The contact between the United States and North Korea slated for March 1 and 2 was abandoned as expected as Washington denied visas for the six-member Pyongyang delegation.
Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump expressed negative views about the North. He was “angry” at its missile test despite his warning; twice using “late” in referring to talks with dictator Kim Jong-un; revealing an extensive review besides a missile shield to counter its threat and pushing China to do more to make the North behave.
Trump deserves support for his new approach to the decades-old intractable problem because the North’s maturing programs on missiles and nuclear weapons are emerging to threaten stability on the Korean Peninsula, the region and beyond.
Still, Trump should learn from the failures of his predecessors such as President Barack Obama and formulate a doctrine on the North to ensure that resolving the North problem can be the key part of his legacy.
Above all, he should know “anger” cannot be a policy.
Obama had given up attempts to solve the North’s challenge after a series of quagmire obstacles. So did his Republican predecessor George W. Bush. Bush tried a hard-line policy without success.
Trump may engage in rough and tumble play with the North, but should use cool-headedness rather than emotion. It is like Step 2 of Trump’s business primer, “The Art of Deal,” _ protect the downside and the upside will take care of itself.
All options for his North Korean policy may be considered as long as these principles are adhered to.
A war should be avoided at all costs. The South’s population is 50 million and the North’s 25 million, bringing the total to 75 million. During the Clinton administration, a strike was considered to take out the North’s nuclear facilities but did not proceed because of a casualty estimate running into the millions. Plus, conflict would be highly contagious, due to the Sino-U.S. hegemonic rivalry.
Second, there could be friction along the road to resolution, but the ultimate goal should be to enable the North to coexist peacefully with its neighbors. If the goal were to bring down the regime, there would be no way to hedge against chaos that could be too enormous to handle _ tens of thousands of refugees spilling into China and the South, for one.
It is important to reconcile with each other the goals of the respective stakeholders: the South for unification; the U.S. and Japan for a nuclear-free North; and China, which wants a buffer from U.S. influence, and the North for security guarantees.
Trump should help set priorities for these goals and give them impetus to move forward in an irreversible manner. That success alone should be good enough to consider Trump for a Nobel peace prize.