Nukes for the North

North Korea conducts a nuclear test and America's non-proliferation policy is officially a mess. At this point, there are two kinds of questions one can ask. One set is about non-proliferation policy as such and what one needs to do to get it back on track. Another specifically concerns North Korea. When we were talking DPRK on BloggingHeads, Dan Drezner made the point that there actually are a couple of steps that could be taken that really would stand a decent chance of bringing the Pyongyang regime to the breaking point, namely an end to the money coming in from South Korea under the "sunshine policy" and a shift in Chinese policy aimed at facilitating, rather than preventing, DPRK residents from crossing the border into China.

The trouble is that nobody especially wants to see the North Korean regime actually collapse. Certainly the South Koreans aren't looking forward to needing to assume responsibility for a relatively large and incredibly impoverished country. The reuinification of Germany has created a lot of economic and social problems for the former West Germany, and this would be like that situation on steroids. China, meanwhile, isn't enthusiastic about the idea of giant cross-border refugee flows. The issue for US policymakers then becomes whether there's anything we might be able to offer in terms of assistance that would make Seoul and Beijing more comfortable with ending their efforts to prop up North Korea's government, and whether that's something we would actually want to offer.

Similarly, would we actually want to see North Korea collapse, or would that make the nuclear situation even worse since, presumably, we don't want to see those weapons and material floating around.

Comments

The Carnegie Endowment's Joe Cirincione was on CNN making the same point: that neither China nor South Korea are going to want to destabilize a nuclear power.

This should have been obvious over the past 10 years. Drezner inhabits an ivory tower.

Cheney's tough talking derails negotiations with North Korea
December 22, 2003

The Knight-Ridder newspaper chain said a senior official had quoted Mr Cheney as telling the meeting: "I have been charged by the President with making sure that none of the tyrannies in the world are negotiated with. We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it."

Posted by Carl | October 9, 2006 1:43 AM

Once the DPRK does collapse, either from internal rot or because it is "pushed", will TV stations around the country continue to run repeats of M.A.S.H.? Will they be able to, after all the stories from North Korea come out? If anyone was ever guilty of moral equivalence, it's the producers of that show.

Posted by jjf | October 9, 2006 2:35 AM

That's right, jjf -- I'm glad there's still somebody honest out there. Who is to blame for the North Korean atom bomb? Obviously, it's Alan Alda.

You freaking idiot.

Posted by brooksfoe | October 9, 2006 4:45 AM

Incidentally, I would be curious to hear Drezner or anyone else explain how a totalitarian government, ruled by a vigorous and committed totalitarian despot, falls because of economic hardship. What does such a collapse look like? And why is it that it has never happened before, in the history of the world? Why is it that Stalin's USSR survived famine in the '30s, Mao's China in the '50s and '60s, Pol Pot's Cambodia fell not due to its famine but to Vietnamese invasion, Saddam's Iraq fell not due to famine but to an American invasion, Fidel's Cuba STILL hasn't fallen -- and so forth? In every case in history, totalitarian regimes have fallen either to invasion, or when a generational change in the leadership brings in leaders who are willing to open up the system in the hope of improved economic performance. (See the USSR, China and Vietnam (still kinda totalitarian, but nothing like before), and so on.) So: what is the evidence for a sudden new paradigm in North Korea? How will the regime "collapse"? Explain please.

Posted by brooksfoe | October 9, 2006 5:43 AM

I think brooksfoe overstates the case a bit.

1. We can't read Kim Jong Il's mind.

2. We don't know how much longer Kim will live.

3. 'And why is it that it has never happened before, in the history of the world?' doesn't carry much weight when the sample size is so small.

4. The willingness of leaders to 'open up the system in the hope of improved economic performance' may be influenced by how bad the economic performance is.

5. Matt's 'a decent chance' is not a strong claim. The chances of success might be less than even, and the policy still be worth trying.

Posted by David Tomlin | October 9, 2006 6:55 AM

The more sanctions pressure we put on NK, the more they will need proceeds from nuclear sales, and the more they can blackmail us with that prospect. I'll bet Al Qaeda is in contact with them soon. .55 kiloton in a truck would do to level the WH or Capitol.

Posted by bob h | October 9, 2006 8:15 AM

What a laff riot. The one option that is obviously not on the table is figuring out what would be the right thing to do, over the long run, and then using our still considerable international clout to make that attractive.

Which pretty much gives everyone else involved to freedom to jerk our chain, or ring the bell and watch us salivate. If the Chinese, South Koreans, and Japanese want the North Korean regime to stay in place, you might guess they have a few reasons most of us don't know about for wanting that.

At the end of the day, you have to add a little admiration for Clinton. He probably didn't have any more interest in NK than the rest of us, but somehow hammered out a deal that would have prevented the nuclear proliferation that seems to have occurred, and increased our peaceful influence with the NK regime. And made it look so simple that we didn't really understand how hard it could be.

Posted by serial catowner | October 9, 2006 8:24 AM

Blame M*A*S*H

OMG. That's the grimmest, funniest, grimmest bit of diversionary crap from the right in days.

A couple of days anyway.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 9, 2006 9:35 AM

Raise your hand if you think this might be Rove's "October Surprise". "Hey KJI, long time no talk. Howzabout you pop off one of your nukes this week? We will make it worth your while. Thanks, thanks. Call me any time"

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | October 9, 2006 9:48 AM

Here I am not raising my hand, Cranky. But I do think this will (1) knock Mark Foley off the front page, and (2) possibly allow Republicans to retain both houses of Congress, especially if Democrats maintain their usual fine coherence on national security.

Posted by Christmas | October 9, 2006 10:01 AM

M.A.S.H. was an allegory about Vietnam, the war that was raging while it was first being shown.

Posted by B | October 9, 2006 10:07 AM

Another failure of Bush's unilateralist foreign policy. Bush needs to stop trying to go this alone and start working with all the other interested parties here, such as South Korea, China, Japan, Russia, etc.

Oh, right. Never mind.

Anyway, as to this:

The issue for US policymakers then becomes whether there's anything we might be able to offer in terms of assistance that would make Seoul and Beijing more comfortable with ending their efforts to prop up North Korea's government, and whether that's something we would actually want to offer

How about we "offer" South Korea a withdrawal of all of our forces on the Korean peninsula and a withdrawal of our protection guarantee? South Korea is a mature democracy, with plenty of money. There's no more Cold War. So why do we need to protect South Korea any more? Any what exactly are we getting in return for our guarantee and our troops being stationed there?

Posted by Al | October 9, 2006 10:08 AM

There's no more Cold War. So why do we need to protect South Korea any more?

Maybe because we don't want stable democracies collapsing into chaos?

Posted by Christmas | October 9, 2006 10:14 AM

In fact, Al, this was a miserable failure of Bush's foreign policy. The thing about involving all of those other powers is that they all, including North Korea, wanted the U.S. and NK to engage in bilateral talks, and Bush refused to because he doesn't like diplomacy. He talked tough and didn't back it up, and that's why NK has nukes today after Clinton kept them from going nuclear for six years.

Read Josh Marshall (permalink busted thanks to server move). Bush did nothing while North Korea began reprocessing plutonium, and that's why North Korea has a bomb to waste on a nuclear test today.

Posted by Matt Weiner | October 9, 2006 10:20 AM

Marshall permalink.

Posted by Matt Weiner | October 9, 2006 10:42 AM

Ah, yes. The old "Bush should be more unilateral" argument. I remember that old saw from the Iraq debate. Or not.

So, Matthew's doing a book, and (if I understand it correctly) his argument is that we ought to be pushing for a more internationalist approach, with international institutions doing the heavy lifting (not unilateral Americans).

So, what's Matthew's take? Should the US be unilateralist? I didn't see much in his post about international institutions.

Posted by Al | October 9, 2006 10:45 AM

No one else minds the obviously wrong picture Matthew used?

Posted by Petey | October 9, 2006 10:50 AM

No one else minds the obviously wrong picture Matthew used?

It's pretty clear that it's a stock photo of a mushroom cloud, and not an attempt to represent the (unphotographed, underground) North Korean test.

Posted by Christmas | October 9, 2006 11:07 AM

Ah, yes. The old "Bush should be more unilateral" argument.

Comment from Al, meet comment from Matt Weiner:

The thing about involving all of those other powers is that they all, including North Korea, wanted the U.S. and NK to engage in bilateral talks, and Bush refused to because he doesn't like diplomacy.

Al, do all your arguments rely on deliberately misconstruing or ignoring the arguments of others?

Posted by Christmas | October 9, 2006 11:10 AM

The other powers want Bush to solve the issue unilaterally. And a pony!

I don't see how that supposedly undermines my point. Should Bush try to solve the issue unilaterally or should it be solved through international institutions?

Do we have some overarching theory of when the US should act unilaterally and when it should not? The US should NOT act unilaterally if France and Germany say not but SHOULD act unilaterally if China and Russia say so? Who exactly is making these determinations?

Posted by Al | October 9, 2006 11:22 AM

"It's pretty clear that it's a stock photo of a mushroom cloud"

But it's also pretty clear that it's a stock photo of a non-nuclear explosion, which seems slightly relevant to me.

Posted by Petey | October 9, 2006 11:24 AM

Here's what the real thing looks like...

Posted by Petey | October 9, 2006 11:29 AM

Why the semantics? As a leader, Bush should solve issues. He failed.

Posted by Tom | October 9, 2006 11:30 AM

Bush didn't simply fail to solve a problem: he created one.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 9, 2006 11:35 AM

> But it's also pretty clear that it's a stock
> photo of a non-nuclear explosion, which seems
> slightly relevant to me.

Tank!

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | October 9, 2006 11:40 AM

I don't see how that supposedly undermines my point. Should Bush try to solve the issue unilaterally or should it be solved through international institutions?

Al, don't be a tool. The broad critique of Bush has been the same with both Iraq and North Korea: that Bush is unwilling to do diplomacy. In Iraq he doggedly pushed for preventive war in the absence of allied backing and in the face of facts contradicting his case (i.e. the UN inspectors); in North Korea he's been unwilling to commit the U.S. to diplomacy, and instead has forced America's regional allies to do all the heavy lifting when Pyongyang has made it very clear it really only wants to negotiate with us. This is the same criticism in both cases; either you cannot comprehend this or you're a shameless sophist.

Posted by Christmas | October 9, 2006 11:44 AM

China, meanwhile, isn't enthusiastic about the idea of giant cross-border refugee flows.

No doubt. But surely China would be even less enthusiastic about a nuclear Japan which is inevitable if the NoKo nuclear genie isn't put back in the bottle.

Posted by Crust | October 9, 2006 11:54 AM

Brooksfoe - Honecker and Ceausescu seem to defy your analysis. Also probably the Czechoslovak communist leaders, although I'm less certain of that. Of the former eastern bloc countries, only Poland and Hungary (in addition to the Soviet Union) really fit your model.

Posted by John | October 9, 2006 12:04 PM

yeah, it's really hard to figure out whether we should root for the collapse of a regime that's brutalized its people for decades, cause it's hard to tell whether the people would be better off with, i don't know, something like food.

Posted by dj superflat | October 9, 2006 12:11 PM

Al has a good point here. China, Japan and South Korea are among the world's biggest economies and military powers, and have a combined GDP in the ballpark of the US or the EU. Just what is it the US has to do for them that they can't do by themselves?

Posted by BP | October 9, 2006 12:15 PM

What the U.S. has to do is protect the interests of the U.S.

Am I seriously hearing people argue that now that Bush's strategy of macho posturing has backfired, we need to adopt a strategy of isolationism with regard to North Korea, and pretend they don't exist and pose no threat to us?

Posted by Steve | October 9, 2006 12:30 PM

weren't the U.S. military in South Korea going to 'stand down' as soon as the South Koreans 'stood up'? it's been a half century already. a glimpse of what's to come over in Mesopotamia i suppose.

but i guess when the empire puts military bases all over the planet on the pretext that they're there to ensure stability, they might want to actually, you know, ensure stability.

(i take it eisenhower wasn't counting on the arrogant, stubborn belligerance of the cheney-rumsfeld duo, but still...)

Posted by Murph | October 9, 2006 12:35 PM

and pretend they don't exist and pose no threat to us?

How does NK pose a threat to the US?

Posted by BP | October 9, 2006 12:37 PM

Even setting aside the issue of long-range missiles, anything NK does to destabilize Asia is going to have very serious ripple effects on our economy.

Of course, that doesn't mean we need to adopt the Iraq solution of stabilizing the region by making it less stable. But it hardly suggests we should withdraw and let everyone else sort it out, as if we have no interest in the outcome.

Posted by Steve | October 9, 2006 6:05 PM

Brooksfoe - Honecker and Ceausescu seem to defy your analysis.

The Eastern European regimes all faced a subtle problem of national illegitimacy, and were ultimately anchored not by their own strength but by the Soviet Army. This is not the case in NK. You're right that this was also less true for Ceausescu, with his independent foreign policy line and national personality cult; but note that Romania was the last to fall, and only went after all of Eastern Europe had left them as a final lonely holdout. In any case, none of these regimes fell because of an economic crisis. They fell when the signal was given that the army, be it Soviet or local, would not shoot to stop protestors. And that in turn stemmed from the accession of Gorbachev in the USSR. (It is doubtful that Gorbachev would have allowed Honecker to use maximal violence to put down the challenges to his rule, even if he had wanted to.) East Germany didn't fall because it was starving; it fell because it was well-off, but not well-off enough compared to West Germany.

I have seen no indications of the kind of leadership fissure in NK which could lead to a change in the regime. That's not to say it's impossible. But anyone who is arguing that we should risk conflict by pressing them as hard as we can to force a regime change ought to have some evidence that such a change is possible, rather than conjuring vague visions of a "collapse". Hitler was still running a crushed and starving Germany as the Soviet tanks rolled into Berlin.

Posted by brooksfoe | October 9, 2006 10:20 PM