What To Do About North Korea

Take out the missile launch site.  Here’s why that’s the right thing to do in a post-Iraq world.

A lesson of Iraq is that occupation is brutal and ultimately brutalizing work.  I was in favor of the invasion; I believed there were WMD in Iraq (I think the administration did, too); and  I have no regrets over Saddam’s fall other than his being granted a show trial.  And, on the whole, I think our troops have been incredibly effective and humane in the face of a barbaric enemy. But we have to learn from experience.

After World War II our occupation of Germany was as ruthless as an occupation needs to be to succeed.  “Resistance” leaders were simply hung from light poles as an example.  There was mass punishment of towns and neighborhoods which supported the resistance even when they did so at the point of a gun.  It’s very ugly that occupation effects ordinary citizens as a balance of terror – is it more dangerous for them to support the demands of the resistance or the occupiers? This isn’t politics; it’s simply survival.

The Iraqi insurgents (both native-grown and invasive) understand the classic tactics of resistance: terrorize the population; provoke occupier “atrocities” as a response; count on the occupier losing the will to sustain this battle.  These tactics work particularly well when the occupier values human life and human dignity more than the resistance.  Even better when the occupier is a democracy whose people both tire of the price of occupation and are genuinely appalled by the harm done to the civilian population who are caught in the middle.

So what do we do about North Korea which certainly has weapons of mass destruction, is improving its means of delivering them, and is led by a megalomaniac who doesn’t hesitate to starve his own people and can’t be expected to have much concern for anyone else?  We certainly don’t want to occupy the place.

I think we ought to do what we do best: deliver a very clear warning and take effective action by destroying the site from which North Korea plans to test its next missile.  Should we give a warning first so people can get out of the way?  Only if this doesn’t unduly jeopardize either the success of the mission or the safety of our pilots and only if we are prepared to carry on regardless of demonstrations in every capital of the world.

Is this high-handed?  Yes but no more so than the premise of the world’s negotiations with North Korea and Iran which is that we have the right to tell them that they are too much of a threat to us to be allowed to have nuclear weapons.

Is this bullying? Yes.  We have a harder time threatening those who are stronger.  We didn’t tell the USSR or China that they “couldn’t” have nuclear weapons.  We had to fall back to mutually assured destruction.  But mutually assured destruction won’t work as a deterrent when religious fanatics and nutcases are armed with weapons of mass-destruction; it is quite possible that bringing on Armageddon will appeal to them.

Wasn’t our intelligence wrong in Iraq? Apparently.  But the burden of proof is on those who claim to have WMD (North Korea) or don’t comply with inspections they’ve agreed to (Iran and Iraq).  Clean inspections would be and should be a protection from American attack.

What’s the likely effect on Iran?  Some will say it will harden their resistance.  Don’t think so but no loss since they are giving nothing anyhow.  I think they are much more likely to reconsider their need for nuclear enrichment if they face the threat of something more serious than a flood of ever-sweeter proposals each time they turn one down.

What about world opinion?  Ouch.  Of course much of the world will be secretly relieved.  And we will have made it even easier to criticize the US while taking advantage of a pax Americana.  Also can’t discount the fact that it is normal to resent a country which is able to act so strongly and unilaterally.  It would be nice to have support from some countries besides Israel and possibly the UK.  But not worth waiting for while North Korea and Iran build their capabilities.

The opinions that matter are in North Korea and Iran and somewhere in the hills between Afghanistan and Pakistan.  It is our enemies we want to influence.

We have an awesome ability to break things.  The lesson of Iraq is that we have a very limited ability to put them back together again.  With hindsight (and this is only hindsight) I think we should have applied the doctrine I’m suggesting for North Korea to Iraq.

Way back before the Iraqi war Saddam had given us good reason to think he still had WMD (there’s no question he’d had them before Iraq One and tried to get more).  He did not give the UN inspectors the access he’d promised and which they needed to determine whether or not the WMD existed. We should have identified the most important places to be inspected and made it clear that, if immediate unfettered access was not allowed to them, they would be destroyed.  Probably would have had to do that once or twice; then there would have been real inspections.

Of course this would not have brought democracy to Iraq nor will an attack on a North Korean facility free its miserable citizens from their atrocious government.  I don’t think we can justify the price in American lives to accomplish these worthy goals.  I don’t think we are able to sustain these worthy goals at the price of being an occupier.

But we are both entitled and able to act in our own defense.  We cannot afford to let ambitious dictators think we will be paralyzed by our horrible experience in trying to put Iraq together again.  We must make clear that we are willing to break things that threaten us  – with the minimum possible harm to civilians – even if we can’t put them back together again.

Comments

[Mr. Falsename]

What role do you believe anti-missile shields should play in all of this? After all, there would be no need to invade any potentially threatening country if that threat were to be eliminated simply by destroying or even re-directing missiles in mid-flight - it would raise the US's approval in the world, and thus make multilateral action easier and more effective, as well as many other benefits I am too tired to mention.

[Mr. Falsename]

What role do you believe anti-missile shields should play in all of this? After all, there would be no need to invade any potentially threatening country if that threat were to be eliminated simply by destroying or even re-directing missiles in mid-flight - it would raise the US's approval in the world, and thus make multilateral action easier and more effective, as well as many other benefits I am too tired to mention.

[Chris Gilbey]

Until people wake up and realize that they are being spoon fed the pablum required to ensure that they will demand the administration undertakes those things that the administration wants to undertake, we will keep on making bad decisions.

I came across this blog today that seems to sum it all up. Now I have no idea what agenda the guy who writes the blog may have.... but from a quick read, it seems perfectly cynical about the politicians of all varieties and persuasions...

http://www.blueinkblots.blogspot.com/

I agree with the earlier commentator - I would hope someone with the intelligence and success that Tom has would come up with something more visionary than the knee jerk reaction that your admin demands from its sheeple and which our PM in Australia follows, for whatever reasons he may have.

[Tom Evslin]

Fabio:

If you read my posts carefully, you'll see that I DO think we should take action on global warming even though all the facts are NOT in. We should keep gathering facts as well.

In the case of North Korea, they have declared their possession of nuclear weapons, repudiated agreements they've signed, and now say they will test a delivery system with much more than regional reach. Would they ever really use it against us or our friends? Doesn't pay to wait and find out given the facts they have made available.

My hope is that a firm stroke now will stop them (and Iran and others) from making a terrible mistake regarding what America will do to defend itself if backed into a corner. Hitler made this mistake. Japan did. It's an easy mistake because democracies are "soft" compared to dictatorships and people in democracies are free to express their dislike of war.

[What's the Frequency Kenneth ?]

This is the kind of thinking that our adversaries absolutely love. America the greedy bully. America the bloated self-important hypocrite spouting democracy but empowering the nastiest regimes (El Salvador, Chile, Saudi Arabia......).

America the violently paranoid.

Lovely...... in one short concise post Evslin demonstrates that even our best and brightest are capable of eagerly justifying the killing of innocents by banal arguments based on "self-evident" American supremacy.

Just remember that if we choose to adopt the law of the jungle as Evslin coolly advocates, it cuts both ways: we will be inviting every 2 bit loony and whacko to act out their aggressive and paranoid fantasies worldwide. Given that this nation is a net borrower of money and that it cannot even make a TV set or laptop domestically, playing bully (your words not mine) may have economic implications that would make $3/gallon gas look like a walk in the park. Our ememies today are not the North Koreans but rather loonies and terrorists that get a hold of sophisticated weapons (incidentally weapons that _we_ may have sold them in a earlier time --see Mujahideen and Stingers).

I have a lot of respect for you Tom. You are a brilliant fellow. It's shocking to see this sort of view (we rule, might makes right, screw anyone who doesn't agree, civilians don't matter etc.) espoused by someone so intelligent. It's eerily reminiscent of the stuff spouted by the very regimes whose weaponry you want to "take out".

As you walk around the world and look at USA embassies, you will see that they all now resemble barbed wire fortresses in war zones. What was once the bastion of freedom, dignity and human rights has become equated to greedy, mendacious, violent and arrogant. Even the citizens of our allies like the UK despise us --to the extent that we have to hide our diplomats in London behind tank traps and razor wire.

Ask yourself why? Why is this happening? If it were just some crazy N Koreans or Islamists that thought this way that'd be one thing but I have not yet met one person in Europe or Canada that feels like the USA is doing the right thing.

Your post will only serve the cause of people who say that America cannot be trusted.

[Fabio]

Why you think Global Warming needs more facts and proven cost-benefits analisis before taking any kind of action, and in the case of pacific use of nuclear use of Iran, no WMD in Iraq and regional power fight over Asia from North Corea the action needs to be urgent and the facts are not needed, opinions are enough and consequences should be taken care only after the action?

[Rajesh Raut]

We would not need to occupy North Korea once we "liberated" the country. South Korea would end up having to pick up the pieces of North Korean society (with help from China.) This is one reason the South Koreans get nervous when the U.S. mentions even the diplomatic santions much less military action.
They see the cost of German re-unification and are trying to ease into bearing the cost of re-building the north.

[Mr. Floyd]

Tempting, indeed. What would be even more tempting, though would be to knock out most of their capabilities.

The snag is that this guy is a looney tune and could perceive any attack (even a small one) as an act of war. This could cause North Korea to respond by hitting Japan and leveling Seoul. Our troops would quickly be drawn in and we'd have two fronts opened - Central and Pacific.

I think that North Korea is China's spoiled child and if China wants to be a world palyer, they'll have to deal with the aftermath their own acts of imperialism.

China has to be bullied to reign in the problem that it created. If they don't, we'll just have to pressure them by beefing up our capabilities in Asia. The last thing their fledgling economy needs (or can handle) is an arms race with its biggest source of revenue.

It's just a mater of time before Kim dies, is killed or is rendered incapacitated. He'll hopefully be replaced with a leader who is more pro-democracy. My knee jerk reaction wuld be to light them up; but I think it would be counter productive to attack. Kim has nothing to lose by starting a war. The reason for all of htese action sis for him to get attention. He wants to come in from the cold; but he has to do it in a way that doesn't make him look weak.