
We are sleepwalking toward war with North Korea - jseliger
https://www.vox.com/world/2017/12/18/16733560/north-korea-war
======
wahern
We're not sleepingwalking into war. Rather, it's just that everybody in the
U.S., liberal and conservative, scholar and layman, is in willful denial about
the stark choices we face.

Negotiation is not an option: North Korea has been racing in earnest to both
build a bomb and a delivery vehicle since at least the 1980s. Their entire
social and political system is predicated on radical self-reliance. This
notion plays itself out in every facet of their system, from the cult of
personality to the structure of their corrupt economy. It's neither
coincidence nor mere opportunism that North Korea has proliferated both
nuclear and ballistic missile technology across the world for decades. Nuclear
weapons technology simultaneously offers them both military and economic
security. North Korea will never willingly give up nuclear weapons. They
can't. The political regime and relinquishing nuclear weapons are effectively
mutually exclusive.

That leaves 3 stark choices: a nuclear North Korea[1], war, or Chinese-forced
regime change.

But no mainstream American political party will accept a nuclear North Korea,
especially given North Korea's proven desire and ability to proliferate. And
China, for various complex reasons, has been steadfast in refusing to topple
the regime. That means American politics has been moving inexorably toward war
with North Korea and will continue doing so unless and until war breaks out or
China capitulates. In the meantime--which could extend (and hopefully will
extend) into the indefinite future--we'll just put our heads in the sand and
ignore the very thing we keep swearing we'd never accept.

The denial exhibits itself in weird ways. The conservatives keep shifting
attention to Iran. North Korea is light-years ahead of Iran in terms of being
both a nuclear threat and in manifest capacity to proliferate nuclear weapons.
But war with NK is simply unpalatable, and as conservatives prefer
unilateralism to compromise their only political move has been to ignore NK
and focus on Iran, whom they're currently comfortable bombing.

Liberals, by contrast, both refuse to entertain a military solution[2] and
refuse to admit that a negotiated settlement has eluded negotiators for
decades. The Clinton, Bush, Obama, and even Trump[3] administrations have
pursued compromise in earnest. Only the most cynical of observers would argue
that the U.S. hasn't pursued a settlement in good faith. But NK's bait+switch
in the 1990s, increasing intransigence, and continued proliferation have made
negotiation increasingly difficult for each successive administration. Good
faith does not mean gullible. And, in any event, it's no mystery why NK won't
sign away their nuclear capability.

Obama's deal with Iran really screwed everything up. The deal meant
conservatives could no longer shift attention to Iran, which had benefitted
the liberals by making the perennial failures with NK less pressing (and
memorable).

Of course, Obama made the deal with Iran precisely because NK was the actual
immediate threat, and kicking the Iran problem (such as it was) down the road
was the intelligent strategic choice. But as a Muslim Kenyan, perhaps only
Obama was capable of seeing the obvious truth that every real American denies.

Unfortunately, the deal had the effect of turning the NK situation into a
crisis overnight, despite literally nothing changing. NK has been on the exact
same trajectory it's been on for decades. The time for freaking out was when
they began exploding nuclear devices 10+ years ago, not the next stepwise
iteration of their missile technology.

Because America is not capable of accepting a nuclear NK, either formally or
informally, and because NK is not capable of forgoing a nuclear deterrent, the
options are stark. That doesn't mean war is inevitable, only that the
direction is inevitable. The end game, should it arrive--as opposed to the
crisis, with ever increasing risks of conflict in East Asia, being drawn out
indefinitely--is either war or a deal with China that realigns power in the
Pacific.

The upshot is that the only country to be negotiating with is China. What will
it take for the Chinese to topple the North Korean regime? It might take a lot
because, even if they're amenable to a deal, we probably overestimate their
ability to force regime change.

[1] Which we already live with, technically. North Korea currently just lacks
first-strike capabilities. Which surely they'll remedy in the next year or
two.

[2] Which, strategically, could be useful in negotiating with China. A
credible imminent threat of war (stick) combined with a realignment of power
in the Pacific (carrot) might bring China around.

[3] Rex Tillerson's recent, frantic offer for "unconditional", bilateral talks
is evidence of this. We can't blame the hardline tactics of the Bush or Trump
administrations. The diplomats have been earnest, and if the diplomats saw
light at the end of the tunnel no administration would be able to hide that.
But even diplomats from the Clinton and Obama administrations have no idea how
to proceed.

~~~
ramphastidae
Can you explain to this liberal American what is so wrong with North Korea
having nuclear weapons?

I realize a lot of nasty bluster has been exchanged between the U.S. and N.K.,
but besides their post-occupation invasion of South Korea in 1948, are there
tangible examples of N.K. military invasions or attacks on other nations since
its founding?

N.K. is poor, vulnerable and under constant threat of destabilization by the
West. In today's geopolitical landscape, the only way to defend against being
"liberated" by the U.S., as Iraq or Libya was, is to have a nuclear weapon.

If you were N.K., wouldn't you do the same as an act of self-preservation?

~~~
wahern
I think there are many excuses, but the biggest and most reasonable issue is
proliferation. North Korea has sold not only its ballistic missile technology,
not only chemical weapons technology, but nuclear weapons technology. See,
e.g., [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-north-
korea-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-north-korea-sell-
its-nuclear-technology/)

Now, you might argue that it only does this because of sanctions. But NK has
repeatedly eschewed normalization in favor of pursuing it's weapons programs.
The examples of nuclear proliferation in the article above occurred _before_
sanctions were even imposed.

The problem is the regime: normalization of economic ties would result in the
downfall of the Kim regime. The entire social and political structure of the
country is built around the militarist cult of personality. The country has
pursued the same path for over 50 years, 3 rulers, and the (de jure or de
facto) transition of every other Communist and authoritarian regime from the
post-WWII era. It's not a coincidence that is has, singularly, survived. And
it's totally naive to think the regime would change now. The regime has
persisted _only_ because of it's radical rejection of normalization with the
world.

That rejection of normalization doesn't mean a rejection of all international
economic ties. But for various reasons the safest trade is black market trade
as the scope is more easily controlled from the top.

That said, I think it's reasonable to accept a nuclear NK, as long as you're
honest about the nuclear proliferation risk. Believing that NK could keep
nuclear weapons without proliferation of nuclear tech would be willful denial.
A realistic scenario is NK selling nuclear tech with the West expending
resources to take it off the streets again, like the War on Drugs. Yet like
the War on Drugs the result will be a lot of death as the U.S. often prefers
using bullets to money, especially internationally. Over years and decades it
will hasten the relative decline of American power as the perpetual conflict
exposes the U.S. as ineffectual. China, like now, just sits on the sidelines
watching the U.S. burn through political capital faster than cheap Chinese
imports. (Which is one of several reasons China isn't eager to see either NK
regime change or even the removal of nuclear weapons from NK. Interests in
China and, especially, Russia see significant value in the pressures the NK
problem imposes on the U.S.)

And that scenario excludes the issue of Japan remilitarizing. I think that
aspect is overemphasized, partly because it's easier to articulate than it is
to articulate the increase in amorphous geopolitical conflict that would be
caused (and has been caused) by the steady supply of NK arms, including WMD
arms, in the global black market.

In short, a nuclear NK inevitably means nuclear proliferation because the
regime favors (and must favor) black market trade to sustain itself. Depending
on your calculus, that could easily be the least worst scenario. But by no
means is it a nice outcome, and it's not the kind of strategic compromise
Americans are amenable to, especially in modern times.

IMO, the path with the least violence is Chinese engineered regime change.
Say, Kim Jong-un disappearing on a trip to Beijing. But that's the most
difficult outcome to achieve because it requires Americans not only being
realistic about the alternatives, but also making some very hard and (most
importantly for domestic politics) explicit strategic compromises with China
in the Pacific. I imagine the U.S. would have to be prepared, at least in
principle, to capitulate on Taiwan or the South China Sea (or both), and then
hope negotiators could secure a less costly quid pro quo.

FWIW, I think a lot of countries, including some European countries, are
prepared to accept a nuclear NK today, either formally or informally. But
there is no tidy resolution to the problem of proliferation except to either
deny or ignore it. It's easier to ignore if you're not the U.S., because
everybody around the world has basically relied on the U.S. to stop and punish
proliferation. If you remember the Syrian chemical attacks, the British,
French, and Germans excoriated Obama for not retaliating, yet none were
prepared to retaliate themselves.[1]

[1] That's another example where Obama's (belated) strategic clarity had the
unintended consequence of exposing something unspeakable about the global
order.

~~~
ramphastidae
Thanks for the response. Proliferation is not something I had considered, and
to me, certainly is a legitimate concern.

By the way, I read through a bit of your comment history, and you're a great
writer!

