I always find it cute when Selig Harrison thinks he’s a player.
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{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
Robert,
Is that really you, or is Wangkon writing his usual drivel under your byline?
Dissing Selig? Are you fucking kidding me? Does anyone, I mean anyone at all, really doubt that Selig has serious street cred when I comes to North Korea?
Look, agree with the man, don’t agree with the man, but if you’re going to dismiss the guy, you of all people should know that you’re going to have to do your homework and offer up some better critique than some pissy little remark.
Remember, Robert, not all of your readers are twenty-something English teachers. Selig deserves better than what you just offered up. I have no doubt that tomorrow morning you’re going to agree with me.
Cheers,
David L. Barch
San Jose, CA
It’s less cute, more obnoxious. Selig doesn’t deserve better.
Sorry, I just can’t. Although I do agree that Selig probably does have “serious street cred” when it comes to North Korea… or at least with North Korean officials, who chat him up and let him return to the States feeling like he’s gained some profound insight into North Korea’s inner thinking… and how Washington (or at least Republicans) have got it all wrong. Which, I image, is the whole point of the exercise (from the North Korean point of view, anyway).
Oh, and his analysis of Southern Asia might be questionable, too:
http://www.registan.net/index.php/2008/05/10/the-inexplicable-longevity-of-selig-s-harrison/
That said, a look at my archives reveals that once — on an extraordinary day in February 2006 — I said something nice about Selig:
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2006/02/03/selig-harrison-on-korea-us-alliance-must-read/
So David, what’s your take on the message, especially the last paragraph? It sounds like Harrison is suggesting we should live with a nuclear North Korea and instead focus on missile limitation. I don’t know if the idea is to stop them developing a missile that can hit the US. If they have “learned to miniaturize nuclear warheads” then they already have the capability to attack the South and probably Japan too. They certainly talk the talk about reducing the South to ashes, I don’t know why one would want to explicitly accept them being able to walk the walk as well.
But why would the North agree to missile limitations if it is presented with tacit acceptance of its nuclear programme? It has already been given tacit acceptance of its kidnapping operations. Missile limitation would also be a lot harder to implement and verify. How would you get the international community, Russians and Chinese on board?
Not only does it send the wrong message to the North Koreas, that you only have to wait five to ten years and American policy will change completely and you’ll get away with it, but it also sends that message to the rest of the world. How does it affect Iran?
Wow, a substantive dialogue thread that promises more than the usual bitch and moan by disaffected expats. Where to begin?
Well, “Publius” suffers from the triple failings of (1) not having the testicular fortitude to use his real name, (2) not having the intellectual gravitas to offer much of a comment, and (3) not having an avatar that doesn’t scream “dork.” So he can be summarily dismissed.
Robert, the next time I’m in Seoul, let’s share a bottle of Pinot Noir at Kabinett and discuss the nuances of North Korea policy. But for the time being, let’s also at least agree that Selig is not a shill for North Korea and his views are not the result of North Korean hacks chatting him up. Puhlease! Selig has legitimate policy recs, and Washington would do well to listen to some of them. To wit….
Eujin, you make some fair but muddled points. First, Selig doesn’t suggest giving up on nuclear talks, just on acknowledging that the North is more likely to negotiate away its future nukes than surrender its current arsenal. That is hardly a controversial conclusion, and unless you’re suggesting a military solution, reaching some kind of modus vivendi with NK is going to require these kinds of deals. Second, in case you haven’t been paying attention, we’ve all been living with a nuclear NK for the last decade, so they kinda already “walk the walk.” Third, the nuclear weapon versus missile limitation notion is crucial. Nukes without a delivery system are of limited value – credible as a deterrent against attack but not much of a threat outside the neighborhood. It’s basic deterrence theory 101.
Finally, missile limitation is certainly not more difficult to implement and verify than nuclear development. We’re still talking about international inspections and monitors. As for China and Russia, they’ll get on board if they’re part of any multilateral negotiated agreement and if it’s in their interests to do so. I suspect the answer to both of those will be “yes.”
Cheers,
DLB
I’m with DLB on his “pissy little remark” remark. As if Robert is in any position to decide who is a player and not. At least bring forth an argument. Well done to Barch for driving this thing in a positive direction, but don’t dismiss Publius by playing the man instead of the ball. His offering was weak in and off itself. You’ll notice that I don’t use my real name for some real reasons, and I hope you won’t dismiss me for it.
By the way if Robert is not up for a bottle of red at Kabinett next time you are in town, I’d love to inveigle my way into your company. It’s been a while since I’ve had a creative discussion on NK with anybody.
Question: Will NK ever be in a situation where they would allow international inspectors and monitors to traipse through their land again?
Apologies to Mr. Barch for using an alias – I have some “real reasons” for being unable to use my real name, unrelated, I hope, to testicular fortitude. I cannot apologize, however, for my usage of a photo of myself wearing an Optimus Prime mask I saw at a local toy store. How awesome is that? It actually comes with a device that changes your voice to sound like Optimus Prime himself.
As to what is shaping up to be a substantive discussion, I wasn’t aware when initially posting that a comment thread with profanity referencing “street cred” and “Selig Harrison” in the same sentence was going to head in this direction, so I apologize.
I’ve met Harrison, and followed his work, and confess that my comment was more about his attitude and understanding of his role in the Grand Korea Game than his viewpoints. So I’ll clarify – Harrison is an older, more verbose version of the NK sympathizers who tour Pyongyang Potemkin villages and return thinking they understanding North Korea better than any other. His Op-Ed referenced hear shows glimmers of his delusion – it’s chock full of “I”‘s and “me”‘s. I’m not sure what the “policy recs” Mr. Barch is referencing are. Harrison keeps coming back from his trips as though he’s coming off Sinai with grand insights the rest of us need to hear – usually, that if we would only understand and be nice to the North Koreans, it would all be okay, and that just around the corner lie “pragmatists” and a new guard ready to guide North Korea to a wonderful new era of liberalism, peace and openness.
Really? This is somewhat of a broader discussion, but come on. The guys torture and publicly execute folks that disagree with them. The right-to-nuclear-power business? Their electricity grid is so dilapidated firing up a LWR to it would fry it instantly (if it was working enough to be fried). Plenty of countries get by just fine without nuclear power. If they were genuine in intention you would see less money go towards palaces and Hennessy and a bit more towards the public good. They certainly have just as much a right to nuclear power as anyone, but they’re being disingenuous.
Missing from nearly all security/nuclear debates (and regularly ignored by Harrison) is also one very important piece – that nearly the entire leadership of North Korea is comprised of stakeholders in mass atrocities and crimes against humanity. To allow for any opening or reform is to empower dissidents and those dissatisfied with the status quo. And most of those guys are pretty pissed at the current leadership, for one reason or another. The nuclear card is their strongest measure keeping the outside out, and the totalitarian nature of the regime is the only thing keeping them in power domestically. Both are non-negotiable for them; and they’ve done a great job of strengthening their position over the last decade.
For the “bad guys”, the only option is to keep juggling all the balls forever, until their time is up. The longer they juggle, the longer people around them suffer – from atrocities, injustice, negligence or incompetence. That doesn’t mean the only solution is to go in there guns blazing. There are other ways to leverage countries, and North Korea can certainly use a more robust, meaningful diplomatic effort – Asia as a whole can. But so long as folks like Harrison continue to place human rights second to these charades (to give the man credit, he’s at least consistent. He said the same thing about bringing up human rights to China – “too risky”), the North Koreans will have the stronger negotiating position.
Feel free to poke holes/discredit.
.
correction – “here” not “hear.” I guess I don’t have enough “intellectual gravitas.”
When I was on a trip to Pyeongyang (as a tourist), my guide’s minder said at the end of a drunken rant.
“America is only our enemy now, Japan is our enemy forever”
Those nukes aren’t going anywhere.
In other words, he offered them nothing.
That’s how he opened the article, and the opening is borderline idiotic. Why read the rest? North Korea’s leadership only needs one thing: to stay in power. Their people are starving in the dark and the country if officially at war, but they are firmly in power. How does food, energy and a peace treaty benefit the North’s leaders? It doesn’t.
DLBarch, I don’t think you’re answering my main issues. My main issue is that, to me, it seems Harrison is suggesting that the US drop the demand for full denuclearization. Like this quote
“If the United States can deal with major nuclear weapons states such as China and Russia, it can tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea that may or may not actually have the weapons arsenal it claims.”
My impression is that this issue is being debated in the Obama Administration a lot at the moment. I read similar things into recent comments by Dennis Blair to Congress that North Korea has nuclear weapons just for defence. May well be true, but I think this is very dangerous talk, because it basically just lowers the bar that North Korea has to clear in order to get what it wants.
I agree with you that they have weapons already. But there is a difference between acknowledging this implicitly and dropping it from a list of demands at discussions. If the US formally decides they can live with North Korea as a nuclear nation then it opens up a whole can of worms. In fact the worms are already out as everyone reads Harrison and others’ comments.
I know there is stuff about Israel and the Bush Administration doing deals with India that I thought were misguided, but what we had at one point long ago was a commitment by most of the world that only the permanent five would have nuclear weapons and everyone else would use the technology just for civilian purposes. The Chinese and Russians are, at least on paper, signed up to this. Slowly this has been undermined, true, but accepting a nuclear North Korea would make everything a case by case scenario. I can’t see any way in which it would encourage Iran not to weaponize.
Missile verification is a problem. Amateurs launch small rockets all the time. Hamas smuggle them in from God knows where. Private companies put things into space. But as far as I know, no private company, terrorist cell, ori amateur s in a position yet to extract plutonium from a reactor or highly enrich uranium. It’s a whole lot harder to hide and a whole lot easier to distingush from other purely innocent activities.
The missile delivery argument is irrelevant anyway, except to people who are safely in North America. They already have the capability to deliver bombs to South Korea. Even without missiles, just cut a hole in the back and Air Koryo could deliver it with one of their Tupolevs. Why the US should be discussing dropping the denuclearization demand while the North is threatening to turn the South into ashes is absolutely astounding to me.
Did you have a chance to ask who their friend is (now or forever)?
I think the people who fail to get the point made in this article generally aren’t versed in the dictator-from- axis-of-evil-land-lingo. “wipe somewhere off the map” or “turn somewhere into ashes” and other such sentences should be translated to “it’s about time we told you we already know we are not that popular, but we are not going to be told by someone else that we have to change our ways to be friends.”
what’s wrong with a case by case scenario and when was the last time N Korea *really* present a threat to the free world? They want to be taken seriously, but the current regime is just a remnant ember from a previous era, stuck in a time warp. Fanning it won’t do – is what the article is trying to say.
Eujin again makes some valid points that deserve a response, but it’s still forest versus trees stuff. I think what’s emerging, from Selig and others, is simply a recognition that the North is fundamentally no longer willing to trade away its current nukes, and that while the stated goal of the six-party talks may be a non-nuclear peninsula, the post-2005 reality is that success, if it comes at all, is going to come in the form of no new nukes and limits on missile development. Those are, realistically, more attainable goals. It’s not really about dropping existing demands as it is about getting some kind of agreement, however imperfect, that establishes some semblence of stability and a framework for further talks. Absent a military solution, and given the rise of the hardliners in Pyongyang, I just don’t see NK negotiating away its existing nuclear arsenal, whatever Washington and Seoul might wish.
DLB
I’m an impatient guy. What’s the reason that we can’t just bomb the nukes to death?
Given how long the talks have dragged out and the repeated failures, one would hope that all sides of the six-party talks would have figured out by now that North Korea is never going to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
As long as they’re not dropping the demand for denuclearization then I’m placated. I still think it should be clearly stated as objective number one. I have no doubt that useful results can come out of the six party talks, even without the North giving up their nukes. I was making a similar point back in April 2008,
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/04/02/seoul-tells-north-to-stick-apology-demand-where-sun-dont-shine/#comment-145659
And things change. Things always change. Never say never. People die, new ones come in, with new approaches, to address new problems. The other five members of the six-party talks have all agreed on verifiable denuclearlization of the Korean peninsula. That’s diplomatically very significant. No one should give up on that goal just because the North Koreans don’t want to do it.
DLBarch, why do you seem to be arguing that because of the rise of the hardliners in Pyongyang, the US needs to be more flexible in its approach? What kind of behavorial signals does that send out to the North Koreans?
And do you (or Sonagi or others) have comments about how you think all this affects relations with Iran? Are the North Koreans known to be more stubborn than the Iranians? Or are they less of a threat? Or would you also argue that we need to be pragmatically flexible with Iran too?
Obama promised that he will negotiate with Iran.
Iran turned down US and EU proposals to turn nuclear weapon tech into nuclear power plants.
after numerous lies, spins, Iran has done the following,
1/ they have fought a proxy war against the US in Iraq.
2/ they’ve been working every year on nukes, recently claiming to have started a space program with satelites.
Syria.
Syria was doing the same thing Iran has been doing.
1/ fighting a proxy war against the US in Iraq.
2/ building nukes. But, here the Israeli air force bombed something to pieces, and everyone can guess what that was.
North Korea.
North Korea has not been fighting a proxy war against the US. It has been fighting a war against its own people, via starvation.
1/ lies, spins, and they are working on nukes, steadily.
there is no big ideological difference between Hussein, Iran, Kim, Syria, or Osama.
negotiate all you want. I’ll be shocked if it gets anything done.
Eujin,
Calm down. Take a breadth. No one is advocating caving in to the North Koreans. This argument is pretty straightforward, and I’m not sure why you’re having so much difficulty grasping it.
Until 2005, or maybe even 2007, depending on whom you listen too, it appeared that NK might be willing to trade away its small nuclear arsenal for a package of goodies at the Six Party Talks. For a variety of reasons both inside and outside NK, that no longer looks like an attainable goal. If so, then what are our options?
Military strike? OK, that’s fine for a hawk like me, sitting comfortably in Silicon Valley, but I know SK and Japan too well to think that that suggestion would ever fly with out allies. So let’s put that on the back burner for the moment.
The Selig option? Well, maybe. Get NK to trade away its future nukes and its missile program, set aside the issue of its current nukes for “future talks,” and reach a deal that puts into place some kind of modus vivendi with Pyongyang that cools tensions and offers prospects for confidence-building and further negotiations. This proposal has flaws, but it’s a legitimate option.
The Eujin option? I don’t know. I still have no idea what you’re proposing as an alternative, other that either (a) the status quo or (b) another 15 years of unproductive nuclear talks (yes, this all really did begin in 1994!).
I mean, really, Eujin, I’m trying to go out of my way to understand your points here, but other than knocking the Selig option, I don’t really know what you’re offering other than muddled references to the impact that talks with NK may or may not have on Iran, which presents an entirely different set of unique challenges completely divorced from North Korea. (Let’s not make the mistake that Koreans make all the time that what happens in Korea necessarily matters AT ALL to the rest of the world.)
The ball’s in your court, bro.
DLB
DLB, scroll up buddy.
Harrison offers us two options in response to North Korea’s new hard line. One is “a suspension of ongoing efforts to denuclearize North Korea”, the main argument for this being “the United States has nothing to fear from a nuclear North Korea”. The other is “the six-party denuclearization negotiations would be continued with the goal of limiting North Korean nuclear weapons to the four or five warheads so far acknowledged”. What about the goal of denuclearization?
Both of those options seem to be caving in to North Korean demands that they be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. He doesn’t mention a third option of continuing to pursue a denuclearized Korean Peninsula as has already been agreed to by the Six-Party Talks. If the second option is supposed to include denuclearization talks further down the line, he doesn’t say so. There’s also the lines I quoted earlier and the title of the article “Living With A Nuclear North Korea” to indicate what he’s thinking of. It doesn’t really matter whether Harrison thinks it’s caving in or not, what really matters is how the North Koreans perceive it and whether it encourages them to be more intransigent in future because eventually they get what they want.
This isn’t some sports trade. `The Steelers won’t give up Roethlisberger so maybe instead they’ll trade Hines Ward for a lineman and a couple of draft picks’. It’s about setting internationally agreed limits for what is acceptable behavior. I know there’s child pornography in the world, but I’m not “learning to live with it” and I won’t settle for trying to stop them from producing any more just because the child pornographers say they won’t give up their current stashes.
What I suggest is that the US keep up its efforts to verifiably denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, working with its allies and the Chinese, the Russians, the UN and the international community to bring pressure on the North Koreans. That doesn’t mean that intermediate steps to achieving this goal need to be ignored, like shutting down Yongbyon or curtailing their proliferation activities. Nor does it mean that they need to respond to every provocation the North Koreans can come up with. But there should be clear lines drawn that the North knows not to cross. If the North Koreans really are interested in a modus vivendi that cools tensions and offers prospects for confidence-building, then they already know what they need to do.
I also don’t believe that they necessarily need nuclear weapons to stay in power if that’s all they’re interested in. Mugabe doesn’t need them (29 years), Gaddafi doesn’t need them (40 years), the Castros don’t need them (50 years) and neither do the Tupous.
As for the Iran business, Clinton recently said “we can no longer approach our foreign policy solely country by country, or simply carving the world into separate regions.”. I agree with that. Do you?
Chris Hill said once “If you look back at the history of North Korea’s economy, and you can see that these nuclear weapons have done nothing for North Korea. Absolutely nothing, and I do hope the people in Iran take note of that fact.”
If either of Harrison’s options become official US policy I sincerely hope that the Iranians don’t take note, although I suspect they will.
No, let’s make that mistake. It would be prudent to at least consider the possibility. Koreans aren’t the only ones who think so.
Good, Clinton still gets it;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7900786.stm
Eujin,
Now THAT”s an excellent post! See, Robert has created a forum whose comments section can, on occasion, enlighten!
First, some house cleaning. Publius, thank you for removing your avatar. Wise choice.
Eujin makes some truly great comments. (His credibility would be enhanced, though, if he used a full, real name. Eujin, you’ve got good arguments to make. Now own them!)
I will add only one addendum. With all due respect to the sites you linked to, there is no reason to objectively think that Iran is being influenced by what’s happening with North Korea. Iran’s a completely different situation, with different regional and domestic dynamics, and is now surrounded by countries – Russia, Pakistan, India, Israel, and the United States – that have both nuclear weapons and the delivery systems to project them beyond their borders. There is simply no way, absent a military solution, that Iran will give up its nuclear program, and this is regardless of whether Tehran is controlled by the mullahs or some future reformist government. This is now a national ambition for Iran, and policymakers need to understand this. (Gentlemen’s Bet: You will start to hear more recognition of this as attention shifts toward engaging Iran. Just watch.)
Where North Korea and Iran do overlap is in the general break-down of the international non-proliferation regime. This collapse began with the end of the Cold War, and the international community, and the United States inparticular, has been unable to replace the dampening effect that the Cold War structure had on client states pursuing their own nuclear programs. This will be a huge challenge going forward.
Moreover, I think this problem is only going to get worse. I can easily see SK, Japan, Saudi Arabia all going nuclear within a decade. It’s one reason North Korea does not offer a template for handling other countries with nuclear ambitions, whatever Chris Hill and Secretary Clinton might think.
DLB
I believe Eujin is a sis.
Using a real name enhances one’s credibility only if one is an expert in a related field.
I agree with Eujin that dropping the demand for denuclearization is unwise even if the other parties know that it is unlikely. Once that major concession is made, the North will come up with a new bargaining chip. Negotiations with the present regime are a journey, not a destination.
Sonagi,
I’m not so sure. I think owning one’s comments, even as a layperson, has the benefit of keeping things civilized. Anonymity on the internet is like the kid who drops rocks off of a highway overpass, certain that no driver will ever stop and try to catch him.
I understand the need for privacy, but if one chooses to participate in the quasi-public fora of blogs, then I think it’s fair to at least point out that use of nicknames allows for the kind of Dutch courage that’s best left to drunkards.
Cheers,
DLB
Some people are able to be civil under usernames while others post snarky comments under their real names and images as gravatars.
Anonymity on the internet is not like the kid dropping rocks off a highway overpass. Vicious comments posted under an anonymous username CAN be like the kid dropping rocks IF those comments are aimed at a vulnerable person like the teenager who committed suicide after that mom and her employee pretended to be a friend on Facebook.
Netizens can choose whether to post under a real name or not. Netizens can choose what to write in comments. Netizens can choose to read or not read, agree, disagree, or ignore.
Sonagi,
OK, Fair enough. We can agree to disagree.
But let me ask you, since I’m new to this forum, why do you use a nickname rather than your real name? I’m not singling you out – most people on this forum use nicknames – but I am curious about why all the anonymity.
You’re right that people who use nicknames CAN be civilized, but it’s equally true that they never have to worry about someone coming up to them at Kabinett and saying, “So YOUR that Barch guy who made fun of my avatar the other day!”
Like I said, I’m not singling you out, I’m just curious.
Cheers,
DLB
It’s just an instinctive protective barrier. Women in particular can be targets of internet or real-life stalking or harassment. Since I’m not a public figure or an expect, I see no need to disclose my real name to the general forum. The host blogger and some contributing MH bloggers and commenters and other K-bloggers know my real name.
Sonagi,
Thank you for your insightful answer. I had actually not considered the possibility, especially for women, that stalking or harassment might be a problem.
Truth be told, I kind of assumed that given the pervasiveness of nicknames on this and similar sites, one reason might simply be that a lot of foreigners in Korea are teaching English and are not exactly proud of it. Hence, a reluctance to use one’s real name.
You have offered a convincing alternative. As for the dudes on this forum, well, that’s another story!
DLB
barch,
the avatar deleted on accident. sad.
and i meant “scroll up” in reference to my late-moderated posts up on 7 and 8. but now the conversation is in a different place. ah well.
All the sniping on Selig, who is quite established as a Korea expert (and greater Asia expert at that) makes me think there’s some, uh.. jealousy at work. Just an observation. =)
We all know this is like the dog that barks from the otherside of the fence, knowing we won’t jump over to get him and that he really doesn’t want the opportunity to really bite (and face the consequences). He’s misrably unhappy, unable to get out, go shopping in NYC or vacation in Tahiti, and is going to make the rest of us as miserable as he can.
What about offering Kim Jong-Il a state of the art movie studio and budget in exchange for the WMDs? We know the guy, at least at one point in his life, had aspirations of using art to change to world. North Korea has unique, tangible cultural assets that have value. If he has the opportunity to work with the top directors, actors and publicists of our time, he could jump on it. And he might be able to pull off a theme park to boot. Imagine filming scenes with the communist guard protecting the set. It’s be like Spike Lee hiring the Nation of Islam during filming of “Do the Right Thing”, but hopefully not like The Stones hiring “the Hells Angels” at Altamont.
Okay, I’m maybe a bit more than half joking, but the carrot can be mighty persuasive. North Korea obviously needs to move out of “nothing to lose” mode and into something more productive.
If the movie studio idea wouldn’t fly with the next line of North Korean generals, what about helping the country set up a satellite launching facility? That rocket technology is very valuable and could someday be productive. The ROK would love to be able to launch their own satellites into space… this is a business opportunity.
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