INTRODUCTION

Non-governmental organizations use information and the new technologies such as the Internet in many ways to affect the US foreign policy decision-making process. They use it to mobilize constituencies in large numbers to bring direct political pressure to bear on decision-makers. They use it to alert the media of breaking events. They use it for "witness"-to make transparent abuses of power and to hold governments, companies, or other organizations accountable for their actions.

In this study, we look at the use of the Internet by one small non-governmental organization aimed primarily at the purely ideational level of American foreign policy decision making. The American response to the DPRK's nuclear challenge in the 1990s was a classic instance of the difficulties faced by US foreign policy making in the face of a complex decision. Here, we examine how information provided by a small non-governmental organization fed into that decision-making and affected policy outcomes by introducing new ideas that challenged old thinking about the DPRK.

John Steinbruner argues that the following characteristics define a complex decision in American foreign policy-making:

• More than one important value is affected by a decision;
• Realizing one value is inversely related to the realization of the other values, that is, there are tradeoffs to be made;
• Radical and "structural" uncertainty exists such that neither the rules of the game that generate an outcome resulting from a decision, nor the probabilities of the outcomes, can be specified in advance of the decision;
• More than one decision-maker is involved, whether individual and/or organizational, who may disagree and must jointly decide what to do faced with the problem.

The DPRK proliferation challenge from 1991 onwards forced the United States to face value tradeoffs in the following relative order of US interests:

1. Global non proliferation regime and IAEA safeguards system versus regional and Korean Peninsular stability and/or non proliferation;
2. US unilateral leadership in dealing directly with DPRK versus collective security via primarily concerted bilateralism (coordinated US alliances with Japan and ROK) and/or UN Security Council mandates;
3. Contending jurisdictional interests coalescing in "militant containment" and primary reliance on military means versus diplomatic power initially combined with nascent cooperative non governmental engagement later;
4. Clinton Administration foreign policy "victory" (at least not catastrophe) in domestic politics versus bipartisan and consensual policy removed from party politics in congressional and presidential campaigns.

Not only was first the Bush and then the Clinton Administration confronted with this cascade of increasingly painful tradeoffs to resolve the DPRK-induced crisis; but it also had to make decisions in a state of almost complete ignorance of the DPRK decision-making system, including its structures, personalities, and culture. Consequently, American analysts and decision-makers had almost no certainty as to what would and would not work to either force or to induce the DPRK to comply with American demands.

Worse still, the major institutions of the American state-the executive agencies, the legislative branch, and the "fourth estate"-the American media-were trapped in organizational routines that had worked in the past but increasingly were leading to failure in the present. These organizations were guided by a set of beliefs about the DPRK, which precluded any change in the DPRK. This view excluded the possibility that it simply no longer conformed (if it ever did) to the stereotypical American nightmarish images of the DPRK state. In short, the American state was on automatic pilot in relation to the DPRK for the first three years of the confrontation over nuclear proliferation. As we shall see, with significant exceptions, it remains largely on automatic pilot today with all the attendant dangers.

In the following study, we examine how a small non-governmental organization wielded "informational power" to break up some of the rigid images of the DPRK and to create an information milieu that was more conducive to addressing the underlying motivations for the DPRK's otherwise bizarre behaviors in this period. Before doing so, however, it is useful to spell out some of the informational attributes of the "cybernetic" decision-making process of the American state as depicted by Steinbruner.

The central idea in Steinbruner's formulation is that feedbacks in the decision-process enable decision-makers to avoid the painful process of value-tradeoffs and optimized choice implied by the analytic model:

The cybernetic paradigm, emphasizing that decision makers seek to control uncertainty, pictures a decision maker who makes no calculations of outcome and simply monitors certain information channels, tying his behavior to what is received in those channels via some decision rule.

A small number of closely monitored information flows allow the decision maker to interpret problems by using rules of thumb (ROTs), and to adjust behavior to restore "equilibrium" to the system by following well established routines or standard operating procedures (SOPs). The decision-maker can follow this procedure so long as their ROTs and SOPs are consistent with the complex environment; and/or so long as the decision-makers can impose their will and are able to force a turbulent environment to conform to their expectations and ignore the informational anomalies that are generated by the exercise of raw power. This decision-making mode is simple and economical, relying as it does on highly selective feedback and ignoring or suppressing most information-especially that which challenges the basic assumptions of the decision-maker.

A small repertoire of closely monitored information flows allow the decision maker to interpret problems by using rules of thumb (ROTs), and to adjust behavior to restore "equilibrium" to the system by following well established routines or standard operating procedures (SOPs). The decision-maker can follow this procedure so long as their ROTs and SOPs are consistent with the complex environment; and/or so long as the decision-makers can impose their will and are able to force a turbulent environment to conform to their expectations and ignore the informational anomalies that are generated by the exercise of raw power. This decision-making mode is simple and economical, relying as it does on highly selective feedback and ignoring or suppressing most information-especially that which challenges the basic assumptions of the decision-maker.

The image that springs to mind is the triple-trailer truck moving at 70 miles per hour on a freeway. The driver is concentrated upon survival in the direction that the truck is moving, not with fine-tuning calculations as to how to get from A to B, or whether B should be the objective at all. Constant feedback enables the driver to ignore most information that would otherwise overwhelm decision-making and to avoid grappling with uncertainty at all. The decision-maker will only perceive a narrow range of information, and that will be information consistent with established ROTs and SOPs that offer decision-rules and action sequences derived from past experience.

Steinbruner spells out explicitly the implication of this account of decision-making for information:

Since the response sequences adjust to a very narrow range of information, most incoming information will be shunted aside, having no effect. This decision maker is not calculating alternative outcomes and will also not be broadly sensitive to pertinent information. He will not engage in a process of updating subjective probability estimates about various states of the world...the spirit of cybernetic logic rejects the analytic assumptions regarding the handling of information and posits a much more limited process. The cybernetic decision maker is sensitive to information only if it enters through an established highly focused feedback channel, and hence many factors which do in fact affect the outcomes have no effect in his decision process.

At some point, however, fundamental changes in the environment or radical discontinuity may confront the cognitive-cybernetic state. Some mountains don't move no matter how hard they are pushed. A bulldozer can push aside many obstacles but still find itself in catastrophic free fall when grinding over an unnoticed precipice. Note that when the bulldozer crests the cliff, all resistance disappears for the moment before the plunge to catastrophe-but this momentary surge of exhilarating power comes too late to allow the decision-maker to shift into reverse and to avoid free fall. One might expect, therefore, that a state operating on cruise control is poorly suited to shifting gears when a change of system occurs in the international environment-such as the end of the Cold War.

Well before disasters erupt, the competent cybernetic decision-maker will start to respond to the changing environment. But in a cybernetic decision process confronted with structural uncertainty-such as existed in relation to the DPRK-this response will maintain simplicity at the cost of an increasingly elaborate, fragmented, and likely inconsistent set of responses to perceived problems-that is, a bureaucratic response based on obsolete decision rules and action repertoires-and arguably the response leading up to the June 1994 crisis. Whereas increasing complexity in the problem environment implies that an analytic decision-making process would seek out new information and options of the kind supplied by NAPSNet, this same challenge faced by a state on "automatic pilot" would unleash a highly circumscribed and bureaucratically bound "scanning" strategy-or set of strategies-by the various agencies handed simpler bits and pieces of the complex problem to "manage."

In such a perturbed situation, the cybernetic decision-making process manifests little learning and a lot of incoherent and even contradictory actions, which amount to a set of probes of the unwelcome environment. These actions in turn generate a set of outcomes that may not be integrated at all. The organizational routines-the SOPs-exhibit what Steinbruner calls "instrumental learning" as the agencies seek to avoid failure or disruption in the short-term. Meanwhile, at the top, decision-makers appear to be indecisive or even disconnected from the process. The higher the stakes of failure, the more likely the top decision-makers will avoid risk taking during this phase of "problem solving under conditions of structural uncertainty."

To match evolving complexity with organizational routines, lower-level decision-makers with the most information and experience with their segment of the problem may dominate the overall decision-making process until their ROTs and SOPs generate such chaos that other options are allowed to compete for attention at the top of the decision-hierarchy. At this time, higher-level decision-makers may be forced to act-and fall back onto basic values or simple ROTs-so as to keep their belief structures consistent. In crisis management, there is a great danger that these cognitive strategies will actually suppress anomalous information and evade the need for change of course rather than increase receptivity to it in search of less painful policy options and outcomes.

An essential aspect of ROTs is what Steinbruner characterizes as "firm, categorical, non-probabilistic beliefs in the presence of intense uncertainty." Others have termed these beliefs historical lessons that guide decision-makers at moments of truth. (In section III of this study, we will examine the myths that constitute the traditional American paradigm of "North Korea.")

In this process of subjective resolution of prevailing uncertainty, Steinbruner suggests that three mechanisms are critical: a) reinforcement and memory whereby the power and salience of old and young beliefs are shifted by weight and exposure to new information and their relative frequency of use and familiarity; b) management of inconsistency in the mind; c) corroboration from small-group interactions. These mechanisms all act to preserve the decision-maker's mind from corrosive information from outside the belief system. As Steinbruner summarizes the syndrome:

Information-processing operations within the paradigm do not proceed in active pursuit of conceptual change but rather operate to keep such change within reasonably narrow limits. Especially basic problem conceptions-the defined objective, the major options in basic outline, the image of consequences to accrue-should be much slower to change than in the analytic paradigm and should be driven to it only under considerable pressure.

Following Steinbruner, we expect to observe the following in our case study of NAPSNet or the Northeast Asian Peace and Security Network in relation to the DPRK in the 1990s:

1. High-level American decision-makers relied primarily on traditional, official sources of information in making decisions on how to respond to the DPRK's challenges. They did not seek out external or new sources of information to explain the DPRK's behavior. Their prevailing paradigm as to the DPRK was confirmed and reinforced by continued monitoring of the DPRK's "old bad ways" such as DMZ provocations, an endless stream of abusive propaganda, submarine incursions, missile firings, even if these indicators were consistent with alternative accounts of DPRK motivations.
2. Low-level American officials were more receptive to external or new sources of information, particularly those at the operational level of negotiating with the North Koreans or responsible for evaluating alternative courses of action to the higher level decision-makers. They were more aware of the fragmenting and incoherent actions and resulting outcomes resulting from American policies in the lead up to June 1994 and of the need for a new foundation for an alternative policy in the lead up to the Agreed Framework in October 1994. They were particularly interested in indicators that the old paradigm could not explain.
3. Some-but not all-of the new information available in external suppliers of information-was actually available already via official channels but had not been noticed. Some-but not all-of the implications arising from this new information had been inferred from other old types of information available in insider channels. The impact of new and externally supplied information arose mostly by confirming the revised views of insider heretics who were already fighting against the conventional wisdom as to DPRK motivations at lower levels of the agencies involved in policy including the State, Defense, Energy, Treasury, and Commerce Departments.
4. In the period of maximum confrontation in mid-1994, the most urgent need inside the state flying on automatic pilot was for urgent wake up calls from the outside, and provision of analysis and information that buffeted the established belief system. At such times, innovative analysis and hard data were the most potent information tools available to the outsider communicating with the adaptive low-level insider not trapped in "groove" thinking.
5. Information suppliers that overcame the three conditions outlined by Steinbruner for the conservation of old ways of thinking slowly but surely eroded the barriers to cognitive change, and allowed analytically-based policy options to emerge to the forefront of decision-making. They did so by increasing the ratio of new to old information, highlighting inconsistencies, and validating new views by having them enunciated by established thinkers or juxtaposed with them.

We will argue in this study that the Internet has created the opportunity for upstart start-up organizations to play important roles in American decision-making on a critical foreign policy issue. In particular, we will suggest that non-governmental organizations with sufficient resources and stamina can constitute new information milieu and can create new forms of consensual knowledge that can diffuse into the decision-making apparatus, change perceptions, and feed directly into the formulation of policy options.

Conversely, we will also conclude that not much has changed due to the new information technology in the structure of decision-making at the top. It remains largely insulated from the direct effects of non-governmental use of the new information technology. The effects are mostly indirect either via other intermediaries (the media and think-tanks insider the Beltway) or via proliferating information channels feeding into lower levels of the state. At particular moments, however, the information power exercised by well-informed non-governmental organizations can be used to insert knowledge into the minds of uncommitted policy analysts and decision-makers, and thus move mountains. We shall argue that this is exactly what happened with NAPSNet in relation to the review of US policy toward the DPRK in 1998-99.

In section I of this paper, we first outline the history of the Northeast Asian Peace and Security Network (NAPSNet). In section II, we describe its rapid growth, and the diversification of its services to a transnational network of government officials, journalists, scholars, and others. In section III, we describe the basic system of myths that were recycled by the American media and reinforced the conventional prejudices of American decision-makers before moving onto how NAPSNet provided critical information and analysis at key junctures. In section IV, we conclude with some observations concerning the future of non-governmental use of new information technology, and some strategic implications of the NAPSNet experience.

 

I. GENESIS OF NAPSNET

The groundwork for NAPSNet arguably was laid in the 1984-87 period when Peter Hayes was active on the issue of nuclear weapons on the ROK. This work-which became famous (notorious if you worked at US Forces Korea Public Affairs Department) stimulated the North Koreans to invite Hayes to visit the DPRK. Eventually, this visit took place in September 1991 using funds previously granted by the W. Alton Jones Foundation and Ploughshares Fund. His visit to Pyongyang led to a very detailed trip report outlining the discussions and a published account that gained attention in official circles in Washington and Seoul due its timing (immediately after the Bush announcement that US nuclear weapons would be withdrawn from forward deployment) and the unusual access granted to Hayes by the North Koreans.

After moving back to the United States from Australia in July 1992, Hayes went on a second trip to the DPRK in November 1992. This time, he wore a UNDP official hat as a technical consultant on DPRK greenhouse gas reductions under the new Climate Change Convention negotiated earlier that year in Brazil.

In October 1992, Peter Hayes contacted Al Binger at Rockefeller Foundation on the recommendation of other peace and security donors. Binger passed the call onto Tom Graham, responsible for the Foundation's Peace and Security Program. In early 1993, Hayes submitted a two page "concept" paper on work to promote a Northeast Asian nuclear free zone, emphasizing prior contacts in the region and the role of regional partners. This concept paper was put on hold until March 1993 due to Graham's travel.

It was pre-empted on March 12, 1993 when the DPRK announced its intention to pull out of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, thereby unleashing a long train of confrontational events with the international community, most especially, with the United States.

In April 1993--in response to a faxed invitation to return to Pyongyang to discuss the nuclear issue and received on April 3 from the DPRK party contacts--Peter Hayes requested Rockefeller to fund this trip, followed by briefings in Seoul and Washington. On April 6, 1993, Tom Graham first apprised then President of Rockefeller Foundation Peter Goldmark of Peter Hayes' work on DPRK and the pending opportunity to support work to scope out confidence building measures with DPRK in Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington. On April 16, Rockefeller confirmed a grant to Nautilus Institute to fund an "NGO visit to, and communications with, DPRK," enabling the trip to proceed in early May.

In marathon briefings to Hayes in Pyongyang in May 1993, Kim Yong Sun, then head of the International Affairs Department of the Korean Workers' Party, asserted forcefully and more than once that US-DPRK high-level talks were badly needed and would be a positive development. In making his point that it was possible to solve the nuclear issue by direct dialogue, he stated a Korean proverb: "Sword to sword: rice cake to rice cake. It is time to throw away the sword and hold up the rice cake." Kim Yong Sun went on to say: "No one can be sure that one day that the United States and the DPRK will not become allies like the United States and the UK, or not ally, but close friends. The history of nations, as I have told you before, is one of making friends who later become hostile. Now is the time for the US to make a change in our direction...Perhaps the first and foremost way to establish trust and to ease distrust would be a dialogue."

Hayes also passed to Kim Yong Sun some questions and comments prepared in Seoul by the staff of the then Minister of Unification, Hong Koo Lee. After his return, he published Kim Yong Sun's views in article in Sisa Journal in the ROK, and conducted briefings in Seoul.

After returning from the DPRK, Peter Hayes responded to Tom Graham's challenge to develop a "coalition" approach that would approach the core of the problem of the DPRK nuclear threat from a number of oblique angles. Hayes developed a concept for a "pincer strategy that deals with 1) alliance politics and 2) Washington politics." The strategy envisaged engaging players from across the political spectrum from left and right liberals to conservatives in the United States. He entered a caveat that there are limits to coalition-building, noting that in the case of forward-deployment of nuclear weapons, high-level American decision-makers eventually went around right-liberal opponents to impose a policy of withdrawal of tactical and theater nuclear weapons in 1991-92. "First and foremost," he insisted, "we need the right ideas that frame the issue."

In July, the basic concept for NAPSNet was developed. Hayes had in mind to create a catalytic and creative network, not a self-perpetuating organization. As he noted in one communication, "An institution with big boots, brass plaques and plate glass windows may evoke competitive envy rather than collaborative cooperation at this early stage." Throughout August 1993, he communicated with Tom Graham at Rockefeller Foundation on the design of a network, leading to submission of final proposal for funding on August 30, 1993. The proposed network was intended to be transnational, strictly non-governmental, and to "represent the diversity of views and nationalities within the region."

From the outset, the network was envisaged to stimulate intellectual product on a range of issue bearing on the nuclear challenge posed by the DPRK including sanctions, military options, Korean and regional nuclear issues, and regional confidence-building. As Tom Graham, the Rockefeller Foundation official backing the innovative network wrote in July 1993, NAPSNet was to rely only 40 percent on Nautilus' in-house expertise on the DPRK and 60 percent on other players to make the network viable. Graham had independent experts such as Gerald Segal at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London review the concept before proceeding. Key to Rockefeller Foundation's confidence in funding the proposed initiative was Professor Robert Scalapino's agreement to informally advise NAPSNet-which he has continued to do to this day. In September, the name of the network was changed from Northeast Asia Security Network to Northeast Asia Peace and Security Network to connote "a positive approach not necessarily confined to military-security issues." The project was to commence in November 1993 on a "proof-of-principle" trial basis until May 1994.

In July 1993, State Department personnel deeply involved in analyzing the evolving conflict with the DPRK told Hayes that "they need urgently an analysis of North Korea's energy situation and whether nuclear technology such as a LWR makes economic sense or not." This led Hayes to commence systematic research on the topic, including the preparation of a paper on the transfer of light water reactors to the DPRK for use in Pyongyang. In September 1993, he agreed to travel back to the DPRK as a consultant on environmental issues. In part, he did so in order to secure DPRK participation in some capacity in NAPSNet.

In October 1993, Peter Hayes made a trip to the DPRK as a Global Environment Facility consultant funded by UNDP. After escaping from Ministry of Foreign Affairs control and isolation in a grim "VIP" hotel outside of the capital city, he met again with Kim Yong Sun for wide-ranging discussions on the nuclear issue. This second trip for GEF/UNDP also provided insight into many energy and environmental issues in the DPRK.

On this trip, Hayes spent five hours with Kim Yong Sun discussing many issues in detail. At one point, as he was explaining why a light water reactor would not work in the unreliable and small North Korean power grid, the lights went out. The conversation continued in pitch dark for half an hour as if nothing had happened until the power came back on. At these meetings, Kim Yong Sun reiterated two or three times that he adhered to pragmatic realism as the basis for foreign policy and a new relationship with the United States. Asking that his remarks be relayed back to US officials-which they were-he stated:

There is no reason why the DPRK and the United States should remain at odds. There are no forever enemies, no forever friends. Korea is a small country surrounded by big powers. It's in the United States and the DPRKs' interests to maintain the US position in the region, to deter too much influence of a "certain power" [Japan] in the region.

On October 11, 1993, Rockefeller Foundation made its first grant to NAPSNet to fund the first phase. followed by further grants on December 22, 1993, April 25, 1994; and May 5, 1995. Nautilus aimed to establish:

...a transnational, non governmental network to engage a wide range of policy thinkers and security intellectuals in developing exploratory ideas and policy responses that supports nuclear non proliferation in the Northeast Asian region; to generate a vision of the regional security framework within which the current vexing policy dilemmas can be resolved by using email and traditional communication means to commission papers, distribute product, build media coverage of product, and solicit and expose a wide range of opinion from the region.

The original NAPSNet concept in the October 1993 grant included regional partners in Japan and an international advisory group (Inoguchi Takashi, Tokyo University, Bob Scalapino, Dingli Shen, Kim Kyung Won, Alexander Zhebin, Kim Song) to guide its work. Practically speaking, guidance came from a much wider group, as well as from Tom Graham at Rockefeller Foundation whose political instincts were unerring.

Critical to the original network concept as presented to Rockefeller was the creation of unique intellectual product. Thus, NAPSNet began immediately to produce a stream of in-house studies by Hayes and commissioned a set of expert papers. The stream of analysis, which accompanied the Daily Report quickly, established NAPSNet as a source of well-informed and often unique knowledge about North Korea as its nuclear challenge exploded onto the public agenda.

Drawing on his direct knowledge of the DPRK, Hayes also contributed in November 1993 to the Asia Society "briefing book" on policy options for engaging the DPRK, edited by Scott Snyder by producing four analyses of key issues in potential international collaboration with the DPRK on economic, environmental, energy, and nuclear technology issues, which were incorporated into the report commissioned by the Rockefeller from the Asia Society. In November, he also published a paper on the issue of transferring a light water reactor to the DPRK for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC. This carefully argued and technical paper caused influential figures in the liberal non-proliferation establishment such as Sandy Spector to take a closer look at what appeared superficially to be an absurd proposition.

On November 30, 1993, Hayes initiated communication with US Government concerning transfer of a computer to enable NAPSNet counterparts in the DPRK to receive NAPSNet product. After much review, Nautilus was authorized in May 1994 by the US Commerce Department to transfer a 386 IBM clone desktop computer to the DPRK. This became the first of three computers transferred to the DPRK (more precisely, two more 486s were approved in years following for "export" to the DPRK UN Mission in New York).

Starting in December 1993, NAPSNet began to publish a stream of specialist papers on political-military, nuclear, energy and environmental subjects related to the DPRK (See attachment 2 and the next section). The authors were from across the political-spectrum from left-liberal at the East West Center (favoring environmental dialogue and engagement of the DPRK) to conservative-right (analyzing military options against the DPRK). Most remarkably, the Institute published three papers on the possible transfer of light water reactors to the DPRK, by a well-known anti-export member of the non-proliferation establishment in Washington (Victor Gilinsky), by a former head of General Electric's reactor division (Sal Levy), and by Nautilus staff (Peter Hayes, with detailed and explicit analysis of the obstacles involved in such a transfer, as well as an analysis of the fuel cycle and plutonium-arisings from such a transfer).

Hayes also began to write for the scholarly security community, starting with an essay in the widely read Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He attended the annual Carnegie Endowment meetings on non-proliferation, and at the 1993 panel on North Korea, he introduced the concept that the DPRK was not monolithic and might be negotiated with to a cross-section of the Washington high priesthood of non proliferation policy. He explained the nature of decision-making in Pyongyang on the nuclear issue to readers of the Livermore Lab series on proliferation after giving a briefing to analysts at Z-Division. During this period, Hayes also wrote an irregular column for Sisa Journal in Seoul. These articles were read closely in South Korea.

On January 25, 1994, Nautilus appointed a former State Department intern at Intelligence and Research, Young-In Park, to represent NAPSNet and to report on the media coverage of the DPRK issue in February for six months. Park's work thereby relieved Paula Fomby, Nautilus staff in Berkeley, from writing the raw materials for the Daily Report which began in December 1993. (She remained editor responsible for assembling the feeds from the ROK, Japan, and Washington). Initially called the Washington Report and distributed by email, Park's section described briefly key US official statements and testimony, media and oped pieces, and other important events such as speeches, conferences etc. Park also produced a weekly report, Washington Insight, that was sent only to Network advisors. In August 1994, Dana Fisher took over from Paul Fomby in the Berkeley office, and Steve Noerper replaced Park in Washington in [check date] after Park left in September 1994.

In addition to providing the daily feed of American news summaries for international distribution in the assembled Daily Report issued from Berkeley, Noerper represented NAPSNet in Washington DC for eighteen months before departing for a position at the East West Center and later, CINCPAC's Asia-Pacific Center in Honolulu. He made it his business to attend think-tank and quasi-official sessions, as well as to be closely in touch with congressional aides and government officials. In the first half of 1995, for example, he attended over forty workshops or conferences dealing with the DPRK and/or ROK in Washington DC. In each case, he promoted the Daily Report personally to candidate recipients in Washington in an attempt to ensure that key individuals in all the major information-processing institutions were receiving NAPSNet services. [check number in report] He was also one of the small group of younger Korea specialists in Washington based at Korea Economic Institute, US Institute of Peace, and Korea Society who were busy around town countering some of the worst excesses of the orthodox think-tanks.

In early 1994, NAPSNet generated substantial media coverage. One report noted that the project's products had been cited in many US newspapers, National Public Radio (3 interviews), Newsweek, TheWall St Journal, and that background information was provided to NBC Nightline, CBS Evening News (including an aired interview with Tom Martin), McNeil-Lehrer Newshour, BBC, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

In March 1994, Peter Hayes produced a study on North-South cooperation and confidence-building for UNDP. This project also included convening a meeting in New York at UN headquarters of American experts on Korea and began a process of linking UN staff informally to networks of American expertise in promoting cooperation rather than confrontation with the DPRK. Later in 1994, NAPSNet provided the UN Secretary General with a briefing package on the nuclear issue prior to his visit to the ROK/DPRK in December. [check date of boutros ghali visit to DPRK] Finally, in February 1995, the ROK Government officially adopted the recommendations, and they were forwarded to Pyongyang.

As dark clouds gathered in April 1994, he wrote a study on the likely inefficacy of sanctions against the DPRK. Entitled Defiance Versus Compliance: The DPRK's Calculus Faced With Multilateral Sanctions, the report showed why the DPRK would be unmoved by the prospect of sanctions, and that its interests in complying with international norms were weak. He predicted that the DPRK would remain ambivalent about compliance so long as inducements remained so marginal and incentives to proliferate remained so strong. As the analysis was contrary to the belief system of most officials in Washington, it had likely had little impact although it was prescient and prefigured the October 1994 Agreed Framework.

In May, he undertook a third mission to the DPRK for UNDP. This mission ended abruptly when, on May 28, UNDP was told that he was a "non neutral" person whose writings about the DPRK were "unreasonable" and "uncomplimentary." He was blackballed by the DPRK Foreign Affairs Ministry from getting an entry visa for the next four years. Ironically, this shut-out also delayed a $10 million GEF grant to the DPRK on reforestation so that it became snagged on domestic budget politics in 1995-96, leading to its needless demise.

Also in May1994, a mission of American foundations visited Pyongyang with Kim Yong Sun as their host. The discussions led to an understanding with the DPRK counterparts that American donors would fund projects in the areas of cultural exchange, agriculture, internet communications, and energy. The first three areas were understood to fall in Rockefeller Foundation's purview, and the fourth to be the concern of the W. Alton Jones Foundation. However, various setbacks, confusion as to which channel would be used to communicate with Pyongyang on the energy work, and organizational politics in the United States led to a two year long stasis in implementation of non governmental collaborations on energy issues in the DPRK. This logjam was not broken until late 1996 when Nautilus resumed direct communications with counterparts in Pyongyang to define candidate non governmental energy projects.

In mid-1994, Hayes made an explicit decision to write less on security issues and to focus more on functional issues where Nautilus had a comparative expert advantage-especially on energy and environmental issues in the DPRK and the region-and utilizing private meetings and briefings rather than published articles. In April 1994, he shared sensitive data on background with American officials in the State Department who were striving to understand the DPRK's economic and energy dilemmas. In July-as the efforts by the United States to impose sanctions increased tensions to a state of near war, Nautilus convened a small conference cosponsored by the East-West Center and held at its headquarters in Honolulu between17-19 July, 1994. At this event, many of the networks writers and key analysts met for the first time. Although no DPRK participants attended, Kim Yong Sun wrote a letter to the participants from Pyongyang which noted that: "I am very thankful to you for the daily reports on peace and security situation in Northeast Asia issued in the US which I believe will undoubtedly be a resourceful help to our work."

Briefing to Carter after his June visit to DPRK; earlier paper on eve of his departure. [find details]

About the same time, NAPSNet also acquired its first writers in the region. Janice Heppell, an independent Canadian arms control analyst based in Seoul who Peter Hayes met at a UNIDIR workshop held in Seoul and hosted by the ROK Foreign Minister Han Sung Joo, agreed to serve as NAPSNet representative. Heppell was appointed in June 1994 to write the ROK part of the Daily Report. In 1995, she left the ROK and Tim Savage, then at the Academy of Korean Studies, took over until he too left Seoul in 1996.

In September 1994, NAPSNet requested the Sasakawa Foundation in Tokyo to forward-fax the Daily Report to Pyongyang. This procedure continued for the next two years. Also in September, 1994, NAPSNet hired a freelance writer in Japan, Edith Terry, to cover Japanese media and analysis related to the Korea crisis. Terry had been working out of Sasakawa and was identified by the foundation. After only a short time, the coverage proved too expensive and burdensome, and was replaced by coverage by a Japanese intern [name] in the Washington office supervised by Steve Noerper, and utilizing the Internet to review the Japanese media in "real-time." [when did GLOCOM take over? Must have been after ESENA began, in 1997?]

At the same time, the Institute was growing. It had commenced an effort to conceptualize, fund and implement "energy and environmental security" strategies in region. This led Nautilus to make its first connections with Stephen Bosworth, then President of US Japan Foundation, later head of KEDO, and now Ambassador to ROK.

In July 1994, Nautilus staff provided a set of options to State Department for functional engagement of the DPRK on energy and environmental issues. This memorandum argued that: "It would be to both sides' advantage to include in the next round's communique a mutual commitment to initiate non-governmental exchanges (scientific, cultural, technical assistance/developmental) as a safety net."

In August 1994, Nautilus staff provided energy calculations for Korea Desk at the State Department as background to discussions of heavy fuel oil in the Agreed Framework negotiations.

October 1994, as the US-DPRK Agreed Framework is being negotiated, Nautilus convened a ROK-DPRK workshop on sustainable development, hosted by the Focus Institute at Chulongakorn University in Bangkok. Five north and five south Koreans turn up. Starts NAPSNet relationship with Moon Chung In at Yonsei University, which eventually led to Yonsei taking over production of the ROK report in August of 1996. Henceforth, research effort shifts to focus on identifying options for cooperative non-governmental engagement under the Agreed Framework, while sustaining and improving NAPSNet's established services.

In December 1994, the Institute produces a technical analysis of the likely difficulty that the DPRK would exhibit in absorbing the heavy fuel oil that the United States was committed to supply under the Agreed Framework.

In December 1994, a US helicopter strayed north of the DMZ and was shot down. NAPSNet provided to Korea Desk at the State Department the text from the US Forces Korea 1978 Command History describing how the last such incident in 1977 had been resolved. David Brown, then head of the Korea Desk, reads it over an open phone line to Dick Christenson, the official accompanying then-congressperson Bill Richardson who was attempting to get the surviving pilot released by the North Koreans. Peter Hayes wrote a rare commentary in the Daily Report aimed at DPRK readers of the Daily Report, stating:

US officials believe that with every hour that passes, North Korea is losing

the opportunity to make this unfortunate incident contribute to the building of a new relationship with North Korea, rather than a new irritant that may even threaten the smooth implementation of the US-DPRK agreement.

This was the sole use of NAPSNet's Daily Report in crisis management in its entire history.

In January 1995, Nautilus commenced in-depth energy modeling work on the DPRK, drawing in expert researcher David Von Hippel. This effort leads to a series of technical studies over next two years that established Nautilus Institute as primary locus of studies on this topic in the DPRK. In February and March 1995, Nautilus staff provided Robert Galluci and David Brown at State Department with two concepts for cooperation with the DPRK, one to support a UN forestry project funded by UNDP and the Global Environment Facility in the DPRK, and the other to initiate a study within the US Government on DPRK energy issues.

Alexander Zhebin, former TASS correspondent in Pyongyang for nine years during the Cold War, was recommended by Nautilus Associate Alexander Mansourov. Zhebin was hired in December 1995 and wrote the Russia report on contract until January 1996. NAPSNet equipped him with a laptop computer and trains him on email and writing guidelines to enable him to file a digest of Russian news coverage and specialist analysis from Moscow. In May1996, [name, Bhazanov? check dates] took over the Russian section of the report, and also starts to file the DPRK Report on a monthly basis, a summary of expert Russian views on current topics in the DPRK.

Dana Fisher conducted first reader survey and created first Profile Directory in first quarter 1995. Fisher left in 1996, but made crucial early recommendation that Nautilus Institute create a home page, and cobbled together one first using a friendly non profit server based in Washington DC, and later on a commercial service provider. Dana Fisher's choice proved a wise one and put Nautilus ahead of the information curve in that NAPSNet simultaneously ran a listserv in conjunction with a web service, enabling us to operate a multi-tiered service that was suitable for readers wherever they were located in cyberspace.

In January 1997, Wade Huntley was hired and created the first true Web version of the Daily Report. Nautilus elected to maintain a two tier web and email distribution system; Huntley tightens the reporting; transition to new Yonsei writer via Chung In Moon; new Japan writer via partner on energy-env. Security projects, GLOCOM; fire Zhebin, Moltz finds and funds new Russia writer; we fail to get JPRS/FBIS and Current News access; funding secured for Abolition project focused on Japan and ROK, and Savage hired as relief for WH once Ford funds secured.

Also in 1997, create Policy Forum On-Line with partial success. Role of SF in web design and promotion at this time, moving toward increased professional support in Institute for information systems (culminates in Julie Haugen hire).

In 1998, partnership with Yonsei ends; International Policy Studies Institute at Korea University recruited as replacement, through mediation of Han Sung-joo.

Other Issues and Difficulties [to come]

NAPSNet as an internal model in the Institute for Internet services; and as an external model (eg South Asia and Non Nuclear NATO Networks); tabulation of comparative services and web sets

Getting access to FBIS/JPRS in meaningful way

Annotation of Daily Report to show how news read in DOD

Politics and difficulties of having NK coverage and "balance;" also, getting DPRK writer Kim Myong Chol approved, but not activated in major way.

Balance of news coverage at a glance for the generalist and in-depth coverage of events for specialist.

Coverage of ROK alternative voices; of non-English media; of non-written media-only papers for most part

Institutional partners take over, self funding in Japan, Russia, ROK; not China. Hoped would be portal in each country not just via Nautilus and NAPSNet, but only limited success in realizing a distributed Web-network.

 

II. DISTRIBUTION OF NAPSNET INFORMATION PRODUCTS

In Section I, we explained the genesis of NAPSNet. In this section, we focus on the actual informational products of NAPSNet from its inception in 1993-4 up to today.

In March 1994 at the end of the pilot phase under its first Rockefeller grant, NAPSNet reported that:

About 800 persons were advised of the launching of the Network; about 450 potential participants have been sent Network products and registration materials twice. To date (March 94) about 150 persons from 12 countries have registered with the Network; of these, about one-third (50) are email users. The registration is expanding at about 3-4 new participants each workday--or about 15-20 per week. We anticipate that registration will continue to grow for the next three months, and will plateau at about 5-600 participants.

In September 1994, 442 requests for information had been received, 152 "NAPSNet papers" had been mailed out, and 85 email recipients were registered and were getting the Daily Report, while 4 recipients including 1 in the DPRK were getting it by fax. By December, electronic recipients had grown to 141, with 27 via fax (mostly in Washington to US Government agencies unable to receive email at all or on classified public networks).

In January 1995, the NAPSNet Mid-Term Review noted that 154 recipients were receiving papers and the Daily Report via email and 30 by fax. This review noted that Nautilus Institute intended to diversify its electronic information services by starting networks on trade and environment, which was later launched as APRENet. It also observed that there were limits to electronic distribution in this early phase of the Internet:

Our readership continues to expand, partly because NAPSNet is becoming well known among specialists as the authoritative source; and partly because the community of potential users who are connecting to the Internet is increasing rapidly-albeit at varying degrees depending upon country and institutional base. In the ROK and Japan, for example, desktop e-mail connectivity is still relatively rare, but in both countries, e-mail backbones are being built rapidly and the desktop PC-oriented work culture-with its inherent potential for individual e-mail connectivity-is taking root. Government officials in most countries serviced by NAPSNet are poorly represented.

Also, many officials in various countries prefer to rely on existing official information services rather than NAPSNet. Their e-mail connections are usually institutional rather than personal and immediately accessible, raising the time-cost of their use of NAPSNet. And if they work in offices dealing with classified information, they may be unable to find an interface with commercial e-mail nets. As one US intelligence official [one of the best albeit low-ranking DPRK analysts in the US Department of Defense] told us:

I'm almost embarrassed to tell you my frustrating tale of the search for a...electronic network interface. We apparently are the hub of the most sophisticated electronic inter-connectivity the world has ever seen, unless you want to access Compuserve or its ilk. I went to an in-house "town hall" on the intelligence community and unclassified databases and heard about the staggering sums being invested in developing approaches and plans and strategies, but apparently actually buying a few modems from the local Computer World is still an out-year kind of thing. But please keep me informed about the Network. It is far too easy to become a victim of one's paradigms when dealing with Northeast Asia these days.

As of November 1995, the email NAPSNet network continued to grow. Daily e-mail distribution of the Daily Report had reached about 270 and growing. According to the NAPSNet Directory of Participants published in Fall 1995 (see Table 1), the email recipients had risen to 277, with 48 recipients still demanding faxed copies (46 of whom were in the United States, and 2 were in the DPRK). By late 1977, when the next reader's survey was completed, registered email users had risen to about 784 registered recipients of the Daily Report in 27 countries. By December 1999, this figure had grown geometrically to 1,957 registered email recipients of the Daily Report and other NAPSNet email services.

 

 

Table 1: Distribution of NAPSNet Daily Report and Papers: 1994-96
Country	Email Daily Reports/Papers				Faxed Daily Reports/Papers
	Sep-94	Jan-95	Fall-95	Feb-96	Sep-94	Jan-95	Fall-95
Argentina				1
Austria				1
Australia	3	9	13	17
Brazil				1
Canada	3	5	8	10
China	1	3	2	20	1	1
France				2
Germany	1	1	4	7
Holland			1
Hong Kong			1	3
India				2
Indonesia				1
Israel			1	2
Japan	3	19	12	44	2	2
Kazakstan				1
Malaysia				1
Mongolia				1
New Zealand			2	3
Norway			1
North Korea					1	1	2
Pakistan				2
Philippines			2	1
Russia	3	3	5	6
Singapore				1
South Africa				1
South Korea	2	9	12	42
Sri Lanka				1
Sweden	1	1	2
Switzerland			1	2
Thailand	2	2		1
United Kingdom	5	5	6	18
United States	61	91	207	393		26	46
Totals	85	148	280	585	4	30	48
Sources: September 1994: D. Fisher, "The Northeast Asian Peace and Security Network," dated December 2, 1994. The table from the data is drawn about distribution is an attached table dated September 1994. January 1995: P. Hayes, D. Fisher, NAPSNet Mid-Term Review, January 1995, p. 6. Fall 1995: NAPSNet, Directory of Participants, Berkeley, Fall 1995, p. 2. February 1996: NAPSNet, NAPSNet Member Profiles, internal memorandum. We estimate that this memo may overstate number of email recipients by up to 30 % as it does not separate email from non email service. We have therefore corrected the total used in Figure 1 to 410. The difference is the on-going fax distribution of the Daily Report in Washington DC, and registered users not on email or fax, especially non-US registrants. Note: The registered recipients does not equal the actual readers. As the 1997 reader survey discovered that on average, NAPSNet recipients were forwarding to an additional 3 readers.