reagan, there had been some dispute over what precisely the North was constructing; some argued that US satellites were merely capturing pictures of a chemical fiber facility.⁹⁴ By late 1989, despite improved intelligence and a near consensus that the North was building a nuclear weapons program, only a small number of individuals were concerned over what they saw as a dangerous development. In May, however, the issue became international news when a South Korean newspaper leaked CIA evidence of a North Korean nuclear program in development, catalyzing world and administration attention.⁹⁵ Subsequently, the State Department began discussions with the Soviets and the Chinese regarding the North Korean nuclear issue.⁹⁶ In his memoirs, Secretary of State James Baker described the initiative as follows: “Our diplomatic strategy was designed to build international pressure against North Korea to force them to live up to their agreement to sign a safeguards agreement permitting inspections.”⁹⁷

Following these developments, in the early months of 1990, President Bush ordered a review of US nonproliferation policy, assigning it “major importance” in light of his concern for both chemical weapons and the ballistic missiles that could carry them. He described the proliferation problem and the resultant weapons systems as “destabilizing,” echoing his larger concern with the maintenance of international stability. Despite improving intelligence regarding North Korea’s growing nuclear program and increased international attention on the issue, North Korea was not mentioned by name anywhere in the document.⁹⁸

In June 1990, President Bush ordered a review of US policy toward North Korea. In the official letter tasking the review (NSR 28), Bush proposed the goal of “better relations once they abandon their nuclear development” by maintaining a strong deterrent against North Korean aggression, promoting North-South dialogue, strengthening nuclear nonproliferation obligations, and preventing access to dual-use technologies.⁹⁹ To that end, the United States began an extended campaign to persuade the North to sign a “safeguards agreement” to increase international observation of their nuclear activities.¹⁰⁰ By 1990, therefore, North Korea had emerged as a topic for deliberation. The resultant policy was, however, one of engagement, not a consideration of sanctions or force, which one would expect from a leader more concerned by North Korea’s proliferation attempt.

In 1991, there was a mixed record of American activity. First, President Bush articulated the US position vis-à-vis North Korea and previewed the engagement strategy to follow: “The United States reaffirms that it is not a threat to North Korean security,” Bush said, “and we seek to improve relations with that country.”¹⁰¹ Bush directed the Strategic Defense Initiative program to refocus on “providing protection from limited ballistic missile strikes,” given that the Patriot Missile system had come online to deter much larger-scale attacks.¹⁰² Though Bush did not specify which threat the system was designed to mitigate, given the increased intelligence on the DPRK’s nuclear progress and refueling capabilities, North Korea’s nuclear program was one likely concern.

In spring 1991, results emerged from National Security Review 28, assessing North Korea’s nuclear program and US responses to it. According to those familiar with the process, the reports described potential North Korean nuclear weapons as presenting “grave difficulties” should they come to fruition.¹⁰³ Significantly, however, the issue was not that these weapons presented grave difficulties for the United States, but instead that the weapons might encourage South Korean nuclear proliferation or efforts to prevent the North’s program. North Korean weapons might disrupt the stability of East Asia if they altered Japan’s security perception; the weapons might be sold abroad; or they might target South Korea or US forces therein. Overall, this analysis suggests that although the administration saw this potential development as producing undesirable consequences for US foreign policy interests in Asia, the administration did not see a direct threat to the United States. Instead, the risk to US forces in the region was one among many potential “difficulties” with which the US might have to contend. This is consistent with Bush’s earlier focus on challenges to stability in the international system: it was not North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons per se that threatened the United States, but rather the regional consequences of the North’s nuclear program, which risked disturbing an already tenuous balance. While some of these sentiments echo proliferation pessimist concerns, the threat assessment remained low enough to suggest a minimum level of US concern, especially with no direct threat posed to the United States.

The interagency policy review explored multiple options. First, the United States could “stay the course” with limited exchanges, some easing of travel restrictions, and modest inducements to urge the North to sign the safeguards agreement. Second, the United States could expand engagement: offering direct dialogue between the two countries, moving toward diplomatic relations, reducing joint US–South Korean military exercises viewed as possibly threatening, providing assurances against US nuclear use, and withdrawing US nuclear weapons located in Korea. The third option, “coercion,” required using economic, diplomatic, and military means. Of the three options presented to President Bush and the national security team, there was consensus among the review participants that the first option was inadequate and that the third was premature.¹⁰⁴ Though there was some disagreement over the proper scope, engagement was the chosen strategy moving forward.

A paper from fall 1991 offers insight into the operative logic of the administration at this time. First, the North Korean nuclear program was described as posing a “serious challenge to the peace and stability not only of the Korean peninsula but also of Northeast Asia as a whole.”¹⁰⁵ While the North’s program challenged peace and stability on the peninsula and in the region, the assessment stopped short of highlighting a threat to the United States. The document also described how the United States and South Korea should meet this challenge: by “making use of all possible diplomatic means and international pressure to bring North Korea to implement fully the provisions of the IAEA safeguards agreement.”¹⁰⁶ This could be achieved by declaring all nuclear-related materials and facilities, putting them under international inspection, and forgoing the reprocessing and enrichment of spent nuclear fuel. A handwritten note by Paul Wolfowitz, then undersecretary of defense for policy, suggested that the United States would be willing to lift economic sanctions should such steps be taken.

The situation on the ground evolved into fall 1991. President Bush surprised the global community by unilaterally withdrawing all of the United States’ naval and land-launched tactical nuclear weapons in Asia, including one hundred formerly positioned in South Korea.¹⁰⁷ As the year was ending, a Deputies Committee meeting, including representatives from the State Department, Defense Department, Joint Chiefs of Staff, CIA, and Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, convened to evaluate the United States’ goals and preferred approaches. According to a declassified briefing book, the December 17 meeting was intended to formulate a “game plan” to “bring North Korea’s nuclear weapons program under control.” This would involve an invitation to the North to send a high-level official to meet with a US counterpart in New York, and discussions with China—a country with the potential to influence Pyongyang.¹⁰⁸ The strategy featured direct engagement between the United States and North Korea, negotiations between North Korea and South Korea, and increased international pressure on the DPRK.

The accompanying materials offer a glimpse into the agency-level thinking at the time. First, a memo for the Assistant Secretary of Defense James R. Lilley noted that the Pentagon was concerned that the talking points were too “forward-leaning” and expressed concern that the nuclear issue not be neglected in favor of nonaggression priorities on the peninsula.¹⁰⁹ Second, a State Department paper enumerated the diplomatic, political, and economic steps that composed the overarching strategy. The paper acknowledged the difficulty of success, given the North’s “pattern of stalling on the safeguard’s issue” and the possibility that “Pyongyang has no intention of changing course.”¹¹⁰ Most important, the State Department paper noted explicitly that Secretary of Defense Cheney “told ROK and Japanese leaders that we should not consider ‘military measures’ since such discussion could jeopardize our initial diplomatic strategy.”¹¹¹ Collectively, these materials demonstrate the components of the administration’s engagement strategy. They note explicitly that military options were not under consideration because of their potential to disrupt the diplomatic campaign underway.

The year 1992 began with reasons for optimism regarding the North Korean nuclear situation. In January, the North and South jointly issued a declaration supporting the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.¹¹² The declaration included steps North Korea agreed to undertake toward ending the nuclear crisis, including various verification and inspection measures. Speaking to the Korean National Assembly in Seoul on January 6, 1992, Bush simultaneously praised the negotiated agreements and warned that the nuclear pursuit was incredibly dangerous to the world community: “These positive developments [a nonaggression agreement and a ban on nuclear weapons on the peninsula] come at a critical time of rising concern, at a time when North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear arms stands as the single greatest source of danger to peace in all of northeast Asia.”¹¹³ While the nuclear program was regionally the “single greatest source of danger,” praising the negotiated agreements was the administration’s only response. On January 30, the North went a step further and signed the IAEA’s safeguards agreement. Hope was short-lived, however; by early February, administration officials were concerned that this was merely a North Korean play for time, a stalling tactic that would be followed by a failure to actually ratify the agreement. Reflecting this concern, plans for a forthcoming Deputies Committee meeting described the need to determine what “nooses” might be available to tighten around the North, should stalling continue.¹¹⁴

A March 12, 1992 memorandum described the administration’s position throughout the spring: “Our basic policy remains that nuclear weapons in North Korean hands are intolerable.”¹¹⁵ While there were signs of progress toward safeguards ratification, the regime continued worrisome foot-dragging behavior. There were also doubts regarding the potential to encourage China and Russia to take a firmer line, should the delaying tactics continue. For the time being, the administration appeared to want to accept the possibility that the North Koreans would eventually meet their obligations, while simultaneously laying the foundation for tightening international pressure should it become necessary.¹¹⁶ The memo noted that should coercive measures be required, “such measures would be achieved through the UN, with economic sanctions being the chief instrument pursued. Alternatively, we could consider a variety of coercive steps, either on our own or in concert with like-minded nations.”¹¹⁷ This is noteworthy both for its demonstration of the administration’s awareness of the potential duplicity of the regime but also for explicitly mentioning sanctions as the chief coercive tool to be pursued. While the last sentence is vague about what other tools might be available, there is not even an oblique reference to military options, underscoring the lack of even minimal consideration of the issue.¹¹⁸

A new crisis emerged in May 1992 when the new safeguards agreement allowed the IAEA to return to the North Korean nuclear complex. Initially, lead IAEA inspector Hans Blix reported on the components subject to IAEA oversight. He then traveled to the North on May 11–16 and discovered significant inconsistencies. Blix identified discrepancies between how much plutonium the DPRK claimed to have separated and what the evidence suggested. Furthermore, other IAEA member states offered additional intelligence on suspected nuclear facilities not known to the IAEA.¹¹⁹ These other member states included the United States, which discovered two suspicious facilities not reported by the North; one of these was a “hill”—a building the DPRK had hastily buried under tons of dirt and freshly planted trees.¹²⁰ No significant additional executive activity resulted, however, according to both the primary source record and existing contemporaneous accounts, that describe only continued negotiations, nothing further.¹²¹ Especially significant for the present discussion, there is no evidence of consideration of the military option at any time.¹²² That engagement was the chosen option reflected the fact that neither Bush nor his administration appeared to believe that North Korea’s nuclear endeavors presented a threat to the United States. This attitude was confirmed that December, when Secretary Cheney stated that a North Korea with nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems was “the most serious threat to peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and indeed in East Asia”; the threat he described remained localized.¹²³

Throughout 1992, the press reported on the advanced military capabilities of the regime. In March, the Washington Post described the production of Scud D missiles with a range of 625 miles capable of hitting South Korea and much of Japan. The article spoke of a potential North Korean willingness to sell these missiles to actors who would use them to target Israel or European cities.¹²⁴ There was also the possibility of North Korean selling missiles directly to Iran, Syria, or Libya.¹²⁵ To the extent that the American public was even remotely concerned about these issues, it is noteworthy that the Bush administration did not prioritize North Korean policy to a greater extent and chose a broad engagement policy over other more coercive options (including the preventive one). Despite revelations of the North’s duplicity and repeated reprocessing activities, as well as published accounts of North Korea’s growing military potential, there is no evidence of growing concern or the need to revisit US North Korea policy, even with six months left in the term and the expectation of four more years in the White House. In this way, my model’s expectations are confirmed: given Bush’s early beliefs—his weak nuclear optimism, confidence in US deterrence, and lack of significant concern over North Korea—his administration undertook no serious consideration of the use of preventive military force.¹²⁶ By contrast, Clinton took a different approach, considering significant military force just a short time later.

The Clinton Administration and the North Korean Nuclear Program

North Korea and its nuclear program were near, but not atop the new administration’s busy nonproliferation agenda.¹²⁷ An additional priority was strong backing for the IAEA as a critical component of Clinton’s campaign strategy, which had focused on the need to elevate nonproliferation within the national security agenda. As president, Clinton reiterated this commitment when announcing a national export strategy: “I am more concerned about proliferation of weapons of mass destruction than I was when I became President. Every day I have this job, I become more worried about it.”¹²⁸ The Clinton administration behavior contrasts with that of the prior Bush administration, which had maintained relatively little focus on proliferation or North Korea. Subsequent to Clinton’s creation of a new Nonproliferation and Export Controls Directorate within the NSC, an interagency review process yielded Presidential Decision Directive 13, an ambitious plan for countering proliferation and meeting the national security challenges of the new global landscape.¹²⁹ Concerns included nuclear weapons and materials, biological and chemical weapons, and ballistic and cruise missiles. In January 1994, the administration published its official counterproliferation strategy in the Report of the Secretary of Defense to the President and the Congress. The section of the report describing counterproliferation articulates both the administration’s lack of confidence in deterrence in the new threat environment and the administration’s negative view of the consequences of additional nuclear proliferation:

The danger posed by new possessor states is complicated because they may not respond to traditional deterrence approaches. Throughout the Cold War, deterrence efforts focused on the Soviet Union, whose force structure, doctrine, history, and mind set grew familiar to US strategists. Deterrence approaches designed for the Soviet Union might not be effective against new possessors of WMD for two reasons. First, they can be expected to have different doctrines, histories, organizations, command and control systems, and purposes for their unconventional military forces. In addition, proliferators may have acquired such weapons for the express purpose of blackmail or terrorism and thus have a fundamentally different calculus not amenable to deterrence. For these reasons, new proliferators might not be susceptible to basic deterrence as practiced during the Cold War. New deterrent approaches are needed as well as new strategies should deterrence fail. Finally, any increase in the number of states with WMD raises the potential for accidental or unauthorized use.¹³⁰

This articulation of the new threat environment highlights the negative consequences of additional proliferation in the international system and the potential limitations of deterrence in the post–Cold War environment. The report also singled out North Korea as a “potentially hostile power” against which the United States needed to preserve the ability to project forces.¹³¹ The DPRK was used in one of two scenario-planning exercises that the Defense Department explored to determine future force size and structure requirements (the other was Iraq). Collectively, this report reveals that the early Clinton administration identified dangers from nuclear weapons (and other weapons of mass destruction) as threatening to the security of the United States and concluded that traditional models of deterrence were insufficient for responding to nuclear-armed rogue actors. Critically, the report identified North Korea and its nuclear program as one of the most significant challenges likely to confront the new administration. Writing after his tenure in the administration, Secretary of State Warren Christopher concurred, noting that of all of the foreign policy challenges facing the new administration, “none was more immediately dangerous than North Korea,” which became among the administration’s “highest strategic priorities.”¹³²

In February 1993, the IAEA and North Korea again found themselves at an impasse regarding inspections. In light of continued discrepancies between what had been reported to the agency and what inspectors found, as well as blocked access to suspected nuclear waste storage sites, lead IAEA inspector Blix called for “special inspections.” Viewing this move as a violation of North Korean sovereignty and a general affront to the regime, the DPRK escalated. According to its guidelines, the IAEA referred the matter to the UN Security Council, which promptly issued a 13–0 resolution rebuking the DPRK and ordering North Korea to allow inspections to proceed. Responding harshly on March 12, the North announced its intention to withdraw from the NPT under Article 10, which grants states the right to exit the treaty if their “supreme national interests are threatened.”¹³³ The Clinton administration was understandably concerned, focusing on the security threat posed to the United States, its allies, and the world, as well as to global efforts against nuclear proliferation. Three Clinton administration officials later wrote, “Left unchecked, Pyongyang’s withdrawal would present a grave security threat to the world and weaken the NPT’s important bulwark against the spread of nuclear weapons.… Withdrawal threatened not only the nonproliferation regime but also the security of the United States and its allies in Northeast Asia: South Korea and Japan.”¹³⁴ North Korean expert Don Oberdorfer concurred: the withdrawal was seen as “an incomprehensible act of defiance and an ominous sign that North Korea was hell-bent on the production of nuclear weapons.”¹³⁵

The IAEA found the North in noncompliance with the treaty as understood by the safeguards agreement. In response, the North declared its intention to shut down the five-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon in order to remove the spent fuel. Estimating this reactor contained approximately enough plutonium to yield four or five nuclear weapons, the US referred the issue to the Security Council for the consideration of sanctions and strengthened its defenses in South Korea in the event that hostilities should emerge.¹³⁶

Though Clinton wanted to pursue sanctions from the start of his presidency, negotiations between the West and the DPRK emerged as a means to breach the impasse and prevent an escalation of the crisis. Multiple rounds of talks in Manhattan and Geneva in the summer of 1993 yielded no result.¹³⁷ When asked in July about a possible North Korean nuclear weapons capability, Clinton replied, “that is not something we can afford to let happen.” He went further and described the North as the “scariest” place on Earth, one of the few remaining locations where Cold War confrontations continued, with “a long track record of unpredictable behavior.”¹³⁸ A mere week later, Clinton warned that the North appeared intent on developing Scud missiles and related technology and expressed deep concern that North Korea would sell these advanced weapons components to states in the Middle East.¹³⁹ This warning is notable in that no major changes in the North’s program occurred during the waning months of 1992 and the start of 1993, and yet Clinton responded strongly, considering sanctions and publicly describing the threat posed to the United States, whereas Bush had shown no similar motivation. Clinton thus viewed the emerging threat from North Korea as multifaceted, comprising Cold War hostilities with the potential to spark massive conflict, an unpredictable and perhaps undeterrable actor pursuing the world’s most dangerous weapons, and a proliferation threat of advanced weapons and materials.

Over time the US perspective changed, and the goal shifted from suspending to eliminating the North’s nuclear weapons program. General John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked to draw up plans for “destroying key components of the reactor site with a military attack.”¹⁴⁰ This request is evidence of consideration of preventive force and the initiation of the second stage of the decision-making process.

Meanwhile, the operating reactor at Yongbyon was completing its initial fuel cycle, allowing for a full load of fuel rods—enough for an additional 5–6 weapons—to be reprocessed in short order, as the DPRK had previously announced its intention to do. Once in full-scale operation, this reactor alone could produce enough weapons-grade material for 10–12 nuclear weapons annually. When additional reactors came online, North Korea would have enough weapons material for more.¹⁴¹ As Perry and Carter later wrote, “This was not just another nonproliferation issue to be dealt with by diplomats, this had the potential of dramatically increasing the military threat to South Korea, to US troops in South Korea, to Japan, our essential ally in the region, and indeed, to nations all over the world.”¹⁴² Foreshadowing things to come, National Security Advisor Lake warned that “backlash states like North Korea … that sponsor terrorism and traffic in weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile technology, will face isolation,” and if this does not inhibit them from aggressive actions, “we clearly must be prepared to strike back decisively and unilaterally.”¹⁴³ The president echoed these sentiments, telling Meet the Press that the North Koreans “cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear bomb.”¹⁴⁴ He demonstrated significant commitment to the issue, remarking, “I spend a lot of time on this issue. It’s a very, very major issue. We have got to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and particularly North Korea needs to stay in the control regime.”¹⁴⁵

As 1993 came to a close, it was clear that the WMD threat from North Korea was an administration priority.¹⁴⁶ The Defense Department rolled out its “Defense Counter-proliferation Initiative” describing how to confront new threats in the post–Cold War environment. At the heart of the agenda, and posing grave concern, were a handful of nuclear devices in the hands of rogue states or even terrorists.¹⁴⁷ Additionally, the Pentagon and the Japanese Defense Agency launched secret discussions on contingency planning in the event of a crisis.¹⁴⁸

The year ended with trepidation. Speaking to reporters on December 12, 1993, Clinton said “God forbid” any kind of conflict should arise; he was also unsure, however, if it was possible to avoid. When asked pointedly whether force was an option, he replied that he hoped other forms of pressure would suffice, but “we can do what we’d have to do.”¹⁴⁹ Adding to the military planning under way, General Gary Luck, commander of US forces in Korea, flew to Washington to make sure that the politicians understood the dangers inherent to any military option. The United States faced a formidable foe on the ground—reasonably well modernized, though weak in the air. That the United States would ultimately win was not in doubt; but such a win would be a Pyrrhic victory.¹⁵⁰ At this time and despite knowledge of the potential associated costs, preparation for hostilities became more than just a conceptual exercise—US command in Korea elevated OPlan 50-27 from a computer program to a real plan for operation, should it become necessary.¹⁵¹

The year 1994 began much the same way 1993 ended—with administration officials deeply concerned with North Korea’s nuclear program. Time was running out before spent fuel could be removed from Yongbyon. As Secretary Perry remarked, “We were faced with the highly dangerous prospect that North Korea could, within months, have five or six nuclear bombs and an active weapons program.… My senior military and civilian policy advisors all agreed with my assessment that this would pose an unacceptable risk and that the United States had to seek the elimination of the North Korean nuclear program.”¹⁵² National Security Advisor Lake described the threat environment as follows: “In the North Korean case … its nuclear program is our most urgent concern. The prospect of a nuclear-armed North Korea poses extraordinary risks to our security interests in Asia and the integrity of the global nonproliferation regime.”¹⁵³ What elevated the threat environment surrounding the program, in addition to the quickly shrinking window of time before the fuel was removed, was what Perry called a “triple threat: they would further increase the carnage of war on the peninsula; they might provoke an arms race in the region causing Japan and South Korea to reconsider their own decisions to forgo nuclear weapons; and they would undermine nonproliferation worldwide if others witnessed North Korea ‘succeeding’ in thwarting the Nonproliferation Treaty or even selling nuclear weapons to other aspiring proliferators.”¹⁵⁴ Thus in his (and the administration’s) view, the threat was complex: North Korean nuclear weapons increased the likelihood of catastrophic war in the region; they could launch an arms race, further destabilizing an already tenuous balance on the peninsula and in Asia writ large; and they would radically undermine international nonproliferation efforts designed to curtail additional pursuit or purchasing of nuclear weapons.

In March, the IAEA resumed inspections, but North Korea prohibited the collection of desired samples. Seals the IAEA had arranged during August 1993 site visits appeared broken, and the agency sought to verify whether North Korea had removed sensitive materials. The North prevented the inspectors from making the necessary assessments. Meanwhile, during tense negotiations, the North Korean negotiator told his South Korean counterpart, “Seoul is not far from here. If a war breaks out, it will be a sea of fire. Mr. Song, it will probably be difficult for you to survive.”¹⁵⁵ With the inspectors hamstrung, and the North increasingly bellicose, the United States canceled the next round of talks and resumed discussions with South Korea regarding annual joint military exercises. The IAEA ordered agency personnel home and referred the issue back to the Security Council for further consideration.¹⁵⁶

The crisis escalated to new heights in April, when the DPRK announced that the previously threatened shutdown of the five-megawatt reactor for refueling was set to begin. In early May, the North told the IAEA that the unloading of some eight thousand fuel rods was already underway. Secretary Perry later described this as a key turning point in the crisis, when dialogue and “preventive diplomacy” failed and US strategy shifted to coercion; fuel rods were a tangible or physical threat that represented the North’s potential to move ahead and pursue weaponization.¹⁵⁷ President Clinton himself echoed these sentiments in his memoirs, writing that “rods were a dangerous asset in the hands of the most isolated country in the world … [which] might feel the temptation to sell the plutonium to the wrong buyer. Within a week I had decided to send Patriot missiles to South Korea … Perry told a group … [that] I was determined to stop North Korea from developing a nuclear arsenal, even at the risk of war.”¹⁵⁸ At the time, Clinton ordered new Apache attack helicopters, aircraft spare parts, and maintenance crews to be sent to South Korea and Japan, in addition to the second Patriot Battalion mentioned above.¹⁵⁹ Such moves provide further evidence of the consideration of and preparation for military options.

Speaking on May 3, Secretary Perry began laying the groundwork for the forthcoming flurry of administration activity and highlighted the inability of traditional deterrence to provide for US and international security:

It is not satisfactory to say, as some have argued, that we could accept such a program and seek to deter North Korea from actual use of its nuclear arsenal as we deterred the Soviet Union during the Cold War. For even assuming that we could reliably deter actual use of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, an unchecked nuclear capability—coupled with North Korea’s large conventional military forces—could put North Korea in a position to subject South Korea to extortion in establishing its terms for unification. It could undermine the security of the whole Northeast Asia region and tempt other countries to seek their own nuclear weapons in self-defense.… A nuclear North Korea could be in a position to export nuclear technologies and weapons to terrorist or rogue regimes around the world.¹⁶⁰

The military realities were difficult. Perry described the North’s huge conventional forces, explaining that despite keeping their population on the brink of starvation, the Kim regime spent 25 percent of its gross domestic product on its military. In addition, two thirds of its million-person army was positioned within sixty miles of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)—the line of demarcation separating North and South from the armistice that ended the Korean War. Furthermore, Perry detailed thousands of tanks and artillery pieces, tunnels under the DMZ, and a large special operations force. Most of these facts had been true for decades, but only recently had the North increased both the size and forward deployment of its forces. Beyond these observables, North Korean behavior was unsettling. The North Koreans were (and are still) among the world leaders in exporting advanced weapons technology, including ballistic missiles. The concern was that with nuclear know-how, the DPRK could offer a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile to the highest bidder. Combined, these elements set the stage for a looming confrontation between the United States and the DPRK.¹⁶¹

On May 18, Secretary Perry and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Shalikashvili summoned all four-star generals in the United States to a secure Pentagon conference room, “The Tank,” to discuss how the US would plan for military activity in Korea, including the potential for a second Korean War. The following day, Secretary Perry and Generals Luck and Shalikashvili briefed the president regarding the gravity of the developing situation.¹⁶² Perry noted the “increasingly obnoxious” North Korean rhetoric and highlighted the dangerous export practices of the DPRK that raised the prospect that North Korea might sell a matched set of ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. He warned that the North Koreans might sell to either Iran or Libya. National Security Advisor Lake asked whether it was possible to destroy Yongbyon. Perry had a contingency plan in place and indicated that the Air Force had both the technical ability to locate and destroy the target quickly and effectively, without spreading radiation, suggesting a high likelihood of success (IV3). His fear, however, was that a limited strike would spark a wider war on the peninsula.¹⁶³ Cost estimates expected approximately 52,000 US military casualties, 490,000 South Korean casualties, and a great number of North Korean troop and civilian lives lost. The financial estimate assumed $61 billion.¹⁶⁴ Shalikashvili described additional risks and complications with military action: the location of any previously withdrawn plutonium was unknown, the air defenses around Yongbyon were heavy, and the terrain was unfortunately hilly. At best, an attack would set back the program by some years, but it would likely spur action over the 38th parallel.¹⁶⁵ General Luck quipped, “If we pull an Osirak, they will be coming south.”¹⁶⁶

Discussion focused on three potential military plans for augmenting existing forces in the region and gaining presidential authorization quickly, in order to avoid a preemptive move by the North Koreans. The first option required immediate dispatch of two thousand troops necessary for rapid deployment later—teams who could handle logistics, administration requirements, and supplies. Option 2, favored by both Perry and the JCS, added squadrons of frontline tactical aircraft, including F117 stealth bombers and additional long-range bombers nearby; deployed several battalions of combat-ready ground troops; and stationed the second aircraft battle group in the area. This option would add an additional 10,000 troops to the 37,000 already deployed. The last option would send additional tens of thousands of Marine Corps ground forces and army troops as well as more air power.¹⁶⁷

As tensions rose, the principals met on May 27 to discuss the situation and draft a memo to the president. They supported a strong and unanimous Security Council statement condemning the North’s actions and highlighting that Secretary of State Christopher had been in touch with his Chinese counterparts to seek their intervention with the North Koreans. With tensions showing no sign of abating, the principals recommended pursuing sanctions. Despite the risks that the North might interpret sanctions provocatively, the administration could not allow the DPRK to flout its nonproliferation obligations. As an inducement to return to the negotiating table, the United States also offered high-level talks to the North Koreans, if they would allow the IAEA to continue their inspections. The president and principals met on May 31 to set the sanctions strategy in place.

North Korea rejected the offer and continued defueling the reactor at an alarming rate. The IAEA warned that the agency’s limited ability to verify North Korean activity, and the spent fuel, would soon entirely disappear.¹⁶⁸ On June 2, Blix terminated the inspection mission, saying all ability to monitor North Korean activity had been compromised. Having warned that global economic sanctions would result if the North failed to comply with the inspections, Clinton withdrew his offer of high-level talks, initiated sanctions, and quietly explored the possibility of attacking Yongbyon with the South Koreans, Japan, and China.¹⁶⁹

Meeting the principals again on June 10, Shalikashvili and Perry reviewed the current military posture. Clinton had approved sending an advance party of 250 to Korea to manage the coming deployments, indicating that military force was a very serious possibility, despite the associated costs and risks. Again, the principals discussed three deployment options: (1) 2,000 additional personnel but not combat troops, only those necessary to prepare for large-scale deployments; (2) 10,000 troops along with squadrons of aircraft and a second carrier battle group; and (3) 50,000 troops, four hundred aircraft, fifty ships, and various other installations. This third option would be accompanied by a call-up of reserves. Perry’s view was that the stronger and more vigorous the buildup, the more effective deterrent established.¹⁷⁰

The situation evolved quickly. Multilateral support for sanctions was growing. Accelerated preparations were underway for military action, as was a last-ditch effort at negotiations in an attempt to keep events from spiraling out of control. By June 14, a new military plan was on the table: the so-called “Osirak option.” Three new military plans entered the discussion. First, the United States could destroy the reprocessing facility. This would set back the program, minimize the radioactivity risk, and be least likely to incite a military response. Alternatively, the United States could attack the reprocessing plant itself and the other nuclear installations at Yongbyon—an additional five-megawatt reactor and spent-fuel pool, among other potential targets. This would be a more severe blow to the North’s program but would increase all associated risks. Third, the United States could conduct a much wider operation, targeting all known nuclear facilities, removing key military assets, and degrading the North’s ability to retaliate or incite future violence.¹⁷¹ Publicly some were already pushing for such options: former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft and undersecretary of state Arnold Kanter penned a Washington Post opinion piece to that effect, adding their prominent voices to the debate.¹⁷² The public also favored a coercive approach: in June, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 46 percent of US respondents said that the North Korean nuclear developments “were the most serious foreign policy issue facing the United States today,” outdistancing the next issue—instability in Russia—by a three-to-one margin. Likewise, a national poll by CBS and Time found that 51 percent favored military action to destroy facilities if the DPRK continued to refuse inspections, and 48 percent said it was “worth risking war” to prevent North Korea from manufacturing nuclear weapons.¹⁷³

On June 16, Clinton reviewed the pros and cons of the available options.¹⁷⁴ While a tense debate continued, a call came in from Pyongyang, where (with President Clinton’s approval) former president Jimmy Carter had traveled and from where he now spoke of a breakthrough negotiated with Kim Il Sung.¹⁷⁵ Though it would be announced publicly on the 22, the North agreed to freeze its nuclear program, to not refuel or reprocess its nuclear fuel, and to begin talks with the West in short order.¹⁷⁶ Speaking in South Korea a few weeks later, President Clinton put the situation in these terms: “When you examine the nature of the American security commitment to Korea, to Japan, to this region, it is pointless for [the North Koreans] to try to develop nuclear weapons, because if they ever use them it would be the end of their country.”¹⁷⁷ Looking back on the episode, Perry recalled that despite the serious risk of war, “we believed that it was even more dangerous to allow North Korea to proceed with a large-scale nuclear weapons program.”¹⁷⁸

Clinton’s efforts toward North Korea in 1993–94 had the effect of at least temporarily slowing down the program’s development, arguably a short-term nonproliferation success.¹⁷⁹ Furthermore, the following years of the Clinton administration were marked by additional nonproliferation achievements, including the entrance into force of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START I, with the Russians, which eliminated significant portions of both the US and Soviet arsenals; the push to make the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty a permanent fixture of the international landscape; progress toward additional international safeguards standards; dismantling and securing nuclear materials globally through the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat initiative; and continued efforts on the nonproliferation of chemical and biological weapons. Reading his memoirs, one gets the sense that Clinton is quite proud of these efforts and wished that he could have done more, especially on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which Congress failed to ratify, despite significant pressure from the president. Elsewhere, Clinton demonstrated similar commitment and dedication to pursuing nonproliferation and counterproliferation efforts, in securing and removing the Soviet-era arsenals in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine and in attempting (unsuccessfully) to get both India and Pakistan to remain nonnuclear. Together these issues suggest a leader dedicated to preventing the spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and demonstrate that the North Korean crisis was not an isolated incident. Rather, this was one of Clinton’s myriad nonproliferation efforts as president, the roots of which can be traced to Clinton’s prepresidential period, when he offered hints of the vision he would later execute.

Postscript: George W. Bush and North Korea’s Nuclear Progress

Despite a peaceful resolution to the 1994 crisis, the same issues continued to plague the region and challenge policy makers. North Korea’s advancing nuclear program and belligerence in the region have vexed subsequent US presidents, including the forty-fifth president, Donald J. Trump, whose interactions with North Korea are discussed in the conclusion. A few key points about the George W. Bush era, however, are worth noting here.¹⁸⁰

Although the Agreed Framework succeeded in temporarily freezing North Korea’s plutonium production capability—halting operation at Yongbyon and elsewhere, and placing the DPRK under IAEA safeguards—the calm was temporary. Throughout 1996, 1997, and 1998, repeated violations of UN Security Council resolutions limiting the North’s pursuit of ballistic missile capabilities soured relations, escalating markedly in 1998 when the North tested a Taepodong intermediate-range ballistic missile. The subsequent policy review conducted by the Clinton administration called for a new agreement to be layered over the previous one, though the implementation was interrupted by the election of George W. Bush.

Though the next chapter describes the prepresidential nuclear beliefs of the forty-third president in full, let me note here that I code Bush a proliferation pessimist—concerned about the destabilizing and conflict-inducing nature of nuclear weapons as they spread around the globe. At first, Bush was also confident in deterrence, believing that the military might and nuclear elements of the US arsenal were collectively sufficient to discourage most, if not all, adversaries from attacking the United States. Confident in this position, the Bush team campaigned for office on the need to refocus attention on relationship-building with major state actors, including Russia and China.¹⁸¹ The September 11, 2001, attacks dramatically altered Bush’s perspective, however—not fundamentally changing his proliferation pessimism, but rather exacerbating his concern for the spread of nuclear materials and know-how. His concern was greatest where that proliferation risk intersected with threats from difficult-to-deter nonstate actors and terrorist organizations. Thus, following September 11, the leader-centric model would expect Bush to become even more likely to consider and potentially use preventive military force as a counterproliferation strategy.

So what happened? From the outset of the administration, the new Bush team was inclined toward further negotiations with North Korea regarding missiles, nuclear matters, and terrorism. Following September 11, however, tensions escalated when President Bush identified North Korea as being on the “axis of evil,” and the North responded poorly both to the speech and to the perceived hostility against North Korea in the Nuclear Posture Review.¹⁸² This episode was succeeded by US intelligence revealing that the DPRK was pursuing a clandestine uranium enrichment pathway to weapons, a revelation that catalyzed a breakdown in relations, the suspension of economic assistance, and eventually the dismissal of the IAEA from North Korea, coupled with the North’s announcement of its intention to withdraw from the NPT. While negotiations called the Six-Party Talks including the United States, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia continued throughout the Bush 43 administration and occasionally yielded hints of progress, a fairly consistent level of conflict persisted.¹⁸³ Over time, the North Korean regime was sanctioned for repeated WMD violations, state sponsorship of terrorism, and various missile and nuclear transgressions. The DPRK responded with repeated ballistic missile tests of increasing capability and, critically, six nuclear tests since 2006.

These interactions between the Bush administration and North Korea stand somewhat in contrast to the expectations of the leader-centric model. The model would expect Bush to seriously consider preventive military force against the North Korean nuclear threat, especially in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. To date, the evidentiary record to that effect is murky, with only negotiations and sanctions described. Although rumors allude to military consideration especially during the 2004–2005 period, it is not currently possible to corroborate that Bush considered military options.¹⁸⁴ That said, it is possible to speculate that had the US intervention and subsequent efforts in Iraq proved more successful, perhaps Bush would have turned his attention to military tools in North Korea (and Iran). Only future evidence will tell whether Bush entertained this possibility.