“We may have to go on an arduous march, a time when we will again have to eat the roots of grass.” ADVERTISING “We may have to go on an arduous march, a time when we will again have to
“We may have to go on an arduous march, a time when we will again have to eat the roots of grass.”
— A March 2016 editorial in the official newspaper of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, preparing North Koreans for worsening conditions after tougher sanctions were imposed
Last year about this time, North Korea tapped the world on the shoulder with an underground nuclear test that drew the usual international diplomatic tut-tutting.
This year, an encore: North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un announced on New Year’s Day that his country is preparing to fire off its first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Such a missile could reach much of the U.S. mainland.
In response, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted: “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won’t happen!”
Why not? Trump didn’t elaborate. Possible explanations include:
• North Korea is lying about its capabilities to launch an ICBM.
• Trump will prevail on the only country that has leverage against the North Koreans — China — to finally do more than jawbone its neighbors into standing down. That’s probably far-fetched, though: Kim Jong Un knows Beijing doesn’t want North Korea to collapse, sending thousands of refugees fleeing across its borders to China.
• The United Nations Security Council will surely slap new economic sanctions on North Korea in response to an ICBM test. Please. A regime that warns its people that they might be eating grass to survive isn’t likely to respond to further economic sanctions.
• The U.S. plans to shoot down any ICBM missile launched by North Korea, to show its resolve to stop Kim’s nuclear march. That would be satisfying but is unlikely because it could provoke a war on the Korean peninsula.
• Trump persuades Kim to stand down in a diplomatic tour de force. After all, Trump said in June that he would be fine with hosting Kim for a visit. “What the hell is wrong with speaking?” Trump said on the campaign trail. We haven’t heard him mention it publicly again.
The North Koreans have long demanded one-on-one talks with the U.S. But they’ve also violated every agreement they’ve made with American presidents. Moreover, North Korea seeks to be recognized by the U.S. and the West as a nuclear power.
Even without recognition, North Korea already is a de facto nuclear power. What can Trump do? He could try to negotiate a nuclear deal to slow or freeze North Korea’s program, as the U.S. did with the (admittedly imperfect) Iran deal. But he also should know Kim can’t be trusted any more than previous leaders who violated past deals.
Trump also can deliver a warning: If U.S. intelligence concludes North Korea is shopping its nukes or technology to terrorists or other nations, America will strike North Korean nuclear facilities. That’s a clear line in the sand President Barack Obama couldn’t deliver convincingly.
The U.S. strategy of waiting out Kim and hoping to coax him back to the negotiating table — a stance the Obama administration dubbed “strategic patience” — yielded a growing North Korean nuclear arsenal. Trump needs a new approach. He can start with a single premise: Allowing North Korea to build its arsenal, to spread nuclear technology and weapons, won’t happen on his watch. How he does that is negotiable.
— Chicago Tribune
