Open Sources: We Are All Neocons

One of us:

It has become almost impossible to imagine a positive outcome to the long-festering problems that center on North Korea as long as the Kim dynasty reigns, enforcing the disastrously failed policies of the late “Great Leader,” President Kim Il Sung. [….]

So why not just come out and say it?

Not only would perennially hungry North Korea benefit from the removal of the founder’s son and heir Kim Jong Il, the “Dear Leader. But so would most of, if not all, the other countries with major interests in the region (perhaps even China). One could say the same about Kim Jong Il’s own son and heir-designate, Kim Jong Un, who has shown no inclination to jettison the policies he’s likely to inherit.

Why not acknowledge, also, as Washington seems to have done in the case of Osama bin Laden, that there are reasons why removing them dead might be better than removing them alive?

If you’re a North Korea watcher, it will probably surprise you to see who wrote those words, particularly if you’ve read his book. Pointing out that contrast isn’t meant as criticism; I have only respect for those who bow to the facts and acknowledge that this regime can’t be “engaged” into anything but a better-funded version of itself. That said, I will offer another criticism: knocking off Kim Jong Il would be unduly risky and more difficult that the author imagines, and by itself, might not even solve the bigger problem if other generals or puppets of the Chinese feel they can step right in and take his place. I’m afraid we’ll have to kill more than just one man to kill this regime. We’ll also have to kill its delusion of internal invincibility.

If you live in Washington, Brookings is going to hold an interesting-looking event on North Korea’s nuclear program this month. It’s unfortunate that I’ve found so little time for events like this lately.

What I’d like to learn from this event is whether the conventional wisdom continues to migrate toward the view that North Korea is incorrigible and too big a proliferation risk to leave be. I don’t think the conventional wisdom is capable of reaching the conclusion that naturally follows, which is that we ought to be catalyzing a revolution in North Korea. It’s easy to pronounce this impossible, especially if your analysis of North Korea is still stuck in the 1980’s and hasn’t caught up with how much hunger, black markets, smuggling, trade, and information have changed North Korea, especially since the Great Confiscation. But then, even a year ago, most of the conventional wisdom would have pronounced the revolutions in Libya and Syria impossible, too. My fear is that when it does happen in North Korea, we’ll be caught flat-footed, paralyzed by indecision, and unprepared to move swiftly enough to influence events.

The Obama Administration bristles and growls at China’s massive new Rason aid package for Kim Jong Il:

“We urge transparency, extreme caution and vigilance in any business dealings with North Korea,” said Mark Toner, a spokesman for the State Department, in response to the reports.

Remember the days when liberals all agreed that the only way to change North Korea was to strengthen its trade links with Earth? Me neither.

Toner said the U.S. urges “all United Nations member states to fully implement” Security Council resolutions that “target North Korea’s continued involvement in proliferation, nuclear weapons development and luxury goods procurement.

This looks like a perfect target for the Iran, North Korea, and Syria Sanctions Consolidation Act, and I’ll bet a few of the boys in Treasury have had exactly the same idea.

Also on the topic of engagement, Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard are out with a new paper concluding that it doesn’t work:

As an empirical matter, there is little evidence that sanctions had effect, or did so only in conjunction with inducements. However, inducements did not yield significant results either, in part because of severe credibility and sequencing problems in the negotiations.

But on the subject of sanctions, that’s not exactly the position that Noland has taken in the past. He has consistently said that he found no evidence that U.N. sanctions had much of an effect, but Noland has previously argued that Treasury sanctions against Banco Delta Asia worked:

Other measures have also worked in the past. In 2005, for example, the US Treasury Department acted against a small Macau bank holding North Korean assets, including profits from missile and gold sales and possibly even including Kim’s personal political slush fund. This one measure tanked the black-market value of North Korea’s currency, disrupted legitimate commerce, and reportedly necessitated a scaling back of festivities associated with the Dear Leader’s birthday. And Pyongyang got the message: It soon made concessions, such as shutting down the Yongbyon nuclear facilities and permitting the return of international inspectors.

See also. I hope Marcus doesn’t bristle at this too much, but there can be not-too-subtle differences in what he writes on his own, versus what he co-authors with Haggard. Co-authorship, I suppose, inherently involves compromises.