Does Bush have any goals regarding North Korea policy whatsoever?

[WMS]

Bump

No conservative response? Wow the right must be quite demoralized.

Although not a conservative, I'll bite.

I think that the Bush Admin policy is to ignore N. Korea and wait until it internally collapses. One of the things Stratfor has pointed out is that N. Korea thrives on attention, since it gives them way more importance than it deserves. Clinton, instead of crushing the ers in 1994, gave in and basically bribed them not to do nuclear stuff, which N. Korea did anyway, so kissing N. Korea's ass doesn't work. Also, N. Korea knows very well that the second they can potentially threaten the U.S. with nukes, they will probably cease to exist. N. Korea wants regime security, and they want, believe it or not, full relations with the U.S. and an agreement that we won't try to topple them. Why do you think N. Korea has spent so much time trying to get the U.S. to unilaterally talk with them?*

The U.S., meanwhile, has some cards of its own. N. Korea cannot win if they invade the South - I did a 50-page paper on this in graduate school and it ain't 1950, folks. In fact, a N. Korean invasion will probably lead to the end of their regime. Of course, given the current government's very soft policy toward N. Korea, why would the North bother. And here's the point which the U.S. can use to flail China with - if N. Korea builds nukes, so will Japan. Japan could do it within a year if they wanted to. China doesn't want a nuclear Japan at all.

The U.S. doesn't need to give in to North Korea. It can simply wait.

*I note how ironic it was in 2002-3 that the very same people, groups and countries that were insisting that the U.S. submit to multilateral talks over Iraq instead of dealing with it bilaterally were also insisting that the U.S. engage in bilateral talks with North Korea instead of dealing with it multilaterally. Honestly, do some of you nuts even pay attention to your own press releases?

[WMS]

Except the situations in NK and Iraq were not the same.

Well, the irony remains. And in NK doesn't it make sense to get all the neighbors involved in the talks? They have quite a stake in containing NK's nuclear ambitions. I think my point was that many of the critics of the multilateral-NK/unilateral-Iraq positions simply wanted to give the Bush Administration a hard time regardless of the merits of the case.

[WMS]

The U.S., meanwhile, has some cards of its own. N. Korea cannot win if they invade the South - I did a 50-page paper on this in graduate school and it ain't 1950, folks. In fact, a N. Korean invasion will probably lead to the end of their regime. Of course, given the current government's very soft policy toward N. Korea, why would the North bother. And here's the point which the U.S. can use to flail China with - if N. Korea builds nukes, so will Japan. Japan could do it within a year if they wanted to. China doesn't want a nuclear Japan at all.

I wonder what other East Asian nations would be part of that hypothetical arms race.  The United States could use a nuclear North Korea as a pretext for aid not only to Japan, but to other US allies like South Korea, Taiwan (!), the Philippines, and depending on how things work out in the next decade, Russia.

North Korea is almost completely impotent and vulnerable without Chinese support.  Sure, the country would still have its million soldiers behind fortifications and mountainous terrain, but what would they eat?

1. Russia, France and Germany should be less dominant, especially Russia.

2. Yes, he has a policy. Stability on the Korean peninsula and nuclear non-proliferation. Also, stopping non-states from getting North Korean nuclear technologies. He also wants to support the US allies of Japan and Sth. Korea, and protect US economic interests in those nations and the PRC. He also doesn't want any major conflict with the PRC, which would almost certainly occur if there was a direct challenge on the DPRK's sovereignty (which is a joke anyway, but hey).

3. They still don't have nuclear weapons, and unlike pre-"Axis of Evil" speech, now people actually care about what's happening in NoKo.

Both Lunar and hughento make good points.

To thefactor: note how funny it is that you got three green avatars to finally respond to you...but still no blue avatars.

[WMS]

Except the situations in NK and Iraq were not the same.

Well, the irony remains. And in NK doesn't it make sense to get all the neighbors involved in the talks? They have quite a stake in containing NK's nuclear ambitions. I think my point was that many of the critics of the multilateral-NK/unilateral-Iraq positions simply wanted to give the Bush Administration a hard time regardless of the merits of the case.

Since Bush had such a pigheaded attitude toward invading Iraq no  matter what (which we saw now was a huge waste with no WMDs), I'd rather have others around since I don't trust whoever he'd send to bilateral talks there. I don't really care if NK talks are multi- or bi-lateral, and I probably wouldn't care in Iraq either if someone as stubborn as Bush wasn't in charge, but it's not that hypocritical.

The invasion made life tough for the Saudis - before the war, the Saudis were doing nothing about Al Qaida in their country. Since then, there's been a crackdown. That was one of the reasons for going into Iraq, along with gaining a geopolitical position to pressure Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and mayhap the Turks as well. Also, the Islamic world, due to bipartisan past weaknesses (Lebanon 1983, Somalia 1993, etc.) perceived the U.S. as being unwilling to actually fight, and thus ignore-able. To gain cooperation against Islamic militants, that perception had to be changed as well. Then we get to all the reasons that actually get mentioned in public. It would've worked better if Rumsfeld wasn't such a ing idiot.

And Iraq was multi-lateral - we had the U.K. and the Aussies, right? That's more than just two countries.

[WMS]

Thanks for responding, WMS. I appreciate a green avatar in any case.

I would like to get Stratfor but it's too expensive for me right now. Here are 4 things people tend to forgot about the 1994 deal

1. we didn't hold up our end either. By 1998 it was clear that we weren't going to hold up our end. So if the evidence says the NK's started cheating before it was apparent that we were going to cop out, then that says something. If they did after, that says something else.

2. when the deal was in place, it did accrue benefits to slow down North Korea's nuke operation. This was because the Yongbyon plant was truly untouched and guarded by IAEA cameras. This whole thing didn't collapse until 2002, but when it did it made North Korea's job of getting nukes much easier.

3. From 2000-2002, North Korea's threat in both terms of terrorism and conventional was declining because the country was developing a vested interest in its relationship with South Korea and Japan. This was suddenly ended in 2002.

4. The war in Iraq and the popular revolutions last year have made North Korea less willing to negotiate and more wanting nuclear weapons.

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Well WMS, I hope you are right. All I am saying is, the evidence so far doesn't suggest that the waiting strategy is working, and if it fails, we won't know it's failed until its too late. This is kind of like those 17th century trials for witchcraft for which, in order not to be proven a witch, one had to die after being submerged in water for a long time. By the time it's possible to say "wait, maybe we shouldn't have waited, maybe we should have done something," it will be too late. Now that would be one thing if respect U.S. officials weren't predicsting a nuclear test this year, but they are.

Hey, you got three green avatars.

As for Stratfor's price: Very good and very expensive. Wait until you have a full-time job.

1. Really? What did the Clinton Administration do to break the deal, anyway?

2. Somewhat true. I think NK moved some stuff to other places, though...

3. I remember Japan going nuts in 1999, when NK launched a rocket over them. I happened to be in a class with Japanese exchange students at the time, taught by someone whose specialty was East Asia, and that action upset Japan's apple cart quite a lot. SK is still on good terms with NK, because of the policies followed by the current and prior presidents - basically, give them money and hope they don't implode before they can economically reform, since they do NOT want to deal with a horde of NK refugees. Come to think of it, that's China's policy as well.

4. It made them more nervous, starting with the toppling of the Taliban. But they've been nervous about U.S. intentions for over a decade - thus they've adopted the strategy they have. They're not crazy - they know exactly what they're doing, and it's kept them alive for a decade's worth of economic collapse.

For your last question: Well, what would you recommend? There are prices too high to pay for empty NK promises of no more nukes, since unless you establish an inspections regime they'll never agree to, the U.S. will never know what the real status of NK's nuclear program is. There's a conundrum working here, and it's not an easy situation to solve...

[WMS]

Well, it's quite obvious when one looks at what the 1994 Agreed Framework actually was. North Korea agreed to end its nuke program in exchange for two light-water reactors (which can't readily be used to make weapons) for its energy needs. Yet for some reason the Clinton administration kept delaying and never started construction on the reactors. This was even though North Korea had warned as early as 1995 it might restart its nuclear program if the we did not follow through our end.

I wonder why that was? Clinton doesn't strike me as the type to do that...maybe Congress wouldn't approve it?

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Yep, and I don't see a solution. Mind you, SK opinion isn't unanimous on this either - there's substantial (not majority - I don't think there is a majority SK position) opposition to the 'sunshine policy'.

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Maybe. Both the nuclear inspections and the fuel and food shipments would have to operate under direct U.S. supervision for me to accept it, since NK has lied about the nukes and deliberately diverted international supplies to its military (especially the food). Oddly enough, NK might accept that in return for formal recognition, but NK has its own internal splits on that one (quiet though they keep them).

[WMS]

Don't know... I've tried searching for the answers, but haven't been able to find them. Congress did have to approve limited fuel shipments to North Korea every year to keep the framework in place, so there was at least some approval there, although the votes were not always overwhelming. I suppose the answer lies somewhere similiar to what happened to the Oslo agreement. There was not one "moment" when the agreement fell apart, it was more a general loss of momentum and series of disappointments.

Oslo could be an accurate parallel. Hmm...

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Very interesting. I was thinking of the back-and-forth fortunes of the pro- and anti- conciliation parties as a good indicator of that. The South Korean student in my East Asia class in 1999, other than saying once that 'we're screwed if NK attacks', said little on it directly and was more interested in needling one of the Japanese students about levels of Korean cultural influence in Japanese history.

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In this case, I'd say the U.S. could probably do it - it's not an invasion or even an intervention in large numbers, and we have troops already there. Although the need for some international institution to handle Darfur-level problems is needed, as it stands now (yes, I read ya below, getting there) the U.N. hasn't been able to do it for the same reason the U.S. couldn't get that second U.N. resolution - geopolitics. With Darfur, Russia and China have no interest in 'violating the internal sovereignty of another country', and with Iraq, you could add France as well - among the Security Council members, of course. India and Brazil have that left-wing 'no outside intervention AT ALL' policy as well.

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Would you be surprised if I mentioned that Stratfor agrees on the role and utility of the U.N.? They said that in the context of the Bolton appointment, to indicate that the Bush Admin. hasn't given up quite yet on U.N. reform. I posted that somewhere or other. And no U.N. might well be destabilizing...something the U.S. could weather better than probably everyone else, a point the ardent anti-U.S. countries in the U.N. might want to remember!

[WMS]

Yes, the GNP is finally coming back... the Japanese Democrats on the other hand...

One thing that really ticked me off about the victories of Roh Moo-hyun and his Uri Dang ('Our Party') is their explicit use of anti-Americanism. I'm happy to see the GNP do well for that reason alone. As for Japan, despite the larger vote shares of the Mt the JMt is dominant due to the electoral system. Although as long as the JMt is backed by Kt, the Mt is unlikely to gain power. It's all here for those who are confused.

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Yep - Sudanese oil shipments earn them supporters. All of the countries I listed have an explicit desire to take down the U.S. and a desire to increase their own power in the process. Nothing new here - second-tier states always want to take down the first-tier state(s). Some of those countries are busy abusing their populations and don't want to be disturbed - Russia in Chechnya, India in Kashmir and Assam, Brazil in the Amazon and their slums, China friggin' everywhere but especially Tibet and Xinjiang. Some of these countries are busy abusing other countries' populations and don't want to be disturbed - France in Africa, for example. As for the 'no outside interventions' policy, it's been a consistent bloc of states, from the 2003 anti-U.S. bloc stretching back to the so-called 'nonaligned movement' of the Cold War, that's pushed it, pretty much always against the U.S. while remaining quiet about the U.S.S.R., Russia, China, etc. whenever they intervened. This of course didn't stop them from supporting intervention against apartheid South Africa, which suggests that 'no outside interventions' was a hypocritical policy only to be used against the U.S. but not used in regards to themselves. And there's all the resource deals that go on between all of these countries as another cynical factor.

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True enough. I would add that the second-tier states are trying their damnedest (let's add Germany to them, shall we?) to make the international environment less favorable to the U.S. precisely because it's gone so well for the U.S.

[WMS]

There is no way I can reply to that today in the time left to me. So I'll get back to it.

[WMS]

There is no way I can reply to that today in the time left to me. So I'll get back to it.

Sure, no prb

Probably not today, either.

[WMS]

The only people who hold a "no outside intervention at all" policies are Buchanan-type isolationist conservatives. Who's the last Democratic president who did so, or Democratic politician who promoted such a policy?

That was, in essence, the position held by many on the anti-war left, especially abroad. It's not quite as common inside the U.S. It certainly fits countries like India and Brazil.