Tag Archives: foreign policy

A Plan for Dealing with Northern Korea

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Ex-SecDef Robert Gates has one, as described by Gerald Seib in The Wall Street Journal.

Under the Gates approach, the US would make China the following offer: Washington is prepared to recognize the North Korean regime and forswear a policy of regime change, as it did when resolving the Cuban missile crisis with the Soviet Union; is prepared to sign a peace treaty with North Korea; and would be prepared to consider some changes in the structure of military forces in South Korea.

In return, the US would demand hard limits on the North Korean nuclear and missile program, essentially freezing it in place, enforced by the international community and by China itself.

“I think you cannot get the North to give up their nuclear weapons,” Mr Gates says. “Kim sees them as vital to survival. But you may be able to get them to keep the delivery systems to very short range.”

The stick for this?

Absent such an agreement, the US would “heavily populate Asia with missile defenses.” That would include missile-defense buildups in South Korea, Japan, and aboard additional American ships stationed in the Pacific. In addition, the US would declare that it would shoot down “anything we think looks like a launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile” from North Korea.

This is both foolish and naïve.  It’s naïve because it innocently envisions the men and women of northern Korea and the People’s Republic of China to be trustworthy in this matter, or any other regarding the Korean peninsula in particular and the western Pacific in general—and regarding us at all in the PRC’s case.  These worthies have shown their lack of reliability repeatedly, ranging from Baby Kim’s and his father’s before him, welching on agreements particularly concerning northern Korean nuclear weapons program to the PRC’s seizure and occupation of the South China Sea, attacks against other nations’ fishing and oil facilities in the Sea, and its aggressions against Japan’s Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

It’s naïve because “heavily populating Asia” with missile defenses would require agreement from the RoK to plus up (heavily or otherwise) a missile defense establishment it’s already disgruntled about having in place and strongly reluctant to increase.  It would require Japan to agree to emplacement of missile defenses much beyond the token batteries already present.  It would require other nations of Asia—Vietnam, for instance, and a Philippines that already prefers the PRC to our alliance—to agree to such emplacements.  It would require a heavy buildup of our Navy to build and launch “American ships” that are missile defense capable before we could get those numbers in place.

It’s foolish because, depending on the definition of very short range, such an agreement at best would sell the Republic of Korea into hostage against our behavior in Baby Kim’s eyes and those of whomever happens to be in power in the PRC at the time they decide to take umbrage against our activities.  In the South China Sea, say, or vis-à-vis Japanese islands in the East China Sea.  Or the Republic of China.

Aside from also selling Japan, the RoC, and the nations rimming the South China Sea down the river through those indirect means, that definition could be used to put Japan directly at risk, too, as well as our own military bases in the region.

That foolishness would be the height of immorality.

The Left

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…doesn’t like us very much.  And, by “us” I don’t mean Conservatives, I mean the United States in particular and Western Civilization in general.

Here are a couple of examples.  Recall President Donald Trump’s speech in Poland last week wherein he touted the successes of Western Civilization and the United States’ role in that and further said that we would never give in to the forces arrayed against us.

Our adversaries, however, are doomed because we will never forget who we are.  And if we don’t forget who are, we just can’t be beaten.  Americans will never forget.  The nations of Europe will never forget.  We are the fastest and the greatest community.  There is nothing like our community of nations.  The world has never known anything like our community of nations.

And

[W]e value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person, and share the hope of every soul to live in freedom.  That is who we are.  Those are the priceless ties that bind us together as nations, as allies, and as a civilization.

And

Our citizens did not win freedom together, did not survive horrors together, did not face down evil together, only to lose our freedom to a lack of pride and confidence in our values.  We did not and we will not.  We will never back down.

But these are bigoted remarks, the Left says.

According to Salon, these are “white nationalist” remarks, and

Trump was fairly begging to be labeled a fascist with his speech painting the purity of white civilization as under threat from racialized foreigners….

Here’s Brad Woodhouse, former Communications Director for the Democratic National Committee:

Western civilization and Christian Values are dog whistles to white nationalists[.]

Malcolm Nance, author and commentator from the Left on terrorism [starts around 5:05]:

That speech was the ultimate fulfillment of Usama bin Laden’s ideology of the belief that there would be a clash of civilizations between what he views as his crazy version of Islam and the West.

Never mind that that clash, that war for our survival, has been inflicted on us for years.

And from the tabloid New York Times:

In Warsaw, Mr Trump boldly stated, “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive.” In saying that, he demonstrated his administration’s born-again commitment to preserve America’s post-Cold War Western alliances, though at the price of redefining the very meaning of “the West.”

In the heady days of the Cold War, “the West” referred to the so-called free world—a liberal democratic order. Today it has been replaced by a cultural, rather than political, notion. But unlike in the 19th century, when a “white man’s burden” took pride of place, today what dominates are the “white man’s fears.”

Sure.  Because an American President who happens to be a white US citizen said these things and is following an American President who happened to be a black US citizen and who retreated the US from the world, taking to global extent his own view that “there comes a time when you’ve made enough.”

In a side note, the NYT in particular, also chose to “misunderstand” along a different dimension, too:

What stands out most in Mr Trump’s speech is not its oft-quoted illiberalism but its stark pessimism about the future of the West.  …he appears preoccupied by the fear of defeat. What he promised his listeners was not the West’s “victory” but that the West shall never be broken.

Because “we will never surrender” was Churchill’s pessimistic fear of defeat and not his optimism of ultimate victory, so it is with “never be broken.”  Apparently these guys skipped over an earlier part of Trump’s speech (they didn’t bother to listen to it live):

…we know that these forces [adversaries and enemies], too, are doomed to fail if we want them to fail.  And we do, indeed, want them to fail.  They are doomed not only because our alliance is strong, our countries are resilient, and our power is unmatched.  Through all of that, you have to say everything is true.  Our adversaries, however, are doomed because we will never forget who we are.  And if we don’t forget who are, we just can’t be beaten.  Americans will never forget.  The nations of Europe will never forget.  We are the fastest and the greatest community.  There is nothing like our community of nations.  The world has never known anything like our community of nations.

Yeah, that’s pessimism, all right.  [/aside]

It’s racist bigotry to manufacture a racism beef where there is none present, and it’s a particularly dishonest bigotry (redundancy deliberate) to manufacture a bigotry beef purely for personal attention.

It’s almost like they hate themselves so much they have to relieve the pressure by projecting.

Russia and the PRC Propose

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Recall that northern Korea has just tested a missile it’s representing as an intercontinental range missile (and the missile’s flight profile suggests that it can reach Anchorage).  Northern Korea also has a potful of shorter-range missiles that easily can hit the Republic of Korea and Japan and most of our bases in the Western Pacific, including in those nations.  Russia and the People’s Republic of China have a proposal to resolve the matter.

[T]he Chinese and Russian foreign ministries proposed that North Korea declare a moratorium on nuclear and missile tests while the United States and South Korea refrain from large-scale joint military exercises.

This is just cynical.  In return for the US and the Republic of Korea stopping training to defend ourselves against attack, northern Korea would be allowed to retain, intact, its nuclear weapons facilities.

Sure.

An Area for Sales Increases

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We must be on the right track.  Now it’s time to push the pace.  The People’s Republic of China doesn’t want us to sell to the Republic of China the wherewithal to defend itself against aggression, not even the pittance that is the $1.4 billion arms deal that the Trump administration is contemplating.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang on Friday said Washington should immediately stop the sale to avoid harming relations with Beijing.

He said the deal would severely damage China’s sovereignty and security interests and runs contrary to Washington’s commitment to a “one-China” policy.

That’s risible.  Leaving aside whether good relations with the PRC should come at a cost as steep as meekly abandoning an ally and friend would be, what’s harming those relations is the PRC’s constant drumbeat of threat against the RoC; the PRC’s occupation of international waters and of islands that belong to the sovereign nations surrounding the South China Sea to the east, south, and west (although the RoC has conflicting claims to some of those islands); and the PRC’s aggressions against Japanese islands in the East China Sea.

Further, there’s no threat to any “one-China” policy.  There’s only one China on the Asian mainland, and there’s only one China on the island of Taiwan.  No one is arguing otherwise.

Our next step should be to help the RoC to upgrade their defense forces and equipage into something that truly can defend the nation.

It’s About Time, Ollie

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In a move met by applause from at least one congressman, the Energy Department announced a pilot program for research into domestic mining of rare earth elements.

Rare earths are minerals critical to computing technologies and to various military and civilian sensor technologies.  China currently dominates the production and market for these elements, with about 85% of the world’s production from its domestic mines.

Another major source for rare earths, not yet exploited, is the South China Sea floor.  Part of the purpose of the PRC’s seizure of the South China Sea and of its island-building and militarization of those constructs is to control access to those rare earths and to reserve them for itself.

The US has about 13% of the world’s total reserves, but very little of this is in production: mining efforts aren’t extensive because it hasn’t been economically feasible (or yet politically necessary) to mine seriously.  Instead, we’ve been buying our rare earths almost exclusively from the PRC.

We’re very late to this production party, but with Secretary Rick Perry’s announcement, we need to jump in with both feet.  This is another area where we have to cease our dependence on our enemies for our own prosperity.