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LONDON --- Having the capability to do something doesn’t necessarily
mean one should do it. At almost any time, U.S. forces could be
deployed quickly, for example, to Taiwan, should the Bush administration
aim to implement some zany version of its announced philosophy of
“pre-emption.”
But a war with China is an exceptionally bad idea, not because we
would necessarily lose but because the cost of winning would be
so great.
In fact, one might wish to champion the value of not doing what
one could do, as an exemplar of commendable, peace-enhancing restraint.
Take the example of North Korea, a truly horrible regime (like Saddam’s
Iraq) whose elimination would be an absolute positive step for mankind.
But the cost of military action even if it produced victory, as
would probably be the case would be horrific. Many in South Korea
as well as in the North would die, as would many U.S. soldiers;
and China, now working very hard to compel Pyongyang to negotiate
sensibly with the U.S., would be absolutely traumatized.
“It’s an extraordinarily serious problem,” agrees
Bill Rammell, British Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for
Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, “and it’s very, very
worrying.”
The British government places almost all the blame on provocations
from Pyongyang’s totalitarian government. “If you take
any rational analysis,” he says, speaking in his large office
in the Foreign Office here, “it’s North Korea that has
created this difficulty.” And London fully supports the Bush
administration’s view that precisely because North Korea has
testy issues not just with the U.S. but with everyone else in the
region, it must negotiate with all the major players in a multinational
format.
At the same time, there is no lust for war with North Korea. For
one thing, the Blair government is under extraordinary and mounting
media attacks over Iraq --- for “bogus claims of Iraq’s
nuclear capability … over false intelligence ... over a war
with no end in sight,” as The Independent, the brilliant London-based
broadsheet, put it in front-page large type.
For another, the Foreign Office in particular is well aware that
Japan as well as China has a serious stake in the North Korean crisis.
A Pyongyang that actually cobbled together a small nuclear missile
arsenal would inevitably trigger decisions to militarily re-arm
in Tokyo that would send more than shivers throughout the region.
U.S. military strikes against the North would alarm China and undermine
its diplomatic efforts to avoid that option and induce North Korea
to develop peaceful relations with all its neighbors by proceeding
in good faith with multi-party talks.
“The talks need to resume and broaden out,” says Rammell,
“so that by that process, agreement will be reached. The basic
choice is North Korea’s, but, still, everyone needs to step
back.” Everyone by definition includes the U.S.
For London, the ultimate stick should be “containment and sanctions,”
not military action. “The ideal would be to avoid any of those
three,” said the minister. Moreover, he added, while praising
suddenly more helpful Chinese diplomacy, “what’s important
is that the Japanese are 100% with us.” Tokyo wants a non-military
solution, too. Says the minister, flatly: “We’re not contemplating
military action.”
A military strike against North Korea would have unexpected economic
consequences to the United States, whose economy is already hurting.
Its economic and strategic ally South Korea would probably be devastated,
and its economy set back profoundly. China would fundamentally re-assess
its heretofore productive strategy of economic engagement with America,
perhaps even converting the huge amounts of American dollars it
holds into other currencies. Japan, which holds an even far more
colossal bundle of dollars, would probably do the same.
Those moves would plunge the U.S. into a very deep recession, as
UCLA political scientist Richard Rosecrance perceptively points
out in the current issue of the Washington D.C.-based quarterly
THE NATIONAL INTEREST.
If U.S. military action occurred before the Bush election campaign,
a one-term presidency would be all but certain. Any such decision
would have to wait until the second term.
But attacking North Korea would be a wrong decision no matter when
it was taken. The issue can and should be negotiated. Beijing can
and will get the deal done but it needs more help from Washington.
The Bush administration needs to take the military option off the
table, as the British government appears to have wisely done. Leaving
it out there for everyone to see is actually to use a preferred
word of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld “unhelpful.”
By ruling force out, the U.S. would create conditions under which
it won’t be needed anyway. Sometimes a policy of restraint
is the muscular move. It’s the only path to peace on the tense
and dangerous Korean Peninsula.
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The above weekly column has just appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser,
The South China Morning Post and The Straits Times of Singapore.
The author, Tom Plate, is a regular columnist at these three papers.
The column also appears in other world newspapers, including The
San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Times, The Japan Times and
The Korea Times. Email him at: tplate@ucla.edu.
For publication
and reprint rights, contact the author directly or John Simpson
(john.simpson@latsi.com) of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate International. |
