Among conservatives in Korea and other American allied countries, there seems to be some anxiety about the election of a relatively unknown, young African-American liberal as the next American president. Typically, when a new U.S. president is elected, American diplomats seek to reassure allies by telling them that the incoming president will pursue fundamentally the same policies as the outgoing president. However, President Obama clearly will adopt a significantly different foreign policy than President Bush, including toward North Korea.

Obama’s soaring rhetoric has led to a widespread (and correct) impression of him as idealistic, but the long presidential campaign also revealed him to be a disciplined politician and a skillful manager. His foreign policy will be much closer to the prudent realpolitik of President Bush’s father than it will be to the “neo-con” approach of President Bush himself.
And while it is true that Obama does not have deep experience in foreign affairs, his youthful years spent in Indonesia and Hawaii, taken together with his successful navigation of American society as a young African-American man, have given him a genuine empathy for different peoples and cultures. He has the self-confidence and intelligence to listen with an open mind to others and then carefully to make his own decisions.

President Obama’s policy toward North Korea will defy stereotypes of the past. In some ways he will be “softer” on North Korea than President Bush; in other ways, he will be “tougher.”  Like President Bush and his predecessors, President Obama will take the position that he can never accept a North Korea with nuclear weapons. On the other hand, Obama will not engage in bluster such as “all options are on the table,” which most South Koreans reject and which only plays into the DPRK’s hands.

Instead, Obama will finally give diplomacy a fighting chance. Even during the past couple of years, President Bush remained very reluctant to engage fully in negotiations with North Korea. President Obama will order that a policy review be conducted expeditiously, and he will probably appoint a very senior special envoy to take charge of negotiations with North Korea. While maintaining the framework of the Six-Party Talks and consulting very closely with the Republic of Korea and Japan, he will also authorize meaningful bilateral negotiations with North Korea. If those negotiations bear real fruit, he may even visit Pyongyang himself if he is confident that he will be able to strike a deal completely ending North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

President Obama will probably offer North Korea a “more for more” deal. In other words, compared to President Bush he will propose a much more detailed and concrete series of steps to be taken by North Korea, the United States, and other members of the Six-Party Talks. The aim will be agreement on an early end to North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs.

The North Koreans should not think that President Obama will be “easier” than President Bush. If, as may well be the case, the North Koreans reject President Obama’s approach or drag their feet in responding to it, he, unlike President Bush, will have the international credibility to work more effectively with other members of the Six-Party Talks and the international community to limit North Korea’s options.

Moreover, as a hardheaded domestic politician, President Obama will be careful to avoid situations in which the Republican opposition could credibly criticize him as being naïve about North Korea. Indeed, Obama’s team recognizes clearly that, having declared itself a nuclear weapons state and tested a nuclear device, North Korea may not be prepared to verifiably give up its nuclear weapons ambitions.

In formulating and conducting his policy toward North Korea, President Obama will have access to many trusted experts on North Korea, beginning with Vice President Biden and his staff. Obama is also advised by a number of experienced officials from the Clinton administration, from former Defense Secretary Bill Perry to former career diplomat Jeffrey Bader.

U.S. relations with the Republic of Korea are key to any successful American policy toward North Korea. Obama and his team fully appreciate the importance of U.S.-ROK relations and the security alliance. They will coordinate very closely with the Lee Myung-bak administration and never sacrifice the interests of the Republic of Korea, which is immeasurably more important to the United States than the DPRK is or ever will be.
 
President Obama will support the implementation of the agreements President Bush reached with the Republic of Korea on the realignment of U.S. Forces of Korea and the transfer of wartime operational control, as befits the ROK’s military and economic might.
 
Under President Obama, the United States will also aim to approve, with some adjustments, the U.S.-ROK Free Trade Agreement, although it may take a year or so to do so as he perforce deals first with the global financial and economic crises and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  President Obama must be cognizant of the viewpoint of leading congressional Democrats and the constituencies they represent. It may be counterproductive if the ROK pushes too hard, too fast for U.S. approval of the FTA.
 
Obama’s inauguration will also open up new possibilities for U.S.-ROK coordination and cooperation on global issues. Unlike President Bush, whose early unilateralist mindset and specific policies caused dismay among international friends and foes alike, President Obama begins with a vast reservoir of sympathy and respect throughout the world. That will make it easier, and more useful, for the Republic of Korea to cooperate globally more with the United States.
 
In short, South Koreans should be reassured, not that President Obama’s foreign policy will be like that of President Bush, but that it will be different. Perhaps South Koreans will even begin to feel that their alliance with the United States is not just one that they feel they must have for their country’s long-term interests – but also one of which they can feel proud.

Although Iraq dominates the headlines, the situation in Afghanistan may be more decisive to longterm international security, said Sarah Chayes, who has lived in the country since 2001 after covering the last stand of the Taliban for National Public Radio (NPR).

Chayes, an American who directs Arghand, a cooperative in Kandahar that produces soap from local plants and fruits as an alternative to opium production, spent Wednesday, Nov. 5, at Stanford. During several talks with CISAC faculty, staff, students and donors she discussed regional security, the future of democracy in Afghanistan and the stresses of everyday life in the ancient city of Kandahar, where she lives and where civilians must carry firearms to protect themselves. 

Chayes strongly criticized efforts to negotiate with the Taliban, which has fought a protracted guerilla war against the Afghan government since 2004. The extremist movement ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, when the Northern Alliance and NATO forces removed its leaders from power. "There is no intrinsic support from the population for the Taliban," Chayes said. "The Taliban want all, they understand they won't get all so they are trying to get what they can. Negotiating with the Taliban [offers] zero benefit."

Instead, according to Chayes, Afghanistan needs to experience the "real substance of democracy," not simply elections. It also needs a surge of non-military volunteers trained to mentor leaders working in civil society. "Thirty years of combat undoes a lot of structure" in society, she said. "People get things done as fast as possible because they might be shot in the next 50 seconds."

Chayes is the author of The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan after the Taliban. In 2006, she was awarded The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' inaugural Ruth Adams Award for her work explaining the impact of U.S. policy on Afghanistan after 9/11. The prize recognizes journalists who translate complex issues of peace and security into everyday language and images. Chayes left NPR in 2002 to help rebuild Afghanistan. Initially, she served as field director for Afghans for Civil Society, a non-profit founded by the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. She founded Arghand in May 2005.

"With the current affairs such as the financial crisis and the Iraq War," Gi-wook Shin says, "the new Obama administration may not have the North Korea issues on its priority list for a while.  Lee Myung-bak administration, meanwhile,  is urged to revisit the workable policies of the past as well as to initiate the pragmatic diplomacy towards the collaboration between South Korea and the U.S."