Who we fight, and who we negotiate with, has not been determined by declarations of "We fight!" or "We negotiate." made inside the Beltway. What has determned the course, has been our military strengths and weaknesses.
Military preparedness is largely assumed, here in the States, and here at FreeRepublic, but the assumptions are a pitiful substitute for what we have not: actual military strength.
North Korea is a protectorate of Red China; North Korea does Red China's bidding; and now, Red China says that the United States must direct its discussions to North Korea in order to solve what, the current nuclear crisis?, instead of, as President Bush wishes, engaging in regional, multi-lateral negotiations within the sphere of the region's nations, namely Red China, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan ( ... and Taiwan, the Phillipines, and Australia), which discussions would involve both the balance of military power and commerce.
Red China is "reluctant" because it is on the offensive; and they are testing our military strength. What they find, is that we are desperate, because we have only negotiations (= concessions) and nuclear weapons to fall back upon. We do not have the personnel, nor the material, nor the logistics (We're short of aircraft carriers and aircraft --- to do what the whizbangs inside the Beltway think that they can pull off, we need 500 C-17 air transports, 3,800 combat aircraft, and 42 aircraft carriers, in order to protect our national interests).
Red China is a totalitarian dictatorship; but unlike our "differences with" North Korea, the Soviet Union, Cuba, and NAZI Germany ... we have been making the Red Chinese extremely wealthy and steadily more powerful, in order to save a buck on Wall Street.
Iraq is a totalitarian dictatorship, but it pales in comparison, because, even though the Middle-East has become more wealthy, it has not become anywhere near as powerful as Red China.
North Korea exists to serve as a communist buffer state for Red China, and they want us to pay for it --- velly, velly, typically, inscrutably Red Chinese.
Thought the Russians and the Red Chinese are supposedly old buddies on the long march to Utopia, and they are in agreement on many of such political issues, the Soviet Union did not invade Afghanistan merely to entrench its control over south-central Asia and get closer to long-wished for sea bases (to be located in Iran in exchange for nuclear "aid") along the Indian Ocean (and closer to Diego Garcia). The Soviets invaded in order to blunt a Red Chinese invasion of south-central Asia, toward the oil-rich states.
We here in the West, are largely unaware of how much of a sense of oil-geo-politics, is normal, every day fare in government circles of Asia. Initially, Stalin was not only interested in thwarting Western influence south of the border, but the Russians have long been worried about thwarting Red China's energy ambitions south of the border.
While Pakistan appears to be ever so faithful to Allah, the government offices are riddled with "military lobbyists" from both Russia and Red China. The difference between them is that the Russians would prefer peace and progress as the endgame (they're interested in turning away from terrorism as an economic means) while the Red Chinese prefer that commerce be thwarted on its borders and wherever else it suits them and still uses terrorism to get what it wants, as it has over the millenia.
To divert the world's attention away from its energy ambitions in south-central asia / the Middle East, Red China has yanked on its chain that runs out the back yard and to the neck of North Korea, and thereby foiled, for now, the Russians' (and Japan's) plan for expanding the Trans-Siberian Railroad, all the way down and through South Korea. A railroad which would probably help lift up North Korea's economy --- one of the last things that Red China wants.
Red China does not want a united Korea that would most assuredly become an economic powerhouse and competitor; and Red China's feelings toward Taiwan are exactly the same.
While the United States believes that its bargaining chips are our productive might and promises of commercial growth, in sharp contrast, the Red Chinese are out there creating or gathering up bargaining chips on top of their increasing productive might and promises of commercial growth. They have much more with which to bargain. They have been increasing their territorial holds south and southeast of our border. They have been paying back into The Party (the former Democrat Party) in support of Clintonism since World War II; they are the anti-American foundation.
Red Chinese intel ops in the U.S. have long exceeded the Russian effort, yet they were not taken as seriously, because the theory was that Red China did not have ambitions beyond its immediate border states, they appeared to be clumsy and relatively harmless, their marginal gains for such ops, were not as great as the Russians. Not many paid attention to the Red Chinese influence on campus, where the marginal gains outpaced the Russians who mistakenly took all the credit out of "pride in workmanship," how it appeared to them, the Russians, that their work on campus "really paid off."
Fascist nationalizing socialists go to great lengths to not appear to be so on the surface, where they make the most of "cultural diversity." The Russians did not come up with this "diversity" thing on campus; Red China did. You might say that "Hitler's big mistake." was that Adolf did not have James Carville to make der Fuhrer a world-wide media darling.
The Red Chinese know that the economy of the United States relies upon the dictum, Commerce Must Go On. The Red Chinese believe that they can take harsh measures to subdue the commerce along the Korean peninsula, and that the United States will pay for it, because the United States will overlook quite a lot of destruction in exchange for commercial benefits. Basically, the United States can be bought; though the price must always be inscrutably searched for, and that is what they are up to, now.
Inertia is Red China's national id. They enjoy waking up and finding that they are winning an inch at a time. With the exception of instances of when they believe they must establish order quickly, and so they shoot somebody, they will squeeze you to death instead of shoot you. They keep P.O.W.'s because having them may pay off fifty years down the road, while Westerners are too happy to be rid of the cost.
And on that last note, I rest my case, because cost is what the West does not understand about the Red Chinese. The West thinks of cost in financial terms. The Red Chinese think of cost in terms of negative movement on the game board; it may or may not have financial meaning; and, in negotiations, when cost does not have financial meaning to them, they are happy to let you think that it does: your loss, their gain. The West thinks that the Red Chinese would not risk economic progress, but in Red China, economic progress is a delicacy. They can live without it.
Meaning, the Red Chinese are first and foremost, dictators of their fate, at almost all costs. They know that mainland China cannot be conquered. They are not building up their military to defend their homeland. They are on the offensive.
Inscrutably; because it's interesting to them.
Mo Ho Fo