Solution For Gadget

Personally, I am sick of talking about North Korea. Just across the demilitarized zone, we have the worlds 12th largest economy, a powerhouse of global pop culture, that is about to host the Winter Olympics. Why bother with North Korea?

But North Korea is in the news, which means I get a steady stream of North Korea-related questions on this blog. This is another occasion where I should remind you all that I am just a guy with a blog. All I have to go by is the news, which is available to you just as much as they are available to me. I have no special information to offer.

What I can offer, however, is a framework of analysis; how to think about thinking, when it comes to thinking about North Korea. This alone can be valuable, because much of North Korea analysis involves no thinking, but only reflexes to the latest stimulus. 

For example, the latest coverage about North Korea is its participation in the Winter Olympics, the North Korean team marching under the same flag with the South Korean team during the opening ceremony, and so on. It should be obvious that all of this is inconsequential. The two Koreas have competed jointly in the world athletics off and on since 1991, when a single Korean team played in the World Table Tennis Championship in Japan. These joint appearances have never moved the needle on the inter-Korean relations in either direction, but people keep talking about them because hey, we have to keep talking about North Korea somehow.

Instead of a reflexive reaction, we can choose to think deeply. And deep thought requires a firm establishment of the first principles, in reference to which all the events on the ground and our policy choices are to be assessed. In my view, there are three fundamental questions that establish the first principles about North Korea. They are:

On the first pass, most people--including most North Korea analysts--would answer "no" to all three questions. Kim Jong-un regime is a murderous dictatorship; no one wants to appear as if she is supporting the regime. A war, which is likely to be a nuclear war, is horrifying beyond imagination, and no one wants to sound like a warmonger.

It is also the case that most people are not honest with themselves.

(More after the jump.)

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In answering these three questions, we must be deeply and rigorously honest to ourselves. It is not enough to be in favor of humanitarian principles, the Korean reunification or peace in the Korean Peninsula in the abstract. Deep, rigorous honesty requires that your real answers to the three questions are actually reflected in the policy choices you make.

For example, many people might say the Kim regime is intolerable, but they also want the status quo to continue because they are afraid of the consequences if the North Korean state collapses and the Kim regime is toppled. In such a case, their answers to the first two questions are dishonest. The true answers are: "Yes, the North Korean state and the Kim regime should continue to exist, because we fear the alternative." To these people, the Kim regime is perfectly tolerable as long as the status quo is maintained.

Many hawks want isolation and sanctions until North Korea gives up its nukes. They, too, duly recite the pledges that the Kim regime must go, and that there can be no war in Korea. And they, too, are dishonest--because they have nothing to say about what ought to happen in the Korean Peninsula after North Korea denuclearizes. For them, the true answers are: "Yes, the North Korean state and the Kim regime may continue to exist as long as they give up nuclear weapons." 

The hawks are also usually unwilling to consider any peaceful engagement with North Korea, either directed to the North Korean regime (in the form of bilateral talks) or the North Korean people (in the form of cultural/economic exchanges or aids.) If you are adamant that the Kim regime must go and the North Korean state must cease to exist, but are unwilling to consider any peaceful engagement with North Korea at any level, your real answer to the third question is: "yes, a war may be acceptable in the Korean Peninsula if the Kim regime refuses to surrender"--knowing full well that the Kim regime will not surrender just because you really want it to.

The doves, wanting to avoid a war, usually argue that North Korea can be deterred from using its nuclear weapon. They, too, may offer pieties about the Kim regimes humanitarian abuses. But make no mistake, because their real answer to the first two questions are the same as the hawks: "North Korea and the Kim regime may continue to exist, as long as they do not start a nuclear war." Because really, have they got anything to say about North Korea other than its nuclear weapons?

My answers to the three questions are firm. No, the North Korean state cannot exist, because the division of the Korean Peninsula is a historical tragedy that must be rectified. No, the Kim regime cannot continue, because it is a murderous dictatorship. And no, there cannot be a war in the Korean Peninsula for any reason, because the consequences are too terrible.

In my view, these answers make my policy choice clear. I need a course of action that makes the North Korean state disappear, the Kim regime out of power, while avoiding a war. This leads me to choose the original Sunshine Policy envisioned by Kim Dae-jung in his Berlin Declaration: an aggressive engagement policy designed to destabilize the North Korean state and the Kim regime while having zero tolerance toward military provocation.

If you have a better idea that gets rid of the North Korean state and the Kim regime while avoiding a war than the Sunshine Policy, please tell me, because I will be all ears. What you cannot do, however, is to be dishonest about your first principles. Do you want to maintain the status quo, because you think the cost of eliminating the Kim regime is too high? Then you are really saying the Kim regime should continue, regardless of the fact that it is a murderous dictatorship. Do you want no peaceful interaction with North Korea at all, while desiring the Kim regime to disappear? Then what you really want is a war.

This framework is helpful because it keeps everyone honest. It makes you honest to yourself by allowing you to separate an actual policy goal versus the empty hopes and dreams that you will abandon just as soon as the going gets tough. It also reveals the true intentions of the pundits who bloviate about North Korea. It doesnt matter what lip service they give to high-minded principles; if they say nothing about how to make the North Korean state go away, how to make the Kim regime go away, and how to prevent a war from happening in the Korean Peninsula, they are making their first principles abundantly clear.

Again: I dont have a great answer for North Korea. But the truth is, neither do most people you see on television or read in the papers--or even most of the people who are actually in charge of formulating and implementing policies. All we can do is to think deeply with the information available to us, and talk to each other to exchange ideas. Clear thinking allows us to think better and have a more honest conversation, the best things we can do as we think about one of the most complex conundra of international affairs.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.