Asymmetrical Information

Yes, excellent look; it's hard not to be very discouraged about that area of the world. Even more so if one was to question an important assumption made by Mr. Drezner (I have never been known for a lack of temerity).

Since there seems to be no real long range solution, Mr. Drezner posits that encouraging those countries closest to North Korea to apply pressure causing them to tone down the nuclear stuff would be a viable intermediate step. But what if the North Korean behavior is allowed (or even tersely encouraged) as a Russian/Sino protest aimed at the Bush US hegamony/preemptive strike policy. The concern over US behavior may outweigh any conerns mentioned by Mr. Drezner as to the proliferation of nuclear weapons into nearby muslim countries.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/06/25/world/main298186.shtml has the ugly details of the new found coziness between Russia and China in response to recent US saber rattling.

If this is the case, then the US stands alone to back up it's "Axis of Evil" rhetoric that Marshall (cited in the Drezner post) insists was a Bush foreign policy screw-up of the highest degree; leaving no viable response whatsoever.

Oops! Link didn't take. Here are the ugly details.

The best thing written on the DPRK in the last two years is Steven Bradner's "North Korea's Strategy" written in August 2000 and still valid. You can get it at:

http://www.nti.org/e_research/e1_nkorea_/html
Scroll down on the right until you reach "North Korea's Strategy" and click.

Or go to http://www.wizard.net/~npec/papers/Bradner.htm

The DPRK's goals have not changed. Get the U.S. out of the peninsula and reunite it under the DPRK. They were first enunciated in 1948 and have been consistently reuttered ever since. Reform in North Korea? If the leader is God-like and God is perfect, what's with this reform talk? As Bradner points out, anyone advocating reform in North Korea has a very limited life span because advocating reform is questioning the wisdom of the leader who is by definition perfect, all wise, etc. If you argue for reform, then you are saying the Dear Leader has made mistakes and that is impossible.

The best thing written on the DPRK in the last two years is Steven Bradner's "North Korea's Strategy" written in August 2000 and still valid. You can get it at:

http://www.nti.org/e_research/e1_nkorea_/html
Scroll down on the right until you reach "North Korea's Strategy" and click.

Or go to http://www.wizard.net/~npec/papers/Bradner.htm

The DPRK's goals have not changed. Get the U.S. out of the peninsula and reunite it under the DPRK. They were first enunciated in 1948 and have been consistently reuttered ever since. Reform in North Korea? If the leader is God-like and God is perfect, what's with this reform talk? As Bradner points out, anyone advocating reform in North Korea has a very limited life span because advocating reform is questioning the wisdom of the leader who is by definition perfect, all wise, etc. If you argue for reform, then you are saying the Dear Leader has made mistakes and that is impossible.

Drezner is to be congratulated for recognizing that this is not a two-party, prisoner's dilemma style, game theoretic problem. Unlike a certain NY Times Op-ed columnist, and his acolytes who post here all too often.

But if anyone is into black humor, here's a piece from 1998 that demonstrates that the Clinton Administration fell into their North Korea policy...or were pushed, by that all time screw-up artist Jimmy Carter:

http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1998/jf98/jf98sigal.html

And I hope all the "Bush is dumb", usual suspects, enjoy reading such as:

The CNN gambit

After dinner Carter telephoned the White House. The call, about 10:30 a.m. Washington time, interrupted the council of war. Gallucci was sent out of the Cabinet Room to answer it. The conversation was guarded; it took place over an open line, enabling the North Koreans to eavesdrop.

....Fifteen minutes later Gallucci returned to the meeting. He stunned the gathering with the news that Kim Il Sung had agreed to freeze his nuclear program under iaea [Int'l Atomic Energy Agency] monitoring, and to resume high-level talks on a comprehensive settlement of the nuclear issue. Carter, Gallucci concluded, was about to go on CNN to announce the deal.

The administration was "blindsided" by the live television announcement, says a top official, who was not aware that Carter had taken CNN with him. "You told him not to," Lake said to Gallucci. No, said Gallucci, ruefully. The room erupted in exasperation. Moments later, when they tuned into CNN, their exasperation turned to fury.

Carter gave the back of his hand to the crime-and-punishment approach. Discussing the resumption of high-level talks, he said, "The commitment that I have received is that all aspects of North Korea's nuclear program would be resolved through good-faith talks," not by letting the iaea conduct a special inspection of the waste sites. He also questioned the iaea's insistence on sampling the fuel rods that were being unloaded, which had set off the crisis.

Most important, Carter publicly repudiated the sanctions strategy. "Nothing should be done to exacerbate the situation now," he declared. "The reason I came over here was to try to prevent an irreconcilable mistake."

Carter went public deliberately. "It was obvious," Carter himself wrote at the time, "that the threat of sanctions had no effect on them whatsoever, except as a pending insult, branding North Korea as an outlaw nation and their revered leader as a liar and criminal."

"Carter made clear to me he did it on purpose," says a diplomat who was directly involved. "His intent was to kill the sanctions movement." ....

Carter had gone out of his way to reassure North Korea and to distance himself, in private and in public, from prior American positions. It paid off. Most of North Korea's concessions were to come after Carter had publicly repudiated the sanctions strategy, easing pressure on Pyongyang.

Making lemonade

The CNN interview stunned the gathering in the Cabinet Room. Some senior officials seemed more concerned about being upstaged in public than being rescued from a doomed policy. "It looked as if we were contracting out our foreign policy, like we were bystanders," said one, "and had totally lost control of it."

....

After several testy outbursts, Vice President Gore intervened with a pertinent question, "Can we make lemonade out of this lemon?" He proposed taking the Carter-Kim deal and interpreting it to Washington's advantage.

"The crux of his pitch was to hear what we want to hear," says a participant.
------------endquote---------->>

Wow! Looks like we dodged a bullet in November 2000.

A German submarine was apparently sunk taking nuclear material around to Japan in 1945. That's an Axis. Evil, too.

North Korea sends Scuds around to Yemen, which go to Iraq. Iran ships arms to Hamas or Fatah or AlQaeda, as if it matters which one, who are fighting Kurds in North Iraq. Looks like an Axis of Evil to me.

There is a level of stupidity that becomes treason. Failure to recognize obvious enemies is part and parcel of that stupidity.

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