[News] Pyongyang 1, Bush 0

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/

October 11, 2006


Wave Stick, Get Stung


Pyongyang 1, Bush 0

By JOHN FEFFER

Five years ago, when George W. Bush took office, North Korea didn't 
claim membership in the nuclear club. Its plutonium reprocessing 
facilities were frozen. It was even willing to negotiate away its 
missile program.

Instead of pursuing the diplomatic route, the Bush administration 
tried to ignore Pyongyang. Then came the schoolyard taunts such as 
lumping North Korea together with Iraq and Iran in an "axis of evil." 
When indifference and insult failed to move the isolated East Asian 
country, the administration accused North Korea of enriching uranium, 
which led to the unraveling of the 1994 Agreed Framework and the 
reigniting of a major crisis. To top it off, Washington began to 
squeeze Pyongyang economically with sanctions.

Pyongyang has refused to cry "uncle." Instead, it has replied in 
kind. With its missile launches in July and its recently announced 
nuclear test, Pyongyang has demonstrated that it can be as stubborn 
and as enamored of military playthings as the Bush administration.

With such a miserable track record in inducing behavior change, why 
has the United States continued to speak loudly and wield a big stick 
against a hornet's nest like North Korea? It might be, like North 
Korea's recent test, a fundamental miscalculation. The Bush 
administration, after all, has shown a pathological inability to 
learn from its mistakes. Or there might be a deeper, more malign 
intent at work.

Wave Stick, Hornet Stings

At first, the Bush administration followed the logic of its 
predecessors. It looked at North Korea through the prism of Eastern 
Europe. With a little nudge, the regime was supposed to topple just 
like the communist governments in Warsaw, Bucharest, and East Berlin. 
But North Korea showed remarkable resilience, surviving the collapse 
of its Soviet trading partner, several years of extreme famine in the 
mid-1990s, and then the containment-plus tactics of the Bush administration.

In the absence of a dramatic coup or military putsch in Pyongyang, 
the Bush administration had to demonstrate that it was not just 
twiddling its thumbs while North Korea unfroze its plutonium 
reprocessing facilities and moved full-speed ahead toward a nuclear 
arsenal. The faintest whiff of weapons of mass destruction had 
justified U.S. military intervention in Iraq. And all the United 
States could do with North Korea was call it names?

Thus were born the Six Party Talks, a multilateral effort involving 
the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan, and the United States. A 
remarkable group of diplomats gathered to talk, but alas, not to 
negotiate. Guided by the
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uncompromising Vice President Dick Cheney, the Bush administration 
has viewed any meaningful negotiations with North Korea-and the 
prospect of any serious agreement-as simply prolonging the lifespan 
of Kim Jong Il's regime. The State Department was on a short leash. 
The Bush administration refused to negotiate bilaterally, North 
Korea's negotiating process of choice. In the Bush-Cheney lexicon, 
compromise equals appeasement and "Munich" stops all conversations.

Here's what the problem with the strategy of pointless talking was: 
North Korea was not satisfied with cat-and-mouse maneuvers. Its 
economy reeling and its population malnourished, the North Korean 
government wanted a deal. And the only thing worth trading that it 
possessed-or that the world thought it possessed-was a nuclear program.

The recent nuclear test is the logical consequence of the North's 
policy over the last four years. It developed a nuclear program to 
deter U.S. attacks, but it also needed a bargaining chip to trade for 
status, cash, and other goodies. It froze its nuclear program under 
the 1994 Agreed Framework, but probably kept some reprocessed 
plutonium in reserve just in case and began a covert 
uranium-enrichment program as a similar insurance policy. When the 
Agreed Framework collapsed in 2002, North Korea changed tactics, 
declaring that it did in fact have nukes, which served to strengthen 
its deterrent capabilities and increase its ask at the negotiating table.

But the Bush administration wasn't dealing. So North Korea ended its 
self-imposed missile moratorium last July. And when that didn't get 
the United States into one-on-one negotiations, it raised the ante 
once again with a nuclear test.

Such tactics should surprise no one. Pyongyang has begun giving the 
world advance notice of its actions. Psychologists call these signals 
a "cry for help." North Korea wants to negotiate, wants to avoid 
options that are clearly suicidal. But global 911, staffed by the 
inattentive Bush administration, is just not responding.

External Signal, Internal Audience

The nuclear test is a signal to the international community that 
North Korea refuses to be disrespected, have its sovereignty 
abridged, or suffer a full-frontal military assault. But the test 
also serves various internal purposes.

The staff of the country's nuclear complex-scientists, military 
officials, and government representatives-have an important stake in 
seeing their project through to completion. As George Perkovich 
perceptively argued in his book India's Nuclear Bomb, the team 
developing nuclear weapons is not simply a group of technicians that 
can be turned on or off depending on government whim. The nuclear 
complex develops political power within the overall government 
system. Tasked to create a bomb, it must demonstrate its success or 
it will lose that power. A nuclear test translates into bonuses and 
promotions, and consolidated political power within the system.

Another internal rationale is provided by the date of the test: 
October 9. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il formally took the helm of 
the Korean Worker's Party on that date in 1997. There have been only 
two leaders in North Korean history. Kim Il Sung founded the country 
and, despite often horrendous policies, enjoyed the adulation of the 
population. With the famine that took place on his watch and the near 
collapse of the country, Kim Jong Il has squandered his father's legacy.

The nuclear test is, in other words, a rather large example of 
overcompensation. Economic news out of North Korea hasn't been very 
positive. Heavy rains and flooding over the summer damaged the 
country's capacity to feed itself. Financial sanctions applied by the 
United States have helped stall any economic reforms. Even China, 
outraged over the July missile launches, has begun to put a gentle 
squeeze on its neighbor. There's not a lot of bread in North Korea 
and, though the Pyongyang Circus is quite good, such performances 
will not distract the population. Kim Jong Il might have as much 
charisma as a chunk of anthracite but only a handful of world leaders 
have pushed their countries past the well-guarded gates of the nuclear club.

But did North Korea really test the bomb? The verdict isn't yet in. 
The recent test might have been just a lot of TNT or it could have 
been a very small weapon tested unsuccessfully. However, from North 
Korea's point of view, the perception of deterrence is more important 
than the reality. It wants to prevent an attack. If the United States 
and others are scared off by empty underground caverns-like 
Kumchang-ri in 1999-or by a whole lot of dynamite, so much the cheaper.

To Strike or Not to Strike

Will an attack on North Korea be the administration's October 
surprise? The rally-around-the-flag effect of bombing North Korea 
would be overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the immediate 
consequences, not to mention the longer-term blowback. The Bush 
administration has insisted on keeping all options on the table, even 
though the Pentagon has made it clear that a military strike against 
North Korea would lead to retaliatory attacks that would kill tens of 
thousands of U.S. and South Korean soldiers and civilians. The 
Pentagon has also confessed that it would have great difficulty 
eliminating the dispersed nuclear facilities in North Korea.

For military, economic, and electoral reasons, it doesn't make sense 
for the Bush administration to launch an attack against any country 
at this moment. Alas, the administration seems to be singing only one 
tune these days, that old Talking Heads favorite: Stop Making Sense. 
The administration ignored the top-level Pentagon advice on Iraq. It 
could do so again with North Korea.

If the military option is not really on the table, the Bush 
administration is running out of choices. It is unveiling a new set 
of financial sanctions and wants inspections on all cargo going in 
and out of North Korea. But Pyongyang, while not exactly reveling in 
its isolation of late, is accustomed to being the odd man out. Kim 
Jong Il's regime endured several famine years; perhaps it calculates 
that two more cold-shoulder years from the Bush administration are survivable.

For some in the Bush administration, the nuclear test is cause for 
celebration. The coterie around Dick Cheney rejoices at the growing 
divide between North Korea and China, the more aggressive military 
and foreign policy of Japan, and the compromised efforts of South 
Korea to engage the North. The nuclear test is the most effective 
argument the Cheney crowd can use to defeat calls for diplomacy. An 
amplified North Korean threat works wonders on Capitol Hill and with 
our allies to push missile defense, more military spending, and the like.

But the recent test has not destroyed the diplomatic option. 
Pyongyang has reiterated its willingness to negotiate. It doesn't 
have much choice. A nuclear weapon can't feed its people or rebuild 
its factories.

The international community, through the UN, should by all means 
register its outrage at North Korea's act and translate that outrage 
into some concrete actions. But many years of sanctions haven't 
brought North Korea to its knees or back to the negotiating table. 
It's time for the Bush administration to make up for a half-decade of 
failed policies by talking seriously with Pyongyang, both bilaterally 
and multilaterally. Just inside the door, North Korea can still be 
persuaded to back out of the nuclear club.

John Feffer is the co-director of <http://www.fpif.org/>Foreign 
Policy In Focus for the International Relations Center, 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583226036/counterpunchmaga>North 
Korea, South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis (Seven Stories 
Press).and the editor of The Future of U.S.-Korean Relations 
(Routledge, 2006).


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