In your own language

Eduardo del Buey
Foto: Ap
La Jornada Maya

Martes 20 de febrero, 2018

During these past few weeks North and South Korea have been playing in some high stakes diplomatic games in the lead-up to the Winter Olympics, in which both countries have fielded a unified team for the first time since 2004.

This would have been unthinkable just a month ago.

What happened?

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un decided to play his hand, and it may be, I say cautiously, a winning one.

With dexterity, he has driven a bit of a wedge between South Korea, the United States, and Japan at a critical time in the region’s history.

The United States appears determined to prevent North Korea from developing a nuclear arsenal by diplomacy (Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s approach), or by way of military strikes that may risk a nuclear war to do so (President Trump’s threatened course of action). However, I believe that North Korea is already a nuclear power and that, for all intents and purposes, the goal now has to be to keep the regime there contained so that it doesn’t decide to use its arsenal.

If the President´s view prevails, it would be on a collision course with the North, while his erstwhile ally in the South appears pleased to engage in peaceful dialogue with its northern neighbor. A collision course could well end up in a nuclear war, whereas negotiations could well result in a North Korea that doesn’t use its already existent nuclear arsenal.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in was elected on a platform of reducing tensions with the North just when one of Donald Trump’s major electoral promises was to eliminate the North Korean nuclear threat by any means, including military action.

The North Korean leader is neither naïve nor stupid.

Nor is he suicidal.

If his goal were to attack the South, he could do so using his million-man army and enormous arsenal of lethal conventional weapons. His artillery could destroy the South’s capital – Seoul – at a cost of millions of South Korean lives. But he would risk massive retaliation from the United States.

What Kim wants is respect and to ensure the longer-term survival of his regime. He wants global recognition of North Korea as a nuclear power to be taken seriously, much like Israel, Pakistan, and India. He wants a seat at the adult’s table, and the assurances that he and his regime can survive into the long term.

During the Olympic Winter Games opening ceremonies, observers noted that the South Korean President sat immediately in front of Kim’s sister Kim Yo-jong and stood up to shake her hand as the unified Korean team entered the stadium while U.S. Vice President Mike Pence sat several seats away with his head turned the other way.

President Moon also had Ms. Kim to lunch afterwards and to the Olympic dinner while the U.S. Vice President stayed away. What could have been a chance to begin a semblance of dialogue however limited, was avoided. Was this the right move? Others may think so, but I don’t share that assessment. I think that, if the South Koreans, those with the most to lose, are willing to extend a hand and engage in dialogue, the United States might well have taken a different tack.

In a startling move, Kim Yo-jong invited President Moon to a summit in North Korea on a date to be announced. This will undoubtedly rattle some in the Trump administration including, perhaps, the President himself. By taking the United States out of the equation, both Korean leaders may achieve a dialogue of sorts, rendering President Trump’s rhetoric irrelevant (although he may claim that his rhetoric mellowed Kim Jong-un’s taste for confrontation in the first place).

For the North, a dialogue could address one of its major preoccupations – that the U.S. and South Korea seek regime change in the North. For the South, it would reduce tensions and also the current threat to the safety of millions of its citizens. For the United States, a dialogue could enable the global community to keep the North’s nuclear arsenal in check as the North gains confidence that its survival is not a stake.

Should this North-South dialogue continue, and the rest of the world buy into it (especially Russia and China, on whom Trump is depending to further his objectives), the United States would find itself isolated and lacking the international support necessary to justify an attack on the North. While this lack of international support did not stop it from launching the invasion of Iraq, we all know how well that turned out.

Of course, North Korea’s other neighbors, Japan for one, will undoubtedly feel uncomfortable with a nuclear North. Since it is the only country ever to have suffered two nuclear attacks on its soil, however, accepting a nuclear and contained North may be less threatening than all-out nuclear war between the North and the United States, with Japan in the way of missiles from both sides.

The South knows that in any conflict, it would be the real loser, with its capital destroyed and economic and industrial infrastructure diminished.

North Korea is a nuclear power with ballistic missile capability. Absent a massive nuclear war, it will remain just that indefinitely. Dealing with the North and accepting this will be the price of peace. Engaging in confidence-building measures may be the only way to contain and control a nuclear North.

North Korea will continue to taunt the U.S., and produce its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities. The rest of the world will likely come to an accommodation with the North much as it has with India, Israel, and Pakistan.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson continues to advocate for dialogue and diplomacy over military action. To date, the threat of attack by the United States may have caused the North to calm down and seek a rapprochement with the South.

President Trump has, to date, taken the hard road of readying his country for an armed confrontation with North Korea. He has promised “fire and fury” in an attempt to pursue a different line from that taken by his predecessors.

In my view, a different way does not mean it is the best way to achieve his administration’s goal of dealing with and containing the North Korean nuclear threat. As I stated above, it already exists and the North is not going to destroy its weapons or capability.

Rather than engage in further sabre rattling, the Trump administration should now pursue creative diplomacy to pull all sides back from the brink and towards a more secure and stable Korean peninsula.

Rapprochement with the U.S. will not be linear. It will have its ups and downs, as both sides test the limits to which they can go.

But for all of our sakes, I hope that the limits will not be crossed, lest it take us to a nuclear disaster.