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People are once again talking about nuclear weapons, and we all know why: the Iranian deal. Right now, there is much talk about whether the Iranian deal will become a prototype for a similar deal between the United States and North Korea.
While such talk is welcome, it seems that it is very unlikely to lead anywhere. North Korea is no Iran, the situation in the two countries is quite different.
The Iranian government hopes to see international sanctions lifted ― on the assumption that it will lead to a significant improvement in the Iranian economy and an improvement in the living standards of the general population. Maybe Iranian decision makers would prefer to develop nuclear weapons as soon as possible. However, when faced with a choice between nuclear weapons and better living standards for the majority, they choose the latter.
In their situation, such a choice seems to make sense. Iran is much criticized, even vilified by the Western media. But it is not an out and out dictatorship. It is probably better described as a quasi-democratic theocracy in which parties compete and debate, people criticize the government and elections are held regularly, all under the watchful eyes of the supreme religious authorities.
In such a country, popular support is important. Economic growth remains vital to social and political stability. If Iranian politicians want to keep their jobs, it is important for them to make sure that their subjects enjoy good living standards. The people are likely to express their gratitude or otherwise by voting or abstaining, supporting tacitly government policy, or heading out onto the streets.
Oil-rich Iran is of great interest to the international market; the lifting of sanctions is likely to trigger a minor economic boom. The Iranian government also has no particular reason to fear international exchanges; indeed, the Iranian people are quite well aware of what is going on in the outside world, and this does not translate into political discontent.
Things in North Korea are different. To start with, the North Korean elite is a hereditary aristocracy, the members of which derive their position as a birth right ― this is not only true of the Kim dynasty itself, but also of most high-level North Korean officials. Conversely, their subjects have few ways by which to express discontent. The results of North Korean elections are known well in advance. According to official reports, the approval rate for the sole available candidate is a stunning 100 percent. Anti-government rallies are completely unthinkable, while expressing discontent even in the privacy of one's home is quite a dangerous activity.
The economic crisis of the late 1990s demonstrated the great staying power of the North Korean elite. At the time, more than a half-million North Koreans starved to death, but virtually nobody dared to protest against the regime. Things might have changed somewhat because the surveillance system no longer works as it once did. But North Korean decision makers still have no reason to seek popular support for their policies.
On top of that, the lifting of sanctions is unlikely to have an immediate or noticeable impact. North Korea has little to offer the outside world. Thus, even if sanctions are lifted, the impact is going to be marginal. North Korea is also not all that interested in a dramatic increase in international exchanges. Trade, investment and other joint projects with other countries are risky because they introduce dangerous knowledge about life outside the country's borders. North Korea, once the most advanced country in continental Asia, is now lagging far behind its neighbors, including the once very poor China. If this fact becomes widely known, the North Korean public is liable to ask some inconvenient questions. Thus, the opening of the country is likely to be destabilizing.
Therefore, the North Korean government faces far less pressure than their Iranian counterparts. It also believes that it has far more to lose from interacting with the outside world.
So the Iranian deal is unlikely to become a prototype for a future deal with North Korea. As a matter of fact, the prospects for any significant breakthrough remain dim at best, if what you want is North Korea's denuclearization. Like it or not, North Korea is going to remain nuclear for the foreseeable future, and the outside world has neither the carrot nor the stick to change that.
Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. You can reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
