North Korea, redux
Nathanael replies to my comments about "hitting" North Korea:
Nathanael has very concisely made my point for me. Right now with the imbroglio in Iraq, it is very hard for us to present a credible threat to North Korea - our ground forces are publicly overcommitted to the point where we're attriting our peninsular presence.
Granted, the Navy and Air Force are the forces likely to be able to damage North Korea's nuclear facilities, but the subsequent response by Kim Jong Il and his gigantic army is strategically curtailed by significant presence of US ground forces - essentially if he engages our troops in a major way, it commits the US to flattening him. If he can avoid engaging our troops as much as possible, however, then he may feel he can avoid the US's full-scale involvement. That's the doctrinal reason for the presence of US ground forces near the DMZ.
Maybe we can get by with half as many troops there - perhaps it'll still be seen the same way - but at less than 40k troops it was already in danger of being a clearly token force. Inter alia, the intelligence resouces of those troops are moving as well, with all their focused understanding of the Korean situation. Bad idea? I would say so, if we didn't really need those troops in Iraq-which-is-not-a-quagmire.
Meanwhile, that's ony half the kind of pressure we can exert. The Chinese, on whom the North Koreans depend heavily, have a great deal of traction with them. In multi-lateral talks, there's a great deal we can bring to bear on China to in turn bring to bear on North Korea. It has worked before, and it could well have worked again, if we hadn't already used (squandered, really) most of our leverage with China on Iraq. So, while we've been screwing around with the oppressor who wouldn't be able to obtain nuclear weapons for several years yet, who we thought had chemical weapons that he might have been able to deliver to targets outside Iraq, and who was not widely assessed to be willing to sell such munitions to terrorists, we've missed the boat with the oppressor who had nuclear weapons and said he was making more and does have the capability to deliver the nukes to US targets (or whomever else) and is assessed to be willing to sell anything to anyone.
And now the North Koreans have made a bunch more nukes. When it was one or two, we would likely have been able to deal with them through airstrikes. Now we're screwed. And yes, paying the blackmail might work better - by now - than apologizing to the South Koreans and the relatives of those who used to live in Seattle. Great job, Bush!
It's not in North Korea's interests to compromise. It's in North Korea's interests to get nuclear weapons and blackmail us. Yes, there are more ways to deal with a country than to "hit" it. But if we can't hit it, we're in a bad position to negotiate.
Nathanael has very concisely made my point for me. Right now with the imbroglio in Iraq, it is very hard for us to present a credible threat to North Korea - our ground forces are publicly overcommitted to the point where we're attriting our peninsular presence.
Granted, the Navy and Air Force are the forces likely to be able to damage North Korea's nuclear facilities, but the subsequent response by Kim Jong Il and his gigantic army is strategically curtailed by significant presence of US ground forces - essentially if he engages our troops in a major way, it commits the US to flattening him. If he can avoid engaging our troops as much as possible, however, then he may feel he can avoid the US's full-scale involvement. That's the doctrinal reason for the presence of US ground forces near the DMZ.
Maybe we can get by with half as many troops there - perhaps it'll still be seen the same way - but at less than 40k troops it was already in danger of being a clearly token force. Inter alia, the intelligence resouces of those troops are moving as well, with all their focused understanding of the Korean situation. Bad idea? I would say so, if we didn't really need those troops in Iraq-which-is-not-a-quagmire.
Meanwhile, that's ony half the kind of pressure we can exert. The Chinese, on whom the North Koreans depend heavily, have a great deal of traction with them. In multi-lateral talks, there's a great deal we can bring to bear on China to in turn bring to bear on North Korea. It has worked before, and it could well have worked again, if we hadn't already used (squandered, really) most of our leverage with China on Iraq. So, while we've been screwing around with the oppressor who wouldn't be able to obtain nuclear weapons for several years yet, who we thought had chemical weapons that he might have been able to deliver to targets outside Iraq, and who was not widely assessed to be willing to sell such munitions to terrorists, we've missed the boat with the oppressor who had nuclear weapons and said he was making more and does have the capability to deliver the nukes to US targets (or whomever else) and is assessed to be willing to sell anything to anyone.
And now the North Koreans have made a bunch more nukes. When it was one or two, we would likely have been able to deal with them through airstrikes. Now we're screwed. And yes, paying the blackmail might work better - by now - than apologizing to the South Koreans and the relatives of those who used to live in Seattle. Great job, Bush!
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