North Korea Deserves the Diplomacy of Silence

What Churchill called 'jaw-jaw' has produced nothing, except more provocations.

EDWARD N. LUTTWAK

In recent weeks, North Korea has detonated a nuclear bomb and violated U.N. Security Council prohibitions by launching ballistic missiles. It has threatened war against South Korea, repudiating the July 1953 armistice agreement and thus ostensibly reverting to a state of war with the United States. It has also sentenced two American journalists -- Euna Lee and Laura Ling -- to 12 years in a labor camp.

These are extreme provocations. Only a military attack could exceed them. Our response, of course, must be diplomatic. But only a very special kind of diplomacy can yield positive results: a diplomacy of silence.

Under it, no communications whatever would be sent to the North Korean regime, there would be no informal dialogues with any North Korean diplomats anywhere, and, above all, no attempt would be made to renew negotiations in any format.

This would contradict all the usual doctrines and preferences of diplomats. Their instinct is to talk with every adversary with whom it is possible to talk. Historically inclined diplomats often cite pugnacious Winston Churchill's dictum that it is always better to "jaw-jaw than war-war."

When there is no diplomatic recognition to be traded in exchange for concessions, diplomats assume that talking is always a good idea because words cost nothing but can produce tangible results.

This time that is the wrong assumption. For years, the U.S., China, the Russian Federation, Japan and South Korea have been patiently negotiating with North Korea, offering economic aid, security guarantees, and the benefits of "normalization" in exchange for it abandoning its nuclear programs. South Korea provided advance payments in the form of investments, food aid and large cash gifts.

Thus over a period of years, while the dictatorship of Kim Jong Il continued to starve its own population as it accumulated more military equipment and repeatedly sold nuclear and missile technology to Iran and Syria, it was greatly rewarded diplomatically. Kim Jong Il's delegates sat alongside those of the U.S., China, Russia and Japan -- a huge concession in itself that added to the prestige of the regime. Every time the North Koreans committed a new outrage, from launching ballistic missiles over Japan to selling ballistic missiles to Iran, the response was to resume the talks, with no reduction in the concessions on offer and even some more gifts from South Korea.

This must now stop. The North Korean regime never yielded anything of significance in past negotiations, which have served nobody but them. This time, provocation must not be rewarded. Evidently, the North Korean aim is to evoke more attention, more offers of concessions, more gifts. They must receive nothing at all. Talking has failed utterly. Silence might yet persuade the North Koreans to improve their behavior.

Mr. Luttwak, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the author of "Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace" (Belknap, 2002).