the one thing...: diplomatic recognition and some kind of security guarantee.

Counting problems today?

The downside to giving them a "security guarantee" is that they get to oppress the NK population withour fear of anyone doing anything about it. Doesn't any one on the Left have a problem with this? What next, give Mugabe a "security guarantee" or the regime in Myanmar? How about if Clinton had given such a guarantee to Melosevic.

"Recognition and security guarantees literally cost us nothing." If by "us" Kevin you mean the "US", maybe - but what about the poeple of NK, do they figure in this - they are the ones you're asking to pay the price.

Also, the US took issue with NK over international banking because of the illegal banking activities of NK in Macau - conterfeiting etc. That's where Dear Leader keeps all the money he stips from the NK people while they stave. Are you argung that the US should go along with that?

The stupid comments don't take long to arrive. You've broached this subject before.
I'm going to be a little outrageous here to stimulate discussion.
Would reaction to NK be different if it was described as being ruled by a traditional autocrat, i.e. a hereditary king ? ( The big boss inherited his job and has a lot of divinity-style bumpf indoctrinated into his people )

Kevin, This is what we get when we have morons for Presidents and Secretaries of State. We all know about Bush and Rice and how they have bungled almost anything they have touched. But let us look at the past. Albright was not so bright and she went all over the world in her State Department plane and acting like a Queen - so much so that she was universally despised by leaders everywhere. Powell was respected worldwide, but had no spine and he chose blind loyalty his boss over his allegiance to his country.

With such neutered and dim-witted people in charge of US foreign policy, it is not surprising that they have not done the obvious - use diplomacy to win over the Koreans and give Kim the personal immunity that he so desires.

Rice and Albright and the spineless Powell have lead the dimunition of US Power worldwide.

Kim Jong-Il may be a weird guy, and the whole DPRK leadership is paranoid as hell, but within the constraints of how police states usually act, they actually seem to behave fairly predictably.
...
Of course, the part I've never really understood is our reluctance to give them the one thing they've consistently asked for over many decades: diplomatic recognition and some kind of security guarantee.

Ah, yes. "They are reasonable, but I do not understand us."

That is the foreign policy of the Democrats.

neil

Since we can't actually *do* anything about internal conditions in North Korea, there's no point making them worse for the people inside.

When North Korea had its famine in the mid 90s, it wasn't the political elite who starved, it was the ordinary people.

But we cannot invade, and we cannot overthrow the government.

Iraq should have taught us the political difficulties of the former, and the impossibility of the latter-- have we succeeded in overthrowing the Cuban government in 45 years?

Militarily North Korea has spent the last 53 years digging in, waiting for another US invasion. There is no way the combined military power of the US and South Korea could conquer North Korea without horrendous casualties and massive disruption to the South Korean economy.

So a strategy of cautious engagement is the only way forward with this country. Cautious engagement and wait for a domestic change.

Even paranoids can behave rationally. NK is a paranoid state, but it doesn't behave irrationally.

Ah, yes. "They are reasonable, but I do not understand us."

Not surprising if you think about it; by adopting Stalinist despotism, they are heavily constraining their mode of action. As a democracy, our behavior is less subjected to such pathologies.

Of course, I was being a bit naive when I wrote "if you think about it," wasn't I?

Why not withdraw the troops from SK and let NK's neighbors sort it out? The USA has enough problems in the ME to keep its hands full for the time being. What is the USA's strategic interest in that region?

What is the USA's strategic interest in that region?

The Nikkei.

NK threatens Tokyo.

The downside to giving them a "security guarantee" is that they get to oppress the NK population withour fear of anyone doing anything about it.

As opposed to not giving them a "security guarantee" and still doing nothing about them?

Ever wondered if the "security guarantee" might have been useful for everyone else? The residents of Seoul might have appreciated it.

From what I've read -- I think there was a NYTimes magazine article on this a couple months ago -- NK really is counterfeiting US dollars on a massive scale. Which isn't really respecting our sovereignty, is it?

I'm not saying it's worth going to war over, but still.

I agree. Give them a five-year non-agression pact if it'll cool them off. We're not gonna invade in the next fiver years unless they (1) collapse, in which case the pact is void or (2) go to war or make some egregiously warlike act, in which case the pact is void. I do see the point of not wanting to take any option off the table, but still, it's not worth the headache to keep an option we're not going to use anyway. Make it a five-year pact, though. They'll take it, I think. Then every five years you have a certain amount of leverage with them.

Our Cuba policy makes no sense either. Why? Politics.

The downside to giving them a "security guarantee" is that they get to oppress the NK population withour fear of anyone doing anything about it.

"Doing anything about it" in the sense of "invading their country"? Can you STILL be this stupid? Has the invasion of Iraq taught you absolutely nothing?

In any case, no mutual non-aggression pact could supersede the authority of the UN Security Council to impose economic, diplomatic or military sanctions. You want to bomb NK? Fine. Get UN approval, and go ahead. If you can't get UN approval, guess what? You shouldn't be doing it.

If we truly want to have an influence on NK's domestic policies, can we be effective by being hostile and threatening to the regime? I don't think so. Diplomacy and negotiation seem to be practices the belligerent right chooses not to value. They are the party of choice for the emotionally retarded.

Seems like in this world you can now only have nu'klar weapons if the US says you can. I don't see anything in international law that says that.

N.Korea pulled out of the non-proliferation treaty some (12?) years ago. The US keeps threatening Korea but refuses to talk to them. If we were going to do something violent to them it sure would have been easier 5 years ago!

Yet again we are reduced to arguing about what the US should have done, and what we can do now that our options are severely curtailed.

You've all got to see the pattern!

This administration has acted like ignorant street bullies for 5 1/2 years now, undermining all world structures, treaties and accords, particularly all weapons and nuclear treaties.

They don't want world order, only world chaos.

Why is anyone surprised now.

Tomorrow Iran. Then who?

Why not Japan, S.Korea, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Brazil, S. Africa? Those freshly declared non-nuclear central Asian states. What chance loose weapons then?

Another G.W. Bush legacy. Nuclear non-proliferation burned in 5 years after 40 years of progress.

Step up George W. Bush to receive the World Peace Medal.

I recall that Clinton threatened to bomb NK in 1993. NK backed down and agreed to halt their nuclear weapons programme only to cheat and enrich uranium secretly and get weapons technology from Pakistan.

Still, Clinton's threat had some effect - maybe it's worth trying again. Bush's multilateral approach, getting China and Russia to take some respnosibilty, hasn't worked well - lets go back to Clinton's more hawkish approach.

Or maybe we just give those murderers a "security guarantee" - and forget all about our liberal values.

lets go back to Clinton's more hawkish approach.

But... but... but... I thought Clinton was the appeaser! Oh, now I'm so confused. Brain hurt bad...!
.

neil --

since this administration represents the US on the world stage I'm wondering what liberal principals you might be referring to?

I never saw Clinton as an appeaser, he never offered Melosevis a "security guarantee", he offered him an ultimatum - stop killing people or pay the price. Might be worth trying again with the North Korean dictatorship.

Whoops! I mean "liberal values" per your statement.

Of course this bunch doesn't have any principals.

S^^^! Time for bed. "principals" = "principles".

notther, liberal values of standing up for the oppressed people of North Korea, if you don't think that Bush is doing this then convince me that the Dems on this site are. So far I'm not convinced. (But I would have convidence that Hillary would do the right thing).

neil-
No offense intended. I was trying to be funny, mocking the constant refrain that Democratic foriegn policy is all about appeasement. It used to come from the right blogosphere and Cheney, but now we're getting it right from the Resident himself.

It was an attempt at shotgun humor. It seems you got some of the pellets in your face, but like Cheney, I'm willing to accept your apology for my shooting you.

Damn, it's late. I'm getting incoherent. Going to bed now...

neil --

seeing what we've done for the oppressed people of Iraq lately, the oppressed people of Cuba these last 45 years, Saudi Arabia or Palestine or Lebanon today, Nicaragua and the Contras, Iran under the Shah, Argentina under their military, etc., etc., you really need to put your and our values in their realistic context.

There's nothing that George W. Bush has done on principle or for moral values. Give me an example.

These fools in the Bush Administration are going to bungle this country right into a nuclear conflict, just watch.

In their strange mental calculus, they may end up attacking Iran over North Korea's actions. This is getting beyond incompetence into psychotic...

Conservative Deflator,

My friend told me I should kill two birds with one stone today and along with getting my oil changed, run across the street and buy some hardware.

Speaking of this, I could go to your house and kill the "real bird" with one stone, now couldn't I?


Off topic alert...

Did anyone catch just how inappropriate what I said is? Well, I apologize, Deflator.

You won't believe this, but...

Here’s some more recent Democrat hate and unhingedness for you — from ‘04 “Presidential” candidate John Kerry.

JOHN KERRY JOKINGLY THREATENS TO KILL GEORGE W. BUSH?

Wild Bill has the details (originally from Bill Maher’s show). 1:06 into the video, in response to a Maher statement about “killing two birds with one stone” that had nothing to do with President Bush, John Kerry says:

“I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania and killed the real bird with one stone.”

What the heck is that?

I think it’s worth a standalone post and a f’n apology. I apologize for my French. I’m Canadian.


Back on topic...

Do you think the calm and reasonable former Democratic Party nominee was the best man for the job of handling North Korea?

What's wrong with the six power talks that we have suggested? In the event of bilateral talks, certainly NK will tell China everything we say, just as we'll tell South Korea and Japan. Those latter two countries are far more affected by North Korea than we are.

"ten consecutive presidents of both parties have declined to offer this, so there must be more to it."

Not really. We have an impressive tradition of withholding the recognition of regimes we don't like : USSR, PROC, Cuba.

Initially, of course, the hope is that withholding recognition will influence the nature of the regime but then it becomes a hardened position because nobody wants to incur the domestic political costs of "going soft" on an unpopular regime.

Echoing many of the comments about Bush's foreign policy, to engage in bilateral negotiations with North Korea would be interpreted by the Bushies as a sign of weakness and as a reward to North Korea for standing up to the US. Furthermore, in a nutshell
we do not talk to Iran, Syria, Hizballah or North Korea. We only talk to our friends -- a huge mistake unless Bush really does want to destablize the world, ensuring permanent war footing and a continuing war presidency.

BRoD

Americans are as generous as anyone to nations they have defeated: think Japan, Germany and arguably the Phillipines.

Conversely they hate to be beaten. The countries that the US freezes out are the ones which thwarted (rightly or wrongly) the US in its goals:

think Cuba (resisted an invasion, embargo and any number of assassination attempts), Venezuela, Vietnam (massive political capital spent by WJ Clinton to open it up), Iran (the hostage crisis and Desert One), Sandanista Nicaragua

North Korea fits nicely into that model. The US crossed the 54th parallel (?) 3? times, but still couldn't subdue the nation.

The fact that NK, Cuba, Vietnam, Iran are all fairly totalitarian dictatorships with evil intensions doesn't obviate the observation about the American character.

Generous in victory, sore losers.

Almost the opposite of us Brits ;-).

BRoD

Let me give you another example.

My chief right wing interlocutor on the web, a libertarian, says that Iraq was a necessary proof that you can't civilise and democratise moslems.

That is the rationale for breaking Iraq into a thousand little pieces.

The psychological undercurrent is clear: Iraq frustrates the hell out of neoconservative theorists because it cannot be subdued.

Hence Iraq must be evil, because Americans are only good, and only seek to do good in international affairs.

America tends to a black and white world view and this is the natural consequence. A war we started is blamed on the people caught in the middle.

(the British version of this is a nostalgia for Empire, an insistence that the world treasures 'British' values when actually what it speaks is American, and what it treasures is American power and success-- coupled with a deep cynicism and hypocrisy.

The French version is similar, with an even more elaborate system of hypocrisy entrenched into the foreign policy.)

Kevin's got it about right.

It's interesting to see the self righteous comments from some of Kevin's conservative readers about the plight of the NK people. How are they faring today? Are the people of NK better off today than they were 6 years ago? I'm not blaming Bush for Dear Leader's faults - but has the Bush policy made life in NK one rice grain better? And does anyone think it would get worse if we swallowed hard and offered some form of recognition and normalized relations?

Not to use an already overused cliché - but couldn't this be Bush's "Nixon to China" moment? After all in 1972, with the '66-'69 Cultural Revolution still in recent memory, was China that much better than present NK?

If the policy of the last 10 Presidents isn't working, is even more of the same really such a smart policy?

Kevin's got it about right.

It's interesting to see the self righteous comments from some of Kevin's conservative readers about the plight of the NK people. How are they faring today? Are the people of NK better off today than they were 6 years ago? I'm not blaming Bush for Dear Leader's faults - but has the Bush policy made life in NK one rice grain better? And does anyone think it would get worse if we swallowed hard and offered some form of recognition and normalized relations?

Not to use an already overused cliché - but couldn't this be Bush's "Nixon to China" moment? After all in 1972, with the '66-'69 Cultural Revolution still in recent memory, was China that much better than present NK?

If the policy of the last 10 Presidents isn't working, is even more of the same really such a smart policy?

I love the fake "people of NK" republican talking points. Like you guys really spend a second of your lives worrying about their welfare, hell you've probably never eaten Korean food. Just like you "care" about the people of Iraq. Give it up.

Bush4King

If I were paranoid, I would think the Bush administration would be pushing NK toward nukes so that the apparent need to attack Iran soon becomes greater.

I don't know what to do about North Korea, but look at the world from their point of view. They are surrounded by 4 economic giants: South Korea, Japan, Russia and China. South Korea and Japan have been enemies since the beginning of North Korea. Russia, the most distant, isn't the ally it once was. China is growing impatient. They just don't want any more refugees. The language China used yesterday must have been very disconcerting.

Two of the four are legitimate nuclear powers. The other 2 could produce bombs by the end of the month if they decided that the US nuclear umbrella wan't protecting them.

Maybe they think a security guarantee can protect them from their neighbors.

Fortunately for Il, I don't thnk they really have anything to fear. North Korea doesn't have any tempting resources. The country is so poor nobody would really want the headaches associated with being responsible for administering the country.

Surely the record of 10 presidents re NK has a lot to do with heavy-duty ally South Korea.

Shorter Al: Bill Clinton forced Rummy to sit on a board of a company that wanted to sell nuke technology to Kim. Clinton whipped out his member and hypnotized poor Rummy.

Iran humiliated Carter, not Bush I; that's our best chance that Georgie-Porgie won't attack.

Kevin, get a physical.

Your posts have deteriorated significantly this year, to the level of your commenters. You are showing signs of mental decline. Could be the psychological manifestation of something physical.

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"crossed the 54th parallel three times and couldn't subdue them"

Oh, they were subdued until 300,000 Chinese troops changed the equation.

The downside to giving them a "security guarantee" is that they get to oppress the NK population withour fear of anyone doing anything about it.

And what's the downside of the administration's preferred option for the North Korea population?

The downside to giving them a "security guarantee" is that they get to oppress the NK population withour fear of anyone doing anything about it.

The upside of course is that for the truly downtrodden even a slight alleviation of misery can be a glorious thing. Having rice instead of tree bark to eat for instance.Just as China while still a dictatorship is in the aggregate not as bad a dictatorship as it was, so too it will be with North Korea with even a slight opening.

>"But ten consecutive presidents of both parties have declined to offer this"

Why? Here's the essence of US policy:

1) Countries with alternative economic systems (to capitalism) must be made to fail at all costs... this will demonstrate to the world that they "don't work".

2) People in dictatorships not controlled by the US must be made to suffer. If they suffer enough, they will somehow overthrow their government with their bare hands. [unfortunately most of these people know who's really causing their suffering]

3) Countries not open to christian evangalizing efforts must be punished.

The Democrats and Republicans both answer to the same master... big money.

Valuethinker,

Meant to say 38th parallel.

Had we only crossed the 54th parallel and crushed those evil libs in Vancouver, well...........

Like you guys really spend a second of your lives worrying about their welfare, hell you've probably never eaten Korean food. Just like you "care" about the people of Iraq. Give it up.

Well, I'm a regular commenter, and I've lived in Korea, gone on training manuevers with regular ROK army troops, stayed on their Army posts and eaten their food.

I don't give two shits about anyone except American troops, unlike your President and his incompetent flunkies--all of whom seem to remember they exist only when they can fill up the corners of the latest photo op.

"Over and over, I was told that Pyongyang wants bilateral negotiations to set the stage for implementation of the denuclearization agreement it concluded in Beijing on Sept. 19, 2005, with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea." - Kevin

Wasn't Kevin lecturing to us just the other day that Democrats will effectively utilize multi-lateral institutions to avoid the perception of exclusion?

Wouldn't China, Russia and Japan want to be at that table?

Oh my gosh, the Repugs are planning on telling president Cheney, and his Presidental face, Bushie to get real.

I guess its one thing to lie to hapless Dems but Cheney doesn't seem to think that the GOP should know anything either. Ever since the days after 9/11 when Cheney spoke to Russert about allowing human rights abusers into full-time government employment, I've also thought that Cheney was certifiably insane. So I wonder why Cheney didn't fire Rumsfeld BEFORE the GOP started moving toward taking up the reins in this dementia administration? You have to wonder what the generals have been whispering into Sen. Warner’s ears that has Warner considering alternatives?

I don't think Cheney is going to go along quietly with Baker's recommendations. We"ll see Cheney hanging out with Bushie in exactly the same way Karl Rove did during the height of the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation, trying to keep the presidental face inline and the GOP wolfs at bay. And I wonder if that will cause poor little Bushies façade to disintegrate, having never been the real decider, not knowing what to do and who to listen too?

There's more to it. Offering a security guarantee would impunge American credibility on the world stage.

Heh.

oop, post in wrong area.

I think Kevin's question answers itself. If recognition/security is "the one thing they've consistently asked for", then that's our most valuable bargaining chip, and we can't give it away unless we get some substantial and credible concessions in return. We've yet to see anything resembling good faith from North Korea. Until we do, formal recognition & security guarantees should be withheld.

(Note, however, that the refusal to engage in bilateral negotiations is a wholly different matter. Negotiation does not equal recognition.)

thethirdPaul
That's the 49th parallel : 49degrees 40minutes

Iraq must be punished for wanting to efficiently use its nuclear reactors

North Korea wants to pull a Saddam and intimidate the neighbours ( where else have I heard that tune ? )

Afghanistan shelters a dangerous religious organization dedicated to proliferating and gaining traction among Afghanistanis.

Iraq has WMDs : o.k. that's old.

Chavez is rude !

Nobody loves the U.S. ( we don't mind our own business )

Let's see. The threat of MAD ( at least equally arrived at by following the dictrine of offensive superiority ) is toast. The U.S. budget on war materials is through the roof.

Peace had broken out. Bad scene. We need to terrorize Americans so as to keep the wheels of industry turning.

Land of the free.

Home of the brave.

So fucking sad.

Short answer --- Jesse Helms and his ideological descendants.

Kim Jong-Il may be a weird guy, and the whole DPRK leadership is paranoid as hell, but within the constraints of how police states usually act, they actually seem to behave fairly predictably.

This is true, but it seems to carry with it the implication that police states are somehow less predictable than free governments. There is, as far as I can tell, no reason to believe this is the case.

Short answer --- Jesse Helms and his ideological descendants.

Shorter opit

America sucks and I have yet to realize any success in my life. .

it seems to carry with it the implication that police states are somehow less predictable than free governments. There is, as far as I can tell, no reason to believe this is the case.

Well, since the US became a police state we've been acting a lot more dangerously and arbitrarily.

The Korean peninsula has beef with Japan since at least the late 19th century when the Japanese TOOK OVER and dismantled the Korean government and ended diplomatic relationships with the world. (This was all under the guise of creating regional stability.) The Koreans (North or South) are sort of the step child of Eastern Asian -- that have had sovereignty issues with China, Japan and Russia at various points. And the Koreans, rightfully so at times, feel that they are completely not respected. Korean culture is long and diverse and includes such notable inventions as creating much of the print making (including the first moveable type well before Guttenburg) that is associated with the rest of the region.

So against this backdrop, North Korean (and South too) have a little bit of an inferiority complex that is not helped by the way in which the U.S. has refused to offer diplomatic respect.

Sorry. Should have been Iran,which signed the nuclear non proliferation treaty, wants to use reactors as cheaply and efficiently as possible.

Neil

The downside to giving them a "security guarantee" is that they get to oppress the NK population withour fear of anyone doing anything about it

Why not "do something" about Dafur? Sudan doesn't have any nukes.

Oh, I forgot, we don't have any troops left.

My success in life is demonstrated by my posting here all day and repeatedly proving that I'm a complete idiot.

Jay
You might want to work on your reading comprehension skills, sport.
I said America is looking like the scared bitch-in-charge.

'Speaking of this, I could go to your house and kill the "real bird" with one stone, now couldn't I?'
--Christoph

Is this a threat on my life? [Please refer upthread to the post at 6:36 a.m.]

Kevin, I would strongly suggest you log this guy's IP address as I may want to contact Canadian law enforcement authorites, if this continues and it turns out this jerk is Canadian as he asserts. Many conservatives are deeply mentally ill and this is a clear indication of that.

TCD

TCD

My beef with Kevin's post is that I think there needs to be more room to believe both that North Korea is dangerous and unpredictable and its possession of nukes may augur catastrophe down the road, AND that Bush Administration policy has been idiotic, incoherent, self-defeating, and has seriously worsened our predicament while accomplishing absolutely nothing over the past 5 years.

I'm not sure how the NK issue plays best politically. But the reality is that it's urgent we get the GOP out of power as soon as possible so that grownups committed to living on planet earth can take over our foreign policy again.

"Well, since the US became a police state we've been acting a lot more dangerously and arbitrarily."

Really? I hadn't noticed.
So tell me, what freedoms did you lose today. Or are you just a fucking idiot?

Our refusal to recognize the NK regime goes back to our reluctance to recognize any Communist government, ever. It took years for the US to recognize the legitimacy of the Soviet government after it had assumed power in 1920 and we only recognized the PRC after twenty-five years of hostility. The Republicans refuse to recognize the NK out of spite and the Democrats won't do it when they're in the Oval Office because they'll get smeared by Republican McCarthyite tactics. The Republicans are still playing with the deck Tricky Dick pulled out in the late 1940s when the Republicans went witch hunting for the fall of the uber corrupt KMT regime in China and it's polluted US politics for the last fifty years.

Kevin, I would strongly suggest you log this guy's IP address as I may want to contact Canadian law enforcement authorites, if this continues and it turns out this jerk is Canadian as he asserts. Many conservatives are deeply mentally ill and this is a clear indication of that.

You seem to be a bit stupid. Go back and read the post again, assuming your lips don't get tired before the end.

What is this "bilateral" thing? Can't we cut the BS and just call them "unilateral" negotiations, or does that make the inconsistency of the liberal position a bit too obvious? If the U.S. invaded Cuba on its own, I don't think anyone would be talking about a "bilateral" war.

"Bilateral" is assumed automatically to be a good thing, with nothing to really back it up.

What do you really gain in serious negotiations on trade, arms, and recognition by throwing China, South Korea, and Japan off the boat? Do they have no legitimate interest in this?

Or is this really all about placating a lunatic by dressing him up and having the great United States put the little "Burger King" crown on him for pictures with the Secretary of State or even the President? Hope that he won't throw a tantrum if the lollipop is big enough?

Hell, why not just put him on the Security Council? That will really help the poor little guy's inferiority complex.

Liberal foreign policy in one sentence:

The U.S. has no enemy that cannot be defeated by fellating them into clinical dehydration.

What is this "bilateral" thing?

Exactly what the name says: one with two sides.

Can't we cut the BS and just call them "unilateral" negotiations, or does that make the inconsistency of the liberal position a bit too obvious?

Calling it "unilateral" negotiations would be BS. There is no inconsistency in the liberal position, anyhow, even if one called them "unilateral" negotiations (which would be wrong), as the liberal position isn't against the word "unilateral", its against the use of force contrary to the US' binding international commitments, such as the UN charter, which makes resort to military force other than in proximate national or collective self-defense against an actual attack (including, by common understanding, a specific imminent attack that is in the process of execution but has not yet landed) only acceptable with the authority of the UN.

If the U.S. invaded Cuba on its own, I don't think anyone would be talking about a "bilateral" war.

Well, they certainly wouldn't talk about a "bilateral" invasion, or a "bilateral" decision to go to war, since, as you describe it, the US decided that "on its own", i.e., "unilaterally".

Contrast this to a negotiation conducted between the US and the DPRK where both participants voluntarily enter into the negotiations, and hence the negotiations are "bilateral".

"Bilateral" is assumed automatically to be a good thing, with nothing to really back it up.

Its not assumed to automatically be a good thing in some abstract, general sense. Its a structural point that is obviously important to the DPRK, and denying them that clearly impedes progress on the substantive points. There is no assumption here.

What do you really gain in serious negotiations on trade, arms, and recognition by throwing China, South Korea, and Japan off the boat?

They would need to be "thrown off the boat." Nothing stops the US from consulting with them, and with taking their interests into account.

Do they have no legitimate interest in this?

Sure, they have legitimate interests, as do other nations. That doesn't mean that multiparty negotiations involving every state with a "legitimate interests" are the best way to deal with the situation, or, particularly, the best way to address the US interests.

Or is this really all about placating a lunatic by dressing him up and having the great United States put the little "Burger King" crown on him for pictures with the Secretary of State or even the President? Hope that he won't throw a tantrum if the lollipop is big enough?

No, its about recognizing that there really are fundamentally two sides to the negotiation: the side that wants North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program and the side that wants to get something before that happens, and about having one voice speaking for each of those sides at the table.

Hell, why not just put him on the Security Council?

Well, because that would be a substantive concession, not a matter of the structure of negotiations.

Hell, why not just put him on the Security Council? That will really help the poor little guy's inferiority complex.

"Bilateral" is assumed automatically to be a good thing, with nothing to really back it up.

What do you really gain in serious negotiations on trade, arms, and recognition by throwing China, South Korea, and Japan off the boat? Do they have no legitimate interest in this?

Or is this really all about placating a lunatic by dressing him up and having the great United States put the little "Burger King" crown on him for pictures with the Secretary of State or even the President? Hope that he won't throw a tantrum if the lollipop is big enough?

Hell, why not just put him on the Security Council? That will really help the poor little guy's inferiority complex.

Er, woops. Gotta remember to preview. Ignore everything after "Well, because that would be a substantive concession, not a matter of the structure of negotiations" in my previous post, it was quoted material that got included twice by mistake.

Kevin, the DPRK has consistently (since 1974) maintained that a peace treaty would exclude ROK participation and would mandate removal of American forces from Korean soil. Since these conditions are obviously unacceptable, the US has rejected any peace talks that assume them as negotiating points. The diplomatic consensus is that nonaggression talks between the DPRK and the US without active or prior participation of the ROK places us on a slippery negotiating slope. Hence our tacit policy in the 1990s was to encourage inter-Korean dialogue to pave the way to eventual direct DPRK-US negotiations.

There was a time, not so long ago, when Americans jumped on airliners and travelled the world, secure in the knowledge their government would raise holy hell on anybody stupid enough to fuck with them.
There eas a time, not so long ago, when Americans had the confidence to allow all and sundry to come and share their education, conferences and celebrations.
There was a time, not so long ago, when foreigners' biggest beef with Americans ( on a personal basis ) was that theythought they were God's gift to the planet and could do no wrong.

I would give a lot to have those attitudes back.
They beat the living crap over what passes for conventional wisdom today.

There's a reason Bush "flicks the wet" at the press.
He doesn't believe a word of the crap he spews. That's not the point. It distracts people from noticing what a useless sack of shit he really is.
When will it penetrate - here should be the place where I would expect it to sink in first.
Clinton sketched it all out for you.
Dubya didn't just screw the pooch over Katrina.
9/11 should never have been allowed to happen - and wouldn't if responsible people had been covering America's ass.

Surely the record of 10 presidents re NK has a lot to do with heavy-duty ally South Korea.
Posted by: Ace Franze on October 10, 2006 at 8:41 AM | PERMALINK

Occams razor rides again! I'm amazed nobody said it sooner. I would suspect that nobody in the world cares more for the plight of the NK people more than the SK people. I'm guessing virtually every country on the Pacific rim of Asia is doing MUCH better than they were in say 1950. It really is a crying shame that the NK people are being
left out. Recognition may give increased longevity to the monster regime.

more here:

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/Archive/200202/POL20020215d.html

There was a time, not so long ago, when Americans jumped on airliners and travelled the world, secure in the knowledge their government would raise holy hell on anybody stupid enough to fuck with them.

Define "holy hell," and explain how your side would interpret that phrase. Letters of objection with ALL CAPS?

Define "holy hell," and explain how your side would interpret that phrase. Letters of objection with ALL CAPS?

I think with this goes something that has, tragically, been lost:

When the US started to institutionalize torture, it surrendered a certain moral standing and authority in the world. Torture is a tactic used by the sick and the weak and the paranoid to convince themselves that they're doing all that they can; what is better is to train your intelligence people well, spend the necessary time and effort building an apparatus that can legally monitor communications, signals, imagery, etc. and fuse that with legally obtained human intelligence that is garnered through informants, spies, people you surreptitiously interview and interrogate, all of these things you can do without torturing someone.

Americans used to have a bit of the high ground--we weren't like the Soviets or the Red Chinese, who tortured and murdered their own people.

Opit seems to be pointing out that, because we lost that moral authority, being an American abroad isn't what it once was, and I tend to agree with him/her.

The other reason that DPRK, and Iran, if you recall correctly, want bilateral negotiations with the US is that they need to hear it straight from the horse's mouth if they are to believe it.

Britain, France, and Germany have all demonstrated to Iran that they can't effectively be negotiated with. If the US disagrees with the outcome of negotiations between Iran and "the West", then it simply unravels the efforts and walks away from the agreement, which it didn't make in the first place.

Similarly, North Korea can't trust anything agreed to by China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, because without explit American acquiesence to the results of multi-party negotiations, the agreement arrived at wouldn't be worth the paper it was printed on.

That's why these regimes want direct talks with the US. They want to see the "bad cop" play its hand, not just sit on the sidelines watching them play their hands against the "good cops", who ultimately can't control the "bad cop".

Of course, the part I've never really understood is our reluctance to give them the one thing they've consistently asked for over many decades: diplomatic recognition and some kind of security guarantee. After all, what's the downside?

The "downside" is that you can't give North Korea "the one thing they asked for" these many years; you can only sell it to them for a price. That price, being, of course, their willingness to junk their nuclear weapons program. And the problem is, we simply cannot trust them to pay that price, because NK has never been willing to submit to an inspections regime sufficiently invasive and comprehensive to verify its compliance.

My guess is the US has offered a deal to NK via unofficial channels that would give them what they've always wanted (a peace treat, normalization of relations, etc.) in exchange for junking their nuke program in a verifiable manner. But KJI won't consent to the several thousand inspectors with full run of the country required to make it "verifiable". So, no deal. And rightly so.

Sometimes, believe it or not, actual, genuine evil rears its ugly head and it's not the fault of George W. Bush and the US government.

Thanks, Pale Rider. I had to step out for a while.

What's the mystery ? If you shit on people they resent it and act up. Lately the CIA ( ? )has kidnapped people in foreign countries and shipped them to God knows where for indefinite internment and torture. No foreign national is safe from the depredations of runaway agencies with no restraint or targeting.
Even U.S. bloggers have been nervous about open criticism of the administration. So the rest of us see : invasions without just cause ( and sponsored in Lebanon if Haaretz was accurate), trumpted up "grievances" about what other nations are doing, concessions to regimes of dubious integrity ( Pakistan ), running down the UN, and all kinds of fearfulness, spying, incompetence and corruption.
My information sources are mostly U.S. based. I'm sure there is nothing I have seen that couldn't be duplicated by any competent explorer of English language sites.
What North Korea wants ? To stew in their own juice.

The downside to giving them a "security guarantee" is that they get to oppress the NK population withour fear of anyone doing anything about it. Doesn't any one on the Left have a problem with this? What next, give Mugabe a "security guarantee" or the regime in Myanmar? How about if Clinton had given such a guarantee to Melosevic. Posted by: neil

See: Soviet Union, PRC, GDR, etc. etc. It's call having a realist foreign policy. I hear it's all the rage and all the cool countries are doing it!

N. Korea will collapse some day, as will Castro's Cuba. Both are really nothing more than gnats on the butt of world affairs, with or without WMD.

We can't fix the socio-political problems of all the broken countries and oppressed peoples of the world, something we've proven with great alacrity in Vietnam and, now, Iraq.

Well Clinton offered all that NK supposedly wanted - security guarantee, aid etc and they turned round and cheated on him. So it's little wonder that Bush is reluctant to take NK at their word.

Realism seems back in fashion. I sort of prefer the days when liberals didn't much like Kissenger and proping up dicatorhips with aid was a bad thing and supporting regime change in South Africa ws a good thing.

Yes NK will collapse one day, in the meantime their are millions suffering under the regime. Maybe we can't do much about it but it would be reassuring to hear liberals acknowledge that giving the NK regime a security guarantee is, well, pretty unliberal and will have a cost in human lives.

Realism seems back in fashion. I sort of prefer the days when liberals didn't much like Kissenger and proping up dicatorhips with aid was a bad thing and supporting regime change in South Africa ws a good thing.Posted by: neil

A realist foreign policy involves propping "your" dictator only if your foreign policy is broken to begin with. Most of the U.S. foreign policy vis-a-vis the Soviet bloc, and the PRC to a lesser degree, during the '70s was a complete waste of time. It can't even be said that it benefitted the U.S. economically or in terms of security.

You can protect U.S. "interests" without dirtying your hands too much or disgarding your principles entirely. It's actually easier to do this now as the sole threat to the U.S. today is not global terrorism but our crippling foreign energy dependency. N. Korea is no more a threat to us than was Iraq or Iran.

Unless you're under the illusion that the "security guarantee" would be applicable to the people of NK, why should anyone guarantee (or desire to) the security of the irrational, erratic, incompetent and indifferent leadership of NK?

>We're not gonna invade in the next fiver years unless they

Be honest. "You" (the US) are never going to invade. That's China's playground.

I think you're all missing what has happened here.

Dear Leader is way upset. It's not about the continuing problem with his counterfeiting operation (yes, it was massive, near-perfect $100 bills laundered through Macau). It's not about security guarantees -- he knows we won't attack unless extremely provoked because it simply isn't in our interest. It's not about extorting more aid from South Korea in their 'sunshine' policy, and it's not about gettting more from the Japanese.

Here it is: Ban Ki-moon.

Who's he? Oh surely you know: he's the fellow who this past week was selected to replace Kofi Annan as the new Secretary General of the UN. He's currently a South Korean diplomat and past foreign minister.

A South Korean as Secretary General. Every time Mr. Ban takes the podium, has a press conference, issues a statement, receives a dignitary -- which will be every day -- the world will be reminded that South Korea matters and North Korea doesn't.

Hence the nuke test, as a reminder that Dear Leader is also big heat. In the end this is all about making sure that Dear Leader is the big man on the Korean peninsula, because he can't survive a day if he's ever seen as #2.

Wow,

How dumb can you get? The reason that ten sucessive administrations have refused to deal with North Korea is that genocidal, slave-holding madmen can't be dealt with.

Why not open negotiations with the guy who raped your wife, before he slit her throat ear to ear? How about sitting down and having a nice "bi-lateral" conversation with that guy who executed those little Amish girls?

Listen, dummies, there is no "North Korea." First there was Great Leader and now there is Dear Leader. After Dear Leader and a few of his minion partial-slaves, everyone else in the country is a slave.

Any discussion predicated upon tolerance or accomodation of Dear Leader's ongoing genocide is either deliberately evil or monumentally niave.

O.K. I'll be deliberately evil : your judgement, not mine. Thanks for prior judgement before hearing anyone out.Jerk.
It is not practical or possible or desirable for any one nation to think it can police the planet. It's like asking states to subject themselves to a central authority without consultation or concensus.
Worse, there is no reason to think such a centralized government would work. Much of the problem the U.S.S.R. had involved cultural and linguistic diversity. It failed - a government of too extreme control of the population.
The U.S. has absolutely no moral authority left. No nation that invades others without extreme provocation and will not even go to the modest trouble of even a sham trial for people deserves trust : or respect.

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