Nukes aren’t the point

By Richard W. Hinchman III

In response to a July 8 op-ed article, "No to South Korea's Nukes," there are too many forces at play that are being overshadowed by North Korea's development of nuclear weapons.

While true the security situation is at an extraordinarily high level at present, it isn't anything to raise an eyebrow at in light of the countless other times the red-flag has gone up and the North's possession of nuclear devices has dominated all mention of diplomatic talks.

Regardless of how “unstable” we might believe the mental state of the North Korean regime to be, it’s never, ever going to actually use them, assuming of course a delivery system is indeed at their disposal. But I digress from the main point of my topic.

This diplomatic debacle didn't start with nuclear proliferation. It began as soon as competing ideologies carved up the Korean Peninsula after (the still ongoing) war. While the South performed its "miracle," the North faltered under a totalitarian regime and is now the last great holdout of an economic system that even China has in practice rejected.

At present, North Korea sits firmly in the back pocket of China like an annoying little cousin you feel the need to protect but don't really like while the South remains under the protective veil of the United States. For us to pretend either is going to take action against their larger benefactors is circumspect at best and almost laughable in practice.

The North's regime is smart enough not to push too far to risk losing Beijing's support and their half-hearted calls to disarm haven't been taken seriously by anyone. As for the South, the thought of nuclear proliferation is equally ridiculous and Seoul isn't going to do anything the U.S. State Department tells them not to do.

So here we sit, after six-decades of diplomatic stalemate in which neither side can or will do anything to truly provoke the other and we pretend to play this game of negotiations under the auspices of toothless diplomacy.

Let’s be clear that by no means is a military option a viable solution and should only even be discussed by game theorists as a “what-if” worst-case scenario. Nor is the current policy of South Korea ala U.S. preconditions and North Korea's repeated walkouts going to work.

Assuming the progeny has been sufficiently dogmatically brainwashed, the death of Kim Jong-il isn't going to make the difference some analysts had hoped. The quagmire is doomed to continue into perpetuity under current policies ― nukes or not.

The solution and certainly most effective projection is for the North's regime to collapse from within and frankly, U.S.-South Korea diplomacy is doing everything it can to interfere. While it is well known the dissemination of propaganda materials from the South is slowly trickling in and reaching the North Korean people, it is doing so at a miserably slow rate and the onslaught of sanctions against the North is not helping the effort.

Thanks to outside forces ― U.N. sanctions, U.S. refusal to play unless they disarm, the Lee Myung-bak administration's hard-line tactics, China's crackdown on defectors to name a few ― it has become increasingly difficult to smuggle in word of the outside world to the oppressed mass of more than 28 million people living in North Korea.

We all read the reports of worsening conditions and most of us feel bad for a minute and go on with our day. The Korean divide has a stigma of shame attached to it, and when queried, most South Koreans portray apathy or disinterest with their Northern brethren.

Unless we lighten the diplomatic demand burden and care for more than the nuclear threat, conditions are going to get worse and millions of innocents will perish. Pressuring the North hasn't worked ... time for a change of tack.

Richard W. Hinchman III is professor of English at Osan Univeristy, Gyeonggi Province. He graduate from Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in political science and history. He obtained master's degree in diplomacy from Norwich University. He can be contacted at rhinchman@vt.edu.