Getting smart

By Bill Lee

Tensions have been ratcheted up to a near fever pitch in East Asia, to the point where Tokyo’s biggest subway company temporarily stopped its trains as a panicked precaution when North Korea launched another missile. But China has proposed a reasonable — though familiar — proposal for ending the crisis, and even President Donald Trump has done his part to move the situation in the right direction.

China has put forth its “suspension-for-suspension” proposal and “dual-track” approach. The “suspension-for-suspension” idea calls for North Korea to halt its nuclear and missile programs in exchange for the suspension of US-ROK joint military exercises, or vice-versa. Then the United States and North Korea work toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and a peace treaty in parallel. The plan seems to be the only real way to proceed. North Korea of course hates the joint military exercises right on the other side of their border. It is not difficult to see why. With memories of B-52s flattening all of its cities in the Korean War, Koreans are naturally loathe to see demonstrations of short-range attack capabilities aimed at them and still-flying B-52s, B-1 Lancer bombers, B-2 stealth strategic bombers, and F-35 attack fighters tearing around in nearby skies, not to mention hearing that the Navy Seal Team 6, which took out Osama bin Laden, and a Delta Force squadron are also participating in the military exercises, presumably as a precursor to a “decapitation” operation on Pyongyang. Nothing could possibly make North Korea want to develop its nuclear arsenal more to defend itself as these warm-ups on its border for an invasion.

What North Korea has repeatedly said is that it wants assurances of its security through a peace treaty with the United States ending the Korean War. And that is where Donald Trump has blundered in. Following up on his campaign willingness to share a “hamburger” with Kim Jong Un, Trump said at the end of April that he would be “honored” to meet the young North Korean leader. Liberals suffering from the Trump Derangement Syndrome see everything that Trump does or says is horrible and reject anything coming from the White House. But meeting directly with Kim Jong Un with the lure of a peace treaty in the offing is the one action that would give the young dictator the prestige and assurances to convince him to stand down his nuclear program.

Of course, there are numerous counterarguments against the Chinese dual-track approach and suspension-for-suspension proposal. The American military says that the military exercises are necessary to prepare for a contingency on the Korean Peninsula, but that is nonsense. Naturally, it would be better for the military forces to practice together as close as possible to North Korea, but it is not essential. With the computerization of flight and ground combat operations now, they could practice literally anywhere with good effect. And the objection to meeting directly with Kim Jong Un because it would reward him for “bad behavior” can be countered by looking at America’s own behavior towards North Korea over the years. And the argument that Kim could not be trusted to live up to an agreement assumes that no deal could ever be struck with North Korea. Imagine this: a state dinner for Kim Jong Un at the White House. Peace.

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Photo by Frederick Barr via Flickr