Dealing with DPRK
‘Fire and fury’ aside, tough talks are imperative
The combination of North Korea’s augmenting nuclear weapons capacity and threats against United States and the region, plus America’s own unclear policy toward what is happening — including President Donald Trump’s threats of an unprecedented level of “fire and fury” — is becoming disturbing to Americans in their normal August torpor.
There is increasing evidence that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is making progress toward its goal of building a small enough nuclear warhead that can be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach from its territory to some U.S. base or property in the region, Guam or even Alaska. North Korea’s spokespersons, including leader Kim Jong Un, are heralding its progress toward that goal, and perhaps also claiming progress it has not yet made.
On the American side, there is the position of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, supported by the senior leaders of the Department of Defense who realize fully the military implications of a U.S. attack on the DPRK, that talk with North Korea is what is needed. There is also the position of Mr. Trump, who threatened Tuesday in unscripted remarks that any further North Korean threats “will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
Anyone ever involved in a serious exchange with another country — as, for example, the 1962 Cuban missile crisis with the Russians — should understand that when it comes to matters as critical to the future of mankind as the possibility of nuclear war, there is no advantage nor room to create confusion on the other side as to one’s position. It is worth a good look at the map to keep the North Korean issue in perspective. The DPRK is sandwiched on a peninsula between roaring “Western” economic success South Korea, which also hosts U.S. troops and heavy military hardware, and China, the world’s secondlargest economic power, also armed with nuclear weapons. Japan is nearby and Russia even has a short border with North Korea.
It is also important to remember that the United States has both substantial, probably effective defenses against attack and probably the capacity to mess up North Korea’s missile launch codes.
A unilateral U.S. attack on North Korea should be out of the question, given the literally incalculable casualties that would result. U.S. policy should have been for years, under Democrats and Republicans, to talk with the North Koreans. Attempts to isolate countries like Cuba, Syria and the DPRK have got us nowhere in terms not only of world peace, but also in bringing about change in their policies.
Talking with North Korea is, of course, like trying to pick up an enraged porcupine. But the alternative — war — just cannot be, and threatening them with it is only to enhance the risks of just that.