The long-awaited second round of "six-way talks" over North Korea's nuclear-weapons program ended, as expected, without agreement in Beijing, and a real solution to the dispute appears to be as distant as ever. It is therefore worth considering seriously the possibility that North Korea has decided once and for all that possession of nuclear weapons is the country's surest form of defense - namely against Washington - and that negotiations are merely aimed at buying time for building up its stockpile.
Pyongyang has suggested such a nuclear-stockpile defensive strategy previously, and an examination of its behavior over the past decade and the increasingly adverse geopolitical environment facing leader Kim Jong-il's regime certainly points to this outcome: Talk but don't give up nukes.
This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that in the six months since the first round of talks, there has been no meaningful shift in the position of the two protagonists: the United States and North Korea.
Herein lies the crux of the problem: if North Korea possesses nuclear weapons - and it is believed already to have from two to five - then the United States' ultimate fears come closer to reality; if North Korea abandons its nukes, its own ultimate fears of US hostile intentions come closer to reality. The truth of the matter is that neither side trusts the other, making it virtually impossible to conduct sincere and productive negotiations.
| 