Hawks fly with doves over North Korea

National Post ^ | May 22 2003 | George Jonas

[knighthawk]

In January, I wrote that North Korea's "Dear Leader" Kim needs to be surrounded by a ring of fire. A task force set up by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations came to a similar conclusion this week. Headed by veteran U.S. diplomats Morton Abramowitz, retired undersecretary of state, and James T. Laney, America's former ambassador to South Korea, the task force released a report listing military options, including a naval blockade as well as selective air strikes against known nuclear facilities.

Selective air strikes! Fancy that. Hawk as I am on the subject of grim police states, including Kim Jong-il's macabre domain, even I didn't go this far four months ago.

Blockades and air strikes aren't the first items on the council's agenda. The think-tank of public officials, academics and journalists favours negotiations first. It's just that the Abramowitz-Laney task force's report isn't very optimistic about the outcome.

Considering North Korea's record, this isn't surprising. Since last October, when North Korean officials admitted carrying out a secret uranium-enriching program in defiance of a 1994 agreement with the United States, Kim Jong-il's Stalinist regime has been hanging tough. This month it scrapped Pyongyang's last remaining international treaty on non-proliferation, a 1992 agreement with South Korea to keep the peninsula free of nuclear weapons.

North Korea isn't being provoked by some right-wing cabal. The so-called "Agreed Framework" was negotiated nine years ago by Jimmy Carter, acting as Bill Clinton's envoy, with "Dear Leader" Kim's father, "Great Leader" Kim il-Sung. It was the epitome of a liberal agreement. The ink was barely dry on it when North Korea breached it.

Ironically (or perhaps not) this week's call for air strikes and blockades also comes from liberals. The Council on Foreign Relations is a liberal organization. Morton Abramovitz was actually an advisor to the Albanian delegation at the Rambouillet conference where NATO gave Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic his marching orders. The report's co-author, the Rev. John T. Laney, U.S. ambassador to South Korea between 1993 and 1997, is an ordained United Methodist clergyman. He's as much a product of liberal Christian thinking as the Nobel Peace Prize-winning ex-president Jimmy Carter.

This shows that doves can be as warlike as hawks under the appropriate circumstances. Ambassador Laney (who in 1994 speech in Seoul said: "We're here because God has put us here as peacemakers, not only as representatives of the United States but also representing the highest ideals of Christianity") is hardly a warmonger. Still, along with Mr. Abramowitz, he recommends negotiations with North Korea mainly, or perhaps only, to "make a good-faith effort at a negotiated settlement," the failure of which would provide a casus belli, a justification for acts of war such as air strikes and naval blockades.

Clearly, doves cannot avoid considering acts of war as a last resort any more than hawks can -- and since hawks, too, consider acts of war a last resort, the two birds are closer to each other than they appear in the rearview mirror of history.

It's an expectation of the Abramovitz-Laney report that negotiations with Mr. Kim's regime would fail, leaving punitive action as the sole alternative. For this, the report suggests, the United States would be well-advised to have the support of South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. As such support is less likely to be extended unless there's a genuine attempt at negotiations first, the task force's advice to the Bush administration is: "Negotiate." In this context, negotiation is a purely tactical advice.

My recommendation, four months ago, wasn't much different. I wrote that if in 1994 the right strategy would have been to dispatch more U.S. forces to Korea instead of making deals with the elder Kim, in 2003, after Kim Sr. and Jr. may have built a couple of nuclear devices, the right strategy was to withdraw the forces already there. A contingent of 37,000 American troops, acting as a supposed "tripwire" under the military doctrine developed half-a-century ago, could only act as sitting ducks today. Far from cramping Mr. Kim's nuclear style, the U.S. troops would become his hostages. North Korea's missile technology couldn't yet harm Americans unless the Pentagon thoughtfully placed soldiers as targets next door.

With the potential hostages removed -- I wrote in January -- the United States could get on with the more pressing business of making sure that Saddam Hussein is rendered harmless before he, too, turns into a Kim Jong-il. When that's done, send the submarines into the Sea of Japan. Surround the peninsula with a ring of fire.

I'm pleased to report the Bush administration had been thinking along the same lines. It did render Saddam harmless. As for removing the U.S. troops from South Korea, at least it mused publicly about doing so. This had the effect of quickly making Seoul more co-operative with Washington, as one predicted it would.

Now I'm waiting for the United States to surround "Dear Leader" with a ring of fire. By all means, negotiate with him first, if it makes the liberal thinkers of the Council on Foreign Relations happy.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[Desecrated]

Why put boomers so close? Kim knows they are out there, and if ANY nuke subs are active anywhere in the world, he is already "surrounded by a ring of fire."

Even if a deal is reached with NK, how could we ever substatially verify they are following it? We couldn't and we can't. Military action or starving him into collapse are the only options imo.

[John H K]

The author never mentioned "boomers."

Contrary to popular belief, all nuclear subs aren't "boomers."

Only Ohio-class SSBNs are "boomers." They carry Trident missles with nuclear warheads that can hit North Korea from their docks in Washington state, so no point in moving them closer to North Korea.

Our other nuclear powered subs are fast-attack submarines (and these greatly outnumber "boomers"). They do carry Tomahawk conventional cruise missles and they would have to be moved into the Sea of Japan to hit North Korea.

[M Kehoe]

Methinks Mr. Jonas writes using hyperbole: With the potential hostages removed...

I've never heard the 2nd ID called hostages before. Even if N. Korea had deliverable nukes. Maybe Mr. Jonas has no understanding of what a mechanized infantry division is, or what force protection means?

Or maybe Mr. Jonas has an agenda?

5.56mm

[Eric in the Ozarks]

With our troops as close to the DMZ as they are, and with the likelyhood that NK would pulverize Seoul as their first move, our troops are, in effect, hostages.

[Desecrated]

So surrounding Kim with a ring of fire is meant to mean moving attack subs closer to NK? That's not how I read it. Moving them in still gives Kim the provocation excuse, and he is more than happy to use it. And I know what boomers are and aren't.

[M Kehoe]

With our troops as close to the DMZ as they are, and with the likelyhood that NK would pulverize Seoul as their first move, our troops are, in effect, hostages.

The military situation on the Korean peninsula does not exist in a vacuum. As I mentioned, force protection is the key. N. Korea can't mount a sustained attack, nor hold ground in any war gaming senario. Yes, they can cause destruction and death, but that would be for the war crimes trials to adjudicate.

5.56mm

[Growler]

First off, the Administration should mimic North Korea's retoric and announce that "we would consider any attempt to export Weapons of Mass Destruction, or components thereof, an act of war."

Then when the North Koreans attempted to eport any type of weapons at all (e.g. conventional missles), we could announce that the coast off of North Korea was now a "mine danger zone," and begin sinking any ships leaving North Korea with our fast attack submarines.