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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: aladin who wrote (66360)	1/16/2003 10:36:19 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Seriously though, this gets to the core of our weakness - we follow party and partisan lines too closely. I'm just not certain what you mean by that point, John. Care to expand a bit? If you wish to argue that foreign policy discussions are too partisan, that arguments are too often discussed not on their merits but on their political lineage, and that the debate on the merits of proposals is often lost, I could not agree more. But my current take on that absence is that it's largely created by the right wing in this country. Bush is the chief offender here. But it's also the work of the National Review and the Weekly Standard and others, who start columns with Clinton did this, we do that. Somewhere, buried deep in the text, will be something about the policy outcomes. But it's very clear what's subordinate. A serious consideration of SK & NK policy would be to withdraw from the south and let them try and sunshine the north. In a post cold war world we really do not have any strategic interest in Korea. We sign a non-invasion pact tied to proliferation. I don't see how you can do that (a) in the present circumstances in which it would be viewed as a sign of weakness, nor (b) in the long term, so long as the North remains a militaristic power with, however publicly dormant, possible intentions in the South. However, the NKoreans propensity to proliferate is a strategic issue, so at first sign of proliferation - we go in and take them out - period. We start talking softly and carry a VERY big stick. Well, you just lost my vote when you run for office. ;-). That's a surefire formula for massive loss of life. In North and South Korea, possibly in Japan and China, depending on lots of variables. Surely there are better, less dangerous ways. No treaties without verification and no mixed messages to the thugs. Does that include verification within the US as well? If the treaty says the US will not act in a beligerent fasion toward North Korea so long as certain conditions are fulfilled, does the North have some rights of verification? The other factor is it tells the Taiwanese and Japanese they might be next - so maybe they need their own detterents. This might get the Chinese off their asses and get them to clean up North Korea. Do we really wish to see this kind of proliferation of nuclear weapons? I don't think so.