Bomb, sanction, or negotiate: Understanding U.S. policy towards North Korea

In his first term, President George W. Bush named North Korea as a member of the "Axis of Evil" and denounced the regime as one of the greatest threats to peace and stability in the world. Following the discovery of North Korea's highly enriched uranium (HEU) program, it seemed that North Korea was next on the list of countries to be invaded following Iraq. Instead, the administration pursued multilateral negotiations in the form of the Six-Party Talks. By the end of Bush's second term, the administration forged an agreement that had been unimaginable just a few years earlier. This paper seeks to explain why the Bush administration adopted an engagement policy towards the North Korean regime despite the administration's predispositions against such a policy. This paper explores four explanations -- intellectual agreement on North Korea's motivations, bureaucratic politics, military factors, and regional partner preferences -- and determines that bureaucratic politics were responsible for the dramatic shift in policy that occurred in 2005 and 2006. The addition of several administration officials in favor of negotiations following Bush's reelection, combined with the removal of several North Korean "hawks" led to the adoption of an engagement policy with North Korea. Furthermore, U.S. policy was constrained due to the ongoing war in Iraq, as well as Chinese and South Korean preferences for a negotiated settlement. This paper concludes with recommendations for future administrations crafting policies towards North Korea.