There’s a war going on in the United States. A devastating and debilitating war. A war in which the U.S. government refuses to protect its citizens.
The United States spent almost $1 trillion dollars (in 2022 terms) in the Vietnam War. There were protests across America opposing the war. The press pushed back hard against the policies of Presidents Johnson and Nixon. Public outcry ultimately helped change the direction of government policy. Over 58,000 U.S. servicemen were killed in vain in Vietnam. Today we are experiencing a much more devastating war inside U.S. borders.
In 2021 alone, over 71,000 Americans died from fentanyl overdoses, up almost 25% over 2020. And 2022 will likely witness another surge. Let those numbers sink in. More deaths in one year from fentanyl overdoses than losses throughout the entire Vietnam War. Yet there is no public outcry. There is no effective U.S. government policy. The press remains largely uninterested and completely silent. Continue reading “The U.S. Government Refuses to Protect Its Citizens Against Fentanyl”
The U.S. missile defense system known as THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) will soon be fully deployed in South Korea. The Chinese are upset, and warn of a new arms race. But it’s all their fault. And there’s a very active arm’s race already ongoing. The Chinese have no one to blame but themselves. It was up to the them to pressure North Korea to halt its ballistic missile tests. For months the U.S. made clear that if North Korea persisted, THAAD would be deployed. But the Chinese did nothing. Oh, they suspended coal deliveries, perhaps a signal of invite to the negotiating table. But where the rubber hit the road – suspending missile tests – the Chinese did nothing. They are responsible for the THAAD deployment, pure and simple.
The Chinese gave the Americans an open avenue towards deployment. And frankly, with their ongoing militarization of the South China Sea, in violation of international law, their hands are hardly clean. They complain from an awkward position.
The U.S. China policy may well be affected as the result of revelations made last week by Thae Yong-ho. Thae is the most senior North Korean government official to defect to the west in almost twenty years. In his first interview since his August, 2016 defection, Thae shared insights that will likely have meaningful consequences to the future of the US-China relationship. Thae’s comments may well impact U.S. China policy under President-elect Trump.
North Korean Defector Thae Yong-Ho, Photo: Imgur
Thae indicated that North Korea believes China is fearful of a North Korean collapse. As a result, China’s ability to pressure North Korea over its nuclear program is limited. In the event of a North Korean collapse, Thae maintained, China would fear a unified, pro-Western Korea directly on its eastern border. As Thae put it, “North Korea knows this weakness of China. As long as Kim Jong Un is in power, North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons, even if it’s offered $1 trillion or $10 trillion in rewards.”
Map of China and Korea, flatworldknowledge.com
Thae also stated that Kim would negotiate with the United States only after achieving his nuclear weapon objective. Kim does not view his nuclear weapon program as a simple bargaining chip with the United States. Of course, the U.S. goal has been to prevent North Korea from achieving its nuclear weapon objective.
Thae is a life-long diplomat and was North Korea’s number two person in London. The North Koreans branded him as “human scum”. Kim stated that “the North sees 2017 as the prime time for nuclear development” given the political changes in South Korea and the United States.
Implications for U.S. China Policy
Thae’s revelations explain the Obama Administration failure to gain China’s full cooperation to reign in North Korea. The Chinese have apparently been playing a duplicitous game. They have taken small steps to imply cooperation with the American policy. At the same time, they have never implemented the steps necessary to compel North Korean to abandon its program. The U.S. China policy thus becomes more nuanced.
Although China backed tough international sanctions against North Korea during 2016, the critical enforcement of penalties against North Korea remains an ongoing issue. The United States has long seen China as the key to force the North Koreans to abandon their nuclear program. Given Thae’s revelations regarding China’s concerns, seen from China’s perspective, a central premise of U.S. policy towards both China and North Korea is subject to full re-examination.
If China’s primary North Korean goal is to ensure the survivability of a North Korean government that remains a friendly ally and an indispensable buffer against the South Koreans, then the United States will face a policy restart in North Korea. The China-North Korea relationship may be more complex than U.S. officials have believed. By necessity, this will impact the U.S. China policy.
The North Korea Policy Dilemma Becomes Even More Difficult
The United States has pursued a variety of approaches to North Korea’s nuclear program over the past 24 years. Under President Obama, the U.S. policy took a definitive turn in 2012 when the North Koreans claimed to be committed to denuclearization and agreed to implement a moratorium on its ballistic missile launches. Two months later, continuing a long-standing approach whereby they say one thing and do another, the North Koreans violated the agreement. As a result, President Obama shifted his strategy and focused more heavily on a sanctions-based approach to North Korea. Obama’s new policy was known as “strategic patience”. The thrust of the policy was an attempt to bring the North Korean regime to its knees through crippling sanctions. The policy failed.
Kim Jong Un’s Nuclear and Missile Policies Are Aggressive and Provocative
As pointed out by Van Jackson, an Associate Professor at the U.S. Defense Department’s Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Kim Jong Un has implemented a very aggressive policy:
Van Jackson, North Korea Policy Expert
The last four years under Kim Jong Un have already seen 35 missile launches and three nuclear tests. In word and deed, Kim Jong Un has laid bare his intentions to mate nuclear warheads to long-range missiles, pursue a hydrogen-based nuclear bomb, and develop a submarine-launched ballistic missile capability, which has long been considered the gold standard of an assured retaliatory capacity.
In Jackson’s view, North Korea has determined to complete its nuclear weapons program:
Gone are the days in which it is possible to speculate that North Korea’s nuclear weapons were mere symbols or bargaining chips, or that the threat of nuclear attack was deeply hypothetical. . .
North Korea’s nuclear program is now more accelerated, less constrained, and more openly linked to its missile program than at any point in its history. Pyongyang is rushing to deploy a nuclear force that can ensure the regime’s survival . . . But Washington and Seoul are dealing with North Korea is if it were still the 1980s.
U.S. Policy to North Korea Must Adapt to Changed Circumstances
The United States’ goal of a denuclearized North Korea remains perhaps its most difficult foreign policy objective. Negotiations and sanctions have both failed.
Jackson points out that an American approach that involves (1) making nuclear threats, (2) unifying Korea if war occurs, and (3) constant preparations to deploy large-scale forces to win such a war, “removes incentives for North Korean nuclear restraint in the event of conflict. By holding to its old ways, the [U.S.-South Korean] alliance is unintentionally making any conflict more likely to go nuclear.”
The Trump Administration will now have to craft a policy that will both reign in North Korea while insuring that China achieves its apparent objective of maintaining a viable and separate North Korea. With the North Korean nuclear and missile programs proceeding rapidly, developing such a policy will likely be an early and important initiative for Mr. Trump. Threading this needle will be a significant challenge. North Korea continues to show no interest in discussing either its nuclear weapons or missile programs.
What might this new policy look like? Jackson suggests that a new U.S. policy should be based upon two fundamental principles. First, reduce “the role of nukes in alliance military signaling.” Second, “planning and curbing the objectives and scope of conflicts that break out.” Indeed, Jackson believes that American nuclear threats serve no purpose and only incentivizes North Korea to continue its program.
All signs point to President-elect Trump implementing a major shift in the U.S.-China policy that has been in place since 1971. A primary purpose of President Nixon’s rapprochement with China was to leverage China against the former Soviet Union. The economic benefit of the rapprochement, though unforeseen at the time, was the development of a major bilateral trade and economic relationship between China and the U.S. Currently, there is over $700 billion in trade flows between the two countries.
President Nixon and Chairman Mao
However, recent years have witnessed growing cries of Chinese exploitation of this relationship, ranging from widespread intellectual property and industrial theft, to mercantilistic currency manipulation in order to advantage Chinese trade. Military issues exist in the South China Sea. The U.S. position with respect to mainland China’s one-China policy is apparently being reconsidered.
Introduction of Peter Navarro Into the Mix
President-elect Trump’s appointment of Peter Navarro as director of trade and industrial policy and as head of the new White House National Trade Council has amplified the likelihood of a major shift in U.S.-China policy.
Peter Navarro, new head of the White House National Trade Council
Among other things, Mr. Navarro has previously blamed China for the loss of 25 million American jobs. In his writings Navarro portrays China as a menace that cheats on trade in a variety of ways, including through the theft of intellectual property and illegal export subsidies. He has stated that the U.S. is already in a trade war with China and needs to fight back.
The President-elect has suggested that his goal is to level the economic playing field with China. Creating a variety of pressure points to achieve that objective may be wise. However, implementation of those pressure points may be tricky, if not outright dangerous. The risk of a tactical miscalculation is real.
We will explore these issues in more detail in a subsequent Opinion in the coming weeks.
