Carpenter's only policy for dealing with threats against us or our allies is to shrug and accept whatever our enemies are doing. So here we go again:
In a scenario with no good options, we may have to learn to live with a nuclear-armed North Korea. ...
Hawks will cry, “Appeasement!” But we can’t lose perspective. North Korea’s embryonic nuclear arsenal and slowly improving missile capabilities cannot directly menace the American homeland.
Sigh. It's only predictable to call Carpenter's proposal "appeasement" because it is appeasement. What else would you call it? There are no good options for North Korea, but just accepting them as a nuclear power and ending sanctions is not the least bad option. North Korea will soon have the ability to hit Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, and the West Coast of America. Not to mention our allies. Is that really something we should learn to accept?
Maybe we can deter North Korea. But doing so will be ugly. And even if that is our only reasonable option, why does deterrence have to be accompanied by lifting sanctions and restoring relations--that is, saving North Korea from their own lousy policies.
Carpenter really seems to relish the idea of a nuclear arms race in northeast Asia in response to accepting a nuclear-armed North Korea.
Oh, Carpenter would have you believe he isn't just a cheese-optional surrender monkey. Oh no! He has the CATO version of nuance. He thinks Nixon can go to China with North Korea.
What is it with people thinking that appeasement is the same as Nixon going to China?
Anyway, Carpenter has more, Nixon-wise. Embrace the perspective!
Washington has forged productive ties over the years with other implacable foes. The Nixon administration’s gestures to China, for example, were bold and controversial. For more than two decades, that country had vilified the United States and made shrill threats. A decent relationship with Chairman Mao Zedong seemed no more likely in the early 1970s than one with Kim seems now. But U.S. leaders took a chance, and it paid off. Likewise, in the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration ended decades of unrelenting hostility toward Vietnam. Today, the United States has productive relations with both former enemies.
I hate to point out the bleeding obvious--again--but America and China based our then-growing relations on facing a common military foe--the Soviet Union.
And we and Vietnam have started to reforge a relationship based on a common foe--China.
Pray tell, who does Mr. Carpenter have in mind as the unifying enemy that will drive an American-North Korean understanding? I mean, that basis for an alliance would assume that Carpenter can conceive of an enemy worth resisting, would it not? Wouldn't that country just be another to plug into his "We just have to live with X" article?
Just who is that greater threat that can unite America and North Korea? South Korea? Japan? Russia? China? Well, I'm out of neighbors of North Korea. Perhaps Carpenter thinks closer to home. Maybe a nice alliandce between America and North Korea to confront Cuba or Venezuela? Oh, I know. We'll stop that Canadian pipeline yet with a little North Korean nuclear saber rattling! Take that, tar sands!
Oh, and closer relations with America required both China and Vietnam to stop seeing us as an enemy. Raise your hand if you think that is about to happen any time soon. Nobody? I thought not.
If I give the impression that I have no respect for Ted Carpenter, it is only because I have no respect for Carpenter.
North Korea dangerous. And they are teetering. Their people are starving. Their army is rotting away. And if we keep squeezing those nutballs, we'll break them. Even the Chinese seem to belatedly realize that the prospect of South Korea invading North Korea or other nations in the region going nuclear in response to North Korea's nuclear drive might be something that China should address.
I swear, every time I read Carpenter, Labatt stock goes up.
UPDATE: Yes, break them. It's time to pile on and pull at every weakened seam of that state.
