A permanent solution for North Korea
Confucian culture is all about respect to one's superiors. All Confucian cultures are more centralized than their respective Western Communist or capitalist counterparts. Sometimes, Confucian societies can be pushed to defer to foreign rule: for instance, Japan and South Korea have adopted capitalist and democratic systems. Neither of these cases were really homegrown, the result of indigenous protest, but rather come from deliberate US policies. From these examples, the first thing required is a show of strength to establish status. The second, more subtle step then is a show of mercy, or an attempt at nation-building. Japan was a good example of that, and it is one of the most famous applications of such a policy (the other being Germany.) Besides this one model, which would only work in very specific political circumstances, this strategy has also worked when it wasn't even really intended. Nixon's rapprochement to China may not have been meant as a signal for them to keep their political system, but it did give them 'face' enough to open up to the world and start down the path to development. It may be unclear if that made China more or less of a threat down the road, today, but it was clearly the moral approach to take, as it brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
This is going to have to be the end result of the North Korea situation. Every Confucian society of geopolitical importance which has developed has done so as a result of American interference of some sort. (Taiwan, the only one which didn't originate from American designs, is kind of the exception that proves the rule, as their influence in the region has steadily been declining for practically as long as it's existed.) The only question is, how? There's no Taiwan here - selling South Korea to them would be crazy. So how do you make the first diplomatic overtures?
I actually have my own answer to that question, but I won't disclose it just yet, just to get people thinking the way I am. What I'm thinking of is quite political, and once I mention it then the thread will probably go off topic.
A few remarks about mainland China
Orange Dave, what you apprea to be talking about is the importance of education for moral development of the individual so that the state can be governed by moral virtue rather than by the use of coercive laws.
Taiwan has absolute freedom of religions whereas China is still an enigma when it comes to not allowing free and open, unfettered practice of religion.
Ever since the Ike years as President in the 1950s I well remember, I was a teenager then, the Qumoy and Matsu Islands challenges by Communist China militarily, which failed ultimately.
China has come a long way since the Nixon days and today the US economy owes China for helping keep our national debtd afloat. The defacto capitalism model for world trade by China has defanged many of the past negative habits of China, I agree. But the issue of freedom of all religions inside mainland China still haunts it, as evidenced recently with Muslim riots in far Western China.
The Deputy Dean of "the" main Medical College of China was visiting the Medical College of Alabama, a part of the University of Alabama at Birmingham campus, in the late 1980s. As the administrator of the VA's Medical Research & Development Division at that time I was asked by our local US medical school dean to take the Chinese Deuty Dean of their main Medical College to lunch.
During lunch the Chinese MD told me that his son was a premed student then at UAB, hoping to be admitted to the Medical College of Alabama in a few years. Secondly he told me that mainland China was (and I suspect still is) very backward internally, this was circa 1989) still very backward, with it's people still eating rice out of iron bowls.
Just to balance some remarks today about mainland China which economically is our main stay in terms of our national debt today.
North Korea -- and Iran -- want respect
as they define it. POTUS visits both; aid flows prompting a counterflow of love and decency. Development ensues. They all live happily ever after.
. . .
Thus two more nations are added to the long list of those who dislike the US for several reasons, not least that they responded to power by wanting acknowledgment and 'respect' from that power and demeaned themselves or were demeaned by needing,wanting or taking his aid. All these nations act nicely in public while working, sometimes feverishly, sometimes casually, behind the scenes to trip the big guy -- not necessarily kill him, just trip him and cut him down to size...
Interesting you mention Germany and Japan. More interesting may be their pay back -- when it occurs.
Yes, no and not really...
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Originally Posted by
orange dave
Iran is a different question. US policy debates tend to mention them in the same breath, but I'm not convinced they themselves think of themselves of having anything to do with each other.
Agree; the only similarity is in the quest for international respect and a perverse and probably incorrect sense that US 'acceptance' is tantamount to such respect.
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The US, both privately and publicly, could justify taking this path with North Korea, and a different path with Iran, because North Korea off the bat has a better outlook for success, according to the 'Asian Tiger' model.
Having spent four years in Korea, including a couple as the tiger was developing and after it was pretty well grown plus a couple in Iran prior to the '79 revolution, I disagree -- the 'Middle East Lion' could be Iran; it has a better chance at that than any other in the region to include Iraq even with our help (which isn't likely to be forthcoming).
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Nevertheless, this strategy has already been applied in Iran, under the Clinton administration...
Clinton visited Iran? I missed that totally... :D
Overtures were made by Clinton and flummoxed by Congress as had occurred with overtures by Reagan, the difficulty in relations with Iran (as with Cuba and North Korea) is in the Congress, WH overtures to fix that even under George W. Bush (his Father didn't even really try), were routinely deflected by Congressional hard liners -- as were possible overtures to China by Johnson before Nixon. Dick and Henry just pulled an end run. Good for them. Most Administrations aren't that ballsy.
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...but not North Korea, rendering that point irrelevant anyway.
Few points are irrelevant in international relations; too many variables to summarily dismiss anything.
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What I'm thinking of here is a historical apology for the Korean War, based on more effective ways the US could have won the Cold War.
Heh, you're correct about derailing the thread, I suspect. I'll let that go for now but will agree with you that there were far more effective ways for the US to have handled the Cold War. I do not agree with use of the word 'win' in that respect as I'm not at all convinced it's over. No bodies have been buried...
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...And of course a lot of problems would also have been solved if the US simply fought the war more effectively and defeated the North, but we can't exactly say that.
Having been there at the time, I can agree that the war could have been fought far more effectively -- we tried to fight a land war in northern Europe while in Asia (a bad habit of ours...) -- I will also point out that defeat of the 'North' would have entailed a lengthy irregular postwar cleanup problem that would easily have rivaled Viet Nam. Oh -- and that you seem to, as MacArthur tried to, ignore the Chinese...:wry:
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Umm, what kind of time scale are you thinking of here? Tens, or hundreds, of years?
A few score for Germany, whatever it takes for the far more patient Japan to include "hundreds." Both with the caveat that time will cure some of that as the world modifies and anger fades, thus the desire and thus the capability will diminish over time but either would take advantage of any opportunity or weakness to achieve to offset their known population decline which will adversely affect their ability for payback which a good many in both nations think is deserved. :cool:
Can't ever find a Mikhail when you need one...
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Originally Posted by
orange dave
I'm talking specifically about historical apologies. The presidential visit is nice pomp, but it only comes on top of some kind of major policy change.
Or it could be in itself the announcement of a policy change...
However, I believe there is a problem with your solution.
It is not that I and my generation who fought in Korea strongly doubt that we have anything -- that's a specific AND an all inclusive we plus a very inclusive anything -- to apologize for; we're old, departing this mortal coil on a daily basis and have no political clout so our opinion is basically immaterial. So forget us. :cool:
The US Congress is another matter entirely.
Regardless of which party the President who broached the idea of an apology might belong to, the other party would have a field day with the concept. :rolleyes:
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I believe Madeleine Albright apologized to Iran for overthrowing the Shaw in 1953(?) or so. Apologies have a particular resonance in North Korea, where as you will remember we managed to get away with apologizing for the intrusion of the USS Pueblo on paper while simultaneously denouncing that same agreement verbally. Apologies have greased many diplomatic wheels here, unlike with Iran, as far as I know.
Since I remember drawing cold weather gear in preparation for deployment from Fort Bragg to Korea, yes, I recall the Pueblo 'apology' quite well.
I suspect however, that an apology for a war gets into far shakier ideological and legal territory. If one apologizes, does one then owe reparations? If, so in what amount? Regardless of the legalities, what of world opinion (which I don't give a fig about but which worries some)? Do many in Congress subscribe to a belief that we owe North Korea an apology given the practical fact that they invaded the South weighed against the unprovable assertion that if only we'd done the Cold War differently, it might not have happened?
So, I see your point, don't disagree it might work. Might. Barely might. The problems with it would, I believe, be US domestic and would be legal-type practical as well as ideological. So I suspect a Presidential risk analysis would come to the same conclusion and the idea would be rejected unless there were very positive signs that the potential benefit to the US would out weigh the costs. I doubt such signs will appear anytime soon.
Note also that doesn't even address Chinese (They had more people killed in Korea than did the North Korean Army) concerns. Will they alos want /get an apology? Nor South Korean and Japanese concerns. Or the UN, who underwrote that war -- or the Brits and Australians and other who fought there...
As for Madeline apologizing to Iran, she did indeed -- and I acknowledge that as you note, Iran and North Korea are different. Your idea of the President doing it would resonate with North Korea -- as would an apology from Clinton instead of his female SecState have resonated with Iran, in the event it was a meaningless gesture form one of the worst secretaries of state seen in my long life. She ties with Alexander Haig for loser of the 20th Century.
My personal belief is that both nations would take a Presidential apology, use it to their benefit in various ways and modify their behavior very little if at all -- probably for the worse if at all. Those currently in power in both nations are not about to give that up. Another generation; perhaps. Maybe a Gorbachev-like person and economic dire straits may align. Until then, I expect little change from either nation. Both are really similar only in two things: wanting 'respect' -- and to keep their quite different power structures in place.
Don't agree on Congressional panel
The people of North Korea are simply too close to the reality of democracy and a free enterprise system that enriches the consumerism driven economy model down to the grassroots level as they see being daily enjoyed by their blood kin in South Korea.
North Koreans want food, clothing, fuel, and much, much more. Free TV programming, abundant, modernized housing, cars, affordable fuel to drive the cars with, in short, the hugely successful way of life now found in South Korea, Japan and even in China today.
I'd stay focused on the wants and needs of the masses and look for a change, which should be soon, in the top civil and military leadership of N. Korea in the hope and with the goal that the new leadership group, too, might like to become titans of a then newly growing economy and system at least of the mainland China model.
China could and would surely help promote and fund, for interest back on their money of course, such a change over in North Korea's economy.
No, this doesn't happen overnight, but it has to start sooner vs. later or never. It is inevitable but we can help speed up it's start up via China. My two cents.
That is a thing, no question...
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Originally Posted by
orange dave
...The only costs this would impose on the US would be what it has already had to put up with.
I doubt that would be true. I think there are many hidden costs there -- and I'm not talking solely fiscal...
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Also, this isn't really an apology to anyone, but rather to ourselves. So maybe a better way to think of this would be a congressional panel convened to investigate how well containment schemes work or something...
Congress is a monumental waste of time and taxpayer money. They are venal and more concerned with their party than they are with the good of the nation. Every commission they have created in the memory of living man has been a farce and done more harm than good. The political infighting that would go on in a commission as you suggest would make the US a bigger laughing stock worldwide than we already are thanks to too many such schemes.
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Whatever happened, it would require a lot of creativity on the part of a lot of people to dilute the political risk to acceptable levels.
Exactly -- and that is in shorty supply; critically short -- that's why it is not a viable idea.
That and the hidden costs.
We simply disagree, pleasantly
I am not so pessimistic as you, and think practical human needs and potential consumer demands will infatuate whoever next group of leaders in N. Korea will be.
Even the existing N. Korean leadership understand they are too dependant on missles and A-bomb technology to generate foreign exchange for their impoverished nation.
We will soon see what comes next in N. Korea but my bet is on change, economically driven, over some mumbo-jumbo Congressional Committee mess that they, and I, will laugh at should it happen.
Understand everyone is entitled to their point of view, and that is mine...factoring in my few years when young as an International Banker, Asia Section, old Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co. in NYC, now merged into JP Morgan Chase Bank and some time as a Congressional staffer under the late House Democratic Whip Armistead Selden, D-AL, who was later Principal Under Secretary of Defense under President Nixon then President Carter's US Ambassador to New Zealand.
Cheers and let's wait and see.