38 North invited former Secretary of Defense William Perry to their monthly breakfast, and he accepted, giving a short presentation and taking questions from the press. While he doesn’t claim to be an expert, he certainly has a lot of experience with the North Koreans, and I appreciated this insight into North Korean motivations:
Anybody that’s ever done any negotiations understands you cannot succeed unless you know where the other side of the table is coming from, what they’re trying to achieve. And I think a big failure of our negotiations in the so-called “Six Party Talks” is we have not done that and not understood where North Korea is coming from.
I presume to tell you what I think they are. My knowledge is based on two things. Partly on having had numerous discussions with North Korean senior officials on this subject. But, I think more importantly, by observing what they do. What they do makes clear what they are thinking. So, let’s get to that for a moment.
I believe – I believe without any, really, uncertainty – goal number one of North Korea is to sustain the Kim dynasty. You could describe that as survival of the regime. But I put it more specifically: sustaining the Kim dynasty.
The second goal is an important goal for them. It is achieving international recognition.
A third goal is improving their economy. But I want to emphasize that third goal is subservient to the first two goals, and they have demonstrated that over, and over, again. They’re willing to sacrifice their economy if it’s necessary, to achieve those first two goals.
So, sustaining the dynasty, achieving international recognition, and a poor third is improving their economy.
The idea of a unified Korea that they talk about I think that’s way behind the other goals. They don’t see that as something that’s going to be operational for many, many – a long, long time.
