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If Donald Trump can keep his nerve, he will soon have consigned the North Korean nuclear farce to history – and in doing so will have done much to change the narrative of his hitherto faltering presidency.
It is his Cuban-missile-crisis moment. Firmness and level-headedness are necessary in equal measure. And a victory will be all the sweeter for the fact that so many of his denigrators in the Washington establishment – not just the press and the Democratic Party but countless fakes and fair-weather friends in the Republican Party – are so obviously hoping he will fail.
The news overnight is helpful. A North Korean test rocket blew up over the port city of Sinpo shortly after launch. The embarrassment for North Korea’s tubby leader Kim Jong-un is massive – and it is hardly alleviated by the fact that, as the London Telegraph has pointed out, there is a distinct possibility that one or more foreign military powers hacked into the launch to ensure its failure. That inference has been echoed by Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a former British foreign secretary. Speaking to the BBC, he commented: “It could have failed because the system is not competent enough to make it work, but there is a very strong belief that the US through cyber methods has been successful on several occasions in interrupting these sorts of tests and making them fail.”
Rifkind could have added that Japan and South Korea, where many of the chips in the North Korean rocket were probably made, may also have played a part in the outcome.
The biggest danger now is that Trump will lose interest and leave the job unfinished. It is crucial that he continue to hold Kim’s feet to the fire. North Korea’s nuclear ambitions need to be ended promptly and decisively. Why? Because, as the world’s knitters know to their advantage, “a stitch in time saves nine” – it is better to fix a problem when it is small than to wait and let it get out of hand. While it is highly unlikely that Kim will anytime soon enjoy the ability to drop a nuclear bomb on the United States (or even Japan or South Korea), it is conceivable that at some stage he might. And in the meantime his bluffing will prove increasingly unnerving for an already ridiculously pusillanimous Washington establishment.
A second reason why this should top Trump’s agenda is that the North Korean nuclear distraction has long had unwelcome ramifications way beyond military policy. Repeatedly since the Clinton era, it has cramped Washington’s style on international trade, for instance. And trade, of course, is absolutely central to the new administration’s program.
It is fair to say that all the more important East Asian nations have a vested interest in exaggerating the North Korean threat. The more terrifying North Korea is made to appear, the more desperately Washington will seek out advice and help from China, Japan, and South Korea. That tends to ensure that trade talks with these mercantilist nations are consigned to the backburner.
Moreover at times of tension, Pentagon officials inevitably take charge. As the East Asians have gleefully realized for generations, the Pentagon is a remarkably soft touch on trade, and in return for the merest hortatory support for its military objectives will pull the rug from under the most carefully conceived plans drawn up elsewhere in Washington to get East Asia to open up.
The key to Trump’s strategy is China – or at least it should be. By propping up North Korea, China is heavily complicit in the present standoff. It is past time China was called to account. After all North Korea has long since become a pariah nation. This is obvious in the fact that it has a long record of reneging on commitments to abandon its nuclear program. In many ways an even bigger concern is the gratuitously outrageous rhetoric North Korean leaders have long resorted to in threatening South Korea, Japan and, of course, the United States. If Beijing persists in an alliance with such a nation, what does that say about China’s wish to remain a member in good standing of the world community?
It is hard to exaggerate how helpful Beijing could be to the cause of commonsense. At last count China supplied more than 76 percent of all North Korea’s imports and bought more than 75 percent of its exports. North Korean is heavily dependent on China for, among other vital supplies, oil. Its moribund industrial sector would grind to a halt without copious supplies of spare parts and indeed entire machines sourced from China or at least through China.
Of course, the conventional American view is that any attempt to read the Riot Act to Pyongyang will lead inevitably to Armageddon. While this version serves the interests of those who want to perpetuate the North Korean standoff, it is not based on verifiable facts.
All those suggestions that Kim Jong-un is a seriously irrational – even suicidal – opponent seem particularly off-base. While they cannot be directly falsified, it is surely clear that to run so much as a hamburger stall requires a certain grip on reality. We are entitled to assume that anyone who manages to sit atop any nation – even one as dysfunctional as North Korea and even if only in a titular capacity – is in possession of some limited rationality. A reasonable inference is that though Kim’s leadership skills probably fall far short of his grand-father’s – and even perhaps his father’s – he is endowed with a normal survival instinct, with all that entails in terms of going along and getting along. In particular he probably realizes that if he is holding a weak hand and his bluff is called, he should fold.
All Kim needs to do is show that he is serious about shutting down his nuclear program. In return, sanctions would be gradually lifted. China would be there as honest broker to ensure that Washington honored its side of the deal.
Eamonn Fingleton is the author of In the Jaws of the Dragon: America’s Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony (New York: St. Martin’s Press).
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Eamonn:
You say that North Korea’s nuclear ambitions need be ended quickly and decisively.
The Koreans would be out of their minds to do so. They should be aware what awaits them if they are bereft of nuclear weaponry. Libya and Iraq serve as prime examples.
North Korea is not china’s problem. China was not then, and is not now, complicit to this debacle. The north korean “problem” was created by the “empire-of-chaos” not long after WWII when they installed their puppet Lee Syn Man (Syngman Rhee) south of the 38th parallel to run a new country called “south korea”. An estimated tens of thousands of innocent koreans died protesting and opposing this move from the gun barrels of the empire’s troops at this forced partitioning of their country. South Korea is to-date still an “illegitimate” country setup without the consent of the korean people which led to the 1950-53 korean war when kim jong-un’s grandfather attempted a futile effort to reunify the whole country.
The international community should put not only the empire’s feet but its big fat ass to the fire.
“All Kim needs to do is show that he is serious about shutting down his nuclear program.”
Not gonna happen.
US has been invading too many nations on trumped-up charges.
What happened to Gaddafi?
North Korean regime is horrible, but it’s only rational for it not to trust the US and have some insurance against invasion. And nukes are it.
Exactly. The US created North Korea from the ruins of its murderous assault on the peninsula. Repeatedly over the years, North Korea, with Chinese assurances, has offered by stop its nuclear program if the US and its vassal South Korea will de-escalate their frequent war games and general military build up.The US – not North Korea – is the recalcitrant party is this dispute, though this truth is of course hidden by the MSM.
The Koreans would be out of their minds to do so. They should be aware what awaits them if they are bereft of nuclear weaponry. Libya and Iraq serve as prime examples.
Libya and Iraq didn’t have a superpower across the Yalu river ready to send millions of soldiers over the border in case the US wants to help South Korea annex the North.
Interesting counter point, isn’t one of the sticking points regarding NK that the Chinese would not want US troops on their border, so Chinese cooperation would need to be sought on the basis of the US removing troops from SK?
I agree. And therefore, there’s no reason for western paranoia; all they have to do is to stop threatening N.Korea, respect its independence and self-reliance. Juche=autarky; leave them alone, let them run their experiment.
The US has been threatening to nuke N Korea from the time of the Korean war so is it any wonder they decided to obtain a nuclear deterrent for themselves? For every action there’s a reaction. US and S Korean forces hold massive military exercises and openly declare themselves to be practicing ‘decapitation’ drills, meaning training to kill the N Korean leadership. When the N Koreans respond with their usual blustery rhetoric then that’s reported worldwide as aggression on their part. We only get half the story. How about an attempt at defusing tension by doing things such as signing a peace treaty and stopping these provocative military maneuvers? They’re not coming over here, we’re going over there.
Kim Jong-un supposedly went to school in Switzerland so he’s unlikely to be as detached from reality as many make him out to be. Since he was picked as the best successor by his father it’s unlikely he’s as cartoonish in real life as the propaganda says he is. Mocking him as “tubby” is schoolyard childish, especially in light of the fact that the US is world headquarters of morbid obesity.
Now that Xi knows that Kim’s missiles can be cyber-neutered and then destroyed, he must be thinking a lot about that greatest chocolate cake, as well as wondering whether opening up the Chinese economy would cost him less than having to deal with a seriously hobbled NK while facing stiff American sanctions and tariffs. My guess is Trump was educating Xi about the latter during the main course at Mar-a-Lago.
As an aside, I liked the way The Donald described the cake using his signature hyperbole to “brand” the deed as his own doing. The guesstimates of an 150+ IQ seem on the mark to me.
“Rifkind could have added that Japan and South Korea, where many of the chips in the North Korean rocket were probably made, may also have played a part in the outcome.”
I’d want to be sure about the sourcing and possible back doors in our own high tech military components and software before I did too much chortling about this.
Mr. Fingleton is obviously deaf and blind to the perfidy of the USA.
Most observers seem to be of the opinion that the relationship between China and NK is particularly weak at the moment. It’s quite possible the NKs have China in mind as much as the US as far as nuclear deterrence is concerned, in the longer run.
On the other hand, nuclear weapons are the only effective guarantee of national sovereignty in the modern world. It’s arguably better if countries like NK can effectively defy would-be world hegemons like the US.
LOL! So are Rifkind and Fingleton bullshitters, or are they ignorant of the substantial numbers of launch and mission failures experienced by every country that has tried to develop long range missile technology?
Neither anonymous “intelligence sources” nor Malcolm Rifkind dwell in the palace of truth. If they say it’s sunny, you should take your umbrella.
In recent days, China has repeatedly called for a peaceful settlement of the crisis. This is a warning to the US not to attack North Korea. Another Korean War looms, and we will lose if it happens.
Agreed. The US is far too full of hubris for its own good – and to the detriment of all of us.
Leave NK alone, no god appointed you to police the world. Leave off bullying the world, and you’ll sleep better.
And by the way, forget about assigning chores to China: they are not your underlings. They look after their own interests.
Stick to your usual errand boys.
Agree.
Tell Peking that if the Norks go nuke, then we help Japan and South Korea go nuke.
Anyone blaming this on the US is simply insane. The situations in Iraq and Libya are not comparable. And the US didn’t start the effort to bring down Libya, although it was idiotic to support the French and Brits. That mess in on Obama’s feckless head.
China is not in a good position on this, and has been the guarantor of the Norks for years. If they won’t help, stop trade with them.
Usa is still at war with NK. Usa currently has a “truce” with NK.
Its about time to negotiate an end to the war!
What’s really going on?
The entire premise of this article – that the US is simply putzing around northeast Asia because China, South Korea, and Japan ask it to – is completely wrong. The US is there because it was a beachhead to contain the Soviet Union and now China.
I thought the article was saying that China and Japan ect will try to keep open access to US markets and they’ll use North Korea to distract the US from Trump’s trade reforms.
Ignore it.
It just one more barking mad neocon warmonger.
Cute if they won’t help then stop trade with them and also the billions upon billions of Fed paper they buy,read my lips we won’t tell China jack shit well except as propaganda for the dumbed down American population that is and you must be one of them…
This author (Eamonn Fingleton) is irrational. For Kim Jong-Un to give up his nukes would literally be suicide for him (see Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi).
The US govt had an agreement going that it reneged on, under Bush. Why is that a good thing?
“…hitherto faltering presidency…”? Hey writer, the Huffington Post is over there.
Most observers seem to be of the opinion that the relationship between China and NK is particularly weak at the moment. It’s quite possible the NKs have China in mind as much as the US as far as nuclear deterrence is concerned, in the longer run.
If so, they already have missiles that will reach China. No, what is precipitating this is Kim’s development of ICBMs.
That’s one of the author’s arguments, based on the premise that the US is simply there because China, South Korea, and Japan ask it to deal with North Korea.
It doesn’t even make sense as these countries are on opposite sides of the conflict and killed hundreds of thousands of each other in the first go around, and in any future second go around, China will be on the other side and won’t have open access to US markets.
A little Wiki research shows that the peoples of Korea, China, and Japan have been interacting for the last 2000 years; they have lots of experience with each other. So it seems to me that the best policy for the US government would be to fulfill all treaty obligations (if needed, not “proactively”), but otherwise allow the governments of China, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan to settle there own problems. They have had at least as much success as the western nations have had, and over a much longer time period.
The author, Eamonn Fingleton, needs to read up on history prior to pontificating.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/21/why-does-north-korea-want-nukes/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/17/the-problem-is-washington-not-north-korea/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/know-the-facts-north-korea-lost-close-to-30-of-its-population-as-a-result-of-us-bombings-in-the-1950s/22131
http://apjjf.org/-Charles-K.-Armstrong/3460/article.html
Dear Leader Kim needs to work on longer range missiles and nooklear fusion bombs double time.
Or at least get them into subs and stay hidden.. NK has always said it would only attack after being attacked. So dont attack them and dont threaten them.
After destroying the north’s farm land, the least the US can do is leave them alone as they seem to get along just fine with people who dont constantly threaten and bully them.
Kim went on a Pig inspection after threatening to sink Australia. If US troops based there attack NK, they have every right to sink that fat useless tub of a joke.
Libya and Iraq didn’t have a superpower across the Yalu river ready to send millions of soldiers over the border in case the US wants to help South Korea annex the North.
It doesn’t matter to the Kims if China is prepared to protect North Korea. The Kims are interested in protecting themselves. They suspect, probably correctly, that the Chinese would love to replace the Kims with a more pliable pro-Chinese regime if the chance offered itself.
Neocon garbage.
America is an imperial power and uses SKorea and Japan as military outposts with a view to regional hegemony.
The US divided the Koreas, keep it divided, and refuses detente with NKorea. The North’s pursuit and possession of nuclear weapons are predicated by America’s aggression and hostilities towards it. Indeed, even when North Korea offered to give up nukes in exchange for a non-aggression pact, the US balked.
It takes courage to put his name behind such garbage,
hehehehe
Japan needs no US help to obtain nuclear weapons. The reason Japan has an uneconomical rocket program and unnecessary, unwanted nuclear power is to maintain its barely covert nuclear weapons capability.
The US has absolutely no means to ‘hold Kim’s feet to the fire’. Look how they’re trying to do it now. Is there anything more pointless than sailing a nuclear submarine into the port of a politically unstable half-nation?
Trump’s hands are tied by the bullshit political posturing needed for reelection. If Trump came out today and said this whole NK deal wasn’t worth a damn he would be viciously attacked from all sides. 70 years of stupid anti-communist, America the indispensible nation propaganda has seeped into the average American’s tiny brain.
The average American is stupid enough to believe that there is something we should and can do for every problem in the world. So naturally, he believes if nothing is done the guy is a coward or incompetent.
They might even impeach Trump if he ignored NK or said it was insignificant.
Prescient post by Eamonn Fingleton, Trump got rolled by the Chinese in the recent trade deal. He granted them a massive concession: the right to have their investments in the US to be treated no differently than the British’s ect. In return he got nothing at all that had not been already conceded before the talks. The Chinese must have promised Trump the moon and the stars over Korea, and Trump, under the influence of foreign policy advisers.
I’ve seen several reports of times when a relatively dovish South Korean regime was elected and looked at some sort of rapproachement with the North they were bought off with technology transfers, trade restiction easements etc.
In other words, American Jobs.
The Warmongers are the enemy of the American people.
North Korea is not china’s problem. China was not then, and is not now, complicit to this debacle. The north korean “problem” was created by the “empire-of-chaos” not long after WWII when they installed their puppet Lee Syn Man (Syngman Rhee) south of the 38th parallel to run a new country called “south korea”.
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Kim is working for himself, whether he a puppet of China is beside the point. He will try to put Trump under the gun, There will be no final deal, because it is not in his (or China’s) interest to remove the nuclear blackmail. So Kim will get food from the US (and oil via China) while reserving the wherewithal to build a nuke (which the Chinese would give him if it suited them anyway).
China must be stopped economically and quick if the US is not to being dwarfed by a megapower. The deepest level of the US, the American nation as a whole realized that, and hopefully and the military will catch up with Trump votersand cease pursuing their own sectarian special interests.