Obama and Korea: Can a change in style lead to real changes?

President-elect Barack Obama has generated high expectations both inside the United States and throughout the world at large. The post-election day euphoria may be due, in large part, to the decline in image of the Bush administration, which leaves office in less than two months. For many, no doubt, the election result is a reprieve that has overdue since the 2004 elections. If one looks past the danger of high expectations (and the current scenario which make it difficult to achieve same), it appears Obama may make a difference on issues relevant to Northeastern Asia. This area of opportunity will focus on the Korean peninsula, and more specifically, the North Korean nuclear issue.

Though Obama and his victory may have significance with regard to changing paradigms, it is more likely that the changes are more in style than form, at least in the case of the Korean peninsula. This means that the status quo would not be drastically altered. We may see the continuation of multilateral negotiation within the Six Party framework (EU, Japan, China, Russia and the Koreas). Another option is that of higher-level meetings between US and North Korea officials. During the election campaign, Obama said that solving the nuclear issue in North Korea was a prerequisite for normalizing Washington–Pyongyang relations, although he emphasized the need for a more flexible stance.

The Lee Myung-bak administration’s foreign relations policy is more akin to the Bush hard-line stance, which views reciprocity as its only option in diplomacy. The disagreement between the Washington and Seoul approaches of could significantly impact Lee’s options, not to mention its ability to extract commitments from Kim Jong-il. Referring to the US-North Korea relationship, Obama said that sanctions against Pyongyang should be maintained until its commitments to dismantle all nuclear facilities in which nuclear weapons may be developed have been met.

However, Obama also acknowledges that nuclear weapons programs expanded vis-à-vis Washington’s refusal to dialogue. In acknowledging the flaws in a strategy which combined sanctions and dialogue, Obama is making room for a relaxing of the US stance on North Korea. That is, there is a significant difference between the sequence of the process and the breadth of the quid-pro-quo criteria. Obama has the advantage of having a starting point marked by the deteriorating image bequeathed by Bush and his military diplomacy.

During the campaign, one of the most recurrent themes in the attacks on Obama was his lack of experience in foreign policy (and any other experience in public administration). This is a double-edged sword, because it does not have a negative precedent (nor positive, for that matter), which leaves room for the benefit of the doubt. At any rate, the new president-elect has the potential to change the way the world views the United States; and vice versa. The steps taken on the Korean peninsula issue may help uncover the new strategies and scope of the new administration.