hankyoreh

It is quite a sight in the United States lately, with Democratic Party associates suggesting the U.S. should engage in a preemptive attack on North Korea only to have Vice President Dick Cheney, the godfather of Republican hardliners, opposing the idea. When you think about it, however, it is not so curious after all, because such a military response, attacking North Korea’s missile facility or intercepting it with a missile defense (MD) system, are not realistic options. An attack would require diplomatic efforts like gaining China’s consent, and MD technology cannot guarantee a successful interception. Failure would mean a loss of face, but it could also harm MD’s political legitimacy. North Korea has probably taken all of this into consideration.

However, actually launching a missile would not strengthen North Korea’s deterrence toward the U.S. and would instead legitimize American pressure. North Korea surely knows that, so the observation that it is playing the "missile launch card" in the hope of getting negotiations going with the United States, and would only really launch a missile as a last resort, makes sense. Pyongyang is making that apparent through its mission at the United Nations and articles through its official publication of the Pyongyang-affiliated citizens’ organization in Japan, Chongryun. You can also see it being made clear in that, immediately after the U.S. finally decided to have direct negotiations with Iran, North Korea invited U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill to visit Pyongyang. Of course, the White House rejected the idea and so the North pulled out the "missile card," which is something that it might be able to use in trying and get the Americans to the table, as the issues of the six-party talks do not seem to be doing the trick. Richard Lugar, chairman of the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, is accurately reading North Korean thinking when he says a missile that has the ability to reach the U.S. is a "very specific United States-North Korean issue."

Nevertheless, North Korea is not Iran. A nuclear-armed Iran upsets U.S. Middle East policy and could very likely cause an energy crisis. Niall Ferguson, famous for his interest in alternative history, says that if Iran builds nuclear weapons it will end up in a nuclear war with Israel, and that an inflamed Middle East would lead to an end of the oil era and Western civilization. That sounds like a novel, but it is also a basic reason why the U.S. would not be able to fight a war with Iran without thorough preparation. Furthermore, the U.S. can keep Iran contained well enough through the eventual "Middle Eastern NATO" that will be composed of Turkey, Iraq, and Gulf Cooperation Council states like Saudi Arabia. Many in the U.S., like Kenneth Pollack, author of "The Persian Puzzle," believe that though Iran cries out for a fight against the Americans, it will still avoid a genuine war. There are a lot of optimistic variables behind the American decision to negotiate with the Iranians.

North Korea, on the other hand, does not have any oil that it can hold as hostage. And since beyond Japan the U.S. does not have any eager allies in Northeast Asia, the goal of U.S. policy is to apply pressure that leads to "regime change" instead of containment. Few believe that North Korea is going to act in a reasonable manner, and every time there is a crisis, hardliners in the U.S. and right-wingers in Japan gain strength. Just as North Korea wants, of course, members of the U.S. Congress have begun calling for negotiations with Pyongyang, and Congress just passed a revision to the defense budget that calls for a presidential emissary to be named as North Korea policy coordinator. For North Korea, the advantage is that it could begin negotiations with the U.S. just like Iran and, because of the comparisons that could be made between their similar circumstances, it could come away with better conditions. Even if direct negotiations do take place between the U.S. and North Korea, however, North Korea will still have to work to get rid of America’s distrust of Pyongyang, which is far more extreme than North Korean distrust of Washington. Otherwise, those negotiations would still not lead to an ultimate resolution.