TomDispatch
Tomgram: John Feffer, Avoiding War with Pyongyang
By John Feffer
Posted on August 22, 2017, Printed on August 22, 2017
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176320/ ;
If you happen to be a dystopian novelist, as TomDispatch regular John Feffer
is, then youre in business these days. Back in 2015, when Donald Trump's
campaign for the presidency was just heating up and Feffer was writing
Splinterlands, his vivid look back from the year 2050 at our shattered
planet, he named the massive storm that would devastate Washington in 2022
Hurricane Donald -- and you cant be more predictively on the mark or
dystopian than that. Now, in August 2017, armed bands of neo-Nazis and
white supremacists are in our streets and we have a president whose deepest
desire seems to be to support them (because they support him). Meanwhile,
the generals from our losing wars are manning the ramparts of an embattled
administration (and being treated by the mainstream media as the adults in
the room) and an unpredictable man-child is in the White House. In other
words, the material is clearly going to be there for Feffer -- in his
ordinary life a thoughtful columnist at Foreign Policy in Focus -- to devote
the rest of his time to dystopian fiction.
And thats without even mentioning Americas dystopian Asian wars of the
past, present, and possibly future. They undoubtedly deserve their own grim
set of novels, starting with the bloody and brutal American conquest of the
Philippines. Included would also have to be the Pacific War against Japan
that ended when a new weapon of unimaginable power obliterated two Japanese
cities and significant parts of their populations, leaving humanity to face
the possibility of its own future obliteration (and you cant get more
dystopian than that); the Vietnam War that left millions of Vietnamese,
Laotians, and Cambodians (and 58,000 Americans) dead; a quarter century of
Afghan Wars (the second of them now the longest in American history); and
last but hardly least, the Korean War, which began in June 1950 and halted
in 1953, after millions of Koreans (and 36,000 Americans) had died. By the
estimate of the then-head of the U.S. Strategic Air Command, 20% of the
Norths population died in those years under a rain of 635,000 tons of bombs
and 32,557 tons of napalm (more than was used against the Japanese in World
War II), while the North was burned to a crisp without atomic weapons.
In a strange sense, that conflict became Americas first permanent war since
no peace treaty was ever agreed to -- though all American wars now seem to
be permanent. Of course, with Donald Trumps recent impromptu comment that
North Korean threats will be met with fire, fury, and frankly power the
likes of which this world has never seen before, an obvious nuclear
reference made on the eve of the 72nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of
Nagasaki, a future Korean inferno is once again on many minds here and
elsewhere, John Feffers included. And yet he suggests that, if only
American officialdom could rid itself of its own dystopian turn of mind when
it comes to North Korea, there might be a perfectly peaceable and reasonable
way forward. If only indeed... Tom
Trump and the Geopolitics of Crazy
The Times They Are A-Changin in North Korea
By John Feffer
The United States has beaten its head against the wall of North Korea for
more than 70 years, and that wall has changed little indeed as a result. The
United States, meanwhile, has suffered one headache after another.
Over the last several weeks, the head banging has intensified. North Korea
has tested a couple of possible intercontinental ballistic missiles. In
response, Donald Trump has threatened that country with fire and fury,
one-upping the rhetoric coming out of Pyongyang. And North Korean leader Kim
Jong-un is debating whether to fire a missile or two into the waters around
the American island of Guam as a warning of what his country is capable of
doing.
Ignore, for the moment, Trumps off-the-cuff belligerence. Despite all their
promises to overhaul North Korea policy, his top officials have closely
followed the same headache-inducing pattern as their predecessors.
Threaten that all options are on the table? Check.
Apply more sanctions, even tighter ones, fiercer international ones? Check.
Try to twist Chinas arm to rein in its erstwhile ally? Check.
As Trump flirts with the same default position of strategic patience
adopted by the Obama administration, two other options beckon: talk or
attack.
So far, the prospects for negotiations have been rather dim. True, Trump has
directed some backhanded compliments at Kim Jong-un (a smart cookie) and
broached the possibility of talking person-to-person with the North Korean
leader. Backchannel discussions with that countrys U.N. mission in New York
have made modest headway over the last several months on issues like the
detention of American citizens. But President Trump is, by nature, erratic,
and a purposefully understaffed State Department and distinctly
under-informed National Security Council are not exactly firing on all
diplomatic cylinders.
Then, of course, theres the other alternative (an option also considered by
previous administrations): launching a more concerted effort at regime
change. That approach clearly has some traction both with the impetuous man
in the Oval Office and within his administration. CIA chief Mike Pompeo has,
for instance, spoken of an imperative to separate the regime from its
nuclear weapons (and he didnt mean through negotiations). National Security
Advisor General H.R. McMaster has openly discussed a preventive war option
against North Korea that sounds ominously like what the United States had in
place for Iraq back in 2003. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki
Haley even declared at one point that the time for talk is over.
(Presumably she meant the time for talk with, not at, since Donald Trump
continues to excel at the latter.)
The fever dream of regime change has persisted in Washington for decades
like a bad case of political malaria that repeated doses of realism have
never quite eradicated. The irony is that North Korea is indeed changing,
just not in response to what the United States is doing. As with China in
the 1970s, Washington could encourage those changes by giving up its
aggressive ambitions, stepping away from the lukewarm option of strategic
patience, and actually sitting down to talk seriously with Pyongyang
without preconditions.
Lest you think its too late for negotiations, remember that the U.S. was on
the verge of bombing Pyongyang in 1994 just before Jimmy Carter went to
North Korea and negotiated what would eventually become an agreement to
freeze the countrys nuclear program. (Yes, once upon a time at least, the
Kim family was willing to put that program on hold.) Maybe its the moment
for the purported adults in the Trump administration to persuade the
president to refocus on his golf game, while some quiet diplomacy gets under
way.
Only then will Americans get what Secretary of State Rex Tillerson assures
us is our birthright: a good nights sleep.
The Dangers of Regime Change
Cuba had a disgruntled former elite. Iraq had its rebellious Shiites and
Kurds. Libya had the unsettling tailwind of the Arab Spring, not to mention
a whole lot of people who deeply hated its ruling autocrat Muammar Gaddafi.
North Korea has nothing.
Unlike those other targets of regime change, North Korea lacks any
significant domestic opposition that could -- at least in Washingtons
version of a dream world -- rush into a newly created vacuum of authority
and set up a more America-friendly government. Indeed, North Korea is a
veritable desert of civil society. Forget opposition parties and
nongovernmental organizations. It doesnt even have a few courageous figures
like Russian nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov or Czech playwright Vaclav
Havel, who openly dissented from their governments policies during the Cold
War.
The only conceivable alternative to Kim Jong-un at the moment might be the
North Korean military, the sole institution with sufficient authority to
nudge aside the ruling Workers Party. But its not clear that theres any
genuine daylight between the Kim family and that military. Moreover, were
the generals to take over, they might prove more hostile toward outside
powers and even more determined in their opposition to domestic reform than
the current leadership.
In Cuba, Iraq, and Libya, the United States imagined that regime change
would flow from the barrel of a gun -- from, to be exact, the guns of the
U.S. military and its paramilitary allies on the ground. However, with North
Korea, even the most die-hard regime-change enthusiasts, like conservative
New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, are aware of the potentially
disastrous consequences of a U.S. strike.
Pyongyang has a dispersed nuclear complex, as well as mobile missile
launchers and submarines. Its deeply entrenched artillery and rocket
positions near the Demilitarized Zone, long prepared, could devastate the
South Korean capital, Seoul, only 35 miles from the border, and the 25
million inhabitants in its metropolitan area. If Washington struck
preemptively, the Chinese have been very clear that they would support the
North Koreans, which could raise a grim and potentially devastating regional
war to the level of a superpower conflict.
No matter how it played out, this would be no cakewalk (to use a word once
associated with the 2003 invasion of Iraq). Hundreds of thousands, if not
millions, of people -- North Koreans, South Koreans, Japanese, even U.S.
soldiers and civilians -- would be at risk. Former Secretary of Defense
William Perry, who considered the option of a preemptive strike during the
Clinton administration, now insists that, whether or not this was a good
idea in those days, I am persuaded, I am convinced it's not a good idea
today.
For all these reasons, the top officials in the Pentagon have been
risk-averse in discussing military scenarios, with Secretary of Defense
James Mattis portraying the consequences of war in the region as
catastrophic and Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford acknowledging that a
military solution would be horrific. In fact, the Trump administrations
strategic review of North Korea policy explicitly advised against any
military option, preferring instead to go with maximum pressure and
engagement.
In the back of any regime-changers mind has to be a single obvious
scenario: a replay of Germanys 1990 reunification in which South Korea
swallows the North in a single gulp. As it happens, however, South Korea has
shown little interest in copying the German example, certainly not under the
leadership of its new progressive president, Moon Jae-In. The current
government has, in fact, explicitly rejected any war on the Korean
peninsula. Moon instead favors the sort of increased economic and social
engagement with the North that might someday lead to some kind of
slow-motion reunification rather than an overnight absorption of that
country (which would also horrify the Chinese).
Such regime-change scenarios always overlook the deeply felt nationalism of
most North Koreans. They may not like Kim Jong-un or have much faith in the
government, but decades of nationalist education and propaganda have turned
that countrys citizens into true believers in the Norths right to
independence and self-determination. Virtually everyone there has served in
the military, and there can be little doubt that the population is ready to
fight to defend their homeland against outside aggressors. As in Cuba circa
1961, regime-change efforts in North Korea already have the stink of failure
to them.
And even were such efforts to succeed, with a catastrophic regional war
somehow being averted, the results would undoubtedly rival the cataclysms
that engulfed Baghdad in 2003 and Tripoli in 2011. Millions of North Koreans
would potentially stream across the borders of both China and South Korea,
creating a massive refugee crisis. The economies of northeast Asia would
take a major hit, which might send global markets into a tailspin. And dont
forget North Koreas nuclear weapons and material, which could elude the
search-and-secure efforts of U.S. and South Korean Special Forces and fall
into the hands of who knows whom.
Youd think that the examples of Cuba, Iraq, and Libya -- not to mention
Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen -- would have cured Washingtons regime-change
enthusiasts of their recurring illusions. But no such luck, especially since
those hawks deeply believe that any negotiations with North Korea will prove
utterly futile, merely allowing that country to further strengthen its
nuclear program.
History, however, does not bear out that particular prejudice.
Negotiating with Crazy
If you think North Korea is too crazy to negotiate with the United States --
or that the Trump administration is too crazy to talk with Pyongyang --
think again.
Back in the 1970s, China was a much crazier place than North Korea, so crazy
in fact that thousands of Chinese escaped the madness by fleeing... to North
Korea! During the Cultural Revolution that began in 1966 and lasted for
roughly a decade, Chinas leader, Mao Zedong, lost control of his country as
teenage Revolutionary Guards unseated seasoned Communist Party officials. Up
to two million people died in the nationwide upheaval. The turmoil in that
country was matched by turmoil within Mao himself. In the 1970s, he was
overtaken by delusions of grandeur as he began a descent into senility. And
yet despite such inauspicious circumstances, the China of that era
negotiated quite reasonably with the United States to get the international
recognition it so dearly wanted.
In 1970, when President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, his national
security adviser, decided to orchestrate a diplomatic opening to that
country, it wasnt because China had shown any eagerness for negotiations.
The White House was instead attempting to put pressure on Moscow by playing
nice with Beijing. In this period, Nixon cultivated a madman theory in
which his aides were to claim that he was acting in a deranged fashion,
leading his adversaries, fearing being nuked, to think twice about
challenging him. Even so, Nixon has gone down in history as Americas great
dealmaker thanks to his successful opening to China.
In 1972, crazy negotiated with crazy and détente was born.
In contrast to China in those years, North Korea is not in a state of chaos.
Whatever else you might think about Kim Jong-un, hes not senile. The
countrys foreign policy has been relatively consistent over the decades.
The development of a nuclear program has, in its own fashion, been a
rational response both to the Norths loss of an edge in conventional
military power to South Korea and to U.S. regime-change threats. (Remember,
for instance, the way President George W. Bush tossed the North Koreans into
the axis of evil with soon-to-be-invaded Iraq and perennially threatened
Iran in his 2002 State of the Union address.) In fact, building a nuclear
deterrent may be one of the least crazy things that Pyongyang has done over
the years.
And dont forget that the United States has successfully negotiated with
North Korea on a range of issues from finding and repatriating the remains
of American soldiers who died during the Korean War to agreements on nuclear
weapons. The 1994 Agreed Framework lasted nearly a decade and effectively
froze the Norths plutonium-processing capabilities. In an agreement
negotiated during the Bush years, that country actually began to destroy
elements of its nuclear program. The nuclear deals eventually fell apart
because of violations and bad faith on both sides, but they demonstrate that
talking with Pyongyang is feasible and can produce concrete results.
Beginning in 1979, aided in part by détente with the United States, China
embarked on a series of major domestic reforms. If American officials paid
more attention to whats actually going on inside North Korea (aside from
its nuclear program), they would see that the country is changing -- in
spite of, not thanks to, U.S. policy.
The Change That Matters
I visited North Korea three times in the late 1990s and early 2000s. There
were very few cars on the streets and highways. Cell phones were practically
nonexistent. A few semi-private restaurants had just opened in its capital,
Pyongyang. Private markets had finally appeared in cities nationwide in
response to the breakdown of the governments food distribution system, but
they seemed more like stopgap measures the state tolerated than a permanent
feature of the economy.
Today, North Koreas political system remains virtually intact (minus a
couple hundred officials purged by Kim Jong-un). Its widespread surveillance
system is still in place. Theres neither freedom of speech nor assembly and
tens of thousands of its citizens continue to suffer grim fates in its
widespread penal camp system.
But North Korea is changing. Private markets have become a permanent feature
of the landscape, and a rising nouveau riche and an expanding middle class
are transforming the DNA of the country. Out of a population of 25 million,
as many as three million people now own cell phones and there are enough
cars in Pyongyang these days to generate the occasional traffic jam. Those
who have become wealthy from market activities are buying and installing
solar panels to power upscale appliances like wall-mounted televisions.
Capitalism, in other words, has begun to bubble up from below, even though
the United States has gone to great lengths to prevent the country from
having any interaction with the global economy. Its a delicate balance for
the North Korean state. The markets relieve the authorities of the
responsibility for meeting certain citizens needs and taxing the new
entrepreneurs brings money into government coffers. But the markets also are
a venue for channeling more information from the outside world, as North
Korean traders interact with their Chinese counterparts and movies and music
from South Korea make their way in via USB drives.
This ongoing transformation of North Korean society has been noted by a few
figures in Washington as an opportunity to pursue a kinder, gentler version
of regime change. We worry about the miniaturization of North Korean nukes;
what threatens the Kim regime is the miniaturization of information
technology, writes former Clinton administration official Tom Malinowski in
Politico. By sharing media with family, friends, and broader networks, and
by learning to avoid detection, North Koreans are also gaining skills and
connections essential to independent political organization.
Its not clear that the market and greater access to information will, in
fact, push North Koreans to organize against the state or embrace
American-style democracy. But supporting such changes makes sense anyway.
The experience of China suggests that such reforms, even when implemented
within a non-democratic system, can reduce the threat of war and conflict.
It has worked before in other countries, economist Rudiger Frank wrote in
Global Asia after a recent visit to North Korea. It will work again.
In 1960, a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate warned that Chinas arrogant
self-confidence, revolutionary fervor, and distorted view of the world may
lead [Beijing] to miscalculate risks. This danger would be heightened if
Communist China achieved a nuclear weapons capability. Four years later,
China tested its first nuclear weapon.
More than half a century has passed since that moment and China is still no
paragon of democracy or human rights. Tensions persist across the Taiwan
Strait and in the South China Sea, and Beijing possesses a small but
significant arsenal of deliverable nuclear weapons. Few people in the United
States, however, worry that China will launch an attack against Guam,
Alaska, Hawaii, or the White House. China has too much of a stake in the
international system to risk losing everything by acting with the
revolutionary fervor that so worried U.S. officials in 1960. A combination
of internal reforms and successful negotiations with Washington transformed
that country into a more or less responsible global player.
Embedding North Korea in a similar way in the international system of
economic and geopolitical negotiations, not to mention human rights
conventions, will reduce the threat it currently poses to its southern
brethren, its Asian neighbors, and more distantly the United States.
Economic sanctions, military pressure, and intemperate threats, on other
hand, will ultimately prove counterproductive, doing little but to intensify
the nothing-to-lose mentality of the regime, while failing to encourage the
changes already ongoing. By continuing to isolate an already isolated land,
the United States is only strengthening the very wall against which its
been banging its head for so many years.
It's way past time for the Trump administration to take a few aspirin and a
few deep breaths, and seize this opportunity to talk with the North Koreans
before both head and wall sustain irreparable damage.
John Feffer is the author of the dystopian novel Splinterlands (Dispatch
Books), which Publishers Weekly hails as a chilling, thoughtful, and
intuitive warning. He is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the
Institute for Policy Studies and a TomDispatch regular.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest
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Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in
a Single-Superpower World.
Copyright 2017 John Feffer
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