SEOUL -- I have given a series of lectures on U.S. Asia policy in the weeks since the revelation about North Korea's secret nuclear weapons program. While the audiences and locations in South Korea, Japan and the United States have varied widely, the questions have been remarkably similar. Along with everyone else, I can only guess at the answers.
The third most frequently asked question has been, "Why did North Korea decide to confess?" This is usually a two-part question (especially in South Korea) -- the remainder being "is this part of a broader "confess and move on" plan that signals their true intention once and for all to come clean and break with the past?" While one would fervently like to believe this to be the case, I suspect that the truth lies elsewhere.
My guess is that the real reason the North confessed was because it got caught red-handed in the act of cheating and, realizing that the Agreed Framework was all but dead and that the prospects of future cooperation with Washington were now less than zero, decided to arrogantly confront Washington in hopes that they could get another deal -- not necessarily a better deal, just a new one that would somehow make a virtue out of their latest vice.