A ROK Drop favorite Nicholas Eberstadt has an article published on the Fox News website that discusses his viewpoint in regards to what to do about the North Korean nuclear program:
Nicholas Eberstadt
As bizarre and satire-prone as the North Korean regime’s buffoonish-looking Kim Jong-Un and his servile courtiers may be, Pyongyang’s leadership is neither irrational nor suicidal. The rationale behind this confrontation would actually be to achieve a maximum of strategic gain with a minimum of actual destruction and violence.
The basic idea is to force Washington to blink in an escalating crisis on the Korean peninsula—a crisis of Pyongyang’s own making, at a time and under circumstances of Pyongyang’s own choosing.
If America hesitates or climbs down in the face of a future, stage-managed exercise in tactical North Korean aggression, Pyongyang will have undermined the credibility of the U.S. military alliance with South Korea.
The formal end to that alliance, and the exit of American troops from Korea, could quickly follow. (…….)
Likewise more and better missile defense: the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems against ballistic missiles that the U.S. has offered South Korea and Japan is a good step, and so is moving forward in earnest on missile defense for the USA.
As for weakening the DPRK’s military economy, the foundation for all its offensive capabilities: we should put Pyongyang back on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list—it never should have been removed in 2008. Sanctions with genuine bite should be implemented—the dysfunctional DPRK economy is uniquely susceptible to them.
The United Nations has already gotten a comprehensive report on North Korea’s grisly human rights record from its Commission of Inquiry on the situation in the DPRK: let governments of conscience now seek international criminal accountability for North Korea’s leadership.
Then there is the China question. It is by no means impossible for America and her allies to pressure the DPRK if China does not cooperate. That said: it is time for Beijing to pay a penalty for its support for the most odious regime on the planet today. [Fox News]
You can read more at the link, but I fully agree with Eberstadt’s statement that people need to understand that the Kim regime is not irrational or suicidal. From their perspective everything they have been doing makes sense. A nuclear deterrent ensures regime survival; their provocation cycles have historically been successful in getting concessions from South Korea and the US. Why stop now?
