Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why Kissinger Comes Up Short on North Korea

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alliances, China, East Asia-Pacific, foreign policy establishment, Henry Kissinger, Japan, missiles, North Korea, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, realism, South Korea, The Wall Street Journal

Henry Kissinger’s plan – or at least outline of a plan – to resolve the North Korea crisis is out. And even though the 94 (94!)-year old former Secretary of State and presidential national security adviser has not held public office in decades, you should pay attention because you can bet American leaders in the Executive Branch and Congress are. So are foreign governments (many of which, including China, Kissinger has made millions – at least – “consulting”for).

Kissinger’s approach, laid out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last Friday, is definitely a cut above the usual (often dangerously misleading) drivel that most commentators have been issuing since North Korea recently demonstrated dramatic and unexpected progress toward being able to hit the U.S. homeland with a nuclear-armed missile. But since Kissinger is a creature of the foreign policy establishment that keeps clinging to an obsolete Korea strategy that is now needlessly exposing the United States to nuclear attack, his proposals ultimately fail to promote and defend America’s interests first, or even to acknowledge the deep splits that must no longer be papered over between U.S. needs and South Korean needs.

The strongest argument Kissinger makes, as I see it, is the suggestion that there’s only one way of persuading China to exert enough pressure on North Korea to achieve Pyongyang’s de-nuclearization, or to start its regime down that road. It’s emphasizing to Beijing that an increasingly powerful nuclear North Korea will inevitably lead other countries to follow suit, and place China in the middle of a ring of nuclear-armed neighbors – many of which are hardly friendly. In other words, Kissinger is identifying an especially compelling reason for China to conclude (finally) that its Korea bottom line must include defanging the North – and quickly, not one of these days.

A public statement of this reasoning also matters because it signals Kissinger’s agreement that preventing nuclear proliferation in Asia may need to take a back seat in U.S. Korea policy to the status quo/establishment position that the United States must bear the main costs and risks (including nuclear risks) of handling North Korea. Not that I doubt the dangers of a regional nuclear arms race. But if that’s the price to be paid for minimizing and possibly eliminating a nuclear to the United States itself, it’s a price that’s a clear bargain. So it’s gratifying to read that Kissinger looks to be in agreement. 

But Kissinger never explains why North Korea would relent absent the kinds of truly comprehensive and strictly enforced economic sanctions whose importance he appears to belittle or dismiss altogether. Instead, he appears to believe that a joint Sino-American statement conveying strong bilateral agreement on the peninsula’s future “would bring home to Pyongyang its isolation and provide a basis for the international guarantee essential to safeguard its outcome.” Unfortunately, nothing publicly known about the North Korean regime indicates that it’s prepared to substitute paper guarantees of its survival for the protection provided by a nuclear arsenal.

Similarly, Kissinger signals support for a solution that would leave Korea divided as at present, but that would trade off de-nuclearization in the North for a permanent ban on reintroducing American nuclear weapons to South Korea (which were removed by former President George H.W. Bush in 1991) and an international agreement prohibiting Seoul from developing its own nuclear arms. But in addition to the “paper promises” problem, Kissinger’s proposal appears to forget that nuclear weapons from anywhere have been included in strategies to defend South Korea in the first place stem from the need to offset the belligerent North’s conventional superiority – which it presumably would still enjoy. So a dangerous military imbalance would be left on the peninsula.

But my biggest complaint about Kissinger’s ideas is the apparent refusal to consider my own favored option – a U.S. military pullout from South Korea (and possibly Japan) that would deny the North any plausible reason to attack the American homeland, and that would force the powerful and wealthy countries of Northeast Asia, which have the greatest stakes by far in a viable North Korea strategy, to take on this responsibility themselves.

The risk? An entire East Asia-Pacific region that’s profoundly destabilized, and even plunged into conflict. The benefit? A dramatic reduction in the odds that a North Korean nuclear weapon would decimate an American city. Or two. Or three. This is even a close call?

Moreover, a U.S. pullout seems to be taboo to Kissinger because he, along with most of the rest of the foreign policy establishment, perversely appears to view protecting allies as being just as important as protecting the United States. What else could be mean when he warns that certain American policies “may be perceived as concentrating on protecting its own territory, while leaving the rest of Asia exposed to nuclear blackmail….”?

Not to put to fine a point on it, but when the stakes involve preventing nuclear warheads from killing possibly tens of millions of Americans, why on earth shouldn’t the United States be “perceived as concentrating on protecting its own territory”? In fact, any American leader with different priorities should be immediately removed from office and banned for life.

So I continue to admire the force of Henry Kissinger’s intellect, his mastery of a wide range of international issues (except economics), and his command of history. Yet I also continue to view him as a paragon of a peculiarly American species: a so-called diplomatic realist who is anything but.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: That North Korea Nuclear Threat? Time to Buck Up!

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deterrence, foreign policy establishment, missile defense, national security, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Robert E. Kelly, South Korea, The National Interest

Yesterday, I wrote (again) about how America’s foreign policy establishment continues trying to keep the wool over their compatriots’ eyes about how the main U.S. security alliances (especially with South Korea) are exposing the nation to the threat of nuclear attack (in this case, from North Korea). Now I’m wondering if this same (bipartisan) group may start to change tactics. The evidence? An absolutely stupefying post in The National Interest that tries to assure Americans that such an attack wouldn’t really be so bad.

Let me repeat that: A (rightly) respected foreign policy journal has just posted an essay arguing that it’s “risky threat inflation” to believe that North Korea’s nuclear weapons represent an “existential” danger to the United States – i.e., one that could destroy it as a functioning society.

In a literal sense, the author, political scientist Robert E. Kelly, is right. Even when the North Korean dictatorship builds nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the American homeland, the United States would probably survive as a political entity. The main reason, as the author notes, is that for the time being, the North’s arsenal will almost certainly remain too small to land on more than a few targets inside the geographically vast continental 48 states and their “widely dispersed population.” So just as Manhattan withstood the September 11 attack, the nation in more or less its current form could probably withstand a North Korean strike.

But this kind of literalness, of course, is the literalness of children. And nothing makes the terrible truth clearer than Kelly’s own words. For example, he writes that

>“The humanitarian costs of even one nuclear detonation would be enormous, of course, and the national psychological shock would be akin to nothing in U.S. history, bar perhaps the Civil War. But this is not the same thing as hitting the United States hard enough that its society begins to fragment and its government collapse.”

>“Large numbers of civilian casualties, even in the millions, and the loss of several American cities is not existential. Horrible, yes. A dramatic reorientation of American life, absolutely. But not the end of America.”

>“Even Imperial Japan in 1945, after months of punishing U.S. bombing, managed to ride out the nuclear detonations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki without a national breakdown.”

>“Assuming…that North Korea strikes Washington and America’s other large cities, it is not obvious that the United States would then fall into some manner of political anarchy or revolution.”

There is, to be sure, a weird twist to Kelly’s analysis. The “threat inflation” risk that’s principally troubling this South Korea-based analyst is not the kind that would cow Washington enough to prevent U.S. nuclear retaliation against North Korea following an unprovoked Northern strike against American territory. Instead, what he’s worried about is that American leaders could grow so (mistakenly) terrified of the North Korean nukes’ destructive capability that the Trump administration would try to take them out with preemptive airstrikes and thus “ignite a disastrous regional conflict.”

Which means that he’s worried mainly that South Korea and its neighbors would come under destructive attack, not the United States. But the arguments he marshals could certainly be used, at least in theory, to stiffen allegedly flaccid public spines in the event of any kind of U.S.-North Korea showdown. And as I have written repeatedly, such a confrontation would be practically unthinkable were the United States not committed to protect the militarily free-riding South, and worse, were tens of thousands of American troops and their families not deployed right in the line of Korean fire, expressly to deny a President any real choice about using nuclear weapons (and invite retaliation) once they were attacked.

Kelly’s article, however, does have one (unwitting) virtue. His description of the likely devastation from even a smallish North Korea-scale attack should be enough to make any reader wonder what possible upside to defending South Korea could come close to justifying this completely unprecedented kind of downside. The question holds even for those who insist that such an attack is unlikely (because North Korea must know that the United States would respond with an annihilating all-out retaliatory strike) and that therefore the risk is worth running in order to maintain deterrence on the peninsula. And it especially holds for missile defense optimists. For if all of them are wrong, America will suffer literally millions of deaths, countless wounded, long-term radiation poisoning of survivors and the environment, and gargantuan material losses. Even a single warhead penetrating anti-missile systems would wreak virtually unimaginable physical and psychological havoc.

Whether running such risks to deter attack – nuclear or not – on the United States itself is debatable, and although I disagree with them, pacifists and anti-nuclear activists have long made counter-arguments that deserve consideration.

But running such risks to deter attack on another country, whose loss, however terrible, Americans unmistakably could withstand (in spades) strikes me, anyway, as lying far outside the bounds of rationality. At the very least, it demands the type of open, explicit debate that the foreign policy establishment remains determined to avoid. If Kelly’s post brings this debate closer, however unintentionally, I’ll be the first one to thank him.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Establishment’s Korea Nuclear Cover-Up Continues

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alliances, allies, Chicago Council on Global Affairs, East Asia, free-riding, missiles, North Korea, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, polls, South Korea

If a pollster asked respondents a question on the order of “Would you favor the government handing Americans unlimited amounts of money?” without specifying that “it might destroy the economy,” you wouldn’t take it very seriously, would you? In fact, you’d probably (and rightly) condemn the survey as a con job.

And that’s exactly the reaction you should have to a new “finding” by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs that this year, for the first time [since 1990, when the organization began asking the question], “a majority of Americans express support for using US forces to defend South Korea” if it was attacked by North Korea. According to the Council, moreover, this figure has risen sharply since 2015 – from 47 percent to 62 percent.

If you’re a RealityChek regular, you know why this question is fraudulent. It doesn’t tell respondents that North Korea is terrifyingly close to being able to retaliate against such U.S. military involvement by destroying an American city or two with nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles.

In fact, the question doesn’t mention anything about specific consequences for riding militarily to South Korea’s rescue. Even granting that the public realizes that wars are not picnics, the Council’s full phrasing was inexcusably anodyne:

“There has been some discussion about the circumstances that might justify using US troops in other parts of the world. Please give your opinion about some situations. Would you favor or oppose the use of US troops if North Korea invaded South Korea?”

Like the issue was simply being debated in a seminar.

Nor did the Council tell Americans why their country would need to risk blood and treasure to aid South Korea. It’s because, even though the South’s economy is vastly larger than the North’s, and even though the North actions have been threatening for decades, this long-time U.S. protectorate spends a negligible fraction of its wealth on its own defense.

So here’s what the Council should have asked:

“For nearly seventy years, the United States has pledged to defend South Korea militarily from attack by communist North Korea. But this promise was made when it created no risk for the American homeland, when the South was dirt poor, and when Washington feared that communism was on the march worldwide. Now it’s clear the North will very soon be able to launch a successful nuclear attack on the United States if it keeps its promise to the South. Since the alliance was formed, South Korea has skimped on its own defense spending even though it’s become one of the world’s richest countries. And communism is dead as a global military menace. Would you favor or oppose using U.S. troops to defend a free-riding South Korea if the result could be the nuclear destruction of an American city?”

Of course, my phrasing could be toned down. It could also add the argument American trade and other forms of business with economically dynamic East Asia would suffer if major war broke out anywhere in the region (although it’s easy to argue that business with the region has been a big net loser for the American economy), and that so far, the U.S. military presence and commitment have helped keep the peace. And to be fair, the Council didn’t mention any pro-interventionist arguments, either.

But the main point is that it’s hard to imagine any consideration surrounding the decision to intervene in a Korean war remotely comparing with this development: Until recently, Americans could be certain that their own territory would remain unscathed. Now such involvement could kill and maim millions of their compatriots, and turn important metropolitan areas into radioactive wastelands.

As I’ve long written (along with others), the American foreign policy establishment has been so irrationally wed to the country’s alliances that it’s concealed the catastrophic, and sometimes suicidal, (in the case of Europe, where the antagonist has been the Soviet Union and now Russia) dangers they have inevitably created. The only useful information contained in this Chicago Council on Global Affairs Korea finding is that, wittingly or not, this group is participating in the cover-up.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Decent Month & a Long Way to Go for US Trade

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Canada, Census Bureau, China, exports, Germany, imports, Made in Washington trade deficit, Mexico, NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement, recovery, South Korea, Trade, trade deficit, Trump, {What's Left of) Our Economy

America’s goods and services trade deficit decreased by 5.93 percent in June – a second straight sequential decline that resulted in its lowest level ($43.64 billion) since last October. Highlighting the month’s results was an all-time high services exports figure ($65.37 billion). In addition, total exports hit their highest level ($194.37 billion) since the end of 2014, and June goods exports to Mexico ($21.35 billion) were the second greatest total on record, and the merchandise deficit fell on month at its fastest pace (18.28 percent) since July, 2015.

Yet despite these milestones, the total trade deficit for the first half of the year ($276.60 billion) was the highest six-month total since the first six months of 2012. Further, goods exports to China – which accounts for roughly half of the total American merchandise trade deficit – fell in June at their fastest rate (4.74 percent) since January, 2016 (18.41 percent). And although the China-heavy manufacturing and high tech trade deficits fell on month, they are running ahead of last year’s totals as well. Indeed, the latter’s six-month total ($43.40 billion) represents an all-time high. Year-to-date merchandise shortfalls have risen – including a quadrupling of the Canada shortfall – with many of the foreign economies whose trade policies have been criticized by President Trump. (Germany and South Korea were important exceptions).

The June figures also showed a quarterly uptick in the drag on the current recovery of the Made in Washington portion of the U.S. trade deficit from an already lofty level – cutting 17.47 percent from cumulative growth since the expansion began in mid-2009, or just under $464 billion.

Here are selected highlights of the latest monthly (June) trade balance figures released yesterday morning by the Census Bureau:

>In June, the combined U.S. goods and services trade deficit dropped for its second straight month, from a downwardly revised $46.39 billion to $43.64 billion. The new total brought the shortfall to its lowest level since last October ($43.07 billion).

>Leading this progress were U.S. services exports, which rose on month by 0.94 percent to a a second straight new all-time high: $65.37 billion.

>Total exports hit something of a milestone, too, increasing by 1.23 percent sequentially to their highest level ($194.37 billion) since December, 2014 ($197.18 billion).

>Moreover, on the eve of the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the June data show that U.S. goods exports to NAFTA partner Mexico improved by 7.42 percent over May’s figure, to hit their second highest total ($21.35 billion) on record. (The all-time high of $22.35 billion was set in August, 2014).

>Yet in contrast to this good news, the combined American trade deficit for the first six months of the year ($276.60 billion) was the worst January-June total since 2012’s $281.46 billion – when economic growth was somewhat faster.

>Another June low-light: China, which may face punitive unilateral U.S. tariffs, bought 4.74 percent few goods from the United State than in May – the steepest such drop since January, 2016’s 18.41 percent.

>U.S. merchandise imports from China, however, rose by 1.17 percent, to $42.29 billion, and helped push the June American deficit up 3.08 percent, to $32.58 billion – the highest since last August’s $33.86 billion.

>Year-to-date, the U.S. goods deficit with China is running 6.08 percent ahead of last year’s pace, even though exports have risen nearly twice as fast (up 15.63 percent) than imports (8.39 percent).

>Although it fell on month in June (by 6.83 percent, to $8.82 billion), on a year-to-date basis, the trade deficit for high tech goods for the first half of this year set its own new record for the January-June period – $43.40 billion.

>In fact, this shortfall is up 33.37 percent from the previous January-June period.

>Between the first half of last year and the first half of this year, U.S. High tech exports inched up by only 0.36 percent, but imports have climbed 5.66 percent.

>A similar story unfolded in manufacturing. The trade gap fell 4.93 percent on a monthly basis, from $80.10 billion in May (the second highest total ever) to $76.13 billion.

>Manufacturing exports rose 2.98 percent on month, while imports dipped by 0.70 percent.

>Year-to-date, however, the manufacturing trade deficit is running 6.19 percent ahead of last year’s record pace, which resulted in an $853.07 billion 12-month total.

>Manufacturing exports are up 3.86 percent for the January-June period, but imports have grown by 4.98 percent.

>Mexico represents another example of a country criticized by President Trump whose merchandise trade surplus with the United States shrunk sequentially but has risen on a year-to-date basis.

>Thanks largely to those robust American goods export figures, the U.S. goods deficit with Mexico sank by fully 18.28 percent month-to-month – the fastest rate since July, 2015 (43.12 percent). American goods purchases from Mexico rose by only 0.52 percent over June’s levels.

>Year-to-date, however, the U.S. merchandise shortfall with Mexico is up by 13.26 percent, as goods exports have risen by 5.04 percent, but imports have grown by a faster 6.86 percent.

>An even more extreme example is provided by Canada, with which U.S. goods trade flows have been exceptionally volatile, albeit in the context of a balance that has become notably modest.

>In June, the American merchandise deficit with Canada nosedived by 54.42 percent. The decrease was only from $1.37 billion to $624 million in absolute terms, but that’s still the lowest Canadian goods surplus since June, 2016.

>On a monthly basis, U.S. goods exports to Canada improved by 1.11 percent, and imports fell by 1.77 percent.

>Between the first six months of this last year and this year, however, the U.S. goods deficit with Canada has more than quadrupled, from $2.20 billion to $10.51 billion. American merchandise exports have advanced by 3.94 percent, but imports rose by nearly twice as fast – 9.95 percent.

>Indeed, the American goods shortfall with its partners in NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), which will soon be renegotiated by the three signatories, dropped by 24 percent month-to-month in June, from $8.66 billion to $6.58 billion, on an export increase of 3.91 percent and an import dip of 0.61 percent.

>Year-to-date, however, this deficit has surged by 36.68 percent, from $34.24 billion to $46.79 billion, as U.S. goods sales to Mexico and Canada combined have improved by 4.44 percent, but purchases from the two grew by 8.36 percent.

>Yet U.S. goods trade with Germany has shown a reversal of this pattern. In June, the American merchandise deficit rose by 10.03 percent, from $4.99 billion to $5.49 billion. U.S. exports increased by a mere 0.18 percent, while imports were up by 5.36 percent.

>The American goods deficit with Germany on a year-to-date basis, however, has decreased by 5.48 percent, as U.S. merchandise sales to Germany have advanced by 7.04 percent, while purchases from Germany have slipped by 0.1 percent.

>U.S. goods trade with South Korea followed this pattern, but with bigger disparities between the on-month and on-year data. Sequentially in June, the American merchandise deficit jumped by 26.23 percent, from $1.46 billion to $1.85 billion. U.S. merchandise sales to South Korea were off 5.96 percent, but American goods imports increased by 1.95 percent.

>Yet between January-June, 2016 and January-June, 2017, this American merchandise deficit cratered by 31.91 percent, from $16.46 billion to $11.20 billion. U.S. goods exports to South Korea surged by 21.82 percent during this period, while imports slid by 2.38 percent.

>At the same time, on a monthly basis, the American merchandise trade deficit with South Korea has more than tripled (from $561.4 billion) since the bilateral trade agreement went into effect in March, 2012.

>The June trade figures make clear that the drag on American growth exerted by the Made in Washington portion of the U.S. trade deficit grew slightly between the first and second quarters of this year – from an already considerable level.

>This deficit consists of U.S. trade flows heavily influenced by trade agreements and other trade policy decisions – thus omitting services and oil trade – that are then adjusted for inflation.

>Between the second quarter of 2009 – when the current recovery officially began – and the first quarter of 2017, the increase in this Made in Washington deficit has cut cumulative U.S. growth by 17.40 percent, or $443.24 billion out of $2.5476 billion in real GDP expansion.

>As of the second quarter of 2017, this drag effect increased to 17.47 percent, or $463.97 billion out of $2.6551 billion in real GDP expansion.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Dangerous Establishment Delusions on North Korea

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Black Hawk Down, Department of Defense, ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles, James Syring, Japan, Mark Bowden, missile defense, Missile Defense Agency, North Korea, nuclear missiles, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, The Atlantic

I’m really getting worried about the North Korea crisis – and not just because of the latest headline news since I last wrote on the subject. As most of you have heard or read by now, North Korea has just successfully tested a ballistic missile capable of hitting Alaska. This means that Pyongyang is perilously close to being able to hit American territory with a nuclear weapon. Given how rapid the North’s progress on this frightening front has been, it won’t be too much longer before this erratic (and I’m being charitable here) dictatorship figures out how to lengthen the range of these missiles, arm them with nuclear warheads, and put every inch of the United States in harm’s way.

Of course that’s terrifying enough. But comparably frightening is the continuingly blasé attitude that has underlain the response of the American foreign policy establishment – including a mainstream media that faithfully parrots its views. Just consider the two following items.

First, at the end of May, Admiral James Syring, head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, said that the Pentagon’s latest test of an anti-missile system showed the military’s ability to “outpace the threat” emanating from North Korea. Not that he’s the last word on the matter, since his views could be colored by political considerations. But this statement wasn’t per se transparently unreasonable.

Yet just a week later, Syring was singing a different tune. Testifying before Congress (that is, under oath), he stated “I would not say we are comfortably ahead of the threat; I would say we are addressing the threat that we know today.” Moreover, Syring attributed his judgment to “The advancements in the last six months have caused great concern to me and others, in the advancement of and demonstration of technology of ballistic missiles from North Korea.” If that’s not an admission that his previous statement (which had been made within that six-month time frame) was baloney, I don’t know what is.

But it gets better. Last Monday came the North Korean test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Last Tuesday, the U.S. government confirmed the missile’s range. But a Defense Department spokesman that same day declared, “We do have confidence in our ability to defend against the limited threat, the nascent threat that is there.”

Now it’s important to remember that, as I’ve written previously, the Pentagon’s definition of success is nothing less than hair-raising. It boils down to “We’ll get most of the missiles.” As in “some of the missiles get through.” As in “big American city (or two or three?) gets obliterated.” Indeed, the DoD spokesman repeated that very definition when he discussed the missile defense program’s track record so far: “It’s something we have mixed results on. But we also have an ability to shoot more than one interceptor.”

But let’s leave aside the Pentagon’s disturbing habit of practically defining out of existence the horrific costs of even a single failure. We still have a senior official telling us before the latest North Korean test that the nation is behind the curve, defense-wise, and then right after that test, one of his colleagues sending the message that all’s well. Pardon me for not feeling incredibly confident.

The second major sign of scary North Korea-related thinking comes from a post in The Atlantic by the magazine’s national correspondent, Mark Bowden. It needs to be specified here that Bowden is the author of Black Hawk Down, the widely and rightly acclaimed account of the debacle that brought to an end the Clinton administration’s looney military intervention in Somalia in the early 1990s. So he’s not your typical bloviating mainstream media pundit.

And that’s why I was so startled to read these passages in his July 5 essay on the implications of the latest North Korean missile test. According to Bowden, Pyongyang’s capabilities don’t “fundamentally alter the military standoff that has been in place for decades.” Why not? Because North Korean dictator Kim Jong and his father before him

“have long had the capability of inflicting mass casualties on South Korea and the nearly 30,000 American forces stationed there. In recent years, the range of Pyongyang’s missiles has included Guam and targets in Japan….So unless the lives of Americans on American soil are inherently more significant than the lives of those serving in that part of the world, or than Korean and Japanese lives, the game is the same. When death tolls are unthinkably high, it’s like multiplying infinity.”

No one of good will could dispute that, in an ideal world, all human lives – especially those of innocent civilians – are equally valuable, and indeed precious. But that’s not the kind of world we live in, and it’s a kind of world that’s been utterly unknown to our species since it wound up organizing itself into units that defined themselves at least to some extent by their distinctiveness from other units.

Today they’re called nation-states, but whether they have been family-based clans or kingdoms or empires or democratic republics or ideological dictatorships, they have invariably at some point determined that their differences could not be settled both peacefully and acceptably, and they’ve resorted to conflict. And whether their actions have been aggressive or defensive or somewhere in between, their actions have inevitably proceeded from the assumption that their subjects’ or citizens’ or comrades’ lives were, collectively, “more significant” than the collective lives of their opponents. What other assumption could they proceed from?

The same question – and answer – continually appears in peacetime, too. That’s why neither American forces nor the forces of any other countries seeking to advance humanitarian aims aren’t constantly being deployed to right wrongs across the globe – even when entire populations are being persecuted or worse. The leaderships of prospective “globocops” believe that their soldiers’ lives are “more significant” to them than the lives of those they would try to save.

And however despicably selfish these views might sound, does anyone out there, in the United States or elsewhere, really want their government to jettison this assumption and plunge into various overseas maelstroms or firestorms or powder kegs?

There is ample room for legitimate debate over how best to deal with North Korea (and Bowden’s Atlantic cover story this month does an excellent job of describing the strengths and weaknesses of the main options under discussion in Washington). There is also ample reason to suppose that some solutions could serve the interests of all the countries involved equally, or nearly equally, well.

But assuming that such win-win outcomes will be found is the height of irresponsibility. And there is absolutely no room for legitimate debate over whether the U.S. government should prioritize the interests (and lives) of its own soldiers and civilians first – at least not until Americans have the opportunity to consider the issue and unmistakably tell their leaders that their security is indeed no more important than that of, e.g., South Korea or Japan.

That, in a nutshell, is why the imminent development of North Korean missiles capable of launching nuclear attacks on American soil “fundamentally alters the military standoff” on the Korean peninsula. It’s also why I’ve concluded that the only acceptable option for the United States is to prioritize its own interests in the safest way possible, withdraw militarily from South Korea, deny the North any reason for attacking American territory, and let North Korea’s powerful neighbors decide what they can and can’t live with.

Although their lives can’t reasonably be seen by U.S. leaders as the equals of American lives, because geography makes their stakes in any outcome orders of magnitude greater, their judgments should be recognized as far superior.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Mixed Bag of May U.S. Trade Figures

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(What's Left of) Our Economy. trade, Census Bureau, China, exports, Germany, high tech goods trade, imports, Made in Washington trade deficit, manufacturing, non-oil goods trade deficit, recovery, services trade, South Korea, Trump

America’s goods and services trade deficit decreased by 2.27 percent sequentially in May, to $46.51 billion, as services exports ($64.82 billion) and services imports ($43.84 billion) both hit all-time monthly highs. Combined exports rose 0.45 percent on month to $192.03 billion – their best total since April, 2015 ($192.59 billion).

But the huge, chronic U.S. manufacturing trade shortfall jumped by 13.92 percent, to $80.10 billion, its second highest level ever (after last November’s $80.75 billion). Merchandise exports to South Korea – whose free trade deal with the United States has been faulted by President Trump – rose sequentially to a record monthly level of $4.49 billion. Yet the immense U.S. goods trade deficit with China soared by 14.39 percent, to an eight-month high of $31.61 billion. The jump came amid signs of higher overall U.S.-China tensions.

And the overall year-to-date U.S. trade deficit of $233.07 billion was its highest since January-May, 2012’s $238 billion, when growth was somewhat faster. In fact, the cumulative trade drag on the long but weak American economic recovery (as of the first quarter of 2017) remained above 10.50 percent (representing nearly $230 billion in lost inflation-adjusted growth). Nearly twice as great has been the growth hit from the increase in the Made in Washington real non-oil goods deficit was still nearly twice as great.

Here are selected highlights of the latest monthly (May) trade balance figures released this morning by the Census Bureau:

>In May, the total U.S. trade deficit dropped by 2.27 percent, from a downwardly adjusted $47.59 billion to $46.51 billion.

>Highlighting the results were record services exports ($64.82 billion) and services imports ($43.84 billion). The services trade surplus improved by 1.04 percent on month, from April’s upwardly adjusted $20.77 billion to $20.99 billion.

>The total trade deficit’s narrowing was also helped by the best monthly combined goods and services exports figure ($192.03 billion) since April, 2015’s $192.59 billion. The May total export level was 0.45 percent higher than April’s upwardly adjusted $191.17 billion.

> Total imports inched down by a mere 0.09 percent in May, from April’s upwardly adjusted $238.76 billion to $238.54 billion.

>Another May record: U.S. merchandise exports to South Korea, whose 2012 trade agreement has been criticized by President Trump. These American goods sales reached $4.49 billion – a 1.48 percent increase over April’s $4.43 billion.

>U.S. goods imports from South Korea declined by 3.65 percent on month in May, to $5.96 billion, and the merchandise deficit plummeted by 16.60 percent, to $1.46 billion. That total, however, is still nearly three times greater than the trade gap when the trade treaty went into effect in March, 2012 ($561 million).

>At the same time, as Mr. Trump has soured on China for North Korea-related reasons, the PRC’s mammoth goods trade surplus with the United States jumped 14.39 percent sequentially in May to $31.69 billion – an eight month high.

>U.S. goods exports to China climbed by 3.59 percent sequentially in May, but imports were up much faster – by 11.56 percent.

>Year-to-date, moreover, the China merchandise trade surplus is up 5.28 percent.

>The widening of the China gap could largely explain the big (13.92 percent) sequential deterioration of the huge, chronic U.S. manufacturing trade deficit – from $70.31 billion in April to $80.10 billion in May. That May figure is the second worst on record, after last November’s $80.75 billion.

>Manufacturing exports advanced by 3.80 percent on month in May, from $89.26 billion to $92.65 billion.

>But the far larger amount of manufacturing imports soared by 8.26 percent, from $159.57 billion to $172.75 billion.

>These results pushed the January-May manufacturing trade deficit up 6.96 percent, to $356.226 billion.

>Year-to-date manufacturing exports have risen by 3.67 percent in 2017. But the much larger amount of imports is up 5.10 percent.

>The good May results notwithstanding, the total U.S. trade deficit for the first five months of 2017 ($233.07 billion) was the worst such figure since the $238 billion of 2012 – when economic growth was somewhat faster.

>America’s trade performance with Germany, which the president also has criticized, provided better news in May. The U.S. merchandise shortfall dropped by 8.90 percent on month, to $4.99 billion, as American goods exports advanced and imports fell. And year-to-date, the bilateral gap is down by 6.73 percent.

>Less encouraging were May’s high tech goods trade numbers – which tend to be volatile. The American global deficit in this category skyrocketed by 56.73 percent, to $9.47 billion.

>U.S. high tech goods exports were off only by 0.51 percent sequentially, to $28.48 billion. But imports rose by 9.46 percent, to $37.95 billion.

>Year-to-date, the high tech goods gap has ballooned by 37.13 percent – to $34.58 billion. As with the overall trade deficit, that’s the highest figure since the first five months of 2012 ($35.21 billion).

>The cumulative trade drag on the long but slow American economic recovery stood at 10.66 percent as of the first quarter of 2017. That means that the increase in the inflation-adjusted trade deficit since the expansion began in the second quarter of 2009 has cut real economic growth during this period by $229.3 billion.

>The trade drag of the Made in Washington trade deficit – which adjusts trade flows for inflation and omits service and energy trade flows that are only lightly affected by U.S. trade policy – has been nearly twice as great. As of the first quarter, it stood at 20.57 percent of cumulative growth, or a $441.51 billion hit.

>Between April and May, this real non-oil goods trade deficit grew shrank from $62.23 billion to a still lofty $60.38 billion. If June’s total is comparable, the Made in Washington trade drag on the recovery will rise yet higher, and will be calculable once the second quarter gross domestic product figures are released.

Making News: New Articles Appear on Marketwatch and Lifezette

Tags

alliances, allies, Financial Crisis, Global Imbalances, Lifezette.com, Making News, Marketwatch.com, North Korea, nuclear weapons, South Korea, tariffs, Trade, trade wars, Trump

I’m pleased to report the publication of two new op-ed pieces over the last week.

Today, Marketwatch.com published my column explaining why President Trump should portray any new hard line trade moves as doses of tough love needed to ensure sustainable worldwide growth, rather than narrow-minded America First-type measures.  Here’s the link.

And last Thursday, Lifezette.com ran my call for a thoroughgoing overhaul of the U.S. security alliance with South Korea – before North Korea becomes unmistakably able to strike the American homeland with nuclear weapons.  Read the piece at this link.

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

 

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Washington’s Americans Last Korea Strategy

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Asia, extended deterrence, foreign policy establishment, ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles, missile defense, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, Trump

This post is just a quickie, since I just got back from a morning medical procedure. But it really adds some desperately needed context to all those claims that have been filling the Mainstream Media for so long characterizing President Trump as a dangerous nut when it comes to foreign policy (among other subjects), and the establishmentarians who have been conducting this foreign policy under Democratic and Republican presidents for decades as unappreciated strategic masterminds.

I guess I’d find the latter portrayal the slightest bit convincing if I hadn’t just heard the news that the United States today successfully conducted its first test launch ever of a system designed to destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) before they strike their targets.

Although this development sounds good, the news should scare the bejeebers out of Americans. The reason has nothing to do with major adversaries like the Soviet Union (and now Russia) and China, which have had such missiles – capable of reaching the United States from their home countries – for decades. It’s always been deemed virtually impossible that any American defenses could keep U.S. territory adequately safe from those forces, which number in the thousands of warheads. Moreover, the political leaderships of these countries have generally been judged to be sane enough to use their nukes cautiously. As a result, protecting the nation from the proverbial mass bolt from the blue has never been seriously expected of these capabilities.

Instead, the reason for alarm has everything to do with North Korea, which has clearly been working to develop ICBM capabilities for decades, has been making impressive progress lately, and has been led by individuals who seem a lot less predictable, to put it kindly. In fact, according to this Bloomberg post, the North’s missile program dates from the mid-1970s. It tested its first with intercontinental, U.S.-striking range in 2006. And Washington has just gotten around even to testing something designed to knock one down only eleven years later?

In fact, it gets better: The interceptor that succeeded today has been used many times before to test American capabilities against shorter-range missiles. But do you know what its batting average has been since these operations began in 1999? Counting today’s success, it’s 10 for 18. That’s a performance that’s bound to get you into Cooperstown. But if the United States were attacked with 18 North Korean missiles today, it means that ten U.S. cities could become history.

By the end of this year, when the Pentagon plans to have increased the number of these systems from 36 to 44. So presumably, the odds for Americans will get better. But is there any reason to think that they’ll hit zero any time soon? That’s an especially important question to ask upon realizing that, as hostile as it is, North Korea has no intrinsic reason to launch a nuclear attack on the United States. Indeed, it has every reason to refrain from one – because it would face annihilation from vastly superior American forces. Instead, the North Korean threat stems solely from the U.S. commitment to defend South Korea from vastly superior North Korean conventional forces that the South chooses not to match. And why not? Because hiding behind American skirts is cheaper.

In other words, the U.S. government has evidently decided that it’s worth risking New York to save Seoul, even though this policy has never been openly declared to the American people. And even worse, today’s missile launch reveals that Washington has been taking its sweet time trying to make sure that millions of Americans don’t get incinerated if this policy – blandly named “extended deterrence” – fails.

Following Up: Why the U.S. Still Faces a (South) Korea Problem

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Asia, China, comfort women, Following Up, free-riding, Japan, Kim Jong Un, missile defense, Moon Jae-in, North Korea, nuclear weapons, South Korea, THAAD, Trump

Three days into his presidency, new South Korean leader Moon Jae-In seems determined to prove me wrong in warning that his election could further undermine an American grand strategy toward Asia, and North Korea in particular, that’s already in big trouble.

As I’ve written repeatedly on RealityChek, well before South Korea’s snap presidential election this past Tuesday, the nuclear umbrella extended by Washington for decades over the South and Japan had started creating an unacceptable risk of nuclear attack on the American homeland. The reason: Chinese and North Korean nuclear forces were rapidly becoming able to survive even an attack by America’s own strategic warheads and retaliate by striking the United States.

Moon’s victory seemed bound to make the American position in the region even less tenable by placing in power in Seoul an opponent of the U.S. decision to de-nuclearize the North through a combination of military threats and economic pressure.

So even recognizing that politicians don’t always govern like they campaign, I’ve been surprised to read about several instances in recent days of Moon staying on the reservation. To be sure, President Trump lent a helping hand, making the first call by a foreign head of state to congratulate Moon on his win and inviting him to the United States for an official visit. For his part, Moon declared that “The U.S.-South Korea alliance is the foundation of our foreign policy, and will continue to be so.”

But independent of this conversation came some Moon moves apparently aimed at calming fears of a major rift with the United States. Even before speaking with Mr. Trump, Moon declined explicitly to blame him for the recent escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula, preferring to describe his predecessor in Seoul’s Blue House as the main culprit. The new president also passed up a chance to demand an apology from the United States for supporting a bloody South Korean crackdown on dissidents in the city of Gwangju in 1980 – a distinct sore point with many Koreans today.

Perhaps most strikingly, right after North Korea unleashed a strident criticism of a new U.S.-supplied missile defense system in the South that’s viewed by Moon and many of his compatriots with major reservations, a Moon spokesperson stated that the new president had told China that resolving this controversy depended on the North refraining from further “provocation.”

All the same, Washington should still remain worried about Moon and South Korea going rogue. According to Stanford University Korea specialist Daniel Sneider, Moon hasn’t closed the door completely on reopening the issue of the missile system (known as THAAD) – which is partly aimed at protecting American military forces helping to defend South Korea from North Korean attack. More seriously, Sneider writes, Moon is contemplating building alongside THAAD “an indigenous Korean Air and Missile Defense system, which would not be linked to the U.S. and Japanese missile defense architecture….”

That possibility surely would be unacceptable to the United States, as it would at the least complicate the cooperation between the U.S. and South Korean militaries that would be vital in order to defeat the North in a conflict. Even more stunning, says Sneider, Moon favors creating “a preemptive-strike system armed with South Korean ballistic missiles” – a total nonstarter with Americans, as it would make the security of U.S. forces, and by extension that of the American homeland, dangerously dependent on the decisions of a foreign government.

Nevertheless, a greater role for South Korea in dealings with the volatile and unpredictable North is a centerpiece of Moon’s platform. His objective of enabling his country to “take the initiative” on this front is entirely understandable, given its location right next door to the dictator Kim Jong Un’s fearsome arsenal of nuclear and conventional arms. Moon has also tried to reassure Washington that he would never “approach or unilaterally open talks with North Korea without fully consulting the U.S. beforehand.” Yet it’s all too easy to foresee serious disputes opening up between the two governments over when diplomacy has or hasn’t reached an impasse.

Moon’s aim of raising South Korea’s diplomatic profile also could clash with the Trump administration’s plan to rely heavily on economic muscle flexing by China, by far the North’s leading trade partner, to weaken Pyongyang’s capacity to defy its neighbors demands. On the one hand, he fears that this approach could produce an outcome to the nuclear crisis that neglects South Korean interests. On the other, however, it’s inconsistent with his more fundamental views on the economic dimensions of North Korea diplomacy.

For the United States has long hoped that potent enough sanctions would help force Pyongyang into negotiating an end to its nuclear program, and the Trump administration has ratcheted up military threats as well. In fact, sanctions on North Korea have repeatedly been approved by the entire international community. Moon has said he recognizes the need for continued sanctions of some kind, but was a top aide to one of the South Korean presidents of the 1990s who pursued a so-called “Sunshine Policy” of economic engagement with the North. Not surprisingly, he’s spoken much more often about promoting North Korean reform by expanding his country’s trade with and investment in his Stalinist neighbor than about the role of economic clamps.

Finally, the United States has struggled to shore up the anti-North Korea front by persuading South Korea and Japan to overcome deep and historic animosities and cooperate more extensively in security affairs. But in this respect, Moon has been quite the hard-liner. Specifically, he has opposed even the limited intelligence sharing with Tokyo begun by his predecessor out of unhappiness with the 2015 bilateral agreement to resolve a dispute triggered by Japan’s colonial and wartime practices of forcing Korean women to serve Japanese soldiers and officials as prostitutes (who were euphemistically called “comfort women).

The point here is not to criticize (or praise) Moon’s positions or priorities. As I emphasized in this post’s forerunner, there are any number of reasons for taking South Koreans’ views in general on North Korea with the utmost seriousness. After all, they live right next door. If mistakes are made in handling the North, they’ll suffer the worst consequences by far.

But if Moon, their new leader, is wrong, Americans would suffer fearsome consequences, too – including a retaliatory nuclear strike that could destroy one or more American cities. Even worse, this catastrophe could well stem from South Korea’s failure to spend adequately on its own defense, and consequent heavy reliance on the U.S. commitment – even though it lives in one of the most dangerous regions on earth, and even though it’s exponentially wealthier than the North. And of course, because the United State doesn’t live right next door, or even close, the upside to its own security of its current Korea and broader Asia strategy pales by comparison.

Which is why even had South Koreans chosen a more traditional leader, I would still so strongly favor letting them – and leaders and citizens of even wealthier Japan and other nearby countries – realize Moon-like ambitions, take control of their own destinies, and handle North Korea and other possible threats however they see fit.

But since it’s completely unreasonable – at best – to expect Americans to pay for the Asians’ mistakes if they’re wrong, and war breaks out anyway, Washington should withdraw these forces well before the locals take charge. The end of American military involvement would bring the added and immense benefit of removing the threat of a North Korean nuclear strike – because the United States wouldn’t be taking any actions that would fuel North Korean ire and trigger retaliation.

It’s a clear case of power creating responsibility. Especially if Moon wants more of the former for South Korea, he’ll have to accept more of the latter – for its own security. And if he’s not willing to step up, Washington should make the decision for him. 

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: South Korea’s Elections are Likely to Make America’s Asia Strategy Even Loonier

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allies, Asia, deterrence, East Asia-Pacific, free-riding, Kim Jong Un, Moon Jae-in, North Korea, Northeast Asia, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, Tim Shorrock

This coming Tuesday will not only see a new presidential election in South Korea. It may also mark the day when a second big wheel flies off of America’s grand strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, and in particular off its approach to addressing the North Korea nuclear weapons threat.

For now on top of the United States’ loss of escalation dominance on the Korean peninsula – which I’ve written about for more than two years and which has needlessly exposed the American homeland to the risk of nuclear attack – the U.S. ally supposedly facing the greatest threat from Kim Jong Un’s heavily armed dictatorship could wind up defecting from the anti-Pyongyang coalition. It would be hard to concoct a scenario that would be less defensible strategically and politically, and more utterly absurd.

Of course, the results of the South Korea election haven’t yet come in. The front-runner, veteran left-of-center politician Moon Jae-in, is by no means anti-American. And as with so many politicians, he may govern very differently from how he’s campaigned. But as made clear by coverage of South Korean politics by my good friend Tim Shorrock – who has written on the country for decades – Moon believes that the United States and North Korea’s neighbors need to start putting much more emphasis on reopening negotiations with the North and much less on threats of military action or more effective economic sanctions. At least as important, many of his compatriots clearly agree.

Moon and his supporters could well be right – if only because they’ve been so close to the situation on the peninsula for so long. (Tim strongly believes this to be the case.) Nevertheless, they could be wrong as well. After all, their very proximity to the North might be denying them valuable perspective. Their views may be influenced too strongly by shared ethnicity. And they may, like classic free-riders, be assuming that the American nuclear umbrella will ultimately bail out the South if they’re wrong.

But although the merits of the Moon case are uncertain, the implications for the United States are anything but. If South Korea’s “doves” are right, a more durable peace could indeed be created in Korea (meaning, specifically, that the Korean War would finally come to an official end more than 60 years after an armistice halted the fighting in 1953). As a result, Northeast Asia, one of the world’s major economic dynamos, would be stabilized. And the prospect of the United States being drawn into a nuclear war with North Korea would be greatly diminished.

But it can’t be forgotten that the (mounting) nuclear risks posed by North Korea to the United States stem entirely from the American commitment to defend South Korea – and more specifically, it stems from the longstanding U.S. decision to try to deter a North Korean invasion of the South by stationing nearly 30,000 troops right at the Demilitarized Zone. They couldn’t possibly halt the North’s conventional forces, but their deaths would almost surely provoke an American nuclear strike on the North. This prospect that has certainly helped keep Pyongyang at bay – which was arguably an acceptable risk to run when Pyongyang lacked any means to hit back at American territory. But soon, pursuing this strategy could result in the North successfully launching a nuclear missile at an American city – or two or three.

Even worse from an American standpoint, a prime reason that the South relies on the U.S. nuclear umbrella for its defense is its failure to field adequate conventional forces itself. Despite living right next door to one of the world’s most heavily armed and unpredictable countries, South Korea only spends 2.7 percent of its entire economy on its armed forces. By comparison, the United States – which has no neighbors that are either powerful or hostile, let alone both – spends 4.3 percent.

All of which means that if the South Korea doves are wrong, the American people could pay a fearful price largely because one of the world’s leading economic powers has chosen to skimp on its military, and because its (new) leaders insisted on a diplomacy-first policy that gave Pyongyang yet more time to strengthen its nuclear forces. That’s a heckuva downside. And let’s not forget the chaos that would result from the United States and South Korea splitting in public and pursuing two dramatically different policies toward the North.

Supporters of the strategic status quo in East Asia are right – America’s longstanding policies have brought impressive benefits. But they’re wrong in insisting that the benefits for the United States have even remotely approached those for the East Asians themselves, including South Korea. And the emergence of a credible North Korean nuclear threat to the American homeland has skewed the relationship of costs and benefits much further against the United States.

I can’t think of a more unacceptable situation from America’s vantage point. Even before these South Korean political trends had become so prominent, it was clear to me that the best strategy for the American people was to recognize the North Korean challenge as the responsibility of North Korea’s (very wealthy and powerful) neighbors, and to withdraw the U.S. forces whose presence is bound increasingly to endanger the security of the United States itself.

The election of a South Korean dove would turn current U.S. strategy positively looney and even more dangerous to Americans – clashing strongly with the stated views of the presumed chief beneficiary’s new leader, and less able than ever to turn up the screws on the North.

I hope instead it causes America’s ossified bipartisan foreign policy establishment to realize finally that Washington can’t be placed in a position ostensibly of caring about South Korea’s security more than the South Koreans, and that if their new leaders disagree with U.S. priorities, that’s their sovereign right. By the same token, this ally can’t expect to have its cake and eat it, too. Bottom line? President Trump should let President-to-be Moon and his backers know that if they want to engage with North Korea, they feel free to give it a whirl – and that in the true spirit of an America First diplomacy, the United States will be wishing them the very best from safely on the sidelines.