Thayer Consultancy Background Briefing:

ABN # 65 648 097 123

North Korea: Give Sanctions A
Chance
Carlyle A. Thayer
November 30, 2017

In light of North Koreas test of a ballistic missile, we request your assessment on the
scope for tighter measures against the DPRK [Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea]
by the international community? How much more realistically can be done?
ANSWER:
Events in North Korea are moving faster than the time it takes for current sanctions to
take effect. Any new sanctions via the United Nations Security Council will fall into the
same category. There is only so much the international community can do to cut or
expel North Korean diplomats, return Korean workers (in the few countries that have
them), and curtail if not stop limited financial flows to Pyongyang.
Studies in the social sciences show that sanctions are rarely effective because the
target nation has options to evade them. North Korea, however, represents a special
case. China, and to a lesser extent Russia, are the key. If they moved beyond UN
sanctions the DPRK would be hurt badly over time.
We must avoid unrealistic expectations that an immediate clamp of sanctions will lead
Kim Jong-un to back down. Trump declared that the era of strategic patience was
over; the context has changed it is now time to give UN sanction a chance and adopt
strategic patience and not respond to every North Korean provocation with a call for
further immediate sanctions.

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Thayer Consultancy provides political analysis of current regional security issues and
other research support to selected clients. Thayer Consultancy was officially
registered as a small business in Australia in 2002.