Does Bush have any goals regarding North Korea policy whatsoever?

[Beet]

While Bush is in Latvia on yet another European tour pandering to the little countries for the sake of weakening Russia, France and Germany, there seems to be a high chance considered by many that North Korea is about to test nuclear weapons. At some time in the past, I would hae presumed that it was the president's goal to perhaps prevent North Korea from becoming a delcared nuclear power. Now it seems as if he is perfectly content to allow Kim Jung Il to have nuclear weapons. His-so called policy since coming into office in January 2001 has achieved absolutely nothing. Not a single thing.

[Beet]

Bump

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

[Beet]

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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.

[Beet]

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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.

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US & SK policies have gone in completely opposite directions. That's been one of the problems.

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I think North Korea would agree to an inspections regime, and we really have nothing to lose at this point from that perspective. But, barring regime collapse or unless you're willing to go to war, which most are not, it's important to have a stable North Korea operating within some kind of agreed framework. Their behavior in the 1990s shows them capable of being rational. Nor do I think they will attack South Korea. On the other hand, the collapse of the regime isn't likely anytime soon. Thus, the biggest threat from North Korea is that they become alienated and export weapons to third parties. Also, one must consider that the North Korean people would be better off under a more liberalized economic arrangement. Personally I would agree to provide a guarantee not to attack and economic benefits such as rail links and fuel shipments in exchange for a nuclear inspections regime, with a permanent trigger of sanctions if they are found in violation. China would have to go along with this as well, but I think it would be possible with a will to negotiate.

[Beet]

Ford- The Bush administration came in with the idea that China was important because they were the ones with by far the most economic interaction with North Korea. Besides providing them with fuel shipments, most don't realize there is a substantial North Korean underground population living in Manchuria, despite Chinese efforts to deport them. If China opened its borders to North Korea refugees, the regime might well collapse due to population hemorrhaging. Yet recently  China has indicated, according to some reports, that it's not willing to cut off fuel shipments, and it almost certainly isn't willing to open its borders. Along with Japan, Russia, and South Korea, it seems bilateral negotiations are able to achieve much more. Just look at the return of Japanese kidnappees (through bilateral NK-Japan negotiatoins) even in 2003. So I agree that talking with them is a waste of time, but the administration seems to have locked itself rigidly into defending the mulitlateral framework. Bilateral talks would now seem to be a capitulation, even if it's the best option.

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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.

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Yes, I was in a East Asia security course and the professor was claiming that a "consensus" had emerged after Kim Dae Jung's election in 1997 towards a more conciliatory posture and he was fiercely contradicted by a South Korean student. What was surprising to me was that it was a young student and the media paints an image of a clear old vs. young divide.

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Here's where I think the U.N. should play a bigger role. The problem with the U.N. is that it really depends on some sort of agreement between powers. Obviously in 2003 that wasn't working. But the U.S. cannot do everything. There will always be crises (such as Darfur 2004) where international intervention is quite justified and necessary, yet either U.S. cannot do it nor can a weak regional body like the "African union". In addition, strongly feel that even those who felt that going to war with Iraq was worth defying the U.N., should agree that it would have been better had we managed to somehow get that second U.N. resolution behind our actions.

So a goal, however difficult, should be to help repair the U.N. as an organization and also work to repair the rifts within it. It is not at all bad that people are seeing the U.N. is in need of reform. But what some tend to forget with recent events is that the U.N. is the main post-1945 establishment organization founded by the U.S. to legitimate the international order of U.S. hegemony. It is a framework within which nations operate, one which defends a status quo inherently favorable to the U.S. A lot of nations agree to operate within it because in the past 60 years it has vastly benefitted the majority of the world by helping to provide political stability (though admittedly nuclear deterrence didn't hurt either). Ripping this framework apart leaves no remaining security framework except the great-power struggles that proved fatal for Europe in the 19th century, and is fundamentally destabilizing from a long-term security standpoint.

[Beet]

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

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Ah, good points. The Sudan government has too much oil to sell. But why are all these countries so openly cynical? The left does not and never had a "no outside intervention at all" policy. The whole thing suggests some deeper issues in the international security environment.

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Well the U.S. has the most to lose in any sudden or drastic changes in the security environment. If we have defined goals and measure them accordingly, this becomes plain. Despite the recent troubles in the Middle East, and with the few exceptions of nuclear proliferation, which are symptoms of instability rather than stability, the international environment has been extremely favorable since 1991 and if anything is growing increasingly so.

[Beet]

Ok WMS, I started responding and ended up typing a lot--basically the whole "liberal" approach to foreign policy, as opposed to the neoconservative one. I realize a lot of Americans are frustrated because the left has done little but oppose whatever the U.S. does, seems to side with America's competitors, and has provided no coherent view of what we should do in foreign policy that isn't some watered-down variant of what Bush is already doing. I share this frustration. But let me take a shot at presenting a real alternative view, something which I think Bill Clinton understood to some extent although he couldn't quite pull it off.

Both liberals and neoconservatives recognize that ending one's analysis of IR at Hobbesian geopolitics is far too simplistic and unambitious, and that an ambitious IR policy is sought because being timid is probably actually more dangerous.

Consider-- Currently, we have a stable geopolitical situation. This could be due to one or two things. First, we have had either a bipolar or unipolar global power structure since 1945. Second, we have had nuclear deterrence among major powers.

Both the bipolar and unipolar structures require creativity on the part of the major powers, though in the unipolar case it is less immediately obvious. The bipolar structure required organizations like NATO, CENTO, SEATO, or the Warsaw Pact, to sustain mutual containment and competitiveness. In many ways it was good because it instilled societies with an intangible sense of urgency and competition, along with the technologies coming out of WW2 leading to many great achievements, IMO such as the internet, the Bretton Woods monetary system, and the space program.

The unipolar structure is somewhat less advantageous from this perspective. Perversely, since America has no real competitor on par enough to spur real urgency, a relative lethargy...not so much complacency but more of a lack of acute urgency, sets in, and this slows the pace of progress a great deal. Diamond and other historians have noted the acute competition among coexisting European states as one of the reasons for that continent's mercantile rise beginning in the 15th century; whereas unchallenged China became relatively complacent and stagnant. Is this arrangement really worth it? Perhaps, the postmodern world is very different from the premodern one, and we face some level of competition today from cheap labor, but it is worth considering.

But even disregarding that, the unipolar worldview requires no less of an institutional framework than a bipolar one; and an institutional framework must be supported by certain underlying political assumptions which are accepted by consensus, even while interests and policies of course cannot be. Normally, no assumptions would be accepted in the pure state of power politics, because it doesn't pay to accept them. But in this case, it pays for the United States to have nations accept them, because among any set of political assumptions underlying a political framework of the unipolar world will be acceptance of the basic status quo pushed by the U.S. This is important because, while we perceive no acute competition now, over the long run of a few decades or more, we certainly perceive China as a potential competitor, and over the very long run, other nations will try to challenge the U.S. as well.

Critically, there doesn't seem to be much of a consensus in the U.S. on how to handle such challenges. The balance of the argument now favors containment, but this would only slow, not halt, the relative economic convergence of the U.S. and China, or other emerging competitors, over a long period of time. Besides, the emergence of these new markets presents an opportunity to mutually benefit through trade and economic exchange, as long as these markets remain open within a WTO-type framework. Poor economies tend to export much and consume little, but this tendency reverses itself with wealth accumulation. Further, trying to derail any successes of newcomers which could potentially pose a competitive danger poses its own danger--of inciting other countries against the U.S.

So while the Cold-War style competition was good in one sense, we got very lucky in the Cold War by avoiding a conflict which would have ended the world. The maintenance of competition should be a goal, but subservient to the maintenance of peace. Can a competitive situation be created without the risk of actual hostilities that we endured during the 1950s and 60s?

This is where an institutional and political system overlaying the basic underlying geopolitical realities comes in. Few would dispute, for example, that Japan and Germany, after 1945, represent positive examples of American foreign policy success. Their example is notable not because they did not try to "rise again" but because they happily accepted American domination. Why? In fact, why, throughout history, do principalities and smaller kingdoms happily accept domination by a larger one? This, I think, is a fundamental question for American foreign policy, even more fundamental at this point than the simplistic mechanics of geopolitics or terrorism, which the Bush administration can't seem to see beyond.

The answer, IMO, lies obviously in that the larger power, whether empire or not, established an arrangement to the benefit of all powers; most of all perhaps to itself, but genuinely to the benefit of all. The example that comes to mind, is the Delian League (I've compared the U.S. and Athens before, and still see many similarities). Athens established a trading and mutual protection system that smaller city-states could benefit by joining and by accepting Athenian leadership.

If this system is successful, any rising city-states would have to go through this system and succeed through this system in order to attain power. As in a purely realist situation, there will inevitably be long-term threats to unipolarity (China, Europe, India, etc). The difference is that instead of representing an unmitigated friction and tendency towards conflict, as such as situation normally would entail, and which over the long run is quite dangerous, geopolitical compeitition would take place a limited, managed way--- within the accepted bounds of an institutional and political system accepted by all (accepted by all because it benefits all). While economic and geopolitical compeitition thrust ahead, the risk of conflict is reduced through mutual agreements in a body such as the United Nations and through use of common international rules-- not necessarily very complicated or specific rules, but ones that are adapted to the realities of the diverse political and societal systems which exist.

The power behind enforcing such rules must come from the United States, and this can be done not only through force alone but through America's vast "soft" power. At the same time, the United States must have legitimacy in serious international affairs, including a serious commitment to address global concerns such as arms proliferation and climate change. When challenges such as Islamic civilizationalism arise, the United States must channel these challenges into invisible "institutions" such as global capitalism and hard institutions such as the U.N. charter on human rights. Thus, the only way for other nations to acquire success would be for them to first accept the status quo; and their success would be a measure of which they became members of the status quo. Over the long term, this channels competition away from the risk of a dangerous confrontation, and away from anti-Americanism, nationalism or other destabilizing factors, while at the same time allowing for change that would keep America on its feet.

The other option is to focus on America's hard power, and every time there is a problem in the world try and bluster or invade our way out of the problem like in Iraq. That makes for great CNN ratings but solves very little and does a great deal of damage to efforts to arrive at any agreement among nations to accept institutions and leadership coming out of Washington, D.C. And over the long run, the world that builds is resentful, risky, and lacking in its ability to exploit the gains from cooperation and properly channelled competition within the context of U.S.-created "institutions".

[Beet]

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

[Beet]

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.

Don't feel obligated ever to reply to it

In one sentence, I guess the point of that post would be, America is a unipolar empire that must look beyond (but not away from) Hobbesian geopolitics to fashion an international order to preserve peace and prosperity, under American leadership, benefitting all others, and that others will join happily.

[Beet]

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True, thanks for pointing that out. I only mentioned that argument because it seems the most convincing. Democracy was quite limited for much of the postwar era until 1989, and the world was highly economically integrated in 1914. But I do believe somewhat in the democratic peace theory.

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They can, but to a much, much lesser extent. I did mention competition through cheap labor, but that is not real competition per se. It is very, very limited, like a single brush of paint compared to an entire mosaic. What I am talking about is the Soviet Union circa 1957, capable of really spurring America to transform the whole thrust of its education system. Capable of generating the political will to make bold steps, not only through research but in other areas to politics, to make sure America is competitive and gets better and better, and that we are careful in examining ourselves. In a unipolar world, like I said, it is not so much complacency as a lack of urgency.

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Why will you read Friedman but not me? The USSR had big external threats yet clearly stagnated after 1965, so what you said is not true. Also, note that I'm by no means saying having the motivation to succeed through external threats guarantees success, as the Soviet example shows. However, it does generate the motivation and a process by which those who have bad systems fail, ultimately benefitting everyone. Without the U.S. example of how a better system could be, Gorbachev could have thought that economic stagnation was an inevitable result of industrialization and diminishing returns, thus not realizing that a turn to democracy and capitalism might be better. Even in failure, the Cold War competition between the U.S. and the USSR ultimately benefitted the Russians in the long run by proving to them the merits of capitalism.

Secondly, I never said innovation won't occur without such a threat. But government is a big decision maker in the economy, holding up virtually all basic research, generating enough demand to sustain Dow 30 companies, supporting the education system, etc. It is part of the capitalist economy. From the perspective of government as a decision maker, history shows that, as reason would suggest, one is more lax without competition. Exhibit A, as I mentioned, would be China after unification (221 B.C.) until the 20th century. Companies on the other hand face corporate-level competition, which is what keeps them on their toes, but that is totally different. The same thing would happen to them if only 1 corporation was a monopoly.

[Beet]

What everyone fails to understand is that North Korea is NOT going to make changes in its policy of becoming a nuclear power unless forced to do so!  They cannot be sucessfully bribed to stop (Clinton tried this, and failed).

Short of a preemptive first strike (or an internal revolt), the only viable source of pressure are the front-line states (China, Russia, South Korea and Japan).

None of the front line states have indicated the willingness to act in concert to restrain the North Koreans.

I would have supported a front-line first strike in 1994 and Clinton was very prepared to act, but at this point the limitations on the intelligence we have as to the location of all of North Korea's nuclear materials simply no longer makes such an attack feasible. Not to mention there is a high chance it would be followed up by NK artillery retalitaion on Seoul, nothing something that would be very desirable in any case.

Many states have agreed to give up nuclear weapons programs in the past. There are concrete penalties the NK's have when they test or maintain a nuclear weapon. The problem is, those penalties' effectiveness generally assumes they are not already being imposed.