Testimony Before the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs

March 10, 2011

Having worked on this issue in the White House and having studied it for decades, I can tell you North Korea policy truly is the land of lousy options.  The choices are never between good and bad.  They are always between bad and worse.  Restarting food aid may sound like the same old story – rewarding bad behavior that will only elicit more bad behavior.  The alternative is to do nothing on nuclear diplomacy or human rights, which is good posturing.  But it will buy you a runaway nuclear program with rampant proliferation potential, and now rumblings in South Korea among some conservatives about going nuclear themselves or calling for the U.S. to reinsert tactical nuclear weapons into the ROK.  This hardly seems like a good alternative.