Somebody just emailed this piece by Scott Stossel in the Atlantic on the North Korean nuclear issue. I haven’t read it all, as I’m about to head to work, but I link to it for your viewing enjoyment — it looks like a must read. Just the intro:
Dealing with North Korea could make Iraq look like child’s play–and the longer we wait, the harder it will get. That’s the message of a Pentagon-style war game involving some of this country’s most prominent foreign-policy strategists
49 Comments
I don’t understand the jokers like Gallucci. He wants another “make-believe” shit about NK not developing nuke bomb. How deep is his head in the sand?
Bush is doing it right. Don’t talk to these liars. Just don’t talk.
Bring the problem to UN. Pass the resolution. Do the same thing as in Iraq. Give NK warning. Let China make up its f***ing position.
Then, hit NK fast and hard. Arrest KJI and give him the cell next to Saddam. They can wash their underwares together.
“North Korea is believed to have large stockpiles of chemical weapons (mustard gas, sarin, VX nerve agent) and biological weapons (anthrax, botulism, cholera, hemorrhagic fever, plague, smallpox, typhoid, yellow fever). An actual war on the Korean peninsula would almost certainly be the bloodiest America has fought since Vietnam?€”possibly since World War II.” That really ruined my afternoon.
Wait, THIS ruined my afternoon: Citing congressional testimony given by General Leon LaPorte, the commander of U.S. forces in Korea, Gardiner said that North Korea’s chemical weapons could be a “showstopper.” “The chemical-weapon thing is big,” he said. “We have reason to believe that the chemical weapons are with the forward artillery units that are targeting Seoul. If we don’t get those early, we end up with chemicals on Seoul.”
McInerney: “No, I do. I believe that we have the capability?€”whether from pre-emption or response?€”to minimize the casualties in Seoul.”
Mathews: “‘Minimize’ to roughly what level? A hundred thousand? Two hundred thousand?”
McInerney: “I think a hundred thousand or less.”
OK, 100,000 deaths or less, I feel better now.
Nukes will kill more. Hit them before they get more nukes.
“Those who fear the enemy will become their slaves.”
Rho and his cronies are already slaves to the North. What was I thinking?
Chemical weapons? SKs lived through tear gases. Mustard gas? What, we are back to WWI? All the more reason to hit them without warning. B2 bombers can knock out these old world weapons.
Baduk,
You are a scary man. You make me sound like a moderate.
Baduk, you are truly a manly man.
Baduk is delusional.
In his mind, the US successfully takes out the North Korean nukes, which are all conveniently located in the same place, and Pyongyang never retaliates.
If it were that simple, Baduk, why hasn’t it been tried?
The U.S. was busy with Iraqi war. Oil comes first.
But, now Iraq is under control. And, troops can go for another round. Use nukes. Drop a few around PyongYang and Yongbyuen. Save lives.
And, kick Chinese asses while doing it.
When the smoke clears, two Koreas will be united. And, with some money flowing in from the U.S. and other friendly countries, Korea will be in good shape. With no monkey(NK threat) on the back.
Japan will love it too. It may start attacking China all by itself. Tokyo major says that he wants to do it.
Baduk wrote:But, now Iraq is under control. And, troops can go for another round. Use nukes. Drop a few around PyongYang and Yongbyuen. Save lives.Your handle is “baduk,” but I guess you suck at paduk because you have no clue how your adversaries would react to any move you make.
Let’s say the US nuked Pyongyang and Y?’ngby?’n, or even just Y?’ngby?’n. What would North Korea and/or China’s reaction be? What would the rest of the world’s? Do you really think it would all just end there?
I am not talking about strategic nuke weapons. Conventional nuke weapons. Small size nuclear bombs with capability to knock out a city.
Since KJI is threatening the U.S. with nukes, it is only appropriate that he gets the taste of his medicine first.
Use them. They are conventional weapons.
I’d prefer they used the secret neutron weaponary stockpile they have reather than contaminating the shit out of everything.
The Atlantic article is interesting, even if it does have some errors (”President” Kim Jong-il?). The most telling aspect of it for me is that it barely mentions S. Korea as an actor, only in passing saying it wouldn’t go for a preemptive strike on the North (uh, you don’t say?). No mention at all of it playing a role in dissuading Kim from the nukes–that’s a sad commentary on what the U.S. thinks of the S.K. gov’t these days (OK, or typical American arrogance).
Kushibo,
You worry wart. The same thing was said about Iraq.
Just do it. Do it. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Bush did it in Iraq. He can do it again. I think he is a great president.
If the Chinese interfere, then we can freeze their assets in the U.S. That is about 15% of national debt. It can pay for both Iraq and NK wars.
The good thing about NK war is that the U.S. can win the war and leave policing to SK. Much cleaner situation than Iraq.
Just use conventional nukes and tomahawks and continous bombing from the airforce bombers. NK will not last long, with their limited supply of oil.
And, AirForce can bomb Manchuria if necessary to cut the supply of oil. Without oil, NK cannot last even a couple of weeks.
When Bush was contemplating the attack on Iraq, the following things were said by worry warts.
1)All Middle Eastern countries will unite and fight against the U.S.
-Where are they? I don’t see them uniting.
2) There will be more attacks like 9/11.
-F***, these jokers were dead wrong. The truth is without Iraq war, there could have been more terrorism.
3) The world opinion will turn against the U.S.
-F***, what world opinion? The French is begging to join the U.S. in policing Iraq.
Speak softly and carry a big stick. But, I will say “Don’t speak. Use the stick often to plant terror into your enemies.”
“No mention at all of it (S.K.)playing a role in dissuading Kim from the nukes” Well, S.K. hasn’t done a whole heck of a lot in that department so far, have they?
“that?€™s a sad commentary on what the U.S. thinks of the S.K. gov?€™t these days” I think a more correct statement would be “what the U.S. and S.K. think of each other these days.”
Why would it be more correct? The Atlantic piece focuses on the U.S., not S. Korea’s opinion about the situation. Maybe I misunderstand you. S.K. has done squat to disarm the norks, that’s why I said it was sad–you would think that if someone threatened repeatedly to kill your family, you’d take action (and I don’t mean sending tons of rice to them).
Oh, the games people play.
?€œGiven the same amount of intelligence, timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity.?€?
- Karl von Clausewitz
That Atlantic article will be offline in about two days, according to what it says at the top of the page. I like this policy of allowing subscribers to send articles to non-subscribers. Kind of like getting accepted into an exclusive club as the guest of member!
Perhaps, more correctly, like gaining admittance to the last of a dying breed of paid content which costs hundredths of a cent to provide you with.
Maybe not.
Sam Gardiner is a strident left-winger who has consistently put out the message that GWB lied. Jim Fallows has inveighed against almost every weapons system we have on hand, since before Desert Storm. By all means, read this article, if you have nothing better to do. Note, however, that they will present only the left-wing perspective on the Korean situation.
North Korea threatens to turn Seoul and Japan into a ?€œsea of fire?€? every other month. The North has repeated the ?€œsea of fire?€? like mantra so often people think it is automatic- but would the North really do such a thing? Don?€™t get me wrong if I were betting on the situation I would bet on the North lashing out at the South and Japan. And the North certainly has the means to carry out the threat. My point is this mantra that everyone believes in whole heartedly has a chance, albeit a small one, of not happening for various reasons.
“There’s nothing in our national-security interest that is better served by multilateral versus bilateral talks. That’s a shape-of-the-table issue. If we wanted to say, ‘Okay, they want to have bilateral talks? Fine. We’ll have a bilateral subcommittee within the six-party talks’?€”how long would that take to figure out? Half an hour.” — Jessica Matthews
My jaw almost fell on the floor when I saw this one. A supposed expert on North Korea is dismissing shape-of-the-table arguments as irrelevant? Does she know anything whatsoever about negotiations during the Korean War? To the Koreans, shape-of-the-table isn’t a preliminary to be disposed of, it’s a crucial test of strength. If your opponent gives in on shape-of-the-table, it means that he is weak, and that you should demand big concessions. See Turner Joy’s How Communists Negotiate.
Of course, there may be some valid reasons for preferring bilateral talks. The biggest is that some of the other participants in 6-way talks have higher priorities than eliminating North Korean nukes. But Jessica Matthews’ reasoning merely shows that she is unqualified to enter the discussion.
The Atlantic article is an interesting look at the different viewpoints. The matter-of fact presentation of apocalyptic preemtpive attack scenarios is presumably meant to alarm the reader even further about the “warlike Bush administration”; but, in my quick skim of the article, I didn’t notice any emphasis on the fact that these war games are meant to be played out to explore all possible scenarios, without regard to the domestic/ international politics of the situation.
I also didn’t notice any mention of the potential expense involved in the different “attack and occupation” scenarios, which would presumably add hundreds of billions more to the current US budget deficit, thus making them politically impossible to achieve in practice (quite aside from the loss of life involved).
We’ve gone for 52 years of “armistice” in Korea, and the situation hasn’t improved any, indeed it’s gotten worse. A radical change of direction is needed, which is why the US should just announce its intention to unilaterally withdraw from the peninsula, and then follow the option (mentioned in the article) of allowing ROK and Japan to have limited control of US nuclear weapons on their own aircraft and missile systems, for use only in a retaliation against a NorK attack.
I don’t understand the concern for the NPT expressed by some of the participants in the war games. NorK has clearly broken the NPT and none of the three potential opposing powers (ROK, Japan, US) should now consider themselves to be further bound by its terms vs. a vs. NorK.
Nothing is going to stop Iran from building their nukes either, and we are all fated to soon find ourselves in a “brave new world” where the Iranian and NorK possession of nukes is a given.
The only way to handle the potential “smuggled-in nuclear weapon” scenario is to make it privately clear to NorK (and to Russia and China) that if an atomic bomb of unknown origin is ever detonated in the US, it will mean an automatic and overwhelming retaliation against the NorK. If the US is gone from the peninsula, it will soon become apparent to the “rational” actors in NorK (there has to be some in the ruling elite who fit this category) that there is just no percentage in selling nuclear bombs/materials to terrorist groups, particularly if an alarmed ROK steps up its subsidies to the North (as I presume would happen if the US leaves the peninsula).
The problem will come when Iran gets their nukes as well.
Then the only solution is a drastically increased presence on the high seas to check all vessel traffic from these countries, and to spend hundreds of billions more on port security to thoroughly check all arriving vessels in US ports, as well as a drastic sealing of our (US) northern and southeren borders. Since this seems to be currently impossible to achieve politically as well, it may well take the actual detonation of a smuggled nuke somewhere in the world to achieve it.
The columnist Mark Steyn has written that he thinks this will inevitably happen, somewhere in the West, in our lifetimes. One is probably reduced to simply hoping that he/she won’t be at ground zero when it happens (just like we’re all glad we weren’t on the upper floors of the WTC).
Since the actual operational personnel involved in any such smuggling and detonation will have to be fanatical lunatics anyway, one is reduced to hoping they’ll make a mistake. Since there’s a high chance that they’d set it off prematurely in some other country first, one presumes that the other major powers will be alarmed at this possibility, particularly once the US has left the peninsula, and quietly cooperate with US efforts to monitor NorK (and Iran).
Especially once the other powers see that there is no realistic chance that the US will simply decide to preemptively attack NorK (as Baduk urges). It’s not going to happen Baduk, the military forces (air and sea power) exist to do it but the US public won’t stand for it, unless another 9/11 type event has happened. (Nor should they IMO).
Seems unfair to castigate Jessica Matthews.
I thought the most interesting passage was, “I could never get a goddamn answer. What I got was ‘We wouldn’t negotiate.’”
Eberstadt said pretty much the same thing (and of course, he is no liberal), that a general disdain for NK is not the same thing as having a policy towards it.
I have to disagree with one sentiment: that things will only get worse. I’m not sure if that is a valid assumption. Jessica Matthews/etc brings up the important point that we were thinking along the same line with US/USSR cold war nuclear build up. I might be being too optimistic, but if KJI dies of cardiac arrest, things could feasibly improve. Everyone can blame KJI just like how all the soviets blamed Stalin and then life goes on as usual.
Going bilateral, means that we pretty much give up the hope that China, SK, etc, will help the United States give any punitive measures towards NK should NK renege on it’s deals with the US, yet again. Jessica Matthews point out that no matter what happens, SK will not take punitive steps towards NK short of a war initated by NK. To make it even more clear, SK will engage in war only AFTER Seoul is destroyed by NK chemical weapons. I think they are probably right in their assessment that we cannot protect Seoul.
United State’s principal concern is that no islamic bomb ever detonates against US people. In this regard, I think we may as well try doing what she suggests—go through a bilateral dialogue and sign a peace treaty with North Korea. The end result of this would be the withdrawal of US forces from South Korea (but not Japan), and no longer giving SK nuclear shield. In all likelihood even this will probably fail, as NK will give no measures to verify that it complies. In fact, we will probably just can the talks in the middle of it. But the one thing it could do, is give the Chinese and SK the hibby-jibbies and hopefully they might be more conducive to supporting the 6 party talk. Aftearll, the Chinese will have to wonder if they really want to see a nuclearized N/S Korea (possibly Taiwan) and the SK have to seriously think if they are capable of taking a more “balanced” and “equal” lead in handling NK problem.
Of course, this is sorta like shooting ourselves in the foot, but with a myriad of bad ideas, we might as well start talking about all the crazy options we have…
It’s not “shooting ourselves in the foot” if we avoid getting involved in a war on the peninsula. Communism (and in particular its DPRK lunatic fringe) isn’t an existential threat to the West anymore, whereas Islamo-fascism now is.
Given the current world political climate there is no support anywhere for the US to do anything other than maintain the “status quo” on the Korean peninsula, and for the US the status quo is unacceptable.
If South Korea surrendered tomorrow and was incorporated into the DPRK, what difference would it make to the US? No more than the reunification of Vietnam did. Life would go on, KJI would still want the South to go on exporting its products as before.
It’s not worth risking nuclear war over. Let’s get out (which will make a lot of ROK citizens happy anyway) and let the regional powers (Japan China Russia) worry about Korea.
Paul’s got a point. US won’t have to deal with it, and at least (S) Korea will be less of a schizo like Japan has become.
Paul, if it were that simple, it would have been done a long time ago. The US has large economic and political interests in what happens in South Korea and Japan. What is their problem becomes the US’s problem.
Yes, it would be so simple if the US could just leave the rest of the world and worry only about what happens in North America. But isolationism is not going to pay the bills, and it will just allow trouble to brew until it finally does affect us.
And let’s not forget that the best deterrent for a going-it-alone South Korea (which most Koreans do NOT support) facing a nuclear North Korea is for the South to have nukes itself (in a mini-MAD like Pakistan and India have). While this would likely lead to an arms race in Northeast Asia, the more fundamental problem is that South Korea didn’t pursue nukes, at the behest of the US. For the US to then pull out the protection that would have negated the need for a nuclear deterrent would be morally questionable.
Actually, the bit (by Paul) about nukes landing in the US of “unknown origin,” in which case the US will automatically assume it to be of NK origin. The US defense industry does a nice buz selling its wares (often outdated ones) to various countries. Why shouldn’t NK sell its bits? Carpet bombing with cluster bombs not quite that bad as nuking? What, you splitting hairs now?
I advocate a withdrawal of US ground forces and bases from ROK, not a withdrawal from the Mutual Defense Treaty and complete isolationism.
From my earlier post above: “…the US should just announce its intention to unilaterally withdraw from the peninsula, and then follow the option (mentioned in the article) of allowing ROK and Japan to have limited control of US nuclear weapons on their own aircraft and missile systems, for use only in a retaliation against a NorK attack.” (If they want them, of course…)
This avoids the US bringing upon itself moral opprobrium by “abandoning” its ROK ally, but puts the burden for primary ground defense of ROK where it properly belongs — on the citizens of the ROK. After 55 years they have recovered enough from the war to assume it themselves.
As much as the US is reviled there when convenient, I’ve learned from reading these Korean blogs that ROK citizens, when faced with this actual question of US withdrawal, want to keep “kicking down the road indefinitely”, just as they do with reunification. But they can’t have their cake and eat it too, as least as far as this American is concerned.
The DPRK is one of the two most dangerous threats to the US and world peace; but everybody else in the world is happy to have the US to kick around, confident that good old Uncle Sam is always going to be there to absorb the first blow whenever and wherever. Well, it’s time for them to wake up and smell the coffee.
If the ROK wants to be a “balancer”, I think that’s outstanding, just as long as they pay the bills for their role, along with reaping the political plaudits. If they don’t want to drastically upgrade their own conventional defenses, then let’s give them operational control of some US nukes; we’ve got plenty, they’re already paid for, and it will cheaply and quickly neutralize the DPRK triple threat of conventional, chemical/biological, and nuclear attack.
Doesn’t the average ROK citizen believe that DPRK would never use nukes on the South anyway? Fine by me, they don’t have to take US nukes, let them be the ones who get to live with whatever the consequences of their beliefs turn out to be. I imagine if they subsidize DPRK enough they will be “safe”, and maybe over time DPRK will even mellow down.
And maybe this will happen even faster with the bogeyman US gone. I think this is just as likely an outcome as another Korean war. Regardless, at least we won’t be in the middle of (and taking the blame for) whatever does happen.
Something must be done to prevent NK from selling its weapons to the crazy people that are sure they could accomplish something by detonating WMD in the US or anywhere else in the world. Port security is, in my humble opinion, a fantasy at best. Take the San Francisco bay area for example-how would it be possible for every ship bringing goods in to be credibly screened before they embark for San Francisco? A ship carrying a nuclear weapon, for example, wouldn?€™t have to dock or even really enter the bay if the weapon could be rigged to be detonated at a certain proximity to the bay.
The whole article was pretty dismal in that it seems that with NK any discussion of war is like talking about playing tic-tack-toe. I know the article maintains the US stands a relatively high probability of prevailing in a conflict with the forces of NK but at what cost is very ambiguous. It is equally unnerving that the present administration has been ineffective or unwilling to deal with the issue and now that the military forces of the US are engaged long term in both Iraq and Afghanistan, there are doubts as to its ability to effectively deal with a NK threat should the need arise and the longer nothing is done NK could theoretically be making more nukes.
I have decided to look at this from the point of view of what I would do if I were Pres. I would approach China with the idea that a unified Korean peninsula under the same political system as currently exists in SK would be much more in their interest than continuing to prop up the Communist North. Perhaps KJI can be given the option of retirement-I hear that Tierra del Fuego is really quite charming-or be deposed. I would also promise to remove US troops from a unified Korean peninsula but not Japan thereby giving China a larger safety buffer than they currently have. I would promise that the US would take care of any and all resulting humanitarian efforts dealing with refugees and displaced people so as not to put an unwanted burden on either China or SK. Furthermore, I would demand that all NK WMD be destroyed in a safe and verifiable manner. Last of all, I would promise to help Taiwan become an integrated part of mainland China through peaceful means with the condition that it keep its democratic and capitalistic system by being included in China?€™s one nation two system policy (yes I know it is not a flawless system and that there are issues in Hong Kong but?€?)
Many of you will disagree with me and argue that the world is not for any leader to bargain away with nor is the situation as simple as I make it out to be or it would habe been done already and they would be correct but that is already happening when people begin contemplating large scale war, particularly when WMD are involved in an area as population dense as NEA. I suppose I am just a dreamer.
On a side note, I love Baduk?€™s postings, they always bring a smile to my face. What ever the issue being discussed, whether it be the ethics of embryo stem cell research, prostitution, multi-cultural couples, the state of the Korean economy or something President Roh said, he always seems to work in the ?€?got to nuke the commie bastards?€™ answer into it somehow. Keep up the good work!
Paul H,
A great deal of your opinion seems to rest on the idea that most Koreans think like the Hankyoreh or other leftist organizations. They don’t. It is Roh’s idea to make Korea a “balancer,” but the idea is heavily derided here. Roh was elected with a plurality of votes, not a majority, and his popularity numbers are quite low.
Don’t believe the hype. If you ever come out here, Paul, I seriously would love to meet up with you over beer at Harvey’s or coffee at the Yongsan Starbuck’s and we’ll talk about a few things. There’s a lot to show you. With any luck, a pro-US demonstration next door like the one we had a week ago will be going on.
In the late 1990s, I might have agreed with you, James, but China has shown that it can’t be trusted to keep its word. Taiwanese see how China has backtracked on its promises to the British about Hong Kong.
The Brits didn’t have to give up HK in the first place, and there’s no reason for the US to give up everything you’re talking about there. If you had stopped at pointing out that a unified Korea under a SK-style system is in their best interest, I would have thought that enough. That and a promise to keep US troops out of any former DPRK territory. If they think that’s not enough, promise to keep US troops south of Seoul and northern Ky?’nggi, which we are headed toward anyway (south-of-the-Han reconfiguration). No more than that, otherwise China will be tempted to push the envelope.
Kushibo wrote:
“…the more fundamental problem is that South Korea didn?€™t pursue nukes, at the behest of the US. For the US to then pull out the protection that would have negated the need for a nuclear deterrent would be morally questionable.”
As someone who has some contacts in the military/intelligence circles, I can say with confidence that South Korean can go nuclear very quickly. In fact, that has the case for decades.
While I would agree that it may be in the U.S. interest to still remain in South Korea, the morality argument for keeping them in South Korea is hardly persuasive–unless the American abandonment is designed to facilitate or serve as a prelude to military operations in North Korea.
“The Brits didn?€™t have to give up HK in the first place…”
Actually I think they did, the “lease” was up. Which made it a totally different situation from Taiwan, in terms of the legalities of the situation.
Since the hallmark of the West is supposed to be its devotion to the rule of law, the British were hardly in a position to complain. If I recall my history correctly, the British negotiated a “lease” of the place for some extremely long (but oddly numbered) period of years, with the Chinese empire (made in 1900? good for 97 years? I know the Brits left in 1997).
So that made it a different type of deal from the one US made with Cuba for the “lease” of Guantanamo Bay (for a coaling station for Navy ships). Treaty says “in perpetuity(?)” duration, can only be ended with the consent of both parties, US actually makes an annual payment to Castro each year (a couple hundred thousand dollars (?) which he makes a big point of refusing to accept).
I think I read that UK PM Thatcher approached PRC in 1984 for preliminary talks to see about extending the “lease” deal, was given a firm “no”, so then she began negotiations to preserve what she could of its free market and self-governing status.
Thanks for the kind invite, Kushibo, hopefully I’ll take you up on it one of these days.
Paul H. wrote:?€œThe Brits didn?€™t have to give up HK in the first place?€??€?
Actually I think they did, the ?€œlease?€? was up. Which made it a totally different situation from Taiwan, in terms of the legalities of the situation.The 99-year lease was up for the (relatively) New Territories, which were obtained in 1898. For Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, obtained in 1847 or something, it was “in perpetuity” or something quaint like that.
The Portuguese, who controlled next-door Macao for some 400 years, didn’t have to give their little piece of China up, either.
In a worst-case scenario, the Brits could have held onto Kowloon and Hong Kong, but more than likely had they just said NOTHING, the Chinese would have gone along with letting them hold onto everything. It was the Brits that proposed handing THE WHOLE THING back to Beijing.
Before that, it would have been a choice for Beijing between having to administer the NT (the biggest but least affluent part of the area) and potentially getting less of an economic buzz from a slightly crippled British HK, or letting the Brits keep everything and getting a strong economic buzz from an intact HK under British rule.
But when the Brits said, “Hey, we’ll let you have the whole thing if you promise not to change it for fifty years,” Beijing now had the option of keeping the whole thing for themselves.
Kushibo, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss Paul H.’s points, after all, I agree with many or most of them and I live in SK. I think that realistically, they won’t pull all the troops out and I’m not sure if ultimately that would be the best thing to do, as I’m no geopolitical expert. But I sure like his ideas about leaving things up to Asians to take more of a proactive approach to solving some of their problems, like this one. I also like the idea of creating a perimeter with bases in Japan and Guam that can be used as bases for quickly mobile forces. The US could and should maintain a forceful presence in Asia, but I think that if the main players don’t want to resolve issues like this one, that are of importance to the US, then maybe the Yankees should just go ahead and do what’s best for themselves.
No time for a thorough answer, but consider something important: every time the US appears to have been pushed out of an area (e.g., the Philippines and our own home turf in Puerto Rico), it has encouraged and emboldened certain activist groups in the remaining areas to step up their activities. There are considerable anti-USFJ groups in Okinawa and the main islands of Japan. There are also groups in Guam that aren’t all that happy with the loss of land there. The very act of leaving Korea to hunker down in Japan and even Guam might inadvertently be leading to a future with similar problems in Japan and Guam.
I don’t know paul, my suggestion is really really bad too…
You say that you think if KJI unifies the Korean peninsula, he wouldn’t export nukes abroad. Why? You seem to attribute some sort of rationality to KJI’s mind, which I think is wholly unjustified. I may be biased about this… I grant you that. A unified Korea under KJI will mean that the Worker’s Party will have, in addition to it’s shoddy missile/nuclear program, sophisticated SK technology to allow them to mount that device on Scud, with superior guidance system. AND, KJI will demand to have “normal” relationship with US, i.e. trade, investment etc. YOu tell me, does United States look like a country that will want this kind of relationship with KJI? US will have to do a major major public relations blitz to say that our relationship with KJI is nothing like our relationship with the Al-Saul family or better yet, Osama Bin Laden.
The real problem… I think the real reason why US doesn’t just do what I say is that, things could get a heck of a lot worse, not better if China/SKorea is in charge of relationship with DPRK. SKorea and China seem to be sort of crossing their fingers and hoping that KJI dies tomorrow, and that all the contacts they have established with Sunshine/etc will allow them some sort of soft-landing. If we step out, that’s going to be the effective global policy towards DPRK. What this mean for us is that, we have failed with our non-proliferation efforts–end of Pax-Americana. When Iran goes nuclear, will we do the same thing and leave the middle east? What if say, Brazil goes nuclear? We might have to live in a world where everyone is nuclear and any small scuffle can become a nuclear conflict. I think, that both conservatives and liberals realize this as a fact, and that’s the reason why we have so much troulbe just leaving Korea… Maybe we have to live in this kind of a world regardless of what we do towards the DPRK… I don’t know. We really are in a pickle barrel.
Situations like this are why we need a Canadian foreign policy. Israelis are nice people and all, but it’s really not our problem. South Koreans are great people, but again, not our problem. Ditto with Taiwan. You can concede that someone is a nice person without getting involved in his disputes. Sometimes, these guys just need to fight it out to clear the air. Remaining aloof means that we can hold their hands afterwards and make sympathetic noises. Al Qaeda terrorists haven’t hit us in close to four years. I think they’ve learned their lesson. It’s time to get back to basics, and let go of all these Cold War era obligations. (Besides, the news will be a lot more interesting without Uncle Sam in the ring - I expect a new era of running battles peace to ensue).
Foreign policy problems are each unique both in time and space. There’s simply no reason that an artificial pattern of “consistency” must be imposed on the current world situation facing the US.
I seriously doubt that the Brazilians are on tenterhooks right now, anxiously waiting to see what happens with Iran and NorK before starting their own nuclear weapons program.
If Brazil decided they needed nukes for some reason, then they might perhaps look to situations elsewhere in the world for excuses to use as political “cover”; but the underlying reason for acquisition would relate to what their neighbors or potential threats to their country were doing (ie Argentine nationalists raising major new military forces in order to reverse some of the results of the catatrophic SA wars of the 19th Century, or Portugal outfitting a major fleet and army in order to invade and recolonize Brazil).
Since these absurd examples are not likely to happen, it’s probable that even volatile Latin politicos are not willing to pour billions of money down a rathole in order to acquire nuclear weapons. Such weapons would end up as nothing more than conversation pieces, as well as sources of intense alarm to their neighbors; one can see this from the sucessful example South African denuclearization.
We can’t pull out from the coming confrontation with Iran, for better or worse we are “stuck” in the Persian Gulf for the “duration” for a whole host of reasons. Plus the current Iranian regime has a history of active support of terrorist attacks against the US (and others) worldwide. NorK has a terrorist history too, but not lately so much and not worldwide; plus the Korean peninsula isn’t a vital area for US in the same way (at least IMHO). It’s not an “avenue” that leads the US to anywhere.
We’ve achieved long ago in ROK what we are trying to do in Iraq: to set up a reasonably democratic government which has the ability to sustain itself. The current “mantra” is that once this same objecive is accomplished in Iraq, we will leave; so if you want to impose consistency on the different foreign policy problems facing the US around the world, start asking yourself why we haven’t already left the ROK, in the same way that we say we are going to leave Iraq eventually.
Yes, I know ROK doesn’t “want” us to leave, but that’s because we’re still paying the bills for obligations that they long ago should have taken over for themselves. Time to stop the international “welfare” system for US allies, we can’t afford it anymore (in terms of treasure as well as in terms of potential loss of life).
grokstar
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