Posted on 07/23/2003 3:37:05 AM PDT by Enemy Of The State
How to win in North Korea - without firing a shot BY TOM PLATE HAVING the capability to do something doesn't necessarily mean one should do it. At almost any time, United States forces could be deployed quickly - for example, to Taiwan - should the Bush administration aim to implement some zany version of its announced philosophy of 'pre-emption'. But a war with China is an exceptionally bad idea, not because America would necessarily lose but because the cost of winning would be so great. In fact, one might wish to champion the value of not doing what one could do, as an exemplar of commendable, peace-enhancing restraint. Take the example of North Korea, whose elimination would be a positive step for mankind. But the cost of military action even if it produced victory, as would probably be the case, would be horrific. Many in South Korea as well as in the North would die, as would many US soldiers; and China, now working very hard to compel Pyongyang to negotiate sensibly with the US, would be absolutely traumatised. 'It's an extraordinarily serious problem,' agreed Mr Bill Rammell, British Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, 'and it's very, very worrying.' The British government places almost all the blame on provocations from Pyongyang's totalitarian government. 'If you take any rational analysis,' he said, speaking from his office, 'it's North Korea that has created this difficulty.' And London fully supports the Bush administration's view that precisely because North Korea has testy issues not just with the US but with everyone else in the region, it must negotiate with all major players in a multinational format. At the same time, there is no lust for war with North Korea. For one thing, the Blair government is facing extraordinary and mounting media attacks over Iraq - for 'bogus claims of Iraq's nuclear capability... over false intelligence... over a war with no end in sight', as The Independent, the brilliant London-based broadsheet, put it in front-page large type. For another, the British Foreign Office, in particular, is well aware that Japan as well as China have a serious stake in the North Korean crisis. A Pyongyang that actually cobbled together a small nuclear missile arsenal would inevitably trigger decisions to militarily re-arm in Tokyo, and that would send more than shivers throughout the region. US military strikes against the North would alarm China and undermine its diplomatic efforts to avoid that option and induce North Korea to develop peaceful relations with all its neighbours by proceeding in good faith with multi-party talks. 'The talks need to resume and broaden out,' said Mr Rammell, 'so that by that process, agreement will be reached. The basic choice is North Korea's but, still, everyone needs to step back.' Everyone, by definition, includes the US. For London, the ultimate stick should be 'containment and sanctions', not military action. 'The ideal would be to avoid any of those three,' said Mr Rammell. Moreover, he added, while praising suddenly more helpful Chinese diplomacy, 'what's important is that the Japanese are 100 per cent with us'. Tokyo wants a non-military solution, too. Said Mr Rammell, flatly: 'We're not contemplating military action.' A military strike against North Korea would have unexpected economic consequences for the US, whose economy is already hurting. Its economic and strategic ally, South Korea, would probably be devastated and its economy set back profoundly. China would fundamentally reassess its heretofore productive strategy of economic engagement with America, perhaps even converting the huge amounts of US dollars it holds into other currencies. Japan, which holds an even more colossal bundle of dollars, would probably do the same. Those moves would plunge the US into a very deep recession, as University of California political scientist Richard Rosecrance points out in the current issue of the Washington DC-based quarterly, The National Interest. If US military action occurred before President George W. Bush's re-election campaign, a one-term presidency would be all but certain. Any such decision would have to wait until the second term. But attacking North Korea would be a wrong decision no matter when it was taken. The issue can and should be negotiated. Beijing can and will get the deal done - but it needs more help from Washington. The Bush administration needs to take the military option off the table, as the British government appears to have wisely done. Leaving it out there for everyone to see is, to use a preferred word of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's, 'unhelpful'. By ruling force out, the US would create conditions under which it won't be needed anyway. Sometimes, a policy of restraint is the muscular move. It's the only path to peace on the tense and dangerous Korean peninsula.
FOR THE STRAITS TIMES
The writer is clueless. The CHICOMS need us. We don't need them. If we don't buy, China collapses. It's that simple.
LOL I noticed that too. I started the article for some insight, and all I got was whining.
or helped to keep their military hardware in N. Korea....
In the long run it would be very good for the American economy too. Many, many more jobs here, and keeps our money here instead of funding our eventual overthrow by the Red Army
Are they not also known to be almost crazy in terms of stability? My understanding is that they are one of the loosest cannons on the earth!
And now that we have shifted from the war on terrorism to paying-off and pleading with terrorists, (i.e. Abbas/Arafat) "negotiating" with N. Korea should be a snap! </sarcasm>
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