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Both North Korea and the US have chosen the long game. That’s the new approach that both sides have adopted since their summit in Hanoi this past February ended abruptly without an agreement. Both sides insist that they’re open to dialogue, on the condition that the other side agrees to their demands first. That sounds like a defensive move, aimed at avoiding blame for ruining the negotiations.

During a speech on the second day of the 1st Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly, on Apr. 12, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said that “all of our country’s power will be focused on building the economy” while offering “self-reliance” as the means for achieving that. Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly said that he’s in “no rush,” apparently waiting for the sanctions to take effect.

I’m not sure whether the two countries actually intend to play the long game. It’s unclear whether they’re trying to pressure each other, assuming that the other side is more pressed for time, or whether they’re trying to conceal their own weak points in order to neutralize the other side’s bargaining chips. What is clear, however, is that both sides are loath to be the first to give ground. Regardless of their intentions, the current situation is liable to become protracted.

If this dispute drags on too long, both sides are in for a bruising fight in which they have more to lose than to gain. Light blows can accumulate into heavy damage, which can even prove fatal.

To begin with, North Korea’s “self-reliance” is the method it adopted in the 1960s. That method was feasible at the time because the North had inherited the industrial facilities, still cutting-edge, that imperial Japan had built in the northern half of the peninsula, the military base from which Japan launched its assault on Manchuria. Since the North’s economy was small, hydroelectric power was sufficient to keep industry humming. In the early days after the North’s establishment, the confidence of its leadership and popular pride in having created a new state made it possible to mobilize the people. The concentrated application of labor enabled the North to quickly exceed its target output.

But as time went by, the industrial legacy of the Japanese Empire wore out, while the industrial structure, with its excessive reliance on electricity, became more of a burden as the economy grew. As the enthusiasm kindled by the construction of a new state cooled, popular mobilization was no longer enough to get results. The orthodox view is that the North would have faced a capital accumulation crisis even if the socialist bloc hadn’t collapsed; indications of that had already begun to appear in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The North Korean economy is unlikely to achieve a qualitative leap without the infusion of outside capital. That’s why the North has been so keen to secure sanctions relief. Self-reliance might enable the North to hold on in the short term, but if things drag on, the accumulation crisis will gradually eat into North Koreans’ improving quality of life.

Neither can the US afford to talk big about playing the long game. While the North may not be testing nuclear weapons or launching ballistic missiles, that doesn’t mean the security threat has disappeared. Reports keep appearing that the North is still producing nuclear materials. This doesn’t give us cause to criticize the North for treachery: there hasn’t been a legally binding agreement that would enable it to halt production of nuclear materials. It’s not a question of morality, but of negotiating.

As North Korea expands its nuclear arsenal, the North will become harder for the US to deal with. For North Korea to go from 15 to 100 nuclear weapons would be a game changer for the US, said Robert Litwak, director of international security studies at the Wilson Center, an American think tank, in an interview two years ago. It would also be a game changer for China, Litwak said, since China would have to live with the consequences of that.

As North Korea boosts its production of nuclear materials, negotiations for the North to shut down and give up its nuclear weapons will grow more difficult and eventually shift toward arms reduction, toward shrinking the North’s nuclear arsenal. That would alter the very nature of the negotiations. Even if the negotiations remain focused on the North abandoning its nuclear weapons, the accompanying cost will soar. Nor can we completely rule out the potential of the nuclear program’s proliferation.

In the end, the long game will have the same results as “strategic patience,” the North Korean strategy of former president Barack Obama, the strategy on which US President Donald Trump has heaped so much criticism. Strategic patience meant neglect in the guise of waiting for the North to capitulate, and neglect ultimately allowed the North to upgrade its nuclear capacity.

Playing the long game also undermines the “top-down” approach to resolving the North Korea nuclearization issue through bold decisions by the two leaders. Furthermore, even such trust as the two sides have managed to establish thus far is being damaged by nasty bickering outside the negotiations. North Korea and the US need to initiate talks, even at the working level. Even if they’re grabbing each other by the collar, they ought to be doing it onstage.

By Yi Yong-in, Korean Peninsula editor

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