Blogs and Stories
Not So Fast, Kim
Korean Central Television / AP Photo
The president’s cool Korea strategy is wise, says Leslie H. Gelb. Instead of threatening porn-addicted Kim Jong Il for his latest nuclear test, Obama is letting China play bad cop.
North Korea just exploded its second nuclear device, estimated to equal the bomb dropped by the United States on Nagasaki. It was in violation of a bevy of United Nations' resolutions. It defied a decade of warnings by the United States and the strong advice of China. Every major power in the world hurled verbal thunderbolts at the offenders. The major powers, then, unsheathed their ultimate weapon—an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to warn Pyongyang’s leaders that they had done a bad thing.
The Obama policy is a good one: Speak seriously, carry a big stick, but don’t use it unless necessary—and let China take the lead for the moment.
But this time, they issued no foolish promises to ratchet up economic sanctions against that already totally impoverished country. And this time, the United States refrained from making the direst of unkeepable threats.
It seems that the major powers of the world and of Asia, finally, have learned the long obvious central lesson from decades of utterly failing to tame the most isolated and bizarre regime on the globe: Don’t make threats that won’t work or you can’t keep because your failure will mean loss of credibility and power.
To counter past transgressions, Washington and its friends would press for more economic sanctions, sometimes getting support, but mostly being thwarted by China. Beijing, the supplier of essential food and fuel to North Korea, was not about to use its leverage and stop this commerce. Doing so would risk political and economic upheaval in an already impoverished country that could tumble into China itself. So, this time, the other major powers did not foolishly promise what they could not deliver without China. Sensibly, they merely made plain that Pyongyang could not receive aid from abroad and escape its poverty if it continued to follow this bellicose course.
On past occasions, Washington would threaten the North with mayhem that sounded like the following: “We won’t tolerate this.” “This is unacceptable.” “We will make the most serious responses to your most dangerous acts.” Then, in the full flush of this bombast, George W. Bush, in particular, would do virtually nothing. Even in the early days of the Obama administration, the same right wing that inspired idle and self-destructive threats during the Bush administration pushed Obama into making similarly idle threats in the face of a North Korean long-range missile test.
This time, President Obama remained somewhat bombastic in describing the mess caused by the nuclear test, but was quite vague about remedies. “North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” he said, “pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world, and I strongly condemn their reckless action.” He added that “The United States and the international community must take action in response.”
“Reckless,” indeed, and “condemn” them, to be sure, but avoid Bush’s recklessness and, instead, speak vaguely about taking “action.” Could it be that after a long interval, an American president finally rediscovered common sense? Bravo, Obama!
Of course, the United States could utterly destroy North Korea at any time with an all-out air and missile attack, and that would be the end of the North Korea threat forever. There’s only one problem—and those who have devoted decades to urging such an American attack know this as well as I do—the South Koreans are absolutely opposed to the United States doing this. Why? Because while it would take us about three hours to make rubble of the North, the South would be destroyed, as well, or at least Seoul and its environs, which means the destruction of South Korea’s main population center and economy. The North has more than 10,000 artillery pieces and rockets poised on the DMZ that could hit Seoul within minutes. Washington would end up destroying the South in order to protect it.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
What's Joe's Problem?
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Geithner's Stock Plummeting
Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
McChrystal's Fuzzy Math
Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Stalled Out All Over the World
Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
At Last, An Afghan Plan
Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The problem with obama and his quite diplomacy ... lets just talk policy is that when the time comes to act on the military front, he might over-react !
What exactly are you basing that on? There has been no opportunity for demonstration so far, but all possible indicators show that Obama/Clinton will be aggressive and quick, but respectful.
China can't be North Korea's "Bad Cop" as much as North Korea's controller/handler. North Korea couldn't survive without China's support. China has its own vested interest to keep North Korea as a buffer state against a future unified Korea, where they would have less influence.
Allow China to deal with this and let the chips fall where they may. We can't police the entire world only to have the world to chide us when we step in.
China can stop this at any time by turning out the lights. So now, faced with nukes, we can see if China is serious about owning the next century. I think they won't do anything, hoping for America to play the bad guy. We are playing into their hands. Why is South Korea important anymore? We trade with the largest communist country in the world. Let Korea sort itself out.
Great point. The UN meetings, the G20 summit, and all the other big boy talk from global leaders and still no one steps up to the plate but the US? I know there is more politics and bureaucracy involved than any of us cares to tackle but NK Iran and maybe Hugo Rafael Chávez is next.....somethings gotta give.
This user is no longer registered.
All other factors considered, who but China has the power to force a change in NK's policy. NK pursues a policy of forcing a crisis, extracting advantages from the crisis and then creating a new crisis to extract more advantages. It deal in bad faith. None but China has the power for force good faith behavior.
The situation is not simplistic for China either. The nut in NK has the means to kill hundreds of millions of Chinese as well as SKs and Japaneses. China was NK's savior sixty years ago, at great cost to China. NK's fate has been tied to China's honor by six decades of school lessons to Chinese children.
I'd be interested to hear what jdavxc thinks were the other, better, available options?
Chinese gov need to cut off all trade with NK. An UN approved invation of NK led by US, China, Russia, SK, JP. Get rid of the Nukes/threat. But than US need to withdraw all foreces from the Korean peninsula after it is united by SK. What do you think about tha, Issywise?
Apparently the key concern of the Chinese is keeping a buffer between our troops and the Chinese border with Korea. That should be accommodated but not at the cost of exposing the South to another invasion from the North. Remember, the last time the NK came in while we were in country in June 1950 and the Chinese didn't come in until near Christmas, after we'd shipped whole divisions into the fight from the American homeland.
Next time you see file film of the North Korean Army marching in their main square with "Great Leader," Kim Jong Il reviewing from the box above, look at the chests of the goose stepping soldiers. Their uniforms are starched. The shirts do not hide they his ground forces are all fat free and underweight!
An Army marches on its stomach. Great Leader's army is hungry.
In an actual battle against their brothers, south of the 38th parallel, (an issue 60 years ago, but not an issue today), the North Korean army would collapse in a week. But an atomic bomb and missile delivery system does not require a couple bowls of rice every day.
We need a plan to overthrow the North Korean government, without delay, our goal in advance, to kill less then one hundred people, but total destruction of all Korean military installations north of 38th parallel.
Upon that, a doable strategy, after 12 hours the North Korean white flag will fly and the country will immediately start becoming one Korea. The Korean people North and South will endorse that idea, instantly!
This should be Obama's goal but this strategy / plan / idea requires creative thinking which is a prob limb. Obama is a winner. He is not a leader, nor is Obama a creative thinker.
He is intelligent. He studied for all of his exams and like his wife, scored well, but he is a winner, not a leader. In that sense, the world is leaderless.
Having said that much as introductory, here is what we should do:
In the dead of bitter winter - say the middle of January we should bomb, without any warning, specifically using those huge 500 pound bombs that create those monster craters - using a half dozen of them, all around the main square in Pyongyang, where file film shows "Great Leader" reviewing his troops. We do this at 4:00 a.m., when Pyongyang bureaucracy is sound asleep and absolutely no one is around!
One half dozen monster 500 pound bombs in the Pyongyang Square and not one person killed. I like that.
This bombing in the dead of night will have the effect of blowing out every window for blocks around. The square is surrounded by government buildings so the government will in effect be frozen out of business - shut down - because every building will be ice cold and freezing. Computers will not work when the temperature is 20 degrees below zero.
Option: Parachute in 20 South Korean commandos to seize the television station, so immediately we begin broadcasting to the North Korean population, taking into account the only people with televisions are government employees.
We need every nuclear submarine in our own Red October arsenal to move up to the North Korean coast. Diplomacy: We want to also invite the Russians and Chinese to join us with their submarine fleets also, as we are in this operation together.
Once we invite them they cannot refuse to participate.
Then at 4:00 a.m. we cruise with our submarine missiles all at once and hit every airfield hangar in North Korea. With B-52's at the same time we hit every airfield with the 500 pound monster bombs, to create huge pot holes on all the airport runways so any jet fighters that survive the cruise missile attack on the hangars can't take off anyway.
Bottom line: planes and airfields demolished. Fighter pilots and supporting people live.
At the same time, using infra red tech, at the 38th parallel, hit every building that has a stove blasting. Those would be the buildings where the army commanders are hanging out. They have plenty fuel oil for their stoves.
All the other barracks where the lowly one bowl of rice a day enlisted are living will be low heat because they don't have enough fuel. Those soldiers will be under their covers. We target only the warmest barracks.
Our purpose: take out the commanders so an order to attack cannot be given. A hundred commanders should do the trick. One hundred heroes die a million Korean lives are saved.
There is nothing to fear of an attack on South Korea by the North Korean army bunched at the border, whether or not we take out the command posts, though they are about 20 miles from Soul, because none of the North Korean trucks or tanks will start in January. All of the truck and tank batteries, the majority are down in the bitter Korean dead of winter.
The North Koreans don't have enough fuel to start the trucks and tanks every day to keep the batteries charged!
At the same time leaflets everywhere along the whole 38th parallel and loudspeakers inviting the North Korean Army to immediately march south waving white flags and expect a hot lunch when they get to the suburbs of Soul, also expect to start tomorrow in the KIA factory.
Through diplomatic channels we offer an olive branch and a take it or leave it deal: 500 acres in Montana for Great Leader Kim.
The most important element - the key to success is all of the above could be put into an illustrated loose leaf notebook and presented to the Jap-Sin-Easy, The Rooskies, and the shiny Cheyenne- Easy, to secretly pass along to Great Leader Kim, giving Great Leader ample time to consider the actual guaranteed coming consequence of his nuclear pretense.
He has a choice. 500 acres in Montana, or permanent visit with Saddam the Big Salami. The loose leaf notebook will do the trick form our success.
The North Korean and South Korean people would like to live as one people. Standing in the way is a vicious buffoon, also known as "Great Leader, and the bureaucracy he created.
The above approach was featured in a great movie, a few years ago. It was titled, "Wagging the Dog."
When Kim drops an A bomb a lot of dangerous nuclear dust is going to blow over China, Japan, and Russia. The people living there don't want that. These other countries do not fear a United Korea.
What is wrong with producing a loose leaf notebook with graphic examples of what we are capable of doing without involving any of our troops or actually killing any Koreans (except for the 38th parallel commanders and that is only a possibility).
The North Korean people are slowly starving to death!
Visit michael s levinson dot commie to see the improvements in his political web site. Visit alphabet-learning.com/phonicsbox.html where you will see and hear the first column only in his 112 page double column Television Scripture he wrote down to perform on whirled wide television for all the world's peoples to participate in all at once.
You're an Idiot.
And a long-winded idiot to boot.
REACTIVE NOT PROACTIVE!
(I'm Shocked and Dismayed!)
Now, it has been pretty well established that the Magic Negro, the Media Made Messiah Imperial President of the (AIE) American Israeli Empire, is NOT a thinker, but a reactor, not coach or leadership material. In the Grand Game II, this puts the boy at a serious disadvantage while playing "Bee" Ball, Basketball, in a game of high stakes Chess. The (PRC) Peoples Republic of China and The Russian Federation know that The Republic of North Korea was going to test a (4-20) Four to twenty Mega-Ton Nuclear Device, YES! Without and any prostration that "I"M Shocked and Dismayed to know that Gambling has been going on under my very nose, in Ricks place!" like believing that BiBi, didn't talk to (GWB) George Walker Bush, and the Magic Negro about Israel bombing the Shi-ite Persian Republic of Iraq. And the loud thud you head was the Magic Negro, and Bibi's plan of a Hierarchical Structured World as the rug was pulled out from under their feet and their backsides hid the floor. Now who is the Magic Negro going to kowtow to but the (SPHERE OF INFLUENCE) the Peoples Republic of China, (Red China), the country who owns the (AIE) financial debt, the country that fought against the (AIE) in Korea, Vietnam, has an on going standoff against in the China Sea over, (As those land-based threats have receded, new areas of possible conflict have emerged at sea. China has become more assertive in its aim to establish its sovereignty claims over a string of islands to its east and south. This has led to arguments with, among others, Japan and Taiwan, a self-governing island that China says must be reunited with the mainland. China also has to consider the US, the region's pre-eminent naval power and Taiwan's main source of military and diplomatic support. SOURCE: Russia Today)
(Hierarchical Structure)
Now, this was all about send a clear cut message to the Magic Negro that the Hierarchical Structure is a type of New World Order Structure with the (AIE), American Israeli Empire, and Israel at the apex, just isn't going to happen, no matter how much time, money or effort is put into creating a better behavioral and efficient structure, with the Imperial Media Messiah World President and (CEO), as the head of the World State, with the other world leaders following and working for the good of the group. The New World Order, geo-political structure would be controlled by (AIPAC/AZC) American Israel Public Affairs Committee/American Zionist Council, a (100K) One-hundred membership neo-conservative Jewish lobbyists group, connected to various caucus members of influential members of the Empire's pro-Israel lawmakers the (544) Imperial Court. The New World Order Geo-Economic Center, the (IMF) International Monetary Fund and The World Bank,made up of member countries representing around (90%) Ninety-Percent of global gross nation product, (80%) eighty per-cent of world trade and (66%) Sixty-Six Percent of the world's population now, and would continue the dollar based world currency system, the (NYSE) New York Stock Exchange would act as the World center of economic investments and trading with other world branch markets, under its control of the. The (AIE) would be the Geo-Para-military World Police Force, drawing on military assets, provided from member countries, with no restraint upon its authority, with over (300) Three-hundred military bases, located within (130) One-hundred-thirty countries scattered around the globe, financed by the (AIE) taxpayer, and every country that holds, treasury bonds, government securities, and short term treasury bills, at a cost of (%u20AC1.14B) One-Point-Fourteen-Billion Euros per day to keep its military installations and personnel functioning not only at home, but abroad. The (AIE) would have Global Domination, as a benign Manager State.
(Spheres of Influence)
What stands in the way of the realization of the New World Order is lack of time, and the resistance that has been encountered to obtain control of the energy markets of the world, in particular the Islamic Crescent States. The Russian Federation and other world States reject the Hierarchical Structure Theory, in favor of the Spheres of Influence Theory, rejecting the concept of the current (AIE), standing against military adventures, that (NATO) The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the (AIE) are engaged upon. Such as the (AIE) building of a missile system surrounding the Russian Federation, and the establishment of an Empire Hierarchical World Order Structure, of totalitarian, and authoritanism, violating the sovereign rights of people to exist independently, without foreign troops within their territory. The (BRIC), Brazil, The Russian Federation, India, The Peoples Republic of China, the German & French Axis, and the British Commonwealth all are in fact spheres of influence, and they are in fact flexing their collective muscles geo-politically-economically-militarily, to prevent the establishment of an (AIE) Hierarchical World Order Structure. Time to talk to a Sphere of Influence!
Another idiot.
Bill Maher made a great analogy as to why Republicans are spewing such vitriol (as the above two idiots are) -- "I know you love this country, and you've lost the country that you love, and like many men who've lost their woman you want to key her car and call her a whore... and it doesn't help that she left you for a *black man*!" (paraphrased) -- LOL!! and NYAH-NYAH-NYAH!!!
Korea is a whole lot closer to China that to the US.
While it has very cordial relations with China, it is very much the supplicant.
China has the bigger stick in this fight. Let 'em use it.
North Korea has already been caught selling nuclear weapons technology to the Middle East. It is cowardly and stupid for Obama not to act forcefully to stop North Korea from selling bombs and technology and proliferating nuclear weapons to islamic fascist states and terrorist groups.
You have no clue do you? "Nuke Proliferating Act" is the exact reason NK test their Nukes. Do you know what "Nuke Proleferatin Act" meant to NK? It mean all out war to them.
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.
Please log in to leave comments.