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Deflating the North Korean Threat
I believe there is more that the US government, as a whole, can do to maximize the odds of a non-violent or non-catastrophic end to the North Korean nuclear program. I am not arguing against any current effort, rather I see an additional line of effort which directly attacks the North Korean regime’s legitimacy. The latest missile test underlines the urgency of some further effort to stop the DPRK nuclear weapons program.
Deflate the DPRK regime by opening the escape valve into China
I propose that the US add a policy of economically and rhetorically encouraging North Korean refugee movement. Since the DMZ is almost impossible to escape across, with the rare defecting soldier exception, North Koreans have tried the Chinese border with some success. This creates a security risk and arguably economic costs for China. But what if President Trump announced an initiative to compensate China for each North Korean processed and shipped onward to South Korea?
North Korea is already vulnerable to an exodus.
According to Michael Malice, the North Korean regime has already allowed border guards to keep crossing bribes as a way to let the border force feed itself. We also know the regime classifies all citizens based on their putative loyalty and allocates resources accordingly. The military was supposed to have the lead in society, necessary in a prison regime. However, the recent dramatic DMZ crossing by a North Korean soldier led to a medical exam which revealed severe malnourishment and an intestinal worm infestation. If the front line soldiers are malnourished and lack basic medical care, it would seem near impossible for the regime to completely reverse their practice of turning a blind eye to border guards taking bribes.
Is China showing signs of concern about a mass exodus?
The announced closure of the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, ostensibly for repairs, might be a precaution against a version of the 1989 East European surge into Germany or the current mass migration into Europe. North Korea has a population of about 25 million. Chinese troop movement towards the border serves a double purpose of countering US forces and controlling a refugee surge.
Acknowledge Chinese concerns while signaling care for suffering people.
President Trump could demonstrate caring for the suffering people of North Korea while answering Chinese concerns by offering payment per refugee processed onward to South Korea. A payment of $2,000 would be equivalent to about two months of a Chinese worker’s wages. If every North Korean except “Rocket Man” escaped it would only cost us $50 billion — the cheapest victory in modern history!
This idea is completely outside of traditional foreign and defense policy thinking but might shake up the current calculations of all parties. So what do you think? An idea worth building on?
Published in Foreign Policy
Sure, but you’ve given me no reason to believe that a bribe makes war any less likely. We bribe the Fat Little Boy. Okay, he’s got the cash to hang onto power for another three years (or whatever). Then we bribe him again. And again. And again. That’s an unstable equilibrium. His provocations will have to get bigger to keep the cash flowing, and eventually he’s going to step over the line. Or he’ll need to do something to keep the loyalty of the people around him. Or he’ll miscalculate our resolve like Saddam did.
In the meantime the prospective war only gets worse and worse. It used to be that the North Korean artillery aimed at Seoul was the deterrent. Now he’s got atom bombs, and apparently an ICBM too. You bribe him, maybe he uses that money to build up his mustard gas reserves. Oops, you made any reckoning even more catastrophic.
If you want to argue that communism will leach the vitality of the nation to the point where their ICBMs will rust in their silos and become useless, do so. That the starving masses (which, I point out again, is already a humanitarian crisis) won’t be able to provide effective soldiers, and that’s only going to get worse with time. That the people will eventually throw off the shackles of the regime and have a peaceful dissolution of the dictatorship.
Heck; I’m even amenable to the argument that delaying the decision gives us time for unexpected events to possibly give us better options. But the experience up until this point is that it’s only given us worse options, and I’m seeing very little reason to believe that trend won’t continue.
There are things that are worse than war. A bigger, nastier war is one of them.
This seems obviously true, to me.
But, then, to me, most of Kim’s actions to date look stupid as well as evil.
So … trying to hone in on something I can wrap my brain around … I’ve lost track, has Kim actually made any recent demands? (That we could decide whether or not to ignore?) Or has it all been the bluster, and it’s left to “our side” to flap our hands and try to figure out how to appease the big baby bully?
Fred, what I can only assume you’re not grasping is that the only reason they have nuclear weapons right now is because we’ve been paying them with food, money and whatever else. We paid the Iranians a ton of money, and don’t you think the Iranians have been driving their nuclear program?
What makes you think that your proposed payments won’t just make them richer and better able to develop more threats against us?
No, just very real threats.
This information is presented in a documentary titled “The Propaganda War” available on Netflix. A Spanish journalist was allowed to go into NK, take videos and interview people. The documentary explains how he was able to accomplish this.
When I use the term “most think” it is because the propaganda indoctrination is so intense everyone parrots the same line. (If not they die.) When Kim threatens the US he does so primarily to solidify his role as protector of the NK people. In their atheistic society Kim is the closest thing to a god they have. For him to be deposed from within would be the best possible outcome but that is unlikely to happen.
At no point in my original post is there any suggestion of giving a dime to the Kim regime. My proposal is to offer to compensate the Chinese for the cost of handling the reception and onward movement of North Korean refugees to South Korea. For the logic of this, please see the original post.
But this is really off the topic of my original post, since I did not propose to give a dime to the Kim regime. Rather, I suggested a way to shift a part of the current Chinese calculus.