How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea?
This hot spot has not become cold.
In a word: Carefully… or should I say "tippy toe"?
While the rest of the world is focused on the important problems of the U.S. & Israel vs. Iran and Ukraine vs. Russia as well as Israel vs. Gaza (et al.), I am looking beyond the headlines to the next crisis. The proverbial mountain of Korea may look relatively calm today, but that is an illusion. In reality it is a dangerous volcano with forces building beneath its surface.
Objectives/goals: Kim Jong Un wants to stay in power and presumably wants a more successful North Korea, but only to the extent that it is beneficial to him. The United States wants to not go to war and especially doesn't want weapons to hit the American homeland. The U.S. also does not want its economic and political allies harmed simply out of its own self-interest.
Facts: North Korea is already a nuclear power and is looking to increase its stock pile and threat range. Its neighbors are rightfully unsettled by this fact. The U.S. as well finds North Korea to be a threat. The U.S. and other nations might/should/probably do prefer that the people of North Korea were in a better world, but these nations should not use this as a primary goal and cannot make it happen from without—other than being a good partner with an open, peaceful North.
Weaknesses with regard to peaceful coexistence: North Korea is very poor and without nuclear weapons would lose a battle against America and allies decisively. America cannot be trusted to live up to any arrangements that leave North Korea vulnerable. Kim Jong Un and company know the U.S.'s position (strategic status and desires) which imply his regime's complete demise.
Status: We are in a stalemate and an extreme local maximum problem.
Argument: It is bad reasoning to suppose that the U.S. needs to continue taking a leading role in this stalemate or that in doing so it can be a constructive part of a solution. An act of aggressive regime change on the part of the U.S. might achieve the ends the U.S. seeks, but I rule this out on ethical and practical grounds.
Support for this argument and its implications:
It seems the United States’ only move is to disengage carefully from the situation. The endgame would be US forces no longer having a presence on the Korean Peninsula and normalized diplomatic and economic ties between the North and the South along with a verifiable freezing of North Korean nuclear weapon expansion. This would likely require an even stronger South Korean military, but not necessarily one with nuclear arms itself.
I am envisioning a staged, multi-year withdrawal negotiated with tit-for-tat concessions. Additionally, this would give nations in the region (both allies and others) time to carefully fill the vacuum of U.S. absence.
The secondary hope of this solution to the stalemate is de-escalation. It does not necessarily follow, but it is at least theoretically possible. Continued U.S. engagement does not have this possibility. Regardless, this is written from the point of view of America’s self interest. My contentions are the following:
U.S. military presence in South Korea and in on-going wargames obviously threatening North Korea do not allow for de-escalation, and they do not actually contribute to a more peaceful region.
Additionally, that U.S. military presence might be offering protection for the North Korean leadership being that the U.S. isn’t as interested in regime change as others in the region might be. This would include the people of North Korea—they are more easily persuaded that the leadership is keeping them safe from an existential threat from the U.S. Without the U.S. as the major threat, it becomes more difficult for the leadership to convince the people that their interests are aligned.
In either case the U.S. is playing an undesirable, untenable, and unjustifiable role. On the one hand it is perpetuating a dangerous showdown putting itself (U.S. military personnel and the homeland potentially) as a primary target in harm’s way. On the other hand it is perpetuating a bad regime.
The position of the American government should be limited to its own self interest. This can certainly extend to a desire for allies to be safe and prosperous, but it does not follow that to accomplish this the U.S. military must take on the role of active policeman.
I see no practical way that the current leadership in the North gives up its nuclear capabilities. The best outcome we can reasonably expect is containment along with a calmer environment.
The situation with Korea isn't just the case of life handing you some lemons. It's a whole orchard of lemon trees. With apologies to Trini Lopez: We'd like to make lemonade, which would be sweet, but this problem may be impossible to defeat.
PS: And yes, of course, we are not going to do anything like this.