Posted on 08/05/2009 10:33:45 PM PDT by joey703
Personally, I believe what will drive North Korea-U.S. relations as well as with the other four parties from the six party framework, is how each party comes to accept the fact that North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons. This stands in stark and direct conflict with the fact that the United States will never accept North Korea as a legitimate nuclear power along the lines that the U.S. has with India -- and rightly so.
But, I do believe the U.S. would be content to see a steady-state where North Korea has nuclear weapons, but doesn't share/sell nuclear weapons or technology to other countries or non-state actors. Of course, this would hinge on North Korea not testing nuclear weapons (you can see this as the U.S. -- I'm thinking Department of Defense here, which has a different definition as to what constitutes a nuclear test than the U.S. State Department). And, of course, this action by the U.S. would in and of itself be a security guarantee for North Korea -- while not directly in the form of an alliance, the U.S. will do everything in its power to make sure a state with nuclear weapons does not collapse (think Pakistan).
(Excerpt) Read more at northxkorea.blogspot.com ...
thoughts?
For a decade or so, they, especially U.S. foreign policy establishments, had held onto the belief that N. Korea does what it does because they want to negotiate away nuclear card in return for hefty aid package and normalization with U.S.. However, they had no such intention. Time and again, when the talk on this issue may be about to gain a momentum, they broke off the talk on some trivial pretext, and proceeded to continue their nuclear project.
Now that N. Korean nuke is a reality, they entertain another ungrounded belief that N. Korea will stay where it is, having nuke and no further development (toward deploying nuke-tipped ICBM,) in return for nice rewards.
That is not going to work either. As long as Kim Jong-il is alive, they will continue to work toward that goal.
What is needed is 1) persistent containment; Keep all sanctions on, and 2) allow S. Korea and Japan to talk more openly about their nuclear options.
The latter is especially crucial, but imbeciles in Foggy Bottom won't hear about it.
What do you mean by persistent containment? Short of war, I think North Korea has the upper hand. What if North Korea sells nukes? Or missiles (Supposedly, Iran’s Shihab-3 that successfully sent a satellite to space is a modified form of North Korea’s Rodong Missile, you can check fas.org or globalsecurity.org).
Only when it comes to war does the U.S. have the upper hand (and by far).
the U.S. public will not be willing to spend a trillion dollars or send half a million soldiers as to fight for Korea (unless North Korea invades and kills 20,000 U.S. soldiers stationed near the DMZ overnight).
The weak link in Iran-N. Korea connection is the air shipment over China.
For other connection outside China, it should be contained.
Sustained sanction and containment, without rushed attempt to see any result soon, is the best way, especially now that Kim Jong-il's days are numbered.
Yes, this is precisely our weakness. Our blindness. And it crosses Republican (Condi Rice and Chris Hill come to mind) and Democrat administration alike. Only a few get it. In my book, TLR, you are one of those who “gets it” with respect to North Korea. And yet, it isn’t rocket science. Nor should it be. It is just an American lack of paying attention, which creates the byproduct of doing the same stupid thing over and over again, expecting different results, which is in and of itself indicative of a lack of both wisdom and historical memory.
Actually, trade and profit is likely the biggest reason for North Korea's persistence with nuclear weapons technology. Other than that the only product the country exports in any volume is loads of very fine USD $100 bills.
We can expect more kidnappings.
The cost of war is prohibitive for both sides. So, looking at what can be accomplished without war; it looks like North Korea has a lot more cards (The biggest being it’s geographical position, which we can’t just take away).
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