Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

In his often brilliant, and sometimes misguided, analysis of the international system, The Inequality of Nations, Robert W. Tucker wrote:

"The history of the international system is a history of inequality par excellence."

It is the inequality between nation-states, divided roughly along a North-South geographical axis, that underpins the current international system. The world is divided between haves and have-nots. Nation-states that have and nation-states that have-not have engaged in a grand bargain since World War II in order to bring stability to the world order. One of the pillars of this grand bargain has been the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The Bush Administration’s nuclear dance with North Korea and Iran have caused serious damage to the NPT and the grand bargain.

Earlier this week the United States and North Korea agreed to ratchet down the heat in their nuclear standoff:

The United States and four other nations reached a tentative agreement to provide North Korea with roughly $400 million in fuel oil and aid, in return for the North’s starting to disable its nuclear facilities and allowing nuclear inspectors back into the country, according to American officials who have reviewed the proposed text.

While the accord sets a 60-day deadline for North Korea to accomplish those first steps toward disarmament, it leaves until an undefined moment in the future — and to another negotiation — the actual removal of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and the fuel that it has manufactured to produce them.

The deal that George W Bush ultimately got from Kim Jong Il is at best the same deal that was available to the United States when the Bush Administration took the reigns of power in 2001. The significant difference between 2001 and 2007 is that North Korea now has detonated a nuclear device and has perhaps a half a dozen nuclear weapons (which North Korea may get to keep).

The Yosemite Sam of international relations, the anti-diplomat John Bolton, lashed out at the Bush Administration when news of the North Korean deal broke:

John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, blasted the new deal Monday in an interview with CNN, saying it would only encourage other countries trying to secure nuclear weapons.

"It sends exactly the wrong signal to would-be proliferators around the world: If you hold out long enough and wear down the State Department negotiators, eventually you get rewarded," said Bolton, who was also involved with North Korea earlier as the State Department’s undersecretary for arms control.

"It makes the [Bush] administration look very weak at a time in Iraq and dealing with Iran it needs to look strong," he said.

Mr. Bolton is right on the conclusion, but is, characteristically, wrong on the reasoning.

The Bush Administration should be commended for choosing diplomacy over confrontation in seeking to engage North Korea. However, Mr. Bush’s newfound push for diplomacy comes at the tail end of six years of belligerence. Those six years of belligerence have led to the weakness that Mr. Bolton complains about - those six years of belligerence resulted from the active participation of the anti-diplomat John Bolton. By resorting to diplomacy when threats of regime change and military confrontation failed, the Bush Administration has shown its weakness. Mr. Bush had the option of practicing diplomacy from a position of strength from the outset - he chose not to - and instead steadily lost leverage to North Korea and China.

The rub in the North Korea deal is the timing, not the deal. The previous six years have caused much damage to the international system. Mr. Bush’s freedom agenda, the pursuit of "peace" by sacrificing stability, has been a primary driving force behind the failures that have led to a nuclear North Korea. Threats of regime change and phrases such as the "axis of evil" have poisoned the international system.

The "freedom agenda" has struck at the very heart of treaties such as the NPT. The grand bargain of the NPT is between the nuclear-weapon states (the haves) and the non-nuclear-weapon states (the have-nots). The bargain is as follows: the have-nots agree to not acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for assurances from the haves that the have-nots will not be attacked by the haves. Further, the haves agree to not proliferate nuclear weapons to the have-nots and also agree to work toward nuclear disarmament. The Bush Administration policies of the last six years, most notably the attack on Iraq, have given the have-nots reason to fear the haves and reason to acquire nuclear weapons. The delicate balance of the NPT has been upset. It should be noted that since the NPT came into effect no non-nuclear-weapon signatory other than North Korea has ever left the NPT or has ever acquired nuclear weapons. It is also noteworthy that North Korea left the NPT and became a nuclear weapons state under the Bush Administration’s watch.

The lessons of the North Korean experience are clear to the non-nuclear states. First, the acquisition of nuclear weapons is a necessary deterrent in a world dominated by a belligerent nuclear superpower. Second, nuclear weapons status is an essential bargaining chip against a belligerent superpower. Third, the NPT is no longer the governing principle in this new world order.

Robert W. Tucker, in concluding his thesis, laid out the challenge to the international order posed by the disparity between the haves and have-nots:

"Will the present beneficiaries of the international system prove able to control the power aspirations of those who will sooner or later seek no more, though no less, than what others have sought before them?… For those who are able to pursue it, the logic of the challenge to inequality is ultimately the logic of nuclear proliferation. In turn, the logic of nuclear proliferation is one of decreasing control over the international system by those who are its present guardians."

Fundamentally, as a guardian of the international system the Bush Administration has failed in its responsibilities. It has failed in the challenge to control the power aspirations of the have-nots by casting aside the grand bargain that was struck in the post World War II era. North Korea is but one symptom of the Bush Administration’s failure - Iran waits at the threshold with many more to follow.

It is ironic that the most warmongering and belligerent administration in American history has failed or is failing in the two wars that it has undertaken - Afghanistan and Iraq. The only real "success" it has seen on the international arena has been achieved not through war, but through diplomacy. Yet, that belated diplomacy has come at a heavy, and avoidable, price to the stability of the world.

As expected, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea tested its first nuclear weapon on Sunday after giving warning earlier in the week. By detonating a nuclear device, North Korea dramatically hammered the last nail into the coffin of the Bush Doctrine. The Bush Doctrine, or the Doctrine of Preemption, was arrogantly unveiled on June 1, 2002 by a President with little knowledge or curiosity about the world outside the United States. October 9, 2006 will be marked in history as the date on which George W Bush’s doctrine died a violent death.

Today the world became a very dangerous place.

In the days before Bush’s Iraq fiasco, he confused ideology with policy and wielded the might of the United States against all challengers and expected all to prostrate themselves. Bush declared in front of the graduating class at West Point in 2002:

The gravest danger to freedom lies at the perilous crossroads of radicalism and technology. When the spread of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons, along with ballistic missile technology — when that occurs, even weak states and small groups could attain a catastrophic power to strike great nations. Our enemies have declared this very intention, and have been caught seeking these terrible weapons. They want the capability to blackmail us, or to harm us, or to harm our friends — and we will oppose them with all our power. (Applause.)

For much of the last century, America’s defense relied on the Cold War doctrines of deterrence and containment. In some cases, those strategies still apply. But new threats also require new thinking. Deterrence — the promise of massive retaliation against nations — means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies.

We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best. We cannot put our faith in the word of tyrants, who solemnly sign non-proliferation treaties, and then systemically break them. If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long. (Applause.)

Homeland defense and missile defense are part of stronger security, and they’re essential priorities for America. Yet the war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge. (Applause.) In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action. And this nation will act. (Applause.)

Our security will require the best intelligence, to reveal threats hidden in caves and growing in laboratories. Our security will require modernizing domestic agencies such as the FBI, so they’re prepared to act, and act quickly, against danger. Our security will require transforming the military you will lead — a military that must be ready to strike at a moment’s notice in any dark corner of the world. And our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives. (Applause.) [Emphasis added by me.]

To Mr. Bush, however, preemption was an on-off switch. Either he went to war, or he sat around and ignored threats.

Earlier in 2002, Mr. Bush had already threatened a few countries with preemptive attack. One of those countries was North Korea. In his State of the Union address, Mr. Bush swaggered:

Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction.  Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th.  But we know their true nature.  North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom.

Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror.  The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade.  This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens — leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children.  This is a regime that agreed to international inspections — then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.  By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger.  They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred.  They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States.  In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction.  We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack.  (Applause.) And all nations should know:  America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation’s security.

We’ll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side.  I will not wait on events, while dangers gather.  I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer.  The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.  (Applause.)

It all seemed so easy in 2002 with Saddam Hussein well within Mr. Bush’s sights.

After Saddam Hussein was unceremoniously deposed, Tehran and Pyongyang undoubtebly took notice. It must have been obvious to anyone that the only way to defend against a preemptive strike from the United States would be to acquire a nuclear deterrent. Unsurprisingly both Iran and North Korea accelerated their quest for a nuclear weapon after the fall of Baghdad. And so we find ourselves here today, with one of the surviving members of the "axis of evil" having just detonated a nuclear weapon and the other working hard to develop a weapon.

However, Mr. Bush’s dangerous rhetoric and North Korea’s perceived need for a nuclear deterrent are only half the story. Mr. Bush and his neo-conservative coterie decided early on to break off all negotiations with North Korea and undermine any effort at calming the hostility between the two nations. Soon after taking office Mr. Bush undermined his own Secretary of State and South Korea’s Sunshine Policy by discontinuing Clinton Administration negotiations with North Korea:

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday the United States has "a lot to offer" North Korea if it curbs its missile development and missile export programs.

Powell said future U.S. contacts with Pyongyang would become clearer after South Korean President Kim Dae-jung’s visit.

"We do plan to engage with North Korea to pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off," Powell told a State Department news conference.

"Some promising elements were left on the table and we will be examining those elements," he added.

However, another senior administration official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, struck a much more negative and cautionary note. The official said President George W. Bush had not yet decided whether to restart the missile discussions.

The administration also doubts whether a landmark 1994 nuclear deal with North Korea can be implemented, the official said.

Toward the end of his term, Clinton made what officials said was significant progress toward an agreement under which North Korea would have abandoned its long-range missile programs in return for foreign help with launching North Korean satellites. But he ran out of time to clinch a deal.

Mr. Bush was the new sheriff in town. He was going to get tough. And toughness to Bush apparently meant that he would not talk to anyone he did not like:

The Bush administration’s tough talk on North Korea’s communist regime has raised concerns in Asia about regional security.

One Japanese editorial warned that "treating Pyongyang like an enemy will ensure that it becomes one."

…

However, Li Xiguang, director of international communications at Beijing’s elite Qinghua University, urged Bush to continue the policies of his predecessor.

"It would be counterproductive to change the policy of engaging North Korea," Li said. "If that changes, the North could react with hostility and become more confrontational and defensive."

The general sentiment seems to be that Bush should try to capitalize on the Clinton administration’s progress toward curbing the North’s long-range missile threat.

…

Bush told Kim that the United States will not immediately resume Clinton-era talks with North Korea, which achieved a moratorium on its missile testing in September 1999 in exchange for the partial lifting of sanctions. 

Instead of negotiations, Mr. Bush ratcheted up the rhetoric. The situation deteriorated significantly when, citing provocation from the United States, North Korea withdrew from the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT) in January 2003. The Bush Administration promptly criticized North Korea for having "thumbed its nose" at the world by unilaterally withdrawing from the NPT. There apparently was no sense in Washington that its criticisms were somewhat hypocritical since the Bush Administration unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty a couple of years ago.

The farce of the six-party talks followed with the United States working actively to sabotage any hint of progress. The failure of diplomacy has brought us to today.

It is not certain that the United States could have prevented a nuclear North Korea if Mr. Bush had chosen a more nuanced approach to foreign policy. However, the course Mr. Bush did follow was almost certain to have created a nuclear armed North Korea. Unfortunately, Mr. Bush in his arrogance has ensured that we are no longer dealing with a possibility of nuclear weapons in the Korean peninsula, we are dealing with a reality.

Now that we are here, make no mistake that we are on the brink of war. We are dealing with the reality of the world’s most isolated regime with nuclear weapons on the one hand and the world’s most powerful nation operating under a foreign policy doctrine that makes war almost inevitable on the other. A paranoid regime in North Korea has now acquired a nuclear deterrent. Washington will be tempted to try to destroy that deterrent. Any miscalculation by either party will likely lead to an overwhelming North Korean conventional attack on South Korean cities as well as American forces stationed on the DMZ. Of course the possibility also exists that a nuclear strike may also occur on the Korean peninsula either by the United States or by North Korea if it is able to find a means of delivery and if it feels that the survival of the regime is under threat.

There is also now no good diplomatic option. Where diplomacy would have been useful before today’s event, the Bush Administration ensured that only belligerence prevailed. The Bush Administration, if it stays true to its nature, will further squeeze the North Korean regime. Kim Jong Il is likely to react predictably by escalating further. In the game of escalation, the Dear Leader will find that he has a like minded foe in Washington.

I am afraid that the best case scenario might be a nuclear arms race in the Korean peninsula and Japan. With Washington on a hair trigger and television reports of the Japanese military already on the move, war however seems the most likely outcome.

Today Kim Jong Il preempted George W Bush. No doubt that the cowboy in Washington will want to swagger in response. We are living in a very dangerous world.

On Saturday, the United States and Japan finally got a UN Security Council resolution condemning North Korea. After much tough talk and bluster since North Korea launched ballistic missiles on July 4th, the United States and Japan backpedaled hard to save face at the United Nations. It is an indication of the weakness of the Bush Administration on the world stage that vis-à-vis the most isolated regime on the planet the United States is impotent.

The UN Security Council passed Resolution 1695 condemning North Korea’s missile launches without invoking Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. China had insisted that any resolution with the force of Chapter 7 would be met with a veto. After a week of negotiation, the French and the British brokered a resolution that does not contain reference to Chapter 7, but instead includes the following phrase:

Acting under its special responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security…

Chapter 7 of the UN Charter provides the Security Council the legal authority to act, militarily if necessary, to "maintain or restore international peace and security." Without reference to Chapter 7, a Security Council resolution has about the same force as a UN General Assembly resolution, which is to say none.

Kim Jong Il will feel emboldened after receiving a slap on the wrist for his missile tantrum. Mr. Bush on the other hand has been reduced to nonsensical musings about North Korea - a far cry from the heady days of bravado in the spring of 2001. Last week at a press conference, Mr. Bush had this to say about the Dear Leader:

Look, I don’t know — I don’t know what the man’s intentions are. I don’t know what they are. It’s an interesting question: Is he trying to force us to do something by defying the world? If he wants a way forward, it’s clear. If he wants to have good relations with the world, he’s got to verifiably get rid of his weapons programs like he agreed to do in 1994, stop testing missiles, and there is a way forward. Part of the discussions in September were, here’s a way forward. Here’s a way for — he’s worried about energy, and our partners at the table said, well, here’s an energy proposal for you to consider. And so the choice is his to make.

Clearly Mr. Bush is in need of some face time with Kim Jong Il so that he can look into his soul and find out what the man’s intentions are. It is not surprising that the Bush Administration does not understand North Korea’s intentions, but it is nonetheless quite alarming. It is also a direct consequence of Mr. Bush’s lack of a policy vis-à-vis North Korea.

Mr. Bush has not had a North Korea policy since he unceremoniously disposed of the Clinton Administration’s policy of engagement with the communist nation. In 2001, the new Republican Administration decided that America needed a new tougher policy toward the world and decided to put its blinders on. In doing so, it abandoned significant progress made by the Clinton Administration:

Toward the end of his term, Clinton made what officials said was significant progress toward an agreement under which North Korea would have abandoned its long-range missile programs in return for foreign help with launching North Korean satellites. But he ran out of time to clinch a deal.

The Bush Administration had decided to review (suspend) the Clinton Administration’s North Korea policies in favor of doing nothing. In a somewhat prophetic statement, a senior administration official was quoted at the time:

On the missile talks, the aide said before Bush took office last month: "We made clear to the Clinton administration that it was their decision to go forward and that we would then come back and take a fresh look at the entire policy.

"We don’t have a policy yet on whether we want to restart those discussions." [Emphasis added by me.]

In a sign of what was to come, Colin Powell, the chief American Diplomat, found himself advocating a policy his boss did not subscribe to. On March 6, 2001, Secretary Powell felt that the United States had a North Korea policy based on those of the previous administration:

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday the United States has "a lot to offer" North Korea if it curbs its missile development and missile export programs.

Powell said future U.S. contacts with Pyongyang would become clearer after South Korean President Kim Dae-jung’s visit.

"We do plan to engage with North Korea to pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off," Powell told a State Department news conference.

"Some promising elements were left on the table and we will be examining those elements," he added.

On March 7, 2001, President Bush publicly humiliated Colin Powell by informing the world that the United States did not have a North Korea policy:

"We look forward to at some point in the future having a dialogue with the North Koreans but … any negotiation would require complete verification," Bush told reporters in the Oval Office with Kim at his side.

"Part of the problem in dealing with North Korea is there’s not very much transparency. We’re not certain as to whether or not they’re keeping all terms of all agreements," Bush added.

Since the decision in 2001 by the Bush Administration to suspend negotiations with North Korea, many experts have urged the United States to reconsider such a head in the sand approach to foreign policy. However, this Administration has always considered diplomacy to be tantamount to appeasement. The Bush Administration did not then, nor does it now, understand that diplomacy and discussions have many purposes. Discussion is not a sign of weakness nor is it appeasement. One major benefit of discussion with your adversary is that it gives you insight into your adversary’s motivations. That insight is essential to a successful foreign policy. Without such insight, Mr. Bush today is confronting a major international crisis without any sense of what North Korea’s motivations are.

In place of diplomacy, the Bush Administration has engaged in a war of words with North Korea that has led to the crisis we face today. Under Mr. Bush’s watch we have seen North Korea withdraw from the NPT, build nuclear weapons, and test fire nuclear capable missiles. Without any coherent policy, the Bush Administration pays lip service to the Six-Party Talks while insisting that the other parties to the talks share the same interests as the United States. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only country which has similar interests as the United States vis-à-vis North Korea is Japan. The other 3 countries, China, Russia and South Korea, have in some cases contrary goals to those of the United States. North Korea’s July 4th missile gambit exposed some of these deep divisions. One rather clear example of the divisions that exist was South Korea’s reaction to Japan’s threat of a pre-emptive strike on North Korea:

South Korea "will strongly react to the Japanese political leaders’ arrogance and outrageous rhetoric that further intensifies the crisis on the Korean Peninsula with dangerous and provocative rhetoric such as ‘pre-emptive strike,"’ Jung said.

The spokesman also accused the Japanese of using the missile tests as "a pretext for becoming a military power."

Jung said the Japanese remarks expose Tokyo’s tendency for aggression, noting Japan used the protection of its nationals on the Korean Peninsula as an excuse for past invasions. The Korean Peninsula was ruled by Japan as a colony from 1910 to 1945.

While the Bush Administration does its best to do nothing, North Korea continues on its march to becoming a regional nuclear power.

Mr. Bush has famously said that he does not do nuance. Diplomacy however is all about nuance. Instead, Mr. Bush has relied on his Doctrine of Preemption to counter threats to the security of the United States. However, as Iraq has rather amply demonstrated, Mr. Bush’s doctrine has been a spectacular failure. The consequence of this grand failure has emboldened adversaries such as North Korea. American diplomacy is at its weakest since World War II and the whole world has taken notice. Mr. Bush has no policy and very few options with regard to North Korea. A toothless UN Security Council resolution is the best American diplomacy can buy these days.

So, while Mr. Bush wonders what the Dear Leader is thinking, North Korea continues to gate crash the Nuclear Club.

 [Crossposted at Taylor Marsh]