Failed Diplomacy
ISBN: 9780815772019
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / Brookings Institution Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Nuclear weapons; Nuclear nonproliferation;

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

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

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