Successful Negotiations with North Korea

Certain Presidents of the United States are continuously repeating the notion that Negotiations with North Korea have been “failing” for the last several decades and that it is time to take a new tact.

 

Well, we need to ask ourselves “What constitutes a Successful Negotiation?”  If we want Peace then we can say that Negotiations are “Successful” as long as Peace is maintained.   Well, the President said it himself, that nothing has changed for decades with North Korea.  Well, we have been At Peace that whole time, haven’t we?   And President Trump seems set on the Idea of ‘changing all that’.

 

Yes, I have heard that the President feels that our Negotiators have been humiliated because they have not gotten all that they have asked for.  Well, I can see that Political Appointees might be subject to ‘feelings’ such as ‘humiliation’, but seasoned professional diplomatic personnel are above such pettiness.  I suppose it is like Professional Pig Farmers not taking the Squeals personally.    

 

Besides, Trump is being a bit simplistic about the History of Negotiations with North Korea, even when taken on his own terms.   I can suspect that Trump ignores all his Official Briefings on the Subject, if he permits himself to be briefed at all, but opens his mind only to what he gets from FOX TV.   And what I don’t expect he would ever hear from FOX TV is that the Clinton Administration successfully negotiated a Treaty with North Korea which put an end to their program for uranium enrichment – they actually shut down their one and only reactor and it was indeed verified that they filled the entire installation with concrete.  But there was a change of Administrations from the Clinton to the Bush, and a new Republican Dominated Senate refused to abide by the Stipulations of the Treaty.  You see, the United States had agreed to build or have built several Oil Burning Power Plants and to supply the Oil.  Bush and his Senate, arguing only that the North Korean’s “couldn’t be trusted” were actually the ones to renege on the Treaty.  Yes, maybe details were found that North Korea was not complying with, but history apparently found them so insignificant as to forget what they were.  Besides, the Devil in many of these Treaties are the Small Details.  If you look hard enough you can always find some violations somewhere.   It is sort of like a 55mph speed limit on a Las Angeles freeway.  The Cops could really just pull over anybody, couldn’t they?   It reminds me of one of Iraq’s ‘Compliance Failures’ prior to Baby Bush’s Invasion.  A certain DD Form was not filed.  Iraq argued that they did not even use that DD Form (an American Department of Defense Form) but the Bush State Department, eager for War, was able to point down in Subparagraph aaa.211c on page 578 that such a DD Form was indeed specifically required.  “There!  We caught you!”

 

Of course, this suggests the notion that the American Diplomatic Corps is actively deceitful.  However, in my heart of heart, I only suspect deceit from the Political Appointees.  The Career Professional Diplomatic Corps is probably less likely to lie, cheat, deceive and play clever Lawyer Tricks with the Truth then are Politicians and their crony Appointees.   

 

Oh, and the Trump Administration may offer an instance were no Diplomats are involved at all, or not significantly involved.   You see, Trump has surrounded himself with the Military.  In all previous American Administrations there was a clear separation between the Departments of State, which dealt with the Diplomatic Relations among other Nations, and the Department of War, which was subsequently euphemized into being called the Department of “Defense” even though the great majority of American Military Adventures are not defensive at all.  But my main point here is that diplomats have been largely removed from the equation.   America relies on it Military People to Negotiate Peace.  But I do not see this Task as anything that would come easily to any American Military Man.  You see, America has too long a tradition of demanding Unconditional Surrenders.  You see, if you examine History you will find that Demanding Unconditional Surrenders prolongs Wars.  After all, how can you REALLY ask anybody to surrender and put down their arms unless they have Some Idea what they are Surrendering to?   An Unconditional Surrender essentially implies the understanding that the Victor can slaughter every man, rape and then kill every woman and child, bulldoze every building, and then salt the earth.  You know, sort of like Israel would like to do with Gaza.   Considering such a serious drawbacks, one could then wonder why the Idea of Unconditional Surrender became so dominantly popular among the Militarists.  Well, we need to ask ourselves “who gets to Negotiate ‘Conditioned’ Surrenders?”   It would be the Military Field Commanders who would make the deals in order to secure the Surrenders of a City here, an Enemy Commander there, or perhaps even an entire Nation.   For instance, when Napoleon Bonaparte was still just a General he had secured the subjugation of Italy not just on the Battlefield but through Negotiations arrived at largely on his own Terms.  The Italians laid down their Arms because Napoleon offered ‘Conditions’ they could live with.  But back in Paris the Politicians felt that Napoleon had failed to say “pretty please”.  

 

So America, spoiled by Easy Wars where they come in at the end of brutal conflicts between other Nations to finish off crippled and weakened foes (such as with both of the World Wars), or tiny little Nations whose Military Assets are dwarfed by America’s casual Military Might (such as Iraq and Serbia), has Normalized the Habit of insisting always on Unconditional Surrenders.  Generals are simply supposed to Fight to Win and to let the Politicians and State Department do all the Heavy Lifting were THINKING is concerned.  THAT has been part and parcel of American Military Culture now since the Civil War in the 1860’s, from the days of Ulysses S

. “Unconditional Surrender” Grant”.   So this inflexible American Military way of dealing with Conflicts not only prolongs and protracts Wars but makes Negotiations impossible as the Generals seem to insist upon Unconditional Preconditions even before the very first Talks can commence.   This is also how Israel has avoided Peace for so long.  Israel insists that the Palestinians refuse to Talk when actually they mean that Palestine refuses to Unconditionally Surrender;… that if the Palestinians want to be able to “talk” about how many men, women and children won’t be put to the sword; how many buildings won’t be bulldozed, and how much earth won’t be salted then they need to concede that Israel has the perfect right to do all that if it really wants to. 

 

Anyway, America needs to bring back its Professional Diplomatic Corps.  If Just Talking can stave off War, then Just Talking would be a wonderfully effective tactic, wouldn’t it?  Of course, here again, America, under Trump, has been stymied.   You see, the present Secretary of State, while more sensible than most of Trump’s cronies, is still seriously suffering from a career spent engaged in a self-deluding state of tunnel vision and wishful thinking.  He was CEO of a Big Corporation where things are not run on the Basis of Information Intelligence but on the basis of CEO hunches and guesses which are supported by a multilevel cadre of Yes Men and Butt Kissers.  That is how Capitalism Works.  They claim it to be very successful, but this is only because Capitalists of the same stripe largely monopolize ALL the Big Corporations, so they really simply don’t have any Intelligent Competition to compare to, or at least not in America where they control who gets funds from the Big Corporate Banks.   So, America now has a Spoiled Rich-Brat Hunch Artist as Secretary of State who has marginalized his Career Diplomats, and even Downsized his own State Department, guaranteeing that his own Power to Accomplish Anything would be eviscerated and marginal.    He effectively presided over the poisoning of the well he would be expected to drink from. 

 

So, looking objectively at it all, I would say that prospects for Peace are rather dismal if one were relying only upon America.  I suppose the World will have to cross its collective fingers and hope that North Korea, China, Russia and perhaps Europe can pull together enough influence to keep America from rashly jumping into a needless and perhaps catastrophic War.   But, even the World seems to be behaving irrationally here.  It seems that the World’s Solution is to implement a colossal framework of draconian Sanctions designed to totally strangle North Korea’s Economy and make them Totally Desperate.   Yes, Economic Sanctions worked in bringing Iran to the Peace Table, something that  the Trump Administration now so little appreciates.  But Iran has a huge Politically Active Business and Middle Class which even their Hard Liners need to recognize and placate on occasion.  And Iran actually does have Elections.  But with North Korea the World seems to want to commit a Genocidal Slaughter using Starvation, Disease and Civil Discord as their Weapons (three of the Horseman of the Apocalypse to save us from the fourth which is War, which would probably ride in anyway).   The World’s hope with these Sanctions is to be able to leverage the policies that come entirely from only One Man (“kill the Snake’s Body and the Head will die too”).  Or maybe the World hopes that there will be a Rebellion before everyone dies.  However, in the Real World, we know that one can Maintain Order simply be feeding the Order Maintainers.   For instance, if we look to some very unfortunate occurrences in History, we can discern a number of clues as to how the Nazis ran their repressive and murderous Concentration Camps.  They could not afford to commit a great many Military Personnel to maintaining these Camps, so they set up a Privilege System among the Inmates themselves.  The Privileged Inmates got fed only so long as they were able to maintain order.  So maintaining order is what they did.   Perhaps this could raise questions about all the Holocaust Survivors we heard and know about.  How was it that THEY survived when everyone else died?  And of course to know the Truth about it we have only the word of the Survivors – the “Truth” is whatever Story they decide on, isn’t it?   The Dead can’t argue, can they?   It is probably much like Battlefield Survivors, were the Courageous and the Heroic who exposed themselves to Enemy Fire and are Killed, but those who dodge and duck and manage to keep their heads down survive.  Heaven only knows what ‘Lone Survivors’ do, or don’t do, in order to stay alive, and we could expect that few would freely admit to deserting and waiting back in the Woods, tucked under a log, until all the firing stopped.    In such terrible and unfortunate circumstances we can almost certainly be sure that the Dead are much more noble than the Living, and so it is a shame that they were the ones who had to die.   It seems to be Evolution working in Reverse – the Survival of the Least Morally Fit.  But to get back on point, from a Regime as sophisticated and Worldly Wise and free of Sentimental Illusions as the North Korean Regime, we could expect that even a significant proportion of the Population could suffer and die while the Regime would still be able to struggle on.  And if the Regime is ever confronted by the situation where its Armed and Well Trained Army becomes desperate and can no longer be placated and relied upon, well, then What Would the Regime Lose by Going to Nuclear War?

 

Hmmmm.  I better keep thinking about all of this, because from where I see it now, I honestly don’t believe there is any hope.  It’s like every player on the Field is doing their utmost best to screw it all up.  Maybe it will be good for Wall Street – using Short Contracts they can effectively Sell High, right before the World Cataclysmic Apocalypse, and then Buy it all Back REALLY Low.  Not much will be left, of course, but at least they will be able to say they own Everything… oh wait, they already do.   As I said, it doesn’t seem to make any sense at all, does it?