Countertrey wrote:RiC, please do not assume I am uninformed. While you and I do not always agree regarding the direction the world should take, I am fully aware of the etiology of the nuclear problem that North Korea currently presents, and of the role played by the duplicitous Pakistanis. Through 32 years in the US military, I always kept an ear towards Korea...
When I post in this public forum, I am aware that my posts can be read by people with a wide range of backgrounds. Some might be old enough to have been veterans of the war or young enough to have obtained an academic specialization on this topic. Others may not be able to find North Korea on a map or know what the forgotten war was about. Most are somewhere in between both ends of the spectrum.
You and I both know, that the bottom line is, without China, the DPRK whithers and dies. The Chinese have obstructed real progress for decades for their own (unusually) short sighted purposes.
A complete statement would include a reference to the fact that PRC did not "create" DPRK. That "creation" is due to one of the most backward members of the Soviet military who never had anything but a very rudimentary set of Stalinist ideas about nation building.
DPRK is useful to PRC, no doubt. But one must be very careful to blame the Chinese government for "obstructing real progress". That is where i definitely disagree and argue that this is a far more complex case than the single blame scenario proposed in that one-liner.
The Chinese prop them... and do so primarily because,
1: the provide a foil that has no direct connection to China, but on which China can rely on to irritate and annoy the ROK, Japan, The United States, and, to a lesser extent, the Taiwan. China gets plausible deniability... but we know...
The above statement assumes that PRC has a great deal of control over DPRK policies and decisions.You would be wrong, in my view. While the "usefulness" of the scenario proposed is undeniable, the cause and effect link is simply not true.
2. They need the government of the DPRK to continue to function to avoid a flood of North Korean refugees from streaming across the Yalu.
Another very secondary element in the PRC's calculations. I would argue that a strange mix of tension, peace and stability is essential to their cause. PRC does not want an armed conflict anymore than RK, Japan or the USA. While the strength of the North Korean military lies mainly on conventional weapons, EVERYBODY I know in the region affirms that they would have no qualms whatsoever to use their chemical and biological weapons soon after the conflict starts. Yes, such use would be suicide but we are not talking with a rational State.
3. The PDRK forms a buffer against the ROK, which is an industrial powerhouse, and has a very potent military capability in it's own right. They would prefer not to have a highly successful, capitalist and truly democratic nation, which is, OBTW, militarily very competent, on it's northeastern border.
It is not a unified South Korean military that concerns PRC. Trust me, the capability of the South Korean forces is no match to the power of the Chinese ever growing and increasingly sophisticated defence forces. It is the presence of US forces immediately next to their border that creates a great deal of concern to them.
If Peking tells P'yongyang to knock the crap off... it will stop.
Actually, this is NOT true. I wil not argue. I know for a fact the anger and discomfort in Beijing about their recent behaviour. DPRK and PRC have communicated and the exchanges have been difficult recently.
I agree that the question of nuclear weapons complicates this further... for that, I blame Bush, Clinton, and Bush 2. There were opportunities to turn the screws back then... but, nobody wanted to either piss of China, nor assume the risk that they might be blamed for a humanitarian disaster occurring in North Korea... After the first time Kim the second reniged on a deal without cause, everyone except Foggy Bottom and it's White House master knew that there was no agreement that Kim would abide once getting his treat.
The famine of the 90's was responsible for the starvation of over a million North Koreans. The regime survived. I do not think that you should blame your politicians that bad, even if they deserve it. Remember that North Korea is an afterthought and almost a headache for them. Their focus was the middle-east, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Pakistan and Afghanistan. You can over-extend the capabilities of US armed forces only so much. Not to mention the economic and human cost of fighting too many fronts at the same time.
Better to bite the bullet NOW than to continue to play this game until Korea actually has the ability to Nuke the ROK into oblivion and do real damage to US Cities.
Cost versus benefit. I would argue that there might be peaceful means which may still lend positive results rather than to pay the enormous cost of another war.
Yes, war may happen and we must and will be ready when it is unavoidable. But there are still powerful options available to us to control the situation. Are they sure to work? No. But they have a good chance.
Your threshold ("whether they move ahead with their nuclear program or not"), btw, has been crossed multiple times, now. At what point do we stop playing this game? When do we draw a line and actually enforce it? After mushroom clouds appear over Taejon, Pusan, Taegu? After he has 50 reliable ICBM's aimed at cities in the US and Canada? What does the blackmail look like then?
There are ways to know.
Regarding your last...
We are leaving a far more complex and dangerous World to our children than the one we inherited from our parents
Yes, it's pretty messy... on the other hand, NATO and the WARSAW Pact are no longer looking at each other down the sights of long guns and held back only by "mutually assured destruction"... Have you forgotten what that was like?
I have absolutely no doubt that the situation is worse NOW. During the Cold War you had rational people in charge of pressing the buttons. The Cuban crisis was a great example of that. All conflicts fought by forces by either side were conducted with conventional weapons during that period.
Today, you have fanatics with the capability of WMD in Iran and North Korea with dreams of martyrdom in defence of their causes. Both regions are equally unstable now, in my view.
I recently gave my views on disputes in Asia in an international conference of experts on this field in your country. It was well received.
