The US needs a new North Korea policy: a nuclear weapons free zone

Once a zone is established, bilateral and multilateral negotiations would continue with North Korea over the pace of its nuclear disarmament. But, as noted above, only the zone offers a clear way for North Korea to disarm and get in return sovereign guarantees from nuclear weapons states that it will not be attacked by nuclear weapons - a necessary condition for North Korea to disarm.

A nuclear weapon free zone including North Korea, even one armed at the outset with nuclear weapons, is a precondition of stabilising the nuclear weapons and risk of war and nuclear war in the Korean Peninsula and beyond. It would be welcomed by China and Russia. South Korea would likely support such a zone upon close examination of the costs and benefits it offers relative to continuation of the current strategic drift. The strongest obstacle to such a zone would likely be Japan, but even that could be overcome by astute negotiations between the United States and China as to what ancillary benefits a zone would create for the two leading strategic antagonists in the region.

Finally, putting a plausible and credible zone in place that would stabilise the situation, devalue North Korea's nuclear capacities, and put the six parties back onto the denuclearisation track, would require that radicals, liberals, moderates and conservatives of any political hue in the US Congress confront the full implications of rejecting negotiation with North Korea. This policy divergence would become very clear in the period of negotiating and exploring the parameters of a zonal treaty which would take at least a year.

Due to the stakes, such a treaty would have a good chance of securing passage, however unlikely it looks today.