The new agreement with North Korea has led to pessimistic and optimistic responses in the United States. The pessimists point out that it gives North Korea too much and gets little in return - unlike South Africa, North Korea will not be dismantling its nuclear weapons. More worrisome, the pessimists argue, is Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il's track record in abiding with international agreements. The deal also suggests that the balance of power in the US national security decision making process may be shifting from the neocons to the realists.

On the flip side, the proposed deal has interesting implications for international nonproliferation policy as well as the emerging security architecture in Asia.

Under the agreement the DPRK will shut down and seal for the purpose of eventual abandonment the Yongbyon nuclear facility, including the reprocessing facility and invite back IAEA personnel to conduct all necessary monitoring and verifications as agreed between the IAEA and the DPRK. Further, the DPRK will discuss with other parties a list of all its nuclear programs as described in the Joint Statement, including plutonium extracted from used fuel rods, which would be abandoned pursuant to the Joint Statement. Additionally, five working groups will be set up to discuss, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, normalization of DPRK-US relations, normalization of DPRK-Japan relations, economic and energy cooperation, and a Northeast Asia peace and security mechanism.

As The Economist (17 February) points out, "The agreement makes no explicit mention of nuclear weapons, the actual dismantling of nuclear facilities or disposal of nuclear materials. Nor does it explicitly require North Korea to admit the existence of a programme to enrich uranium (presumably for use in nuclear weapons) which the Americans have accused the North Koreans of operating in secret. It was American anger over the alleged uranium project - which American officials said the North Koreans admitted to but later denied - that led to the breakdown in 2002 of a nuclear accord reached eight years earlier."

Nonproliferation and arms control policies are based on a set of Cold War treaties that are insufficient to deal with the realities of a post-Cold War globalized world. The Bush Administration first recognized this when it walked out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty despite dire warnings from the arms control lobby that the Russians would react badly to such a move. Instead, there was little adverse reaction on part of the international community. The Bush Administration's alternative of establishing a missile defense system was met with considerable international enthusiasm.

A similar approach has paid dividends in the context of nonproliferation. Rather than mindlessly mouth established nonproliferation treaties and requirements, the Bush Administration negotiated the Indo-US nuclear deal. Such individually tailored deals seem to be more effective in persuading nuclear and near-nuclear nations to work within the framework of international treaties. Thus after years of saber rattling, name calling, and refusal to hold bilateral talks with Pyongyang, the Bush Administration was able to get forward movement only through quiet bilateral negotiations in Berlin.

The optimists also argue that the other important side-benefit of the deal has been the willingness of China to participate in shaping the arms control and security architecture of Asia. In the past, Beijing had taken a back seat in the negotiations with North Korea because, as the pessimists argued, it served China's larger security interests. The October 2006 North Korean nuclear test, and the fact that it legitimized future Japanese militarization, made China more proactive in the process of constraining Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. It is now argued that with the Chinese on board, Beijing, Tokyo, and Washington can work together to craft a more stable Asian security architecture.

All this depends, however, on just how much the North Koreans are willing to concede in the long run. While the draft agreement slows down North Korean nuclear capabilities, it does not eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons. The embarrassing question of whether North Korea has a uranium enrichment program has also been temporarily shelved. If these matters come to a head then it may be one more case of North Korea giving the United States a lot less than it wants. In that case, we may see a future US administration seek to revisit the issue.