We appear ready to crack down on Pyongyang's extortion racket:
The US government has signaled that it was seeking a way to interdict, possibly with China's help, North Korean sea and air shipments suspected of carrying weapons or nuclear technology, The New York Times reported Monday.
The newspaper said the reference to interdictions -- preferably at ports or airfields in countries like China, but possibly involving riskier confrontations on the high seas -- was made by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
I've always been in favor of squeezing North Korea until they collapse, but doing it in a low key manner and with pointless talks that make Kim Jong-il think that he can, in the end, get the goodies flowing from the West. I never panicked under the Bush approach, since North Korea continued to weaken during our diplomatic efforts, despite worries that we'd start shoveling money north.
As the North Koreans hope for aid from the West, we give them too little aid to do more than slow down their decline. And their military rusts and falls apart. Ideally, by the time the North Koreans think of using the military option to save themselves, it will be too late.
The problem is that a more openly aggressive policy might shock the North Koreans into lashing out while they can hope for some military success. North Korea might--if everything goes right for them in infiltrating large numbers of special forces and lavish use of chemical weapons to break the South Korean military--do some real damage to the South Korean military and crack the South Korean army.
It is unlikely to work out that way, but North Korea's fragile army can only win if the South Koreans crack under the shock of chemical weapons and widespread combat in their rear areas. At the very least, Seoul could be destroyed by chemical and conventional bombardment before the South Koreans can eliminate the artillery threat north of the DMZ. So even victory would be bloody for the good guys.
We surely want to stop North Korea from proliferating nuclear missile technology, but we need to do it quietly in a way that encourages North Korea to suck it up and take it, hoping that diplomacy will get them the needed, aid in the end. Keep the aid trickling in and keep Kim Jong-il's hope alive for massive amounts even as we know we will never do this. The six-party talks are the best way to ensure that talks without real concessions keep going, until North Korea just collapses.
If we fail in this strategy by giving the North Koreans the idea that they won't win through talks and that they need to strike with their military while they still have a chance--even a small one--- of victory lest they collapse from poverty, we'd likely win any resulting war. But it would be a needlessly sparked war since we will eventually win on the path we are on--even if North Korea builds a few nuclear warheads before they collapse.
Talk about a wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time ...
UPDATE: More on South Korea's newly discussed plans to cross the DMZ if it comes to war:
South Korea has made public what many have suspected for several years now. If North Korea attacks, South Korea is prepared to go north and attack, or invade, their neighbor. This is no surprise to those who have been observing the South Korean armed forces development after the end of the Cold War in 1991. During the same time, the North Korean armed forces have declined because of a bankrupt economy and no money for replacing obsolete equipment, or for training. Meanwhile, the booming economy in the south led to the growth of domestic arms industry, and the re-equipping the South Korean military with modern, and locally made, weapons.
We haven't been appeasing the North Korean nutjobs the last 7 years, we've been letting them die.
And the South Koreans can carry out the mercy killing with our help, if the North Korean death rattle threatens Seoul.
