Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Giving Bush credit where it's due

By Gary Brown - posted Monday, 26 November 2007


I believe in giving credit where it’s due - even when it sticks in one’s craw. Thus I find myself in the unenviable position of having to commend George W. Bush and his gaggle of noxious neo-conservatives for getting something right: how to defuse the nuclear time bomb on the Korean peninsula. I have written on Korea for On Line Opinion before [Defusing the Korean time bomb; Deadly, dangerous and unpredictable] and even a cursory scrutiny of those pieces reveals the extent of my mistakes.

For decades the so-called Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea), first under the ultra-Stalinist Kim Il-sung and now, in a bizarre communist travesty of hereditary monarchy, under his egregious offspring Kim Jong-il, has been a serious regional security problem. Since the end of the Cold War and the cessation of Soviet support, its antiquated command economy has not even been able to feed the people, and the regime became dependent on external humanitarian aid. The problem has only been exacerbated by devastating droughts (climate change?) and the diversion of huge resources to military applications.

This human tragedy did at least force the DPRK to deal with the international community to obtain food aid. But in security matters it remained dangerously erratic; developing long-range ballistic missiles - albeit that the longest-range model is atrociously inaccurate and unreliable - and, worse still, nuclear weapons. North Korea actually went so far as to test a nuclear weapon underground in 2006. On top of this, it has been assiduously exporting these technologies: there is even a suspicion (definitely not proven yet) that it may at present be trying to transfer nuclear technology to Syria.

Advertisement

There has been serious suspicion of the DPRK’s nuclear intentions for a long time, and for years the international community fruitlessly pursued a policy of dialogue and constructive engagement with Pyongyang. The Clinton Administration brokered a deal; in the end it came to nothing.

When Bush came to power in 2001 he immediately took a hard line with the North Koreans. Dialogue was broken off, stringent criticisms made and preconditions for further talks set. After September 11, 2001 Bush included in his “axis of evil” Saddam’s Iraq, the fundamentalist regime in Iran and the DPRK.

In response Pyongyang hardened its line. It dropped a missile testing moratorium it had carefully observed for several years; its rhetoric (if possible) became ever more negative and hostile. And finally it went to the limit and tested a nuclear weapon.

All of this horrified me, and convinced me that the neocon bull-in-a-china-shop was on the rampage again. But in this matter they saw more clearly than me. The DPRK regime is competent only at oppressing its people: locked in a hidebound ideology and economic system, it is to all appearances doomed to eventual collapse from sheer inadequacy. Without external aid, the regime has no long-term prospects.

Bush simply gave Kim nowhere to go: capitulate or face destruction were the de facto alternatives: the same, in effect, as those presented to Saddam Hussein during the long build-up to the US conquest of Iraq. But in the DPRK’s case, war would probably have been needless: one could merely wait for the regime to fall for lack of resources. The only risk in such a policy was that Pyongyang would actually resort to force or attempt to gain points by nuclear blackmail - Japan is easily within reach of DPRK medium range missiles. But such actions, whatever the short-term effects, would clearly legitimise almost any response the US chose to make and it appears that this prospect deterred Pyongyang.

So all Bush had to do was keep the pressure on - and this he did. China and Russia, Pyongyang’s traditional supporters, said little publicly, but it is unlikely that either would have welcomed the destabilising effects of either a nuclear-armed DPRK or of the possible US countermeasures. Therefore they too had incentives to "lean" on Pyongyang.

Advertisement

Thus beset by domestic circumstances and foreign states, Kim Jong-il finally came to understand that if he and his privileged elite wished to ride the gravy train a little longer, he simply had no alternative but to reach some form of accommodation. Better, he might say, to be master of a de-nuclearised DPRK than not to be master at all.

In this at least, Kim proves himself smarter than Saddam, whose mad policy brought his regime down, reduced his country to ruins, placing it in the hands of his greatest enemy and put a hangman’s noose around his own neck. I have little doubt that Kim Jong-il, too, would have good reason to fear a noose were he ever brought to book for his misdeeds.

This sustained pressure has produced an astonishing transformation in the Korean scene over the past six months or so. Laborious multilateral talks involving both Koreas, China, Japan, the US and Russia produced a workable blueprint. That this happened at all reveals the extent of Pyongyang’s policy shift, because the North Koreans are past masters at delay, obfuscation and obstruction in diplomatic meetings and could easily have brought the negotiations to a halt.

What we have now is a concrete plan, on the principle "we take step 1, you take step 2, we take step 3 …" and so on. Each "step" is a real measure, not a mere promise - for example, delivery of desperately needed fuel oil to the DPRK; provision of full access to all DPRK nuclear facilities.

Already we have reached the stage where the North Koreans have shut down their Yongbyon nuclear reactor in the presence of foreign observers. Never before has such progress been achieved. Steps now in train involve decommissioning the reactor, disarming the DPRK’s remaining nuclear weapons and accounting for weapons-grade material. Frozen DPRK assets are being progressively unfrozen, normal diplomatic and trade relations will be established and continuing economic aid provided to help feed the population and modernise the economy.

We now hear that North and South Korea are to hold talks aimed at reaching a final peace agreement for the peninsula: it may surprise some to learn that legally the Korean War is still going on, held in abeyance only by an armistice or ceasefire agreement reached when the fighting stopped. Clearing up this ancient Cold War legacy is an essential requirement for normalising conditions on the peninsula; we now have at least a reasonable prospect that this can be achieved.

It’s noteworthy that Kim clearly accepts the need for economic modernisation. Without it the DPRK still has no long-term future; sustained economic failure is a certain route to failed-state status. So we now have the prospect of a de-nuclearised DPRK, with normalised international relations and engaged in modernising its economy. This will be a huge challenge for a regime like Kim’s, but nevertheless if you had told me as recently as a year ago that this outcome was obtainable via neocon methods, I would have disagreed.

There remain just two other points to make. First, note that while the neocons appear to have got the DPRK problem right, the example of Iraq shows that a strategy that works in one case can be disastrously unsuitable in another; unfortunately, the neocons know only one way to solve problems. (How very embarrassing it would have been, though, had Saddam done a Kim Jong-il and thrown Iraq wide open to inspectors who, as we now know, would have found no weapons of mass destruction?  If ever a man sealed his own doom, it was Saddam.)

The final point is this: I alluded to suspicions that the DPRK is covertly seeking to transfer nuclear technology to Syria, perhaps to maintain a program in that country and share the results. These are only suspicions and not to be taken as fact. But should Pyongyang "cheat" on this agreement, or suddenly revert to its previous pattern of behaviour without any obvious provocation - such as a failure of the US to take a programmed "step" - then the backlash would be catastrophic for the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea and for Kim Jong-il himself. Really the only way now is forward; going back means nothing but disaster. Let us hope all parties - including Bush’s administration while it lasts - keep this in mind.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All


Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

6 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Until June 2002 Gary Brown was a Defence Advisor with the Parliamentary Information and Research Service at Parliament House, Canberra, where he provided confidential advice and research at request to members and staffs of all parties and Parliamentary committees, and produced regular publications on a wide range of defence issues. Many are available at here.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Gary Brown

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Photo of Gary Brown
Article Tools
Comment 6 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy