Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Trump’s Record and the Bolton Effect

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Afghanistan, alliances, America First, Asia-Pacific, Barack Obama, China, Europe, extended deterrence, globalism, Iran, Iran deal, Iraq, Israel, Japan, John Bolton, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Kim Jong Un, Middle East, neoconservatives, North Korea, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Palestinians, Republicans, South Korea, Syria, Trump

With John Bolton now out as President Trump’s national security adviser, it’s a great time to review the Trump foreign policy record so far. My grade? Though disappointing in some important respects, it’s been pretty good. Moreover, Bolton’s departure signals that performance could improve significantly, at least from the kind of America First perspective on which Mr. Trump ran during his 2016 campaign. That’s less because of Bolton’s individual influence than because what his (clearly forced) exist tells us about the President’s relationship with the Republican Party and conservative establishment.

There’s no doubt that the Trump foreign policy record is seriously lacking in major, game-changing accomplishments. But that’s a globalist, and in my view, wholly misleading standard for judging foreign policy effectiveness. As I’ve written previously, the idea that U.S. foreign policy is most effective when it’s winning wars and creating alliances and ending crises and creating new international regimes and the like makes sense only for those completely unaware – or refusing to recognize – that its high degrees of geopolitical security and economic self-reliance greatly undercut the need for most American international activism. Much more appropriate measures of success include more passive goals like avoiding blunders, building further strength and wealth (mainly through domestic measures), and reducing vulnerabilities. (Interestingly, former President Obama, a left-of-center globalist, saltily endorsed the first objective by emphasizing – privately, to be sure – how his top foreign policy priority was “Don’t do stupid s–t.”)     

And on this score, the President can take credit for keeping campaign promises and enhancing national security. He’s resisted pressure from Bolton and other right-of-center globalists to plunge the country much more deeply militarily into the wars that have long convulsed Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq, and seems determined to slash the scale of U.S. involvement in the former – after nineteen years.

He’s exposed the folly of Obama’s approach to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Although Tehran has threatening to resume several operations needed to create nuclear explosives material since Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of the previous administration’s multilateral Iran deal, it’s entirely possible that the agreement contained enough loopholes to permit such progress anyway. Moreover, the President’s new sanctions, their devastating impact on Iran’s economy, and the inability of the other signatories of Obama’s multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to circumvent them have both debunked the former President’s assumption that the United States lacked the unilateral power to punish Iran severely for its nuclear program and ambitions, and deprived Tehran of valuable resources for causing other forms of trouble throughout the Middle East.

Mr. Trump taught most of the rest of the world another valuable lesson about the Middle East when he not only recognized the contested city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but actually moved the U.S. Embassy there. For decades, American presidential contenders from both parties had promised to endorse what many of Israel’s supporters called its sovereign right to choose its own capital, but ultimately backed down in the face of warnings that opinion throughout the Arab world would be explosively inflamed, that American influence in the Middle East would be destroyed, and U.S. allies in the region and around the world antagonized and even fatally alienated.

But because the President recognized how sadly outdated this conventional wisdom had become (for reasons I first explained here), he defied the Cassandras, and valuably spotlighted how utterly powerless and friendless that Palestinians had become. That they’re no closer to signing a peace agreement with Israel hardly reflects an American diplomatic failure. It simply reveals how delusional they and especially their leaders remain.

Nonetheless, Mr. Trump’s Middle East strategy does deserve criticism on one critical ground: missing an opportunity. That is, even though he’s overcome much Congressional and even judicial opposition and made some progress on strengthening American border security, he’s shown no sign of recognizing the vital America First-type insight holding that the nation’s best hope for preventing terrorist attacks emanating from the Middle East is not “fighting them over there” – that is, ever more engagement with a terminally dysfunctional region bound to spawn new violent extremist groups as fast as they can be crushed militarily. Instead, the best hope continues to be preventing the terrorists from coming “over here” – by redoubling border security.

The Trump record on North Korea is less impressive – but not solely or even partly because even after two summits with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, no progress has been made toward eliminating the North’s nuclear weapons or even dismantling the research program that’s created them, or toward objectives such as signing a formal peace treaty to end the Korean War formally that allegedly would pave the way for a nuclear deal. (Incidentally, I’m willing to grant that the peninsula is quieter today in terms of major – meaning long-range – North Korean weapons tests than when the President took office – and that ain’t beanbag.)

Still, the main – and decisive – Trump failure entails refusing to act on his declared instincts (during his presidential campaign) and bolstering American security against nuclear attack from North Korea by withdrawing from the peninsula the tens of thousands of U.S. troops who served as a “tripwire” force. As I’ve explained previously, this globalist strategy aimed at deterring North Korean aggression in the first place by leaving an American president no choice except nuclear weapons use to save American servicemen and women from annihilation by superior North Korean forces.

But although this approach could confidently be counted on to cow the North before Pyongyang developed nuclear weapons of its own capable of striking the United States, and therefore arguably made strategic sense, now that the North has such capabilities or is frighteningly close, such “extended deterrence” is a recipe for exposing major American cities to nuclear devastation. And if that situation isn’t inexcusable enough, the United States is playing such a dominant role in South Korea’s defense largely because the South has failed to field sufficient forces of its own, even though its wealthier and more technologically advanced than the North by orders of magnitude. (Seoul’s military spending is finally rising rapidly, though – surely due at least in part to Trump pressure.) 

Nonetheless, far from taking an America First approach and letting its entirely capable Asian allies defend themselves and incentivizing them plus the Chinese and Russians to deal as they see fit with North Korean nuclear ambitions that are most threatening to these locals, the President seems to be happy to continue allowing the United States to take the diplomatic lead, bear much heavier defense spending burdens than necessary, and incurring wholly needless nuclear risk. Even worse, his strategy toward Russia and America’s European allies suffers the exact same weakness – at best.

Finally (for now), the President has bolstered national security by taken urgently needed steps to fight the Chinese trade and tech predation that has gutted so much of the American economy’s productive sectors that undergird its military power, and that his predecessors either actively encouraged, coddled, or ignored – thereby helping China greatly increase its own strength.

In this vein, it’s important to underscore that these national security concerns of mine don’t stem from a belief that China must be contained militarily in the Asia-Pacific region, or globally, as many globalists-turned-China economic hawks are maintaining. Of course, as long as the United States remains committed to at least counterbalancing China in this part of the world, it’s nothing less than insane to persist in policies that help Beijing keep building the capabilities that American soldiers, sailors, and airmen may one day need to fight.

I’ll be writing more about this shortly, but my main national security concerns reflect my belief that a world in which China has taken the military and especially technological need may not directly threaten U.S. security. But it will surely be a world in which America will become far less able to defend its interest in keeping the Western Hemisphere free of excessive foreign influence, a la the Monroe Doctrine, and in which American national finances and living standards will erode alarmingly.

The question remains, however, of whether a Bolton-less administration’s foreign policy will tilt significantly further toward America First-ism. President Trump remains mercurial enough to make any such forecasting hazardous. And even if he wasn’t, strategic transitions can be so disruptive, and create such short-term costs and even risks, that they’re bound to take place more unevenly than bloggers and think tankers and other scribblers would like to see.

But I see a case for modest optimism: Just as the end of Trump-Russia scandal-mongering and consequent impeachment threat has greatly reduced the President’s need to court the orthodox Republicans and overall conservative community that remain so influential in and with Congress in particular, and throw them some big bones on domestic policy (e.g., prioritizing cutting taxes and ending Obamacare), it’s greatly reduced his need to cater to the legacy Republicans and conservatives on foreign policy.

Not that Mr. Trump has shown many signs of shifting his domestic priorities yet. But I’m still hoping that he learns the (screamingly obvious) lessons of the Republicans’ 2018 midterms losses (e.g., don’t try to take an entitlement like Obamacare away from Americans until you’re sure you can replace it with something better; don’t endorse racist sexual predators like Alabama Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore simply for partisan reasons). It’s still entirely possible that the growing dangers of his remaining globalist policies will start teaching the President similar lessons on the foreign policy front.

Making News: Two New TV Interviews on Video…& More!

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Breitbart.com, China, i24News, John Carney, Kim Jong Un, Liquid Lunch, Making News, manufacturing, Newsmax TV, North Korea, Trade, trade war, Trump, Xi JInPing

I’m pleased to announce that two new videos of recent interviews are now on-line.

The first is the recording of my aforementioned appearance on Newsmax TV‘s Liquid Lunch program last Friday, and covers the U.S.-China trade conflict and the weekend summit between President Trump and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping.  Here’s the link.

Second, I appeared again last night on i24News to analyze both the Trump-Xi trade truce, and Mr. Trump’s historic visit to North Korea and meeting with that country’s dictator Kim Jong Un.  Click here, and press the download button to access it.

Finally, John Carney’s review yesterday on Breitbart.com of recent U.S. manufacturing data quoted my views.  Click here to read.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Real Trump-Kim Summit Danger

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alliances, de-nuclearization, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, sanctions, Trump, Trump Kim summit

I’m still skeptical about the prospects for the upcoming summit between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un – but not mainly for the slew of reasons trotted out by the Never Trump chattering class since this historic meeting began taking shape.

For example, it’s true that the President has little international negotiating experience. But which of the so-called experts expounding endlessly on the summit in recent weeks – especially those who worked in previous U.S. Administrations – has any record of dealing with the North Koreans that can be accurately described as anything else but abject failure? In fact, if Kim is as unconventional (to put it diplomatically) a leader as he’s commonly described, maybe Mr. Trump’s decades of dealing in the dog-eat-dog New York City real estate world will be much more useful background than anything that can be provided by CIA briefing books.

Has the President already handed North Korea an unearned, unreciprocated victory by agreeing to meet with Kim in the first place? This charge assumes that face-to-face talks with an American leader greatly adds to his North Korean counterpart’s legitimacy. But it’s hard to see how. Kim’s rule in North Korea isn’t based on any form of popular consent. Like his father and grandfather, his hold on power owes exclusively on repression. And in terms of global opinion, this indictment leaves two crucial questions unanswered. First, why on earth is Kim’s global image the slightest bit relevant to U.S.-North Korea diplomacy? And second, what thinking person would fundamentally change his or her views on Kim’s stature or record, or whatever criteria is chosen, solely, or to any extent, because he’s photographed side-by-side with a U.S. President?

Will Mr. Trump turn out to be over-anxious for success and agree to a cosmetic or outright bad deal just to boost his ego, or his domestic poll numbers – and Republicans’ chances in this fall’s midterm elections? This concern actually resembles my own principal fear, but my underlying reasons are fundamentally different (and much more coherent) than those of run-of-the-mill Trump critics. And more important, the policy conclusions I draw remain fundamentally different.

The Trump critics seem to define a bad deal as one in which the President makes concrete concessions to North Korea (say, some relaxation of economic sanctions, or the withdrawal of some U.S. military forces) in return for vague or misleading or unenforceable promises by Kim to take some steps to start dismantling his nuclear arsenal. In addition, it’s argued that if this pattern drags on, North Korea could pocket valuable gains (a stronger economy, an improved military position on the Korean peninsula, more time to make more covert progress on its nuclear program) at the expense of the United States and its South Korean and Japanese allies. And don’t forget the alarms expressed at the prospect that, if Mr. Trump concludes he’s been snookered, he’ll angrily cut off the negotiations and – much worse – his administration could resume military threats that eventually, whether intentionally or not, trigger real conflict.

The main problem with the critics’ warnings isn’t that they’re far-fetched. Indeed, they’re all too plausible. Instead, the main problem is that the bulk of the critics have urged North Korea policies that would create many of the same dangers – principally, American agreement to relax the sanctions, and/or to military steps like halting certain exercises condemned as needlessly provocative by the North but essential for maintaining readiness, in exchange for moves by Kim that would fall way short of complete, verifiable de-nuclearization.

In other words, the critics, like the over-anxious Trump of their purported nightmares, seem to be willing to live for quite some time with a North Korea that remains a formidable nuclear power, and with one that might keep on perfecting a weapon that could destroy one or more American cities in the event of a peninsular war. As I’ve explained, this arsenal, along with the ongoing presence of a U.S. tripwire military force, could easily produce a White House decision to enter a war that might result in almost unimaginable damage to the American homeland.

I’m not saying that this terrifying scenario will unfold inevitably. Nor am I completely pessimistic about the stars aligning for success over time – such as Kim’s reported determination to develop North Korea’s primitive economy (for reasons that include a self-interested calculation that more domestic prosperity is his best bet for regime survival), the Trump administration’s promise to maintain its intensified sanctions in the absence of major de-nuclearization progress, and Kim’s possible fear that the administration’s talk about preemptive or preventive war isn’t just bluster.

What I am saying is that the uncertainties are still so great, and the stakes (a nuclear attack on American soil) are so high, that it remains reckless to assume any needless risk to the nation at all. And the best way by far to eliminate needless risk from the Korea nuclear crisis, as I’ve written repeatedly, is to remove American troops from the peninsula and to allow North Korea’s neighbors to deal with its nuclear arsenal however they wish.

Such a withdrawal would remove any rational reason for Kim to attack the United States with his nuclear weapons in the event of a peninsular war. And an American threat to retaliate massively for an attack on its own territory would be almost infinitely more credible than a threat to retaliate for an attack on another country – especially if and when North Korea develops intercontinental nuclear strike capabilities.

The drawbacks of withdrawal should by now be familiar – destabilization and possibly war in East Asia, and a missed opportunity to end finally a frightening, decades-long threat to this region of big populations and economies. But the advantages – which are not nearly familiar enough because the nuclear risks of America’s alliances policies have been obscured from the public for so long – entail minimizing the chances of what would be by orders of magnitude the worst catastrophe in the country’s history. What a tragedy – and indeed scandal – that this question is still open.

Making News: Two New National Podcasts – & More!

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Akron, Breitbart News Daily, China, Kim Jong Un, Making News, NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement, North Korea, Ray Horner Morning Show, Sirius XM Patriot radio, The John Batchelor Show, Trade, Trump, Trump Kim summit, Voice of America, WAKR-AM

I’m pleased to announce that two podcasts of recent radio interviews are on-line.

Here’s a link to the first – my interview Wednesday night on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show on the latest phase in President Trump’s China trade policy.

And here’s a link to the second – an interview early this morning on Breitbart News Daily on Sirius XM Patriot radio on those possible new Trump auto tariffs and their impact on the effort to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Moreover, the video is now on-line of my Wednesday appearance on a Voice of America Chinese-language TV show, during which I tried to explain the Trump China policies to a Chinese audience. My English-language remarks are almost impossible to hear beneath the translator’s voice, but I thought some of you might get a kick out of this segment anyway. Click here to see it.

In addition, I was interviewed later this morning on the new North Korea nuclear crisis developments – including the on-again Trump-Kim Jong Un summit? – on the Ray Horner Morning Show on Akron, Ohio’s WAKR-AM. Unfortunately, WAKR doesn’t post many podcasts.

Even so, keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: North Korea, China, & the (Inevitable) Limits of Diplomacy

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agriculture, China, commodities, diplomacy, energy, Iran, Kim Jong Un, LIbya, Made in China 2025, manufacturing, Muammar el-Qaddafi, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Saddam Hussein, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, tariffs, technology, Trade, trade deficit, tripwire, Trump, Ukraine

Diplomacy has sure taken a beating these last few days. And revealingly, that looks like a good thing.

Let me explain: I have no problem whatever with countries trying to resolve their differences peacefully, through dialogue and compromise. But in the nuclear age, and especially after America’s Vietnam debacle, this age-old concept has turned into a foreign policy magic bullet in the United States – including among the nation’s bipartisan globalist establishment. So the collapse (for now) of plans for a summit between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and the failure so far of the President to make any headway in curbing China’s predatory trade practices, could be welcome developments. For these developments could remind Americans of diplomacy’s limits in promoting U.S. national interests (the overriding priority of the nation’s foreign policy), and how even on crucial issues of war and peace, it can be completely pointless and even dangerously distracting.

On North Korea, there have always been strong grounds for skepticism that negotiations could achieve America’s main objective – the complete elimination of Kim Jong Un’s nuclear weapons. It’s true that Kim has appeared more interested in economic reform than his father or grandfather – who preceded him in power. Therefore, in principle, he would be more responsive to economic carrots and sticks. On the one hand, he might be amenable to surrendering his arsenal in exchange for foreign investment and aid (along with security-related concessions from the United States like formal recognition of his regime, a peace treaty ending the decades-long state of war between Pyongyang and its enemies). On the other hand, he might be more concerned about the impact of the sanctions that President Trump has both broadened and intensified.

Yet it was always difficult to believe that Kim would prize any of these considerations above his regime’s defense against overseas threats, and for these purposes, nuclear weapons are hard to beat. As widely noted, he’s surely been impressed by the gruesome fates of fellow autocrats who gave up their nuclear hopes (Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi) or who hadn’t the chance to develop these weapons (Iran’s Saddam Hussein).

Further, Kim also is no doubt aware of a third recent example of a country paying heavily for signing away its nuclear weapon status: Ukraine. In 1994, that nation agreed to dismantle the large nuclear force stationed on its soil when it was part of the Soviet Union, and left there after the USSR’s demise. In return, it received security promises from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia that its territorial integrity would be respected. A quarter century later, Moscow has seized effective control over much of the country’s eastern half.

Moreover, if a Trump-Kim summit and follow-on negotiations resulted in a compromise that left the North with some kind of nuclear arsenal, this “victory” could eventually become disastrous for America and its homeland. For there would be no guarantee that Kim would have truly abandoned his family’s goal of dominating the Korean peninsula through nuclear-aided conquest or intimidation of the South. And as long as large U.S. ground forces remained in South Korea, the outbreak of war would still threaten to draw Washington into a conflict with a foe capable of hitting its territory with nuclear warheads.

That still-live prospect should be an awfully powerful reason for switching to a strategy I’ve long advocated – ditching diplomacy, withdrawing the U.S. troops in South Korea that expose the United States to nuclear danger, and permitting North Korea’s neighbors to handle Kim and his nuclear ambitions any way they wish.

Trade diplomacy with China doesn’t threaten to turn an American city into a glowing ruin. But it’s all too likely to result in open-ended talks that do as little to combat the economic and security threats created by Beijing’s trade predation as previous negotiations involving President Trump’s predecessors. As I’ve recently written, even if his administration could come up with a coherent set of priorities, adequately verifying any Chinese compliance with U.S. positions is a pipe dream.

But this latest American attempt at trade diplomacy faces two other seemingly insuperable obstacles. First, the President’s objective of reducing the U.S.’ massive bilateral trade deficit with China appears to neglect the makeup of this deficit – which matters more than its size. Specifically, his proposals to date envision narrowing the trade gap mainly by boosting American exports of farm products and energy to China.

Both sectors of the U.S. economy are obviously important. But neither can become a major driver of sustainable American prosperity, because they’re essentially involved in producing commodities – which have never added nearly as much value to national economy as manufactures. That’s why developing countries invariably view a transition from agriculture to industry as the key to their hopes for rising living standards, and why even wealthy energy producers like Saudi Arabia have resolved to focus more on manufacturing and other higher value activities.

And P.S. – that’s no doubt why the Chinese clearly consider this American demand the most appealing on the Trump agenda.

As for the intertwined threats of continued and rampant Chinese intellectual property theft, and of China’s master plan to lead the world in a wide array of “industries of the future” (the Made in China 2025 program), U.S. tariffs on the goods and services these policies already enable Beijing to produce and export could well deal its ambitions a major blow. And clearly, that’s the Trump administration’s aim.

But if so, why negotiate over these matters? The United States has made reasonably clear what it wants China to do. And it’s declared its intent to retaliate with trade curbs if China balks. If the Trump administration is serious about this approach, and confident that it will succeed, what is there left to talk about? Either the Chinese accede (in which case, as I wrote this week, towering verification challenges would remain), or they dig in their heels and the tariffs follow.

Further talks, unless they’re simply aimed at clarifying American positions, can only muddy the waters and encourage endless Chinese foot-dragging – including regularly throwing Washington a few crumbs of market share – by telegraphing a Trump reluctance to pull the trigger. All the while, the Chinese tech prowess ostensibly alarming Americans across the political spectrum will keep growing.

And as with the case of the Korean crisis, a far better American approach would be disengagement – i.e., a series of measures aimed at reversing the disastrously wrongheaded twenty-year U.S. effort to more closely link the nation’s fate to a country with which mutually beneficial commerce was never possible. The Trump administration has already taken some important steps in this direction. Chiefly, it has greatly tightened restrictions on Chinese takeovers of economic assets in the United States. And the President’s threatened tariffs have induced some factories to move from China to the United States. But as previously indicated, the administration also seems bent on helping U.S. companies invest more in the Chinese economy, which can only further widen the trade deficit and hand China more cutting edge American technology. And it’s given no hint of a comprehensive strategy to bring manufacturing supply chains now concentrated in China back to the United States.

The latter task, in particular, will entail a long-term effort – not exactly the American governing system’s strong suit these days. And success will also depend on thoroughgoing domestic policy reform. (See this article for one sensible list.) But compared with the apparent belief that, over any policy-relevant time frame, China’s will become an economy compatible with America’s, it’s the height of realism.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Trump-Kim Summit is a Spectacular – but Dangerous – Distraction

Tags

Barack Obama, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, nuclear buildup, nuclear deterrence, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, preventive strike, South Korea, Trump

The more the circumstances surrounding the North Korea nuclear crisis change, the more they remain fundamentally the same – and that includes the dramatic recent news that President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un have decided to hold the first ever meeting between the top leaders of the two countries presumably to energize efforts to reach some kind of negotiated solution. As a result, it’s still the case, as I’ve argued repeatedly, that America’s only sane course of action is not to plunge even more deeply into the potentially deadly affairs of this far-off peninsula. It’s to disengage, especially militarily, and let North Korea’s big, wealthy neighbors deal with Pyongyang’s nuclear forces any way they wish.

Before the historic announcement of the Trump-Kim summit – which is far from certain actually to be held – the case for U.S. disengagement was growing more compelling by the day. The North’s rapid progress toward building a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike targets in the continental United States meant that America’s decades-old strategy of deterring Northern aggression against the South had become dangerously obsolete. Before North Korea had reached this stage, this U.S. defense guarantee was risk-free for the American homeland. Because Pyongyang could pose no threat to the United States itself, Washington could even safely afford to station nearly 30,000 combat troops directly in harm’s way in South Korea literally to trap a President into using nuclear weapons to defend the South against attack from the North and its superior non-nuclear military. And precisely because of America’s nuclear weapons monopoly, the promise was supremely credible.

With that monopoly nearly gone, the tables are turning completely. Once the North gains reasonably reliable intercontinental nuclear attack capability, America’s policy will become one of risking the complete destruction of U.S. cities for the security of another country – and a relatively unimportant one at that. And since even the landing of a single warhead one such a target would create a catastrophe never even remotely approached in American history, the current U.S. strategy will become completely non-credible. Even worse, however: As long as such a large American military force remains in South Korea, a U.S. President still may have no real choice but to proceed down the nuclear road – or accept mass American military casualties inflicted by a North Korean invasion.

It’s entirely possible that the big new twist in this story could wind up bringing the United States (and South Korea and East Asia in general) the best of all possible worlds: a verifiably denuclearized North and the preservation of American security alliances that Washington has long prized (with little evidence to be sure) as guarantors of decisive American influence in this economically vibrant region. President Trump’s stance toward the North is indeed a striking contrast to the can-kicking Obama posture of “strategic patience,” and a case can be made that the new administration’s combination of stronger military threats and economic sanctions has convinced the North that its historic truculence and defiance has become too risky. In this vein, it’s also possible that, as erratically as he’s often acted, Kim is a North Korean leader with a difference – specifically, one who significantly values his country’s economic well-being and who might be willing to trade some regained access to the world economy for his nuclear arsenal.

Sadly, it’s at least as easy to make the case that Kim will never give up his nuclear weapons (because he views them as his best guarantor of survival given the United States’ recent record of miltarily deposing other despots like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi), and that a U.S. administration ardently desiring the semblance of diplomatic victory will accept a compromise that leaves at least much of Kim’s nuclear arsenal in place, that provides valuable economic support for his regime, and that leaves at least many of the American forces in harm’s way in Korea. But this outcome would simply leave the United States in the same position as today – hostage to events in a region retaining far too many powder keg characteristics, and vulnerable to entrapment in a nuclear war if its reading of Kim and his ultimate intentions isn’t largely accurate.

Alternatively, President Trump could well continue insisting on full, verifiable denuclearization by the North, end or suspend negotiations if he’s persuaded that he’s getting conned, tighten the sanctions further in the hope that they’ll ultimately push Kim to accept U.S. terms – and even resume talk of preventive attack to (try to) make sure that the North never finishes building nuclear weapons that can be used against the America’s homeland or any of its territories, or simply to coerce greater cooperation from the North. Of course, this outcome would also leave the United States in substantially the same perilous position as at present.

As a result, the only way to drive down the risk of nuclear attack from North Korea to an acceptable level – and to enable Washington to run this risk in the first place as a matter of choice and not necessity (in order to save the troops deployed in the South) – is to pull those troops out ASAP, or by some date certain.

As I’ve noted, continued nuclear progress could still bring North Korea the ability to attack the United States with these weapons. But with the United States playing no military role in his backyard, why would it do so? Moreover, although in these circumstances an American promise to defend the South with nuclear weapons lacks would lack needed credibility (because of America’s own vulnerability), an American promise to defend itself with these devices would be supremely credible.

U.S. disengagement would indeed leave North Korea’s neighbors with many of these dangerous dilemmas. But because they’re neighbors, they have far greater stakes in dealing with them successfully than the distant United States. And because they’re among the world’s leading powers (China, Japan, and Russia, as well as South Korea), they surely have ample capabilities, or at least potential, to meet the North Korea challenge.

Are they guaranteed to succeed? Absolutely not. In fact, as supporters of the U.S. policy status quo keep insisting, an American withdrawal could destabilize the region, and even trigger conflict. But the real choices facing the United States are not between the good and the bad, but between the bad and the worse. And when the worse carries any significant possibility of a nuclear attack on American soil, the call shouldn’t even be close.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Keeping an Eye on the North Korea Ball

Tags

alliances, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, Trump

It’s all too understandable that the stunning announcement of a possible summit between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has triggered a torrent of comment and speculation about a series of critical details. And they’re all important, including:

>identifying the exact preconditions;

>figuring out how to verify that North Korea is abiding by them;

>determining whether more groundwork should have been laid at lower government levels by both sides before the leaders meet in person;

>evaluating whether Pyongyang’s interest in talks differs from previous such offers;

>more specifically, assessing whether Kim’s move stems from offensive considerations (like splitting the U.S.-South Korea alliance) or defensive (seeking relief from sanctions that may be starting to bite deeply);

>mapping out a strategy for talks assuming that the summit doesn’t produce a comprehensive agreement; and deciding how to foster genuine North Korean denuclearization.

Nonetheless, none of these issues should distract American leaders from what remains their overriding priority – realizing that the North’s major progress toward developing nuclear weapons that can strike the United States has fundamentally changed America’s paramount interest in the region.

As I’ve written in many previous posts, before Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program reached this stage, it was reasonable (though not without major dangers) for the United States to focus on deterring a North Korean conventional military attack on South Korea, and to stick tens of thousands of American troops in harm’s way on the peninsula to convince the North that any such move would trigger a devastating U.S. nuclear response. The simple reason: This strategy posed no risk to the American homeland.

Now that North Korea apparently is on the verge of being able credibly to threaten the United States with nuclear attack, America’s ongoing strategy is exposing the nation to one of the worst catastrophes imaginable, and for stakes that to me are impossible to justify – the security of a medium-sized country located halfway around the world. Unless you think Kim ultimately hopes to conquer all of East Asia, or bring it under his sway? Or even the Western Hemisphere?

That’s why I keep insisting that the only sensible move for the United States is to pull the troops out, let the wealthy, powerful countries of the region deal with North Korea however they wish, and thereby completely remove any plausible reason for Kim even to threaten nuclear weapons use against the United States, much less follow through if a conflict breaks out.

In fairness, the more serious threat evidently alarming supporters of the American policy status quo is that such a U.S. withdrawal from the scene is that Asia-Pacific countries lose faith in various U.S. defense guarantees it’s enjoyed for decades, look to China to rein in Kim and maintain peace and stability in the region, and let China write the rules for doing business in this economically dynamic area in ways that largely shut out America.

The obvious rejoinders are:

>It’s already excruciatingly difficult for many American companies and entire industries to compete satisfactorily in the region’s often highly protectionist economies – indeed, for decades, Washington has permitted these inequities to persist precisely out of the (bizarre) fear that pressing for genuinely free trade would antagonize these allies and protectorates; 

>whoever sets the framework for trade and other forms of commerce the region, most of its economies will need to access the U.S. market to sustain the exports that have fueled so much of their growth. So (as always) Washington will have all the leverage it needs in economic diplomacy, and will simply need to start using it; and

>however important economic interests are (and I’d be the last to belittle them), it’s unimaginable that, if the security of the entire nation is not at risk in a given situation (which it clearly need not be in the current Korean crisis), any American objectives even begin to compare with the imperative of preventing the nuclear destruction of any major U.S. cities. And if crucial American economic interests can only be protected satisfactorily by courting such nuclear risks, then the country urgently needs a new approach to economics and business.

Incidentally, the one aspect of the apparent (and we need to underscore the continuing uncertainties here) terms under which the summit will take place that deserves greater attention has to do with the seeming North Korean pledge to halt missile testing. I’ve worried that the summit and any subsequent talks could proceed while enabling the North to continue perfecting its nuclear capabilities. For example, despite North Korea’s apparent promise to halt all nuclear-related tests, it doesn’t seem possible to verify that Kim’s scientists have stopped trying to master challenges such as affixing a miniaturized nuclear warhead onto a missile (though reportedly, American intelligence officials believe they’re pretty darned close).

But a missile test freeze at this time does seem especially valuable, given how close Pyongyang appears to be to being able to deliver these weapons across oceans. More such testing is absolutely essential to creating a weapon that could accomplish this goal with high confidence, which presumably (though with North Korea, you never know) Kim would desperately want in a crisis. And verifying a test freeze is pretty easy. The missiles either come out of their silos or they don’t.

So since that’s the North Korea capability that the United States needs most to worry about by far, Pyongyang’s apparent commitment on this front could buy America valuable time. Nonetheless, nuclear risk would remain for the United States, and for reasons that no one taking seriously the principle of “America First” – or anyone other American with their head screwed on right – should tolerate. As a result, I’d still much rather wash America’s hands of this mess and let the locals deal with it.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Can America Finally Stop Playing Uncle Sucker on North Korea?

Tags

alliances, allies, America First, China, core deterrence, deterrence, extended deterrence, Kim Jong Un, Moon Jae-in, North Korea, Northeast Asia, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, sanctions, South Korea, Ted Galen Carpenter, The National Interest, tripwire, Trump

What comes after “patently absurd” – and maybe masochistically so? Whatever the phrase, it’s what would perfectly describe the point reached by U.S. policy toward North Korea and its nuclear forces over the last week. And the developments responsible are making it clearer than ever that, without further delay, President Trump needs to shift his Korean peninsula policy focus to getting the tens of thousands of American troops and their families stationed there far out of harm’s way.

First, South Korea’s newish President Moon Jae-in has once again just reminded anyone willing to listen that his top priority isn’t the declared U.S. imperative of eliminating North Korea’s nuclear forces – and in a verifiable way. It’s avoiding any kind of conflict in Korea, and counting on the combination of America’s own nuclear and conventional military forces to accomplish that goal.

Given the likely horrific costs of even a conventional conflict on the peninsula, that’s completely understandable on his part. In fact, if I were Moon, that’s what I’d be doing. And this need explains his enthusiastic response to a pretty modest (even by North Korean standards) diplomatic initiative from dictator Kim Jong-un. It also explains the South’s long-time failure to build armed forces able to handle the North’s armies on their own. Far better to rely on the more powerful threat posed to the North by U.S. nuclear forces to deter the North from even contemplating an attack. And far cheaper, too!

The problem is that whereas Moon’s strategy would have been acceptable in the period before North Korea developed nuclear weapons able to hit the American homeland, those days are either gone, or nearly gone. As a result, his strategy now poses completely unacceptable risks for the United States.

Not that Moon may not be entirely right in believing that a little more patience and a little more flexibility from Seoul and especially Washington can resolve the nuclear crisis peacefully. But what if he’s wrong, and North Korea simply uses any delay (and especially any resulting relief from economic sanctions) to make further nuclear weapons progress – including building more, improving their performance, and hiding them more effectively?

In that case, the odds rise that something goes wrong in this powder keg region and fighting breaks out after all. And since a conflict could easily result in North Korea destroying a major American city or two with its nuclear weapons, those odds are way too high for any sensible U.S. leader to accept. Even worse, as I’ve written previously, the American troops are stationed in South Korea, right near the border with the North, precisely to force a president to unsheathe U.S. nukes and risk retaliation in kind from the North. Can we all agree that American decisions to use nuclear weapons and run these risks should always be a matter of choice and not necessity? (For an excellent discussion of the dangers of such “tripwire” forces, see this first of three articles on the subject by the excellent foreign policy analyst – and my good friend – Ted Galen Carpenter.)

That’s precisely the truly vital U.S. goal that pulling the American troops out will accomplish – along with eliminating any rational need for Kim Jong-un even to consider using nuclear weapons against the vastly superior United States. Special bonus: A pledge from Washington to use nuclear weapons to prevent attack on its own soil (which political scientists call “core deterrence”) is infinitely more credible than a pledge to use these arms to protect another country (which is termed “extended deterrence”).

Once this unnecessary and unacceptable American vulnerability is removed, Washington should wish the South Koreans well with whatever diplomacy, or combination of diplomacy and a hedging military buildup, they wish to pursue.

Ditto for the policies of Northeast Asia’s other powerful countries, which brings us to the second reason for an American military withdrawal from Korea. Two of the peninsula’s neighbors – China and Russia – have taken indirectly free-riding off the U.S. nuclear pledge to South Korea to new heights. In recent weeks, both have been credibly accused of secretly shipping oil to the Kim Jong-un dictatorship in violation of UN sanctions that they both supported. (See, e.g., here and here.)

Breaking international commitments is hardly praiseworthy, but the obvious implication is that China and Russia are both OK with the status quo on the Korean peninsula. They may even be enjoying it – in the sense of the crisis fraying American nerves and tying down American forces. Or Beijing and Moscow may be struggling to prevent damaging fall-out from a North Korean economic collapse.

Either of these also would be perfectly reasonable judgments, and the Russians and Chinese should feel completely free to handle the North however they wish – maybe in tandem with South Korea, or some UN initiative. But only if the American troops are gone.

In this vein, especially interesting was this piece in The National Interest, which portrays Northeast Asia as a region marked by growing economic cooperation among major powers that historically have often been at each other’s throats. If so, why is the United States, located thousands of miles away, bearing such outsized risks for preserving peace – and the chances that the region could flourish?

The author, a professor at the U.S.’ Naval War College, seems to be saying, “Let Northeast Asia be Northeast Asia”. That sounds great to me – and like an idea that’s entirely compatible with “America First.”

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Never-Trumpism Goes Off the Deep End on Korea

Tags

deterrence, Jeffrey Lewis, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, Trump, Washington Post

Since I’ve made my living through writing of various kinds, and have been blogging furiously here for the last few years, I’m not often at a loss for words. This morning was (briefly) one of those exceptions, when I began reading a Washington Post Outlook article titled “This is how nuclear war with North Korea would unfold.” My verbal paralysis came not from the military details of the scenario presented by prominent arms control specialist Jeffrey Lewis. It came from the author’s disgraceful effort to pin much of the blame for the nightmare scenario he lays out on President Trump. The only word I literally could come up with was “unspeakable.”

At least Lewis didn’t portray Mr. Trump as an unhinged leader who, out of a simple fit of pique, decided needlessly to trigger a disastrous nuclear exchange that winds up killing millions on both sides of the Pacific. But for being subtler and (arguably) more sophisticated, this example of Trump Derangement Syndrome was all the more insidious.

Specifically, according to the author, it’s completely legitimate to suppose that, at a key point in the escalation of hostilities on the Korean peninsula, the president will turn a fraught situation into an unprecedented and nearly irretrievable disaster. How? With “an idle Twitter threat” that convinces North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un that both the United States and South Korea will use the unfolding conflict “as a pretext for the invasion he had wanted all along.” His response? He fires some of his own nuclear weapons “against U.S. forces in South Korea and Japan” and “slaughters” them “as they slept in their barracks or as they arrived at ports and airfields.”

Shortly afterwards, Lewis’ scenario continues, in the penultimate blunder of this tragedy, the Trump administration ignores the intercontinental North Korean nuclear-armed missiles still at Kim’s disposal, and tries to decapitate his regime and defang these forces with a conventional attack that, however massive, was too weak to accomplish its mission. In retaliation, Kim launches these missiles at the United States, and enough of them hit their targets to kill nearly 1.5 million Americans.

Whether you’re a Never Trump-er or not, you have to acknowledge two related flaws that are not only fatal, but completely irresponsible to overlook. The first is that even Lewis recognizes that, in order to look credible, the speculative exercise he describes needs to start with actions and miscalculations by the North and South Koreans, for which Mr. Trump couldn’t possibly be held responsible. The only way he can figure out how to blame the president for a dramatic worsening of the situation is to hide behind a charge from his own creations – fictional “surviving members of the [South Korean] Moon administration [who] insist that things would have been fine had President Trump not picked up his smartphone” and tweeted.

Second, Lewis seems to think, a la these South Korean officials, that following South Korean retaliatory missile strikes on North Korean air defense systems and “select leadership targets throughout North Korea,” there was any significant chance that nuclear weapons would remain sheathed.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t recommend that anyone take the time to read this kind of intellectually dishonest claptrap. But Lewis’ exercise in slander does usefully reinforce one point about the Korean crisis that I’ve been making for years – and in fact the most important point for any American: The only reason that the United States could become sucked into a war with nuclear potential on the Korean peninsula – and thus expose its own cities to the unprecedented disaster of nuclear attack – is that tens of thousands of American troops and their families are still sitting directly in harm’s way.

During the decades when the United States could destroy North Korea with nuclear weapons and the North could not place millions of Americans at risk with its own nukes, this strategy could be defended as a reasonable gamble capable of deterring an attack by the North on South Korea – by making North Korea’s nuclear destruction inevitable. Now that the North can pose such a threat to the American homeland, this strategy unconscionably places American cities in North Korea’s nuclear cross-hairs. Worse, it achieves this result not to defend the United States itself, but to defend a South Korea amply wealthy enough to mount its own successful conventional defense.

The policy conclusion that must be drawn couldn’t be more obvious: Whatever you think of President Trump, the only way to remove this North Korean threat is to get U.S. forces out of this tinderbox immediately, if not sooner. The longer they remain the longer Kim has any reason to even threaten, much less attack, the United States if events, as is all too likely, start spinning out of control.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The North Korea Credibility Gap at The Atlantic

Tags

Cold War, deterrence, fact-checking, Kim Jong Un, Kori Schake, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Peter Beinart, preventive war, The Atlantic, Trump, Uri friedman

The Atlantic has long been one of America’s most important magazines, so we all have a stake in doing what we can to keep its quality as high as possible. And it’s in that spirit, that I offer the magazine’s editors this advice: If you’re going to keep running pieces on the North Korea nuclear weapons crisis, make sure that your authors read your own previous coverage of the North Korea nuclear weapons crisis. That way, you’ll avoid embarrassments like that resulting from recent posts by contributing editors Peter Beinart and Kori Schake, and by staff writer Uri Friedman.

According to both Beinart and Schake, President Trump’s positions on North Korea depart dramatically from those of his predecessors. The main reason? He’s considering launching preventive strikes aimed at destroying North Korea’s nuclear arsenal before it can be used against America’s allies in Asia, or against the United States itself.

In Beinart’s words, Mr. Trump’s mulling of this action, which aims “not at stopping an imminent North Korean attack, but at stopping North Korea from gaining the means to launch such an attack” is “the equivalent of shooting a man because he’s on his way to the store to purchase a pistol or because he’s at a firing range checking to see if it works.”

As such, his stance is both “something that Americans once considered monstrous” and “barbaric,” as well as an option rejected by Cold War presidents “while Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong—two leaders every bit as brutal and rhetorically chilling as Kim Jong Un—developed nuclear weapons. Instead, America’s leaders responded with deterrence.”

As Schake puts it, Mr. Trump’s suggestions that preventive war is on the table as a U.S. option ignore the reality that “the constraint on Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, is the same one he faces. That constraint is the 30 million South Koreans and 130,000 Americans living within artillery and rocket range of North Korea’s conventional forces. Trump’s predecessors weren’t being nice to Pyongyang; they were recognizing that the risks of preventative war to remove the North Korean threat aren’t worth starting a war that will inevitably incur ghastly damage.”

My point here isn’t to debate whether these assertions are true. It’s to point out that, just a few months before these pieces came out, folks who follow foreign policy closely may well have read the following statement in a major magazine: “Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all considered preemptive military strikes against North Korea’s nuclear sites….”

And where did this statement appear? In an article by Atlantic staff writer Friedman.

Friedman also made clear that all three former presidents rejected this option – although his account makes no mention of philosophical principles or a more narrowly based refusal to risk causing mass casualties in this particular instance.

He may be wrong, too. But don’t Beinart and Schake read Friedman? Doesn’t he read Beinart and Schake? Didn’t anyone on The Atlantic‘s staff notice the stark contradiction? Indeed, what happened to the magazine’s fact-checking operation? According to this article, it still existed as of 2012 – and was incredibly rigorous. Has it been phased out? Is it gone completely?

The Atlantic continues to publish enough valuable content that I’ll keep monitoring its website and reading many articles and posts. I’d recommend it to RealityChek readers and everyone else, too. But here’s something else I’d recommend – read these regulars, at least, with a little more than the usual healthy skepticism.