Smart Power

Clinton Favors `Tough, Reality-Based' Approach to NK

President-elect Barack Obama's foreign policy is becoming more concrete just days before his Jan. 20 inauguration. He is to put an end to the eight years of President George W. Bush's unilateralism, based on the strength of U.S. military power. It is apparent that he will renew America's international leadership by focusing on diplomacy rather than military force.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's choice for secretary of state, laid out the first building blocks of the new U.S. foreign policy Tuesday in her confirmation hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The hearing highlighted her pledge of ``smart power" by wielding diplomacy as the main tool in dealing with trouble spots around the world.

``We must use what has been called `smart power,' the full range of tools at our disposal," Clinton said. She advocated a mix of diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and cultural strategies. She said that the U.S. will pursue a new, perhaps different approach that will become the cornerstone of what the Obama administration believes is an attitude of engagement that could bear fruit. But she warned that military power ``will sometimes be necessary … as a last resort."

What's certain is that the Obama administration will not repeat the mistakes of Bush and his neocons, who have been criticized for their unilateralism, arrogance and recklessness in putting military power before diplomacy. Clinton said, ``Foreign policy must be based on a marriage of principles and pragmatism, not rigid ideology, on facts and evidence, not emotion or prejudice."

In South Korea, policymakers, scholars, businessmen and the public are paying great attention to Obama's policy toward North Korea, especially the nuclear standoff. During the campaign trail, Obama expressed his willingness to meet with leaders such as Kim Jong-il of North Korea, once labeled by Bush as part of the ``axis of evil." Clinton said she would try to ``get America back in the business" of engaging other nations to curb the nuclear ambitions of Iran, North Korea and other countries.

The state secretary-designate said she favors ``tough, reality-based approach to North Korea" as the best way to end the regime's nuclear program. While supporting the six-nation talks on the North's denuclearization, she said there might be an opportunity for more direct dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang. What's apparent is that the U.S. will not tolerate the proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology.

Obama and Clinton should be careful not to send the wrong signal to North Korea, which has continued to use its notorious brinkmanship tactics to renege on its commitment to complete denclearization. By taking advantage of Obama's diplomacy-oriented approach, Pyongyang might not give up its nuclear gambling. On Tuesday, North Korea proposed that the U.S. should normalize relations with the communist country as a precondition for its nuclear disarmament. The new U.S. government should not play into the hands of the recalcitrant North, which should first abandon its nuclear ambitions and then mend ties with Washington.