Is the game worth the candle?
May 27, 2010, 3:17 am
Posted by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels
Things have heated up on the Korean peninsula between North and South. U.S. troops remain from a war that ended over half century ago in negotiations but not peace. In that time the South has developed a robust economy and over time a working democracy. Not the North in which hard times and even famine have ruled the land which is in the hands of a family dictatorship.
The North has sunk a South Korean warship and the U.S. is pursuing a vigorous diplomacy, but what might the end point be if, as Secretary Hillary Clinton said in a stop-over in South Korea, “We will stand with you in this difficult hour, and we stand with you always.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/asia/27clinton.html?hpw
What are the options?
Clinton has a big lunchtime speech at Brookings, and Obama has a newser at noon, or thereabouts, though I suspect that will focus on “top kill” rather than other kills.
Diplomacy is clearly the best option. But the Chinese sound like a hard sell. Does any other country but Japan care? And if attacking and sinking a war ship is an act of war, will the South Koreans press for a war-like redress, e.g., sink a North Korean war ship?
I found Clinton’s phrase “we stand with you always” disquieting. If we’re just standing, okay; if we’re marching (as if to war), it seems an unfortunate commitment (though one we’ve probably made many times through the years).
This is a much different China than the one backing N Korea in the 50s. Can we stand up to them militarily? I would imagine that is what would result from N Korea’s threat of “all-out war.”
This is the inevitable showdown of our time, I think, when China’s world dominance is really tested. Financially, well, they own us.
Regrettably, the enormous city of Seoul is held hostage here. It contains most of the South Korean population and is within artillery range of the North. Evidently the Peoples Republic has tens of thousands of hardened artillery pieces ranged at Seoul. This greatly complicates any military response by South Korea and its allies. The United States has moved its forces farther south, out of range of the border artillery. The response of China is crucial in modifying North Korean intentions.
Yes, they own us.
China owns us in the sense that we owe them (gazillions of dollars). Can they want war with us anymore than we want war with them?
The N. Korean military resources ranged against Seoul are a potentially destabilizing factor. Would this invite a preemptive attack to save Seoul from being destroyed? Perhaps the imagination hums too strongly here.
It would seem that averting a war would be in everyone’s interest (even North Korea’s). That would seem to make China’s intervention in this telling and important. It may be that they consider North Korea a paper tiger, hence their current coolness toward intervening. But if North Korea’s behavior is part of a succession fight than some elements of the North Korean political/military may decide military action is just what is required.
In brief! Everyone else by dint a of North Korean attack may lose control of the situation. And then, what will Secretary Clinton’s “always” produce?
China doesn’t exactly own us. We are so deeply in their debt and are such an important trading partner that one could argue that we own them.
A new Korean War would spill over into China, if only in the form of refugees. It could pull in Japan. I don’t think that China wants war. They do support North Korea because having that crazy state there weakens South Korea. But I just read that it was leaked that China is going to publically agree that the North did in fact sink the ship. I don’t think that this will lead to any serious sanctions. But it will tell the North that China will not support them under any circumstances and I’ll bet that in the private conversations that North Korea and China have, China will gently remind North Korea that they are not allowed to do anything stupid in the future unless China clears it first.
“China owns us in the sense that we owe them (gazillions of dollars). Can they want war with us anymore than we want war with them?”
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Hi, Margaret!
China does not want/NEED war with us or with anyone. We are not capable of making war against them. They could unplug us in a second. Disconnect us from our power grids. Etc., etc.
Their supremacy is so obvious that they can “gently remind” us of it at any time. E.g., the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Did anyone miss the point?
Our great Secretary of State is doing her best, but our masters control our fate.
AP reports that on May 27 (Chinese time) the Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing would say no more than that the situation is “complicated,” and China’s position remains unchanged. Beijing is in a tough place here (not that I’m suggesting we should feel sorry for them); if they act with the US and UN, they will worsen their relations with N. Korea; if they continue to shut up they will be criticized for cowardly statesmanship. Obviously they have no interest in hostilities; they know as well as anyone else N. Korea is close to collapse, and a collapse would drive a great many N. Koreans over the Yalu into Manchuria, a part of the world where there are already many Koreans. A refugee invasion would worsen an already bad demographic balance there (quite apart from everything else).
I hope Unagidon is right that Beijing will tell Pyongyang not to do anything stupid without clearing if with China first; but there are those who say that N. Korea is allowing its possession of a Bomb to go to its head; and there is a weak civilian government in the north coupled with an increasingly powerful and headstrong military. Not good.
A bit of ancient history: back in 1950, when N. Korea was contemplating an invasion of the south, they were politic enough to take the idea to Stalin first. In Moscow, Stalin essentially said to them, “Well, OK, I guess, providing a) you can really pull it off; and b) you clear it first with Chairman Mao in Beijing.” So they went to Beijing and said to Mao, “Stalin says it’s just fine as long as you go along with it.” And Mao said, in essence, “Well, if Stalin really thinks it’s OK, I guess I do too.” In other words, the real villain and policy maker in the summer of 1950 was neither Stalin nor Mao, but Kim Il Sung himself.
one whould hope that the half baked bluffing engaged in by both Bush/cheney & Saddam Hussain will not be duplicated in N Korea. Saddam seems to have truly believed nothing would happen. That dictatorial regimes can be irrational is a given. The North believes it cannot be attacked with less than nuclear strikes. Dr Murray rightly points out that Seoul can be leveled by hardened artillary positions without these positions being neutralized by conventional weapons attacks.
Excellent analysis so far. I’d like to know what people think about why North Korea chose to sink a South Korean warship with a submarine torpedo. What exactly may have prompted that? In the past few years, the NK government has been content to provoke SK and its allies by having its naval ships cross into SK waters and then pull back after an appropriate period of preening and bluffing, or to send off a rocket or two over the Sea of Japan. Targeting a SK warship with a torpedo seems to be a major ramping up of the saber rattling.
Is it because, as Nicholas Clifford notes, the civilian government in Pyongyang grows weaker while the military grows stronger and more independent of Kim (perhaps because of Kim’s dynastic efforts to install his youngest son as his successor), or could it be because NK has again suffered another significant crop failure (25% below the minimum needed to feed its population) that may be increasing pressure from the bottom up? Granted that there are essentially no steam valves built into the NK political systen that allow a disgruntled populace to vent, but could the decision to fire on a SK warship have been designed to divert attention from another agricultural calamity? No right-thinking country would use such a calculus, but we’re talking about one of the most repressive and mercurial countries in the world. If the decision to fire the torpedo was made by the military as a message also intended for Kim, then China really has its hands full with its dangerous neighbor.
It is a poor ally who is only an ally until war threatens. I think the US has no choice but to be a stout friend to South Korea in this situation.
Stout yes; but not stupid.
I’m a bit leery of trying to make judgements in the heat of the moment. Whenever North Korea wants something, they start behaving like the bad boys thy are.
According to this speculative article in the LFT, though, one reason for the attack might be simply to get even. As the article states:
North Korea wanted revenge for a sea battle in November, when one of its ships was badly damaged. The vessel had exchanged fire with South Korean gunboats after straying across a disputed maritime border into what Seoul insists are its waters. South Korean military intelligence says revenge is Pyongyang’s primary motive.
The complete article is posted at:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/06684638-6752-11df-a932-00144feab49a.html
Registration is required,
Anyhow, the consensus seems to be that a war on the Korean peninsula is in no one’s interest — although, of course, one can’t rule out normal human stupidity (as Margaret might say). So let’s all keep our heads (so to speak).
Incidentally, whenever some sort on international event like this occurs, I find that the web site for “Foreign Policy” magazine is an excellent source of information. They’re especially good at pointing the reader at other reliable sources off-site.
The URL of the magazine is:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
The way I quoted the LFT article may have given the misleading impression that the paper was stating a speculation as a fact. To avoid possible misconstrual, I should have prefaced the quote with the phrase
“the speculation is that,”
Sorry for any confusion.
AM
Thanks Antonio…The FT article has 8 speculations–one as plausible as another!
More speculation: “With the succession issue and the rising internal and external pressures, it is not surprising that Mr. Kim would ratchet up confrontation with the South and its allies, said Mr. Cheon, the analyst. North Korea’s propaganda machine uses international condemnation to strengthen internal solidarity, he said.
“North Korea is now telling its people that the United States and South Korea fabricated the sinking of the South’s ship as a version of the “Gulf of Tonkin incident,” a battle that Washington vastly overstated to justify expanding the Vietnam War. Huge outdoor rallies are being mobilized in the North, according to North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, a Web site run by defectors from the North, which cited sources inside North Korea.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/asia/28north.html?ref=global-home
Gulf of Tonkin!! How many Americans under 40 remember this?
I think Antonio is right that it’s premature at this point to evaluate how our policy will impact the Chinese (never mind who owns who.)
When the Chinese, Japanese and South Koreans confab shortly, we’ll see if any smooth over is possible diplomatically.
China seems to be weighing in–carefully.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/asia/30korea.html?hp