Dealing with North Korea

Over the weekend North Korea launched a rocket.  Russia and China refused even Security Council resolution indicating “concern.”  While every country has the right to explore space, most observers (myself included) consider it a thinly-veiled rocket test. 

What have we done?

So far we’ve signaled that we’ll work through the UN and the six-party talks to try and continue diplomatic negotiations to de-nuclearize the Korean peninsula.  We’ve been singing the same song since the Clinton years.  They do something terribly aggressive, say that any condemnation will be treated as an act of war, and we give them some concession if they promise to be good. 

Our problem

Our problem is that we don’t have any sticks or carrots.  Clearly we have sticks, but not ones we’re willing to use.  We’ve already sanctioned them with every non-military sanction that I know of.  They were on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism until last year, when we took them off when they promised to play nice.  I guess that’s an option (especially since it’s rumored that Iranian scientists were on site observing).  We have carrots, we could lift sanctions, increase aid, etc. but those haven’t lured the North Koreans either.

Who could do something?

Most observers far more learned than I say that China holds all the cards.  China props up North Korea, largely out of the fear that if North Korea collapses, refugees will pour across the border and cause major headaches for the capitalist communists.  Russia apparently also has sway over the North, but I’m somewhat more skeptical of the bear’s sway. 

Why do we care?

I’m going to ask a novel question.  Why do we care?  Let’s look at the likely worst case scenario–North Korea gets a believable nuclear deterrent.  Would he commit suicide by using it on the U.S.?  No, I don’t think so, people call Kim Jong Il irrational, but diplomatically, I’d say he’s been duplicitous but rational (like I said, I think he’s getting what he wants).  In that worst case scenario, there’s an increased likelihood that South Korea and Japan nuclearize, but they’re both our allies.  North Korea could start to sell the technology elsewhere, which would be a problem, but that would pose a problem for Russia and China as much as it would for us (perhaps more so, as they both have native Islamic enemies), so I think that could be handled later on.  In the mean time, a nuclear region, while making the world a bit more dangerous, would solidify the U.S. situation, where all parties have more in common with us than they do with each other.

A possible solution

I know a lot of you think that there’s way more at stake.  Indeed I love the idea of non-proliferation as much as the next man.  So, if the U.S. can’t solve the problem and China won’t, who do I think could?  Our old friend Japan.  While it would be very costly domestically, if Japan announced that it was going to match North Korea’s nuclear program tit-for-tat, I imagine China would sing a very different tune regarding its neighbor.  Indeed, a false leak of information indicating that it was likely would probably be enough to turn some heads without costing Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso his job (not that it’s likely he’ll keep it for too much longer anyway).

Your opinions?

Tagged as: non-proliferation, North Korea