I am certainly no fan of Donald Trump, but I am also greatly annoyed at the whole "Never negotiate till the other side surrenders" crowd. They go on and on about how talking to Kim Jong-un, meeting with him, recognizing his government, formally ending the Korean War etc. are immense concessions that should never be made till he gives up his nuclear arsenal.
Eye roll! We've heard this before. We heard it with China. We heard it with Vietnam. We hear it today with Cuba and Iran.
Look, when a government is in power and shows no sign of going anywhere anytime soon, facing up to that fact instead of closing our eyes and hoping that it goes away is not a concession to a hostile power. It is a concession to reality. Unwelcome realities must be dealt with no less than welcome realities.
Despite all the hysterics about opening relations with China and Vietnam, both initiatives went quite well. Symbolic gestures gave way to substantive changes. Lowering tensions preceded, rather than following, an end to an arms race. There is no reason the same could not be done with North Korea.
That being said, I am advocating symbolic concessions only. Certainly any reduction in troop strength in South Korea, or any weakening of our commitment to South Korea's defense should be absolutely off the table. Like disarmament, these would follow, rather than precede, reduction in tensions.
But the insistence that we should demand the complete dismantling of North Korea's nuclear arsenal as a precondition to even a symbolic gesture is simply a continuation of the old policies that didn't work for China or Vietnam in the past and won't work for North Korea today.
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