I wish that Colin Kahl were taking a more proactive approach in his advice on preventing war between the United States and North Korea than the advice he presents in his piece at Foreign Policy:
During the 2016 presidential campaign, when North Korea’s nuclear and missile program appeared to only threaten America’s Asian allies, then-candidate Trump seemed relatively sanguine about the danger. In fact, in an infamous interview with the New York Times, Trump appeared to suggest that South Korea and Japan should consider developing their own nuclear deterrents in order to fend for themselves instead of always turning to Uncle Sam. However, after being warned by President Barack Obama and receiving intelligence briefings on the growing direct threat to the United States emanating from Kim’s drive to develop a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), Trump changed his tune. On Jan. 2, he tweeted: “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won’t happen!â€
Yet, during the remainder of 2017, this is precisely what seemed to happen. North Korea conducted at least 20 missile tests this past year, including three missiles with intercontinental range. On Nov. 28, the North tested a Hwasong-15 ICBM capable of ranging the entire continental United States. Meanwhile, on Sept. 3, North Korea tested its largest nuclear weapon to date. The energy generated by the blast suggested that the device was at least 10-times greater than the nuclear bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. While it remains uncertain whether North Korea has yet perfected a survivable re-entry vehicle to reliably deliver a city-busting nuclear warhead via an ICBM, the rogue nation may pass that technological hurdle sometime in 2018.
As North Korea has approached Trump’s twitter red line, the president has responded with increasingly heated rhetoric and threats of war. Trump has taunted Kim, calling him “Little Rocket Man;†promised to rain down “fire and fury†and “totally destroy North Korea†if the Pyongyang threatens the United States with nuclear weapons; and declared that “military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely.â€
Painful as Donald Trump’s rhetoric is at times, let’s not delude ourselves into thinking that his rhetoric has produced the risks North Korea and China have introduced. They’ve been travelling this road for at least 25 years. Trump’s rhetoric makes it seem scarier but the main people making the situation scarier are the North Koreans.
IMO the best way for us to avoid our instigating a war with North Korea is to appreciate the difference between an issue and a risk. A risk is something that might present a problem. An issue is something that does present a problem. You put mitigation plans in place to deal with risks. You implement remediation when faced with an issue.
North Korea’s nuclear weapons are risks not issues. They don’t require immediate action and we honestly don’t know if they ever will. Treating them as issues rather the risks that they are is the surest way to make them into issues.
To my ear the key point is that we can’t live in a risk-free world but that’s what we’re trying to do.
Since China has already said that they would help North Korea if we attacked it, the war would be with both China and North Korea, with Russia helping out. The war would be a reprise of both the Korean War and the Vietnamese War. And we would lose it.
There is also the issue of the civilian populations in both South Korea and Japan. Like the Chinese/Russian threat, these people are studiously ignored by our war planners; they supposedly do not exist. Yet both populations have large pacifist parties because of their experiences in WW II and the first Korean War. Pres. Moon was elected with the help of pacifists, and they severely constrain PM Abe’s freedom of action. Does anyone think that either South Korea or Japan would permit a pre-emptive strike? I don’t. I think they would intervene forcibly to prevent it.
So, you’re right. A nuclear North Korea is a problem, but we have to learn to live with it. We avoid war with the North by not attacking it.
It’s an odd thing … We can generally understand why a militarily and economically powerful regime can exist for many years in a state of rivalry or even hostility with over power nations. The Romans were vexed by the Persians for close to seven centuries, for example, then by Islam for another seven. France had England as a rival and a threat for also as long, before switching to Germany a couple centuries back. More recently, the US has focused its attention on the USSR and China — states with large populations, advanced or advancing economic and technological strength, an expansive state ideology coupled with prominent military forces and a willing to use such forces abroad.
Well, it makes sense. What doesn’t make sense, and what I suspect will puzzle political scientists centuries from now, is why the US government became hypnotized by smaller states. I have in mind particularly North Korea — a foe since 1950; Cuba (since 1961), and Iran (since 1979). It’s not as if the US operates on a principle of ceaseless hostility towards former foes — it didn’t take long to make Germany and Japan into allies after WW 2, and we’ve been on reasonable polite or even friendly terms with Viet Nam for the [past several decades. But these three countries seem to have magical powers to drive American politicians and generals up the walls.
Why don’t we give Kim what he wants? They want us to sign a peace treaty, promise not to attempt to overthrow their government or to strike first, and to stop military exercises a few hundred yards from their territory. We have little to lose if it fails and much to gain if it doesn’t.
What he wants is for a Korean Peninsula unified under his rule. That’s not a state secret. He, his father, and his grandfather have been saying it for nearly 70 years.
I don’t agree. Just because someone says something for domestic audiences doesn’t mean that’s what they mean.
Just because it’s what domestic audiences want to hear doesn’t mean it isn’t what they intend to do. It’s evidence.
Please present your evidence that the Kim regime will be willing to renounce their 70 year program.