Why Talk Tough…
…when you can’t back it up?
The U.S. envoy to stalled North Korea nuclear talks says the United States will not tolerate a nuclear North Korea and has warned Pyongyang not to test a nuclear weapon.
“We are not going to live with a nuclear North Korea,” Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill told the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University Wednesday. “We are not going to accept it.”
North Korea “can have a future, or it can have these weapons. It cannot have both,” Hill said.
The cognitive dissonance here is overwhelming…first of all, North Korea can’t test a nuclear weapon unless it has a nuclear weapon – so the statement amounts to saying “Don’t prove you have what you already have, because we won’t allow you to have it, even though it is already yours”.
Secondly, we’re living with a nuclear North Korea right now – it’s a done deal. This sort of tough talk (plus action, need I say) should be pointed towards Iran, where we might still have a slight chance of stopping them.
Finally, the statement that North Korea “can have a future, or it can have these weapons. It cannot have both” is an empty threat (and quite a big one, at that). We intend to destroy North Korea if it gets the nuclear weapons it already has?
This is a sad moment for U.S. diplomacy…
What do you think the likely result would be if George Bush invited Kim to the White House?
(not that it would ever happen — but do you think that a face-to-face talk would achieve anything?)
Um, new material for a South Park movie?
As any parent knows, idle threats are worthless.
Peter, I think we can’t invite Kim to the White House on purely symbolic grounds alone…to reward him with a state visit is unthinkable…bad enough that Madeleine Albright lended him prestige by a visit to NK…
Perhaps they could meet in a third country. My point is that FDR sat down with Stalin, Nixon with Mao, and Reagan with Gorbachev, and in each case progress ensued (although you could argue that this was not the case with FDR-Stalin). I don’t know if a public invitation to Kim to meet with the President will defuse the crisis, but I do know that the current strategy isn’t working. (This isn’t an anti-Bush thing: I don’t think that any President has been successful dealing with the North Koreans). Sometimes a dialogue is better than talking past each other. There are times when you have to hold your nose and sit down with an adversary, and I think that this is one of those times.
Well, the third country thing is more palatable….still, I dunno…I’ll have to think on that one…one thing’s for sure, it would have to be more than a let’s get chummy chat…there would need to be a hard, verifiable goal for such a high-level visit…
I would set the bar even lower than that. When you cease to talk to people (or world leaders), your ability to influence them is diminished. You can’t change the world by disengaging from it. One of the weaknesses of our diplomacy is a my-way-or-the-highway approach which clearly is not working with Iran, North Korea, and much of the rest of the world which feels that it is bullied by the United States. I agree with what (candidate) George Bush said about having a humble foreign policy. I’m not under any illusion that meeting with Kim would turn North Korea into a Jeffersonian democracy, but at the very least it will show the rest of the world that we are willing to take risks to eliminate the threat of nuclear war. If the talks fail, then we will have more leverage to try less benign tactics. However, by refusing to talk directly at all, it’s pretty clear that we are achieving nothing and losing quite a lot.
“…bad enough that Madeleine Albright lended him prestige by a visit to NK…”
Or danced with him – a doc on life in NK is airing right now on my local PBS station, and they’re saying that the visit convinced Kim of our weakness regarding their nuke policy (this is from Frontline, believe it or not). No, sometimes it’s better not to talk to nutjobs, Peter – remember Chamberlain with Hitler.
“…but at the very least it will show the rest of the world that we are willing to take risks to eliminate the threat of nuclear war.”
Not necessarily – when “the world” (whatever that means) demonstrated ceaselessly over our plans to install Pershing missiles into West Germany to counter the Soviet threat, Reagan was denounced as a “warmonger” and was portrayed as “not caring about nuclear war.” Of course, nothing discouraging was ever said about the USSR – quel surprise. Released files from the Politboro have established that when Reagan held firm and went ahead in spite of the demonstrations, the Soviets realized that he meant business, and promptly embarked on their massive arms buildup that eventually bankrupted them. Gorbachev has also confirmed this conclusion.
“…although you could argue that this was not the case with FDR-Stalin).”
Uncle Joe took the Western World to the cleaners after he saw that FDR was dying, with the result being the total control over previously free countries.
1) re Chamberlain and Hitler: there is a difference between diplomacy and appeasement — the fact that Chamberlain saw the Nazis through rose colored glasses does not mean that we must repeat the same mistake
2) re showing the world: world opinion is something you need if you want to have allies. Unless you think that we can contain North Korea by ourselves, then we have to get countries like China, South Korea, and Japan on board — and the opinions of their populace (at least for SK and Japan) will have a lot to do with whether they will help us or stand in the way — if they thought that confronting North Korea was inherently in their self interest, they would have done so long ago –
3) Re Stalin: agreed — but given the exigencies of the time (defeating the Axis powers) I think it would be hard to argue that Yalta was a complete loss for the West –
Talking, meeting, or whatever form of engagement we would pursue is worthwhile, if for no other reason than to follow the Machiavellian principle of staying closest to your enemies. But Machiavelli also understood that there is no point in attempting to foster “good will” with other countries. Countries aren’t people and so do not act out of good will, rather they act from a position of (hopefuly, informed) self-interest. For examples see: Russia/France, Oil-for-food, pre-Iraq invasion, and France/China, Iran nuclear crisis.
Resolute strength is rewarded – idle threats and equivocation, at minimum, fail to produce positive results and, in the worst case, facilitate failure.
So we can agree that’s it’s useful for some situations and counterproductive for others – fair enough. But I think the reason why China won’t do anything about NK is the fact that they like for them to be a counterweight to our influence in the Pacific Rim – needless to say, SK and Japan don’t agree with that viewpoint.
I think we do agree. And I think you are exactly correct on China – NK is allowed to stir the US nest so that China does not have to.
The failure in concept and practice of much of diplomacy, particularly as it relates to the UN & its Security Council, is that we are allowing China & Russia & France a say in how we act in furtherence of our interests. This can be okay so long as interests are aligned – but in the cases of NK and Iran, they obviously are not: those countries have economic interests that they judge to be a higher priority than any threat they feel from Iran & NK possessing nuclear weaponry. Our difficulties result, in part, from our failure to convince them that nuclear Iran & NK are the more important issue.
The Clinton administration examined the military option regarding the DPRK in 1993 and concluded that there was no good military option in dealing with North Korea. When Carter went and forged the 1994 Agreed Framework with the DPRK it was to our advantage to mothball the Heavy Water Reactors and influence the DPRK to have Light Water Reactors built which would greatly hinder their ability to enrich Weapons Grade Uranium.
It is universally agreed that the DPRK did not keep to the spirit of the agreement continuing on their R&D. The reality though is that the US, South Korea and Japan failed to meet the letter of the Agreement by failing to start the KEDO projects to provide two Light Water Reactors by 2003 and 2004. By the time that 2003 rolled around the KEDO project had barely broken ground when the agreement was to provide one by yearend.
When the Bush administration came into office it was intent on a policy of isolating the DPRK in hopes that the regime would fall. In June of 2003 we stopped the flow of 500,000 metric tons of heavy oil outlined in the agreement for a brief period. Then Bush took a very provocative step, he called the DPRK the Axis of Evil.
While that may play well in US political discourse, with the Bush preemptive policy outlined in the National Security Strategy of the United States, it violated the security agreement outlined in 1994 Framework. Kim Jong Il then went about kicking out the IEAE inspectors and restarting the enrichment process.
By best guestimates, prior to the Bush administration it is likely that the DPRK had created 2 nuclear weapons and since the latest enrichment another 6 or more. It is not questened in intelligence community whether the DPRK has nuclear weapons at all, just how many and what effect it will have on other nations in the region to increase their quest for nuclear weapons.
Here are some key facts: There is no military solution, isolation has increased the problem, there is no real reform movement to change the regime internally, Russia, China and South Korea have little taste to take the risk of the consequences of putting too much pressure on the DPRK, the US has little ability to sanction regimes that they already have disengaged from.
What Kim Jong Il is looking for is direct negotiatioins with the US, the world is calling for direct negotiations with the US. While the Bush administration is saying they will not do so, they may be forced to do so since the only solution is engagement.
The facts regarding North Korea are the same for Iran. There is no military solution, there is no will in the international community to do other then talk regarding Iran since they are not willing to face the consequences of hard pressure on Iran, and we have limited ability to sanction a country that we already disengaged from.
We need to engage immediately at the highest levels to resolve these international issues. In the case of the DPRK we now look like screaming memes saying it is not acceptable but being to deliver a credible threat. Iran is learning from the playbook of the crisis with the DPRK.
It’s time this administration comes to grip with policy not ideology based on reality. North Korea and Iran or not Iraq. They are both credible military powers with advanced military capabilities. A military option would not be a possibility regardless of our being bogged down in Iraq or not.
At this time we could very rapidly resolve the issue of the DPRK crisis by calling for direct US/DPRK bilateral agreement.
Will the US choose diplomacy or further weaken the credibility of the US by sticking to failed ideology?
Policy is nothing more than ideology put into action.
The only bilateral agreement that Kim will accept allows him to keep nuclear power and weapons. He might agree to some sort of monitoring or control designed to assuage our fear of proliferation of these weapons outside of NK, but given the history we are justifiably wary of such agreements.
All moot however, they have nukes and there is nothing we can do to undo that without the help of China and others; help that is not forthcoming. Dialogue, like our current round of chest thumping, is pointless.
Well, since Bush put up the clause ‘axis of evil’, so far we haven’t gotten very far.
Me personally, if your going to be a statesmen and call someone ‘axis of evil’, you better be ready to back it up.
As far as the policy failing… I guess it depends on wher the Bush administration is going with this. If they want Iran and NorthKorea to actually HAVE weapons or get so close to harming other nations that other nations will side by America, then they are on the right path. Eventually both will have atom bombs and eventually somehow a dirty bomb will be se off somewhere when the time is right.
Then the US wil say ‘I told you so’ and then WWIII will start. I’m guessing this is the plan: Forc e the world to attack North Korea and Iran+Syria
I woke up this morning to learn that the DPRK went ahead with their nuclear test. World leaders are having their say about how unacceptable this is. It is really much ado about nothing though. Nothing much will come of the emergency meeting at the UN today, since the facts remain the same as before the test.
North Korea is a country with advanced military capability, we have to accept them as a Nuclear Nation since we already agree in the World Community that they possess nuclear devices regardless how rudimentary they are, that there is no read credible military option against North Korea, that the regime will survive at the expense of its civilian population, China and Russia will be reluctant to contribute to anything that will help topple the regime and send millions of refugees into their country, South Korea will be reluctant to push for measures so severe that it will force the DPRK to initiate hostile action against Seoul, and the US has very limited ability to sanction a country it already has isolated.
The six party talks that the US insisted on and got China to facilitate were failures due to China’s inability to get the US to agree to bilateral negotiations. The Chinese and Russian position has always been that the issue was security guarentees and those guarentees could only happen in a US/DPRK bilateral agreement. Japan and South Korea had taken a position of moderation since they are directly affected by North Korea.
It was not China who failed, it was the US. Today we are thumping out chests threatening action and no action of real consequence will come and the US again will be percieved as weak.