Henry Kissinger proposes… (drumroll) A CONFERENCE!!!
Which, I hate to say, is not really a bad idea given current circumstances. I’m not sure even bilateral negotiations, more accurately pre-negotiations, would be a bad idea, as long as they are aimed at clarification of positions, not at resolution of issues. What’s important is that we wind down the tension a bit and get some talking going on. An excellent short-term arrangement would be a tradeoff of a temporary hold on opening the Yongbyan plant for a temporary assurance of restraint on military action.
The important issue here is one that Kissinger doesn’t even mention: the need to keep the Korea situation low key until the Iraq situation, or at least the part of it requiring major military force commitments, is wrapped up.
The logic here is obvious. We’re not dealing with people known for their stability or rational decision making. If we convince them that we are going to attack them, there is a real incentive for them to attack first, while we are still tied up with a major commitment in Iraq. When the Iraq operation is done – and this looks to mean a matter of months, not years – we can deal seriously with the Korea problem. That solution may not, and in fact probably shouldn’t, involve military force (the military options there are very limited). There’s no point at all, though, in approaching the situation knowing that some of your options are heavily constrained by previous commitments, especially when you know your opponent is aware of that. We can fight the Abu Sayyaf and the Iraqis at the same time. Fighting the North Koreans and the Iraqis at the same time would be more complicated.
None of this means that I think Iraq is a greater threat that, or more important than, North Korea. We just committed ourselves in Iraq first.
The primary upside to pursuing a short-term policy of assertive negotiation is that when we do deal seriously with the situation, our capacity to exert meaningful pressure, even as a card held in reserve, will be enormously enhanced by the release of forces now deployed in Iraq. An additional benefit would be damage control on the image, which could use it these days: we’d come off as the ones seeking dialogue, not those running away from it. Yet another would be that when the grand negotiation fails, as it almost certainly will, we can approach the next phase with the public justification that we made a serious effort at peaceful resolution (the effort should be serious, but not made with any unreasonable expectation of success). The main downside potential that I see is the possibility that the North Korean nuclear program will make significant progress between now and the conclusion of the force commitment in Iraq. This is a real problem and not to be de-emphasized, but I have to point out that the current policy also fails to address this possibility.
Absolute hawks will propose a pre-emptive strike aimed at permanently halting the nuclear program. I don’t see this as a viable option. The objections are practical, not philosophical. First, if the Koreans have actually built a bomb – and there seems to be a quite reasonable possibility that they have - it will certainly not be stored at the site of manufacture. We don’t seem to know for sure if they have one, I think it’s reasonable to assume that we don’t know where it would be if they did. We cannot overlook the possibility that a nuclear deterrent already exists, or assume that the North Koreans would refrain from using it. Second, the North Koreans have significant non-nuclear deterrent capabilities, including the option of a highly destructive attack on Seoul or on US forces stationed in Korea, possibly with chemical or biological weapons. Our forces in Korea are large enough to constitute a major deployment, but too small to effectively respond to the situations that could be triggered by a preemptive attack. Our ability to support and reinforce our people is heavily constrained by the deployment in Iraq. We must assume that our potential antagonist is aware of these constraints and their temporary nature, and the incentive they provide to act immediately.
There is also the issue of the thousands of highly radioactive spent fuel rods now stored at the site. Obviously there is a certain amount of technical evaluation needed here, but we need to be very sure that a pre-emptive strike does not turn into a major radiation release threatening neighboring countries.
All in all, I think the pre-emptive strike is not a good move at this point.
So for me, by far the best option is to take a highly proactive but non-offensive short-term approach, aimed at starting negotiations and maintaining them until the Iraq deployment is no longer a major constraint on military deployment. I think breaking out of the current stalemate mode and aggressively pursuing negotiations now would serve a solid short-term purpose and puff a tarnished image as well. A public show of being reasonable is not always a bad thing. Better than pouting, I think.
When the Iraqi situation resolves – or if it becomes clear that the resolution will be delayed - the situation will have to be reassessed. Foresight doesn’t go that far at this point. |
