RUSSIA & CHINA COULD BREAK KOREAN CRISIS

Many Americans watching today’s Korean crisis are unaware that the Korean War, in which millions died, never ended in 1953. Instead, hostilities were brought to a close and since then a ceasefire and demilitarized zone have been the only things standing in the way of a renewed conflict that this time could see many more casualties because of the threatened use of weapons of mass destruction.
Recent Pentagon war games have concluded that if the war resumes, US and South Korean military casualties will be half a million in the first 90 days. Civilian casualties will reach into the millions very quickly. With that assessment in mind, the Obama White House is desperate to find a way to manage an escalating situation that has not been helped by decades of foreign policy blunders and more recently by belligerent statements from neocons of the Bush years. When Donald Rumsfeld was Defense Secretary he declared the U.S. could not only fight a war in Iraq but one in Korea at the same time and win both. He also called for regime change, which was a Bush doctrine mantra.
Even knowing North Korea was being run by a seriously dysfunctional family, the Bush White House never developed a coherent strategy for dealing with a regime that uses heated rhetoric, political blackmail and the threat of force just to get the aid it desperately needs to feed its starving people. Whatever food it has is used to feed its army of 1.5 million men and women.
The Bush White constantly blamed China for not reining in the Korean leader, Ki, Jong-il and his cohorts by them refusing them aid, but the reality was that China feared taking any action that would result in North Korea collapsing. That fear has heightened in 2009 with the realization that an imploding North Korea would have a major economic impact on China. Millions of North Koreans would flow across the border looking for food and shelter. China also worries that if a war broke out the U.S. would win it and a united Korea would result in a pro-American state at its back door. For those reasons alone, China is now considering placing serious diplomatic pressure on North Korea. It realizes that the regime’s renewed belligerence risks setting off events that could get out of control.
The deputy chief of China’s general staff, Ma Xiaotin, said as much in May when he admitted that “all countries big and small, rich and poor, strong or weak have a strong responsibility to safeguard regional stability.” It was an admission that China and other nations, not necessarily in the region, had a major role to play in reducing tensions. In June, an editorial in China Global Times, a state- controlled newspaper, complained that North Korea “did not respect China’s advice and put the Chinese government in an awkward position by producing security crises in East Asia.” That was intended as warning to Kim Jong-il that Beijing was losing patience with him. Meanwhile, the Russians have been using backdoor channels to encourage China to take a tougher stand with the regime and Moscow has indicated that it too is willing to use its economic links with N. Korea to bring the regime to the negotiating table. Recently, the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, stressed that he was opposed to an expansion of the nuclear club. He added that he felt North Korea was endangering international security and that was an “unacceptable” reality.
It may come down to Russia and China providing the mechanism whereby the Obama administration can defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula and ultimately in the region. That will not, however, solve the underlying problems North Korea poses for Obama. They may take much longer to deal with. For example, the North Koreans are unlikely to give up their nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future because they regard them as bargaining chips in their bid to stay afloat economically.
China has increased its exports to North Korea at least four-fold in the past five years even though it does not get paid for them. Therefore those exports are essentially a form of aid. If China were to reduce its exports the move could be more effective than sanctions. Were Russia to follow suit it might force the Kim Jong-il to negotiate.
In the final analysis, the U.S. will still have to make major decisions about how it sees its role in that part of the world, irrespective of whether it can, with the help of Russia and China, defuse tensions for the time being. In the longer term, it is unlikely North Korea is going to have a regime other than the unstable one it has presently and the U.S. must decide whether it wants to play policeman in that part of the world or simply diplomat.
Some within the Obama Administration, especially Dr. Kurt Campbell, who is soon to become assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, believe the developing Korean crisis offer an opportunity for a strategic realignment in relations with Japan and South Korea. However, any rebuilding of that axis will have to take into account the fact the U.S. is obliged to hand back operational control of South Korean forces to South Korea in 2012. The move is being opposed by conservative politicians in South Korea, who would like the U.S. to delay or abandon the handover. Those same elements would also like S. Korea to have an independent nuclear deterrent, something the United States has all always opposed. The planned transfer of operational military control now looms large as tensions rise and the U.S. will have to decide if it wishes to remain tied to a war that has not ended, or stand back, withdrawing its troops and working with other powers to defuse the situation through a mixture of diplomacy and sanctions.
Japan, for its part, is acutely aware of the threat from North Korea because the North Korean testing of ballistic missiles has sent missiles over Japanese territory. There has also been a debate within Japan about whether it should have a stronger foreign policy that requires less reliance on the U.S. and whether it should consider developing a potent military. Ultimately, Japan will vote to remain within a tight strategic partnership that embraces Washington and Seoul. During the Bush years, Japan felt isolated from Washington but now feels it could benefit from a clearer foreign policy relationship with the U.S.
Dr. Kurt Campbell will likely move Obama towards a stronger partnership with allies in the region but, in terms of a strategy for handling the deadlock with N. Korea, he will advocate a mixture of diplomacy and sanctions imposed with the support of China and Russia. Back in 1997, he told a Department of Defense sub-committee that only North Korea and South Korea could resolve the divisions in Korea. At that time he recommended that the U.S. should merely play the role of facilitator. If he gives the same advice to Barack Obama he will, in effect, be saying America should not play the policeman and but merely be the enabler of a process of dialogue between the two parts of Korea.
The one danger that cannot be dismissed, however, is that an ailing Kim Jong- il or his 25-year-old son, who is likely to succeed him, will light a spark that will engulf the whole region in war. In that event, the military options for protecting the 38,000 U.S. military personnel on the DMZ and the South Korean capital, Seoul, which is within range of at least 10,000 artillery pieces, many of them capable of firing shells carrying chemical and biological weapons, are limited. There is also the nuclear package the North might deliver and its massive army. The White House has made it clear that nothing will be off the table in the event of major hostilities and that means America’s superior nuclear arsenal would come into play. But all of that should be considered a doomsday scenario while there are opportunities to work with allies and others to try to move North Korea towards meaningful dialogue. The alternative is unthinkable.
If the U.S. goes ahead with the planned transfer of operational control of South Korea’s forces to South Korea in 2012 that might offer an opportunity for the U.S. to withdraw its troops from the DMZ and ultimately out of South Korea. That would not imply the U.S. had no strategic partnership with South Korea or Japan. Instead it would be an indication the U.S. now felt other countries should be in the business of solving their own problems without expecting the U.S. to play the role of world policeman.