With the increasing temperature in what is, so far, a war of words, the point has now been reached for a vigorous, US-led diplomatic effort to defuse this crisis before it gets out of hand. The trouble is, in the Obama Administration there isn’t the foggiest notion of what constitutes diplomacy.
To Obama and his Democrats, “diplomacy” means “talk, sign agreement, obtain Nobel Peace Prize” – the trouble is that regimes like that of North Korea will talk for ever and sign whatever agreement you like…but diplomacy is not about talking and coming to an agreement, but in obtaining the desired international result without resort to war. Our desire – our only true policy vis a vis North Korea – is to de-fang the regime and terminate its nuclear program. The art of diplomacy is figuring out what means will be necessary to achieve our desire.
There are various means possible for us to obtain our desire short of war:
1. Economic sanctions.
2. Blockade.
3. Special Forces decapitation of the North Korean regime.
4. Bribery.
5. Determine who can force change within North Korea, convince them we are serious.
Economic sanctions – the route the UN is going – is the least effective means as North Korea doesn’t have an economy in a lot of respects. Additionally, the NK regime is entirely uninterested in how much the people of NK suffer. As long as there is sufficient food to supply the security forces, the NK regime is ok with whatever else happens.
Blockade would be ineffective for the same reason economic sanctions – there’s not much to blockade, other than the export of nuclear weapons materials.
Decapitating the NK regime would be an effective means of ending the crisis – it would either cause the implosion of the NK regime or, at the least, force the successors to understand that their lives are at stake if they go too far in offending the United States. Trouble is, the NK regime appears very well protected against direct attack. There might not be an effective means of using our special forces.
Bribery is a worthwhile thing to think about – and it works in conjunction with all other possibilities. As in all tyrannical ruling classes, the upper echelon is addicted to luxury and special privileges. For a couple billion dollars, we might very well be able to buy our way out of the trouble, at least in part.
In my view, the best thing to do is to find out who can effect change within NK – it appears to me that China has a great deal of pull in NK and appears to like having a NK regime around to scare up trouble for the United States and Japan at a moment’s notice. I also get the distinct impression that China would not want to have a unified, democratic Korea on its border – just too much danger of people on the Chinese side of the border wondering why they can’t be free, too. If we can convince the Chinese to pressure the NK regime we might accomplish our goal without war.
The key to this is to state our demands, insist they are unalterable, and then set up a conference of all concerned parties in order thrash the matter out. As China and North Korea don’t want war, they will give in if we convince them we are serious – end the NK nuclear program, or we fight. If it turns out that China doesn’t have sufficient influence in NK, then we’ll find that out – and that would be worthwhile in and of itself because then, if China can’t convince and the NK regime refuses to yield then the way would be open at least for US air strikes in NK’s known nuclear sites, if it comes to that.
Will we get anything like a clear and courageous policy from Obama? I doubt it – he lacks the understanding of history, the world and the reality of the situation to even understand what he’s dealing with, let alone develope a cogent policy. More than likely, we’ll drift along and eventually have some sort of worthless deal, much ballyhooed in the MSM, that will temporarily put the issue on the back burner…until NK decides to roll the nuclear dice, again.
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