Stop the Bomb ‘or Else’? What’s the <i> Else</i> ? : North Korea: Given limits of coercion, U.S. has made the most of a realistic strategy to halt a nuclear-weapons program.

Dealing with North Korea has always been morally dissatisfying. It has now gotten worse. We learned this week that the long-awaited international inspection of acknowledged nuclear facilities has been obstructed by North Korean officials. This was supposed to be only the easiest step of a process to ensure that North Korea does not possess nuclear weapons.

Even before this latest setback, pundits and some members of Congress had chastised the “softness” of the Clinton Administration’s diplomatic strategy. Critics want immediate satisfaction by North Korea, “or else.” Unfortunately, they cannot say what the “or else” is. In reality, the Clinton team’s diplomatic strategy is the only viable option. Military attack and comprehensive economic sanctions are untenable. Yet it will take uncommon realism for the American public and a politically skittish White House to resist the righteous temptation to decisively “punish” North Korea.

Critics of the Administration’s diplomacy exclaim that North Korea has been cajoled and potentially rewarded for doing what it was obligated to do under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The North, in effect, has been shaking down the United States. This is true, but beside the point. The real point is that North Korea, legally or not, has acquired the means to continue a nuclear-weapons program. The issue now is how to stop and reverse this program.

There are several underappreciated reasons why the Administration is compelled to continue negotiating --despite the announcement in Washington on Thursday of the cancellation of high-level U.S.-North Korean talks that were to begin Monday, together with the word that joint military exercises with South Korea were being reconsidered.

Most important, neither the United States nor South Korea can “afford” a war on the Korean peninsula. An attack on the North could provoke a counterattack on South Korea, threatening massive casualties and destruction in Seoul. And even if we were willing to go to war, we may not be able to achieve our objectives through force. Military planners do not know the whereabouts of the plutonium or other weapons-related assets presumably hidden in North Korea. Attacking known nuclear facilities poses serious risks of radioactive contamination. The American public would not support putting American lives on the line in Korea any more than in Bosnia.

As in President Clinton’s early tough stance on Bosnia, the invocation of potential military force against North Korea will generate pressure to back up words with deeds. Columnists and members of Congress will start demanding that the President exercise the military option--”You can only shake a stick so long before you have to use it. What are your waiting for, Mr. President?” At the point the ugly reality will emerge as it has in Bosnia: There is no military option, either because the military says it’s too uncertain or the President isn’t willing to take the political risks. If force is out, the United States and its allies should not undermine their credibility by pretending otherwise.

The ultimate leverage the world has on North Korea is the baleful North Korean economy. North Korean leaders know that without trade, technical assistance and international engagement, the communist system will collapse. Sanctions and further economic isolation for the rest of the world could hasten this collapse. Hence the North’s need of international cooperation appears to have motivated concessions on the nuclear question.

Yet the very threat of collapse also constrains the Clinton Administration. Neither South Korea, Japan nor the United States can afford to inherit the downtrodden society of North Korea that the communists have created. Communism has turned into a deterrent: You can’t attack or squeeze a communist state because you might win and inherit all their problems. The South Koreans have seen Germany struggle with unification and would rather wait. While respecting this concern, the Clinton Administration must persuade South Korea and Japan that if push comes to shove, a North Korea collapsing under sanctions is preferable to a nuclear-armed North Korea. This is a hard sell, and it points to the need now to build international consensus on sanctions against future proliferators so that diplomats in the next crisis have hardier sticks to wield.

Given the options, the United States has been making the most of a realistic diplomatic strategy of stopping, and eventually reversing, the North Korean bomb program. The resolution of this crisis must be either full North Korean compliance with the treaty or expulsion from it, with pariah status and sanctions.

The treaty has worked thus far by smoking out North Korea’s bomb program and providing procedures for redemption or isolation and punishment. Holding a hollow stick, the Clinton Administration has been right to keep the North Koreans interested in the wages of redemption.