American Republic Online

A question was recently posed to me regarding North Korea and my views on the topic. My response is listed below.

Good question.  I agree that they probably wouldn’t attack us until we attack them.  Though the Gargoyle is probably more concerned with Russia: they would make South Korea an island and not think twice about it.  But that’s not really the issue though is it?  I mean, how many people do we let develop nuclear weapons?  Everyone is watching everyone else’s response, especially ours.  If we can’t settle North Korea down, who can?  It will open more doors for other aspiring nations.  But if we do make them into a “lesson,” we’ll need help, and the willingness of our people.  Herein lies the rub: diplomacy is only effective with the force of the military.  This is something many people fail to see. 

Why is the US, and not Portugal, in on all these “talks” and everything?  (We have no “real” interest in stopping NK from getting nukes.)  Because we typically have the power to back up our word.  But not now. We are stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush has lost control of his administration (and really the country too), elections are in a few weeks and the GOP may get decimated, but Bush still has 2 more years to fiddle around with maybe a Democrat controlled congress who will probably be intent on impeaching him.  We’re going to be twisted up domestically and militarily probably for 2 more years.  So what does that mean?  A window of opportunity.  And N Korea is taking full advantage of it.  We can’t really do anything about it, and no one else really cares.  

The other interesting issue here is that of multilateralism vs. unilateralism.  Bush was widely criticized for “going it alone” in Iraq (even though he had more support in NATO than France and Russia).  That’s not why Iraq is failing though: it’s because the war has been mismanaged.  (On the bright side, it would seem they are finally starting to realize that…) North Korea is different.  We went in with multiple parties: multilateralism.  But why?  Just for the sake of saying we worked with other countries?  What good does that serve really?  True, we could have prevented WW2 if certain countries had acted in concert instead of pursuing individual policies, and it helped end the Cold War.  But we are hanging onto it.  So now we have this idea of multilateralism to maintain the status quo.  That’s really the point isn’t it?  To band together, placing individual national interests aside to help stop rogue nations?  But it depends on every other country being satisfied with the status quo.  How many other countries are ok with their world position?  Japan, Russia, China, and S. Korea have all entered into the “talks” with North Korea, but they’re just for show. Nothing’s going to come from it.  Sure, we’ll hand down sanctions, but who’s going to enforce them?  North Korea is our example of how multilateralism can fail…

As for North Korea’s demands, who knows?  North Korea and Iran are really good at being crazy enough for people to pay attention to them, but not crazy enough that they’ll do something about it.  In the past it has just led to some sort of concessions or something, and then things go back to how they were.  This time is different for Iran but that’s a different discussion (they really played us re: Iraq).  N Korea’s only objective usually is regime security.  If that’s threatened, we’ve kicked a hornet’s nest.  If we give them rhetoric, but keep them in power, they’re fine.  However, this time seems different.  They’re really playing all their cards, pushing the line.  I don’t know where it will end up.