North Korea:
It's been a long while since there was
a political article on Awkward Mixture. While you, may have even
forgotten the topic, I haven't. I'm also unable to proceed without a
final article, and so I find myself compelled to conclude this North
Korean topic with one final article, otherwise
it will dangle unresolved. Though I originally intended to expand the
following ideas into their own articles, time has passed, and at this
point, the only reasonable action is to finish quickly.
To begin, though the Trump
administration has categorized Kim Jong-un's regime as brutal, brutal
does not equal undeterrable. There is no
disputing North Korea's brutality toward its own people, but cruel
action does not imply an irrational mind. Deterrence, made (in)famous
by MAD, is predicated on the belief that both participants are
rational actors. They can choose a goal with their own interest in
mind, plan to achieve it, and recognize how the other parties will
react.
Even at the most perilous period of the
Cold War, the government of the United States recognized the Soviet
Union as a nation capable of logical action. Since that time, the
United States has chosen to depict its foreign foes as irrational
beasts, but this is detrimental to an enlightened citizenry and an
effective foreign policy.
There are a few caveats. Even if both
participants are rational, their priors, their method of thinking,
may be so different as to make them appear irrational. Additionally,
those priors inspire a leader to destroy an enemy nation or the
world, at the cost of his own life. But no expert on North Korea
believes Kim Jong-un wants to sacrifice his life of luxury
prematurely. And finally, no one is perfectly rational. People may
want what others consider grossly undesirable, plan their path
poorly, or misunderstand those they interact with. But assuming Kim
is a semi-rational actor who enjoys his status as Supreme Leader,
there are further topics worth considering.
The President delineated his Red
Line on North Korea: they shall not be allowed
to have a nuclear missile capable of striking the United States (this
strikingly strong stance is undercut by their worry that North Korea
will aid other actors in proliferation). The only acceptable
conclusion, the White House has repeatedly declared whether through
disgraced McMaster, recently installed Pompeo, or POTUS, is
“complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization”.
Presidents, including Obama, have often failed to act upon their
declarations. When Trump sits face
to face with smart cookie, little rocket man,
madman, short and fat, bad dude, maniac, honorable Kim Jong-un will
his hold, or will he fold, accepting a lesser outcome?
Here's an
outrageous opinion: in spite of the Treaty
on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,
no power currently wielding nuclear bombs should disparage, or
attempt to prevent, any other nation from producing nuclear weapons.
How dare I say this? Aside from the insanity of an International
Treaty which arbitrarily determines that nuclear nations prior 1967
are justified, while all those after are renegade nations, all
current holders of nuclear weapons are violating the Treaty. Article
VI which says, “Each of the Parties to the Treaty
undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures
relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and
to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete
disarmament under strict and effective international control,”
explicitly demands that all nuclear nations peruse disarmament.
Citizens of the United States mistake
the Treaty, never having read it, as a document which solidifies the
position of Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Powers: an eternal establishment
of the status quo, but that is not the document's intent. In a
revolutionary statement, it actually intends for all powers to
relinquish their nuclear dominance, including those already armed
with Death, the destroyer of worlds. The United States has no right
to tell other nations what path to pursue, because it is in violation
of the Treaty itself, through a clear lack of interest in
international disarmament, and even worse, its abominable aggravation
of the nuclear
arms race.
No individual should have access to a
weapon capable of devastating a city in seconds, with an arsenal able
to annihilate a nation, or even the globe, in one blow. A reader
might say, no individual has the authority to such action. But as
Robert Heinlein's Professor Bernardo de la Paz knows, “My point
is that one person is responsible, Always. If H-bombs exist--and they
do--some man controls them. In terms of morals there is no such thing
as 'state'. Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own
acts.”
Congress
and the Pentagon
agree, that the President has sole authority to
determine if the use of nuclear weapons is justified (even though the
Chief Executive supposedly can't begin a war without congressional
authorization...)
So here's a
preposterous proposal to accompany my outrageous opinion. If the
summit between the mentally deranged U.S. dotard and the madman can't
achieve peace for our time (even though WikiLeaks
prematurely wants to award someone
the Nobel Peace Prize), maybe the President should
consider Niccolo Machiavelli's advice:
Upon this, one has to remark that men
ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge
themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot;
therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such
a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.
That is, the President must either
decide to obliterate North Korea, an option which is both morally
repellent and whose outcome is devastating to the United States, or
seek to treat North Korea as a friend. Friendship does not mean
embracing its brutal, self-serving dictatorial class, as it has with
Egypt,
Saudi
Arabia, Turkey,
and other abhorrent regimes. Friendship does not mean cultivating a
relationship of favors between the ruling classes, but establishing a
culture of care between the people of the nations. Money spent not on
weapons
of war, but aid for the the starving, not petty
propaganda, but assistance without political intent.
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