Chirol compels me

Is a line in the sand our best policy? A rebuttal to my comrade’s recent post on dealing with North Korea.

1. Clinton is at fault because North Korea broke the 1994 agreement.
Wrong. While neither Democrat or Republican, I take a dim view of those on the right who tend to immediately and anachronistically blame him for problems occuring during the present administration. Though the North Koreans indeed renegged on their agreement, it should firstly not come as a surprise nor as unprecendented. The Soviets broke almost every agreement we had with them but it was still better to have some sort of framework than nothing. Some order is better than total chaos. Estimates put North Korea’s nuclear arsenal at around 10 now. Had there been no restrictions at all, it would almost certainly be much higher now.

I don’t put all the blame on Clinton, but since he was the last guy responsible I do hold him accountable. One reason I’ve gone as far as to think about nuking North Korea is that I believe war is inevitable. North Korea is not on the verge of collapse. The country is as militarized as ever. And they now have nukes, making any end game potentially catastrophic.

Had Clinton gone through with an invasion of North Korea, which he was considering in 1994, and had Carter (acting as freelance appeaser) not sabotaged Clinton’s efforts, we could have taken our a pre-nuclear Kim Jong Il. That would have been the supremely moral decision. Before you think of the death toll, note that this would have prevented as many as two million North Koreans from starving to death, freed more than 20 million from the yolk of DPRK slavery and given them the chance to pursue economic and personal freedom, would have eliminated the threat of WMD assaults on allies ROK and Japan, and would have allowed the US to more 30,000 troops from quasi-hostile territory and put them in a country where they would be more 1.) useful and 2.) appreciated.

What if war does happen this year, or next, or later? And half a dozen US cities, or Seoul, or Tokyo, are engulfed in a sea of fire? Bush and Clinton will both have much to answer for.

3. Our deterrent
A line in the sand is the most important deterrent, but what else? We need to make clear that for every nuke used by North Korea against us or our allies that we’ll use 100 (which should be fairly clear anyway).

This is, forgive me, Cold War thinking. Deterrents are irrelevant. We have enough nukes to turn North Korea into the new East Sea. We are not dealing with a peer competitor trying to match our might. Rather, we have a maurading bandit on the run threatening the law and order of the countryside. He will not be deterred by threats of total retaliation. He knows that if he launches a nuke, he’s a goner. But it’s the only thing he has to threaten the goliaths that surround him. A line in the sand is dangerous for us because it will tell him exactly how far he can go, and he can push as an advantage at the negotiating table.

Conclusion
As we’ve seen, though Iraq was clearly an international threat, it was not a pressing one. Iran, while definitely an up and coming threat, still has time whereas North Korea is a problem today. They do have all three forms of WMD guaranteed and the question for the present administration is not about good and bad solutions, it’s about the best of the worst. It’s already too late.

Here we agree. Since it is too late, what do we do?

Considering premptive war/nuclear strikes is not a bad idea. Do we pick the time and place or do we let the bad guys do it? Also, destroying the Pyongyang regime could scare the Iranians with the real threat that we will not allow them to finish their nuclear program. So fire away, baby, fire away.