They’re not leaving SK, they’re just backing away from the DMZ a little bit. They’d still be in harm’s way.
As to the OP, I think Perle is just running his mouth off. The US can’t do anything in NK. Bush has already cashed in all his credibility and post 9/11 good will. He would get no international support for this. He probably wouldn’t even get the UK this time. Blair is in enough trouble for listening to W the last time.
A surgical strike is not really practical. They might hit their target but they would bring down a shitstorm on SK, including their own troops. Even if the US tried to evacuate troops from SK, that would be a pretty big hint to NK, and at that point NK might decide to launch a nuke just for the fuck of it.
There’s no easy, painless way for the Bushies to score political points in NK. Dealing with NK would take time, careful planning, courage, committment and the approval of the international community. Bush is simply not politically, intellectually, charismatically or ethically capable of what it would take to conduct a real war.
Fred Kaplan suggests the fallback from the DMZ is a military strategy to reduce initial US losses in a NK offensive (counteroffensive?). Living in Seoul would kinda suck, yes, but it’s been rebuilt from rubble before and can be again.
maybe other administrations had some sense of ethical obligation to SK. The current one clearly does not. I sit ok with you if NK rains down missiles on civilians in Seoul? What is your point here?
Wait a minute. Perle isn’t just running off his mouth. Someone thought it would be a good idea to spread this idea around…that the US wouldn’t rule out a pre-emptive strike on North Korea’s nuclear facilities. Does this mean that the US is seriously planning a pre-emptive strike? Now? Later? If things get worse? Or maybe it means that the US really is just considering a strike, not planning a strike. Or maybe that a preemptive strike is just being added to the list of things that we could do. Or maybe such a strike isn’t really seriously being considered, but they want the North Koreans to be aware that such a strike could be considered.
In other words, who is the intended audience for this story? Is it the American public? The State Department? The Defense Department? Congress? Europe? The South Koreans? The North Koreans? Perle isn’t just talking out of school and rambling on to random reporters about what he’d do if he were king. He wanted the story printed for a reason.
It seems to me that the real audience is North Korea, to give them the impression that “Mad Dog” Bush is fully capable of ordering a bombing run against North Korea if they get too feisty, and damn the consequences. Whether “Mad Dog” really would do such a thing is unclear. And whether Perle actually thinks bombing North Korea is a good idea is unclear. What is clear is that Perle wants to give the impression that a top advisor to Bush thinks bombing North Korea is a good idea.
Well I’d be curious as to where that “clearly” comes from. If the Administration were not concerned with civilian lives in Seoul, why have we not destroyed the reactor already? Hell, why is the US still maintaining troops there? My point is that silly little partisan snipes at the Bush Administration don’t really get us anywhere, and certainly don’t lend any validity to your argument.
In any case, while an out-and-out attack on NK, either the government or the reactor, would not be a good idea at this point, negotiation, as practiced by the Clinton Administration, has already been demonstrated not to work. Quite frankly, I don’t want to send NK any more oil or build them any more nuclear reactors just in the (obviously by now false) hope that they won’t threaten our allies or sell weapons to our enemies. Threats like this are an important part of putting on our game face to NK; even if we aren’t willing to go to war, we have the upper hand in talks if it appears that we are. If not Bush’s aggressive attitude towards NK, what do you credit with bringing them around to agree to multilateral rather than bilateral talks?
The simple fact, as you noted in your earlier post, is that there are no easy answers to this issue. Our best hope is that the military gets so fed up with not being able to feed themselves that the regime implodes from within (of course, there are problems then with unsecured nuclear weapons, but both UN and US inspectors could deal with them, and in any case whatever “security” the weapons are under now isn’t really doing anyone any good anyway). Unfortunately, we can’t count on this to happen. So for the moment we have to rely on a tough and aggressive form of diplomacy, and make sure that many countries, not just the US, realize their stake in the matter. We should have realized by now that “sunshine” ain’t gonna work anymore.
The “clearly” comes from the fact that he’s already lied his way into one war. If he’s moving back troops from the DMZ in contemplation of a surgical strike on NK’s nuclear facilities, then he’s putting NK civilians in jeopardy that they would not otherwise be in. That would make such a strike unethical IMO.
I don’t think threats are valuable unless they can be backed up. If this is a bluff on Bush’s part, then what’s he going to do if NK calls him on it?
Bush: You better destroy them nuke-yu-ler facilitations, Mr. Il, or we will launch a surgicated strike right at 'em.
Kim Jong Il: Blow me
Bush will then have to decide between launching a strike, and incurring the resulting loss of civilian life in SK (not to mention even more enmity from the rest of the world) or backing down and looking like a wuss. Knowing Shrub, he’d rather kill civilians than look like a wuss. Tha’s what concerns me.
The rest of your post I don’t have any problem with.
Yes, except this isn’t your postulated ultimatum. It’s just getting the idea that we might do such a thing into play. There is no reason to suspect that such an ultimatum is being considered. It is not a bluff, it is not a demand, it is a reminder to North Korea that military options are not being taken off the table. And of course, the whole point of not taking military options off the table is to give us more negotiating room.
If we categorically rule out military options then the North Koreans have a huge advantage in their nuclear extortion game. If the North Koreans know that we know that our soldiers will be slaughtered if we tried something like this, then they know that we won’t try something like this. If they think we don’t care about South Korean civilians, then they are going to be more careful than if they think they can hold South Korean civilians hostage.
The more the North Koreans believe that we value peace above everything else, the more extortion money they can get in return for promising peace. If they are convinced that we have limits beyond which we prefer war, they are going to be very careful about whether to go over those limits.
Any speculation as to why Perle is telling this to the media? Is he trying to scare the NKs, or at least serve them notice?
I’m assuming this kind of planning occurs all the time in the highest echelon of the government; it’s just that we the public don’t often hear about it.
If you seriously think that Il is saner than Bush, then there’s not much point in having a discussion with you.
I did not say I was on anyone’s side, nor did I present a solution. Your post is simply a collection of strawmen. Furthermore, there’s a world of difference between “He has a reactor he’s not supposed to have, let’s bomb it” and “These people are hungry, let’s bomb them”. The fact that you can’t see that says quite a bit about you.
Spiny Norman:
So? I don’t think that who fires the first shot should be the only criterion (and actually, NK has been firing missles towards US forces and their allies for quite a while now). What if the US announced that they were sending a helicopter filled with demolition experts into NK and allowed NK to shoot it down? Would that make you happy?
Letting other countries take advantage of you because of implicit threats of mass murder most certainly is being blackmailed. If I walk into a bank with a loaded gun, and you tell me you’ll give me $1000 if I put my gun away, and I agree, take the money, and then refuse the to put the gun away, I’m taking advantage of you. If you then decide not to call the cops because you’re worried that I might starts shooting people, you can call it “reacting rationally to deterrence” or whatever other fancy terms you want, but the fact is that you’re being blackmailed.
I definitely agree. They should have a say. But they shouldn’t have the say, any more than hostages should be allowed to dictate terms to police negotiators.
I’m not saying take military options off the table, I’m saying don’t make coy little hints that we can’t back up. It’s not politically feasible for W to launch a pre-emptive strike on NK’s nuclear facilities. If I know it, Kim Jong Il knows it. If we go military with NK, we have to go all out, there is no clean military option, only dirty ones, so trying to bluff that we’ll sneak over the border in the middle of the night just sounds like hollow bullshit.
I don’t think trying to intimidate NK into getting rid of nukes is the way to go, and even if such a strike was successful, it would not eliminate NK as a threat. We might even just create a whole new category of terrorists to look out for.
I think a better way to go is to try to bring NK into the community of nations and attempt to de-marginalize them. Work to remove resentments, remove motives for aggression, improve economic conditions, push for social reforms, etc. We’re already doing this with China, if we can do it with China, we can do it with North Korea.
Yes, but the economic reforms of China were initiated by the Chinese under Deng. When China decided to liberalize, we decided to play along. We didn’t create the liberalizing forces in China, and our support for their liberalization only affected it on the margin. North Korea shows no such intention, they are not liberalizing, the only carrot we have is the promise of food and fuel oil if they promise not to drop nuclear bombs on us.
I don’t think starting a war with North Korea is a good idea, since it would mean the destruction of large parts of South Korea before we would win, not to mention the deaths of large numbers of enserfed North Koreans. But being prepared to fight and win a war against North Korea–if they give us no other choice–is only prudent.
Pulling our troops back from “tripwire” sacrificial status, making sure they are clear that we have military options in reserve, and making sure they know that we won’t pay extortion money are all helpful moves that make ware less likely, not more.
You’re comparing apples and oranges. I don’t view SK as hostages because that implies that SK is completely under the control of the NK government. And I think they should have the say. It’s their country, their children and livelihood that are being threatened.
I think alot of ‘Westerners’ have the impression that the U.S. military is the only protection SK has from NK. If you ever visit SK, you will see their own soldiers along the borders, airports, monuments, everywhere. Ask anyone in the U.S. military what they think of ROK soldiers and they’ll most likely say they’re quite intimidating.
Those who protest are the ones who make the news. However, there are quite a few people in SK who do want the U.S. troops there. Before I have someone tell met to “cite” these sentiments, I have to say this bit of info is from personal experience and extended stay there in SK. I’ve talked to people who remember what the U.S. did for SK and there are people in SK who don’t want the U.S. to pull out of the DMZ. Of course, there are also those who just like the American Dollar.
You ask good questions. My answer:
Because we occupy the country. Mostly, it would be “defending U.S. interests.” I’m in the school of thought to believe anything we do militarily is to mainly advance the U.S.'s interests and, if it applies, to help humanity. Yeah, that’s it. :dubious: