Grand Bargain With North Korea Will Not Look Like This
Saturday, 28 April 2018
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The good folks at the last dictator who gave up his nuclear program, lying dead in a meat locker, would have surely reminded him of it.
These mendasar understandings about North Korea are the reason why I think Prof. Clemens' proposed "grand bargain" is delusional. Essentially, Prof. Clemens is asking North Korea to give up her nuclear kegiatan for:
- Diplomatic relations with United States and peace treaty
- End of sanctions and participation in the world economy
- Fishing in the Yellow Sea
The primary misunderstanding at work in Prof. Clemens' tawaran is the same one that has bedeviled many a North Korean analyst -- even those who are unimpeachably smart, competent and respectable. The misunderstanding is that North Korean regime is interested in being a normal government that is interested in national development. The regime has amply demonstrated in the last few decades the fallacy of that idea. But the attraction of normalcy is so strong that, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, North Korean analysts believe that North Korea will disarm itself in exchange for, say, economic development, which will more than likely disrupt the regime's grip on the country.
Denuclearizing North Korea requires offering something that neither U.S. nor South Korea (rightly) can possibly offer -- survival of Kim Jong-Il and Kim Jong-Un's regime for the foreseeable future in its murderous, oppressive glory. This is not an easy puzzle to solve, and I do not have a better alternative to offer at this moment. (My sense is that reunification will happen before there will be a denuclearization. I will elaborate on this in a later post.) But it is important to at least understand what we are dealing with. Prof. Clemens' "grand bargain" indicates, alarmingly, that even a respectable American thinker does not really understand what North Korea wants.
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