[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
The best thing we could do would be to get back to something similar to the '94 agreement. Clinton was pretty successful at keeping NK in line. We should learn from what worked.
[/QUOTE]
Did it work? Clinton’s big plan was to buy them off. But they didn’t exactly STAY bought off (and no surprise that), having secretly restarted their nuclear program BEFORE Bush’s speech…hell, before Bush was in office. Is it your impression that its good policy to just keep bribing the NK’s with increasingly large bribes, reguardless of what they do? And that this constitutes good policy?
I’m really curious. I have no idea myself what to do. I’m just dubious as to how well that tactic worked in the past, and where such a policy would end…
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
What are blockades going to do expect starve the populace into stampeding over the border?
[/QUOTE]
Doesn’t have to be a total blockade; inspect ships going in, allow essential food, medicine and energy supplies, block military and luxury items. Seize any military exports leaving ports, and you cut off a major source of NK’s income.
[QUOTE=xtisme]
Did it work? Clinton’s big plan was to buy them off. But they didn’t exactly STAY bought off (and no surprise that), having secretly restarted their nuclear program BEFORE Bush’s speech…hell, before Bush was in office. Is it your impression that its good policy to just keep bribing the NK’s with increasingly large bribes, reguardless of what they do? And that this constitutes good policy?
I’m really curious. I have no idea myself what to do. I’m just dubious as to how well that tactic worked in the past, and where such a policy would end…
-XT
[/QUOTE]
There is doubt that they did reconstitute a program. It is argued that they were enriching uranium but not to weapons grade. It is argued that they did not have the capability to make it weapons grade.
It worked pretty well under Clinton, NK froze all nuclear production for eight years, and we had gotten almost all the way to a complete dismantling of the program under IEAE supervision.
What is your cite that they started their nuke program before Bush was in office? They didn’t kick out the IAEA until 2002 and they didn’t turn their reactor back on until 2003 after Bush called them part of “the axis of evil” and cut off oil shipments. (Timeline here.
They did test some missiles but they weren’t nukes.
It’s better than nuclear war (or conventional war, for that matter). There’s nothing wrong with bribery, IMO. In the absenec of a good choice, you might as well choose that which causes the least damage. Dear Leader isn’t going to live forever and the more than can be done to make NK become less isolated and more engaged internationally, the better. It’s not going to happen overnight, but eventually they can become normalized (ala what’s happening with China) if they don’t have to worry about starving or freezing in the meanwhile.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
It worked pretty well under Clinton, NK froze all nuclear production for eight years, and we had gotten almost all the way to a complete dismantling of the program under IEAE supervision.
What is your cite that they started their nuke program before Bush was in office? They didn’t kick out the IAEA until 2002 and they didn’t turn their reactor back on until 2003 after Bush called them part of “the axis of evil” and cut off oil shipments. (Timeline here.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
What are blockades going to do expect starve the populace into stampeding over the border?
[/QUOTE]
Not even a starving person would think of trying to stampede across the DMZ. That leaves the Chinese border . . . which I suppose the Chinese could effectively control if they really wanted to.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Not even a starving person would think of trying to stampede across the DMZ. That leaves the Chinese border . . . which I suppose the Chinese could effectively control if they really wanted to.
[/QUOTE]
True. China could probally erect border fences that’d make East Germany turn green.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Are you forgetting that we have a few thousand US troops right on the DMZ? There are any number of scenarios in which they could become targets and then what are we going to do about it, invade them? With what? Nuke them? That would be insane.
The best thing we could do would be to get back to something similar to the '94 agreement. Clinton was pretty successful at keeping NK in line. We should learn from what worked.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not really sure how effective the 1994 Agreed Framework worked out, to be honest. It kept war out of the peninsula, but then again, I don’t think it’s ever been a serious possibility as long as South Korea has any say in the matter.
The United States made promises that were never fully implemented just as the DPRK made promises that were never fully implemented. Both sides pointed at the others lack of progress towards meeting certain goals in the Agreed Framework as justification for not living up to the agreement.
There was widespread speculation, and eventually proof that the DPRK was continuing the development of nuclear weapons in secret in violation of the Agreed Framework. The U.S./DPRK did initially live up to some of their agreements. But ultimately key parts of the agreement never seriously saw the light of day.
I think Kim wanted a nuclear weapon, and I don’t think anything Clinton could have done would have stopped it. I don’t think anything Bush could have done would have stopped it save one thing, and that’s militarily removing Kim. Which is for all intents and purposes virtually impossible without ignoring South Korea’s wishes (which would be unwise, and almost beyond the realm of believability.)
I think the one power that could have seriously put a stop to all of this, at any time from 1994 on is China, and they’ve chosen not to do so.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Would you believe Clinton himslf? From the News Hour on PBS:
[/QUOTE]
This isn’t really on point. It wasn’t weapons grade uranium and they still hadn’t turned their reactor on, so who cares?
The fact remains that NK stopped trying develop nuclear weapons between '94 and '02. the '94 agreement worked. Bush’s dick-waving undid all the progress which had been made under Clinton and Bush Sr.
[QUOTE=tagos]
NK is making bombs from the plutonium that the 1994 agreement had kept under international supervision. An agreement Bush canned.
I have no trouble at all believing Bush manipulated intelligence to arrive at a prior conclusion. The guy has form.
He also has form in turning distant threats into live crises through his own ineptitude.
[/QUOTE]
The North Koreans have been pretty open about the fact that they violated the Agreed Framework. When they said they reserve the right to develop a nuclear program, which is clearly saying, “we don’t plan to live up to the Agreed Framework or the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.”
Uranium enrichment may not have been part of the Agreed Framework, but the stipulation that North Korea adhere to the NPT was clearly a stipulation and any weapons program would be a violation of that. PBS has a pretty good bit of information about that as well as several links to sources with more info.
Issues with the DPRK living up to its end of the agreement weren’t brought in with the Bush administration. I’m honestly surprised at that sort of assertion considering the possibility of a secret weapons program had been in the news pretty often pretty much from the day the Agreed Framework was established.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
This isn’t really on point. It wasn’t weapons grade uranium and they still hadn’t turned their reactor on, so who cares?
[/quote]
Cite?
No. The fact remains that the best we can say is that we don’t know whether those policies resulted in a cessation of their nuclear program-- contrary to your assertion. And that’s not just a “we can’t know anything for sure” type of argument, since we have solid evidence (although not proof) that they didn’t.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
This isn’t really on point. It wasn’t weapons grade uranium and they still hadn’t turned their reactor on, so who cares?
The fact remains that NK stopped trying develop nuclear weapons between '94 and '02. the '94 agreement worked. Bush’s dick-waving undid all the progress which had been made under Clinton and Bush Sr.
[/QUOTE]
What reason does North Korea have for enriching uranium if not to develop nuclear weapons? Nuclear energy? No, not likely. Especially since the United States, South Korea, and Japan were, under the Agreed Framework, supposed to be building two nuclear reactors for the DPRK to cover their energy needs, specifically so the North wouldn’t be running their own, easily convertable to weapons nuclear program.
There’s a reason that those reactors were never completed, and that is because throughout the 1990s there was little trust in Kim that he wasn’t violating the agreement, and the international players involved were hesistant to give him nuclear energy in light of that.
Nuclear weapons programs don’t come out of nowhere, the fact that the North admitted to an enrichment program in 2002 means it’s all but certain they had been working on it for some time before that.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Enriching uranium is not, in itself, a weapons program…especially if the result cannot be weaponized.
[/QUOTE]
The purpose of uranium enrichment is to make it fissile. Considering the North had international support and supply for the construction of two light water reactors there’s no logical reason they’re trying to creating fissile material in secret if not for a weapons program.
I would also like a cite that none of their enriched uranium was weapons grade. I also suspect if it wasn’t weapons grade it was simply because they had failed to perfect their enrichment yet.
[QUOTE=Lemur866]
And we wouldn’t have to deal with insurgency problems after the war, because that would be South Korea’s problem. I mean Korea’s problem, since there wouldn’t be a north and south Korea any more.
[/QUOTE]
North Korea (indeed the entire Korean peninsula is pretty homogenous, there aren’t factions and religious fanatics, just the communists and the capitalists and right now the commmunist proletariat WANT capitalism because they are literally starving to death and would work for food. South Korea has just got to commit to taking on a deadweight economy for however long it takes to get them up to speed but if you asked most South koreans today if they would take the opportunity to reunite their country even if it meant difficult financial times ahead, most of them would say yes in a heartbeat.
[QUOTE=lokij]
China can’t even attempt a successful invasion of Taiwan right now and Taiwan’s military is not as large as the Japanese Self Defense Force.
[/QUOTE]
I was always under the impression that the only thing keeping China out of Taiwan was A) the USA and B) they don’t want to kill the golden goose.
