I am completely swamped by media requests on the North Korean nuclear test. I just wrapped up an hour-long program on KQED in San Francisco. All told, I’ve done over a dozen interviews in the past three days. Cato has published quite a few of studies on Korea over the years, and I have edited a number of these, so I am reasonably comfortable with the subject. And while I haven’t published much on the subject, that will soon change.

Rather than write a long post of my own, I wanted to point to some of the excellent articles that I have seen over the past few days, on the two most urgent foreign policy challenges facing the United States — North Korea and Iraq.

On North Korea:

Although most news stories and opinion articles have focused on what the United States must do, or has failed to do, with respect to the North Korean nuclear program, I have always argued that the threat posed by North Korea’s weapons program is far greater for its neighbors – especially China, South Korea, and Japan — than it is for the United States. Accordingly, these countries must take the lead in resolving the crisis, and this might mean putting aside long-standing suspicions and even hostility.

The United States obviously has an interest, not least because tens of thousands of American military personnel are stationed on the Korean peninsula and in Japan, well within range of conventional North Korean arms, let alone nukes, but it makes little sense for the United States to attempt to play a leading role in resolving the crisis. Much as leaders in both political parties would like to pin the blame on “the other guys”, there is in fact much blame to go around, and ultimately, this might be one of those truly vexing international problems that defy easy (or even palatable) solutions. In such a situation, one is frequently forced to choose from a list of unattractive options. That is where we are now. (Hint: That is where we are with Iran and Iraq, too.)

Two op eds which adopt the “less is more” approach (with respect to the U.S. role in the crisis) are:

Ted Galen Carpenter, “Chinese Must Pluck Kim From Nuke Perch,” New York Daily News, 10/10/06; and

Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman, “North Korea Isn’t Our Problem,” Los Angeles Times, 10/11/06.

(Lieven and Hulsman discussed their book Ethical Realism: A Vision for America’s Role in the World at Cato yesterday. The book includes a discussion about what to do about North Korea, as well as Iran and other aspiring nuclear weapons states.)

On Iraq:

News organizations have picked up on the recent study of civilian casualties in Iraq, which estimates that 600,000 have died as a result of the war. A similar study, released in October 2004, received relatively little coverage by the major media outlets, but was the subject of an hour-long radio program on the series “This American Life.”

This most recent study has narrowed the margin of error from the earlier study by polling more Iraqis, but both studies were based on accepted statistical sampling methods. It will be interesting to see if this most recent study gets more attention. (Indeed, it already has. See, for example, the stories in today’s New York Times, CNN and The Washington Post, among others).

On the subject of the dire situation in Iraq, Cato will be hosting Peter Galbraith, author of The End of Iraq, at a book forum at Noon on Thursday, October 19th. I will comment, as well as Marina Ottaway from the Carnegie Endowment. For more details visit the Cato web site.

No related posts.