That gnashing of teeth and cursing under the breath is coming from the straitened American military. Loyal to a fault, brave like the Fourth of July slogans [just past and quickly forgotten], and competent [in a measure unbelievable unless you have seen them on the ground], the American armed forces are being tested again.
Whatever else it intended, Pyongyang has thrown down the gauntlet to the U.S. diplomatic attempt to keep a lid on nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, to keep them out of the hands of rogue regimes. And make no mistake, North Korea is such a regime which in the 90s starved some two million to divert resources to weaponry.
In the jungle out there, Pyongyang is not alone, of course. In early July Sri Lankan Tamil terrorists “celebrated” the anniversary of their reinvention of suicide bombing with its 262 men and women perpetrators. That is why, given Pyongyang’s its ties to Japanese organized crime, kidnapping, drugs, and counterfeiting, it is not far fetched to worry about their selling such weapons to nonstate terrorists such as al-Qaida and the Tamil Tigers.
We will now go through an extended period of hand wringing and grabbing at weak reeds.
We will hear calls for peace and understanding as UN debates drone on – a farce these days unlike the drama just 70 years ago when Haile Selassie warned a dying League of Nations others would suffer like his own Abyssinia if something were not done to stem Mussolini’s aggression.
We will hear calls to China and unlimited speculation from talking heads with business interests, the intellectual descendants of those who argued the Chinese Communists were only agrarian radicals, and professional geopolluticians.
At best, in the jargon of the day, China’s not awfully astute leadership is “conflicted”: it’s nice to have Little Brother occasionally kicking the “hyperpower’s”shins.. A reunited Korea led by Seoul’s freedom and market economy would threaten – not only Beijing’s proposed hegemony but plans to turn Manchuria into another Pearl River Delta with Seoul’s capital and technology. A Pyongyang collapse under sanctions would send millions of refugees into China’s already disaffected ethnic Korean northwest. And China would lose “leverage” in world affairs where it supports the Sudans, the Burmas, the Irans, against the U.S. and the world community’s ethical and stabilizing efforts. China is not, therefore, likely to turn off its Korean aid or acquiesce to UN disciplining North Korea.
We will hear calls for a realistic, negotiated, one-on-one settlement with North Korea, one that offers carrots as well as sticks.
Not only does such pleading fly in the face of failed Clinton Administration strategy to do just that, but it ignores Pyongyang’s very essence. Kim rules through fear, not in a competitive world where South Korea – with all its own rulers’ and American policy mistakes since World War II – has become a beacon for development and progress for the whole Third World. Despite China’s trying to seduce Kim with sumptuous trips to see Shanghai’s bright lights, Kim understands the obvious: liberalization in any form and emergence from isolation means death to his regime.
We will hear calls for “understanding” Kim, his “narcissim”, idiosyncrasies, his sheer nuttiness [read former foreign chefs’ memoirs and amanuensis on foreign trips as well as the accounts of a German aid doctor during the famine]. [Apparently former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright did that when she danced with him on a state visit.] Yes, but unfortunately, we greybeards remember similar truthful descriptions of Adolph Hitler. It did not impede his successful diplomatic outmaneuvering the Allied Powers, his incredible war machine buildup, and his malign use of it until the last bitter months before VE-Day. Ditto Stalin.
What does that leave us with in a crisis for American security that will grow, if by fits and starts, when we must count on Kim’s ballistic missiles not failing for fire power and poor guidance systems [technology so generously provided in the past by China and Russia]? It leaves us with the possibility only force may prevail.
Unfortunately, although the U.S. now approaches 300 million people to protect with a GDP of $12.5 trillion, we spend less than 4 percent on national defense. Granted that’s a lot of money, there is vast waste, misdirection, and expenditures are not the only measure of effectiveness. But that that figure equates the pre-Pearl Harbor figure [when the military draft extension passed the House of Representatives by only one vote.] gives one an index to our real vs.virtual priorities at a time of great national danger.
With major conflicts ongoing in Iraq, and now in Afghanistan [even though the U.S. has handed off to NATO -- where Washington always has to pick up the slack], there is little strategic option for the moment.of employing force in East Asia,.
But that is a silent call coming, if not to be implemented now, to reinforce a “multilateral” effort [in name at least] to restrain a threatening North Korea. To leave on the negotiating table, as President Bush is so right in saying so often.
Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@cox.net),
is an Asian specialist with more than 25 years in the region, and a former correspondent
for Business Week, U.S. News & World Report and United Press International.
He writes weekly for World Tribune.com and East-Asia-Intel.com.
