Belaboring The Obvious Or Passing The Buck?

Adm Micheal Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has delivered in an appropriately stentorian tone his appreciation of the self-evident: China has a, even the, main role to play in convincing the North Korean regime to refrain from lobbing artillery shells on Southern territory, troops, and civilians.  Admiral Mullen is stating a position which is not only appealing but represents the consensus of the Obama administration.

The presumed ability of China to influence the actions of the rulers of the Hermit Kingdom of the North seems so obvious that it might appear foolish not to pass the baton on North Korean affairs to the Trolls of Beijing.  Of course, the contention that China should do the heavy lifting depends upon affirmative answers to a few key questions.

Do the Trolls really have as much juice as so often affirmed?  Do they have the influence equivalent to the dependence upon China normally attributed to North Korea?

Even more important: Does Beijing have any real interest in modifying Pyongyang's behavior in the way desired by the US, South Korea, and Japan?  What, if any, interests held by the Trolls to be important would be facilitated or advanced by becoming the carrier of American water in the Korean Peninsula?  What costs would the Trolls impose on the US for agreeing to be the point man on American policy?

Given the North Korean defining philosophy of juche, meaning national self-reliance and an absolute avoidance of even the slightest appearance of foreign "domination" even by a close "friend" and ally such as China, what grounds exist to believe that Pyongyang would capitulate in any manner to Chinese pressure or blandishments?  Can the centrality of a unique definition of nationalism and national strength trump even the capacity of China for influence?

None of these questions are without answer, but, for most of them the answer would be unpleasant to the eyes and ears of President Obama and most of his foreign policy "team."  Even more disturbing, at least for those Americans who are not part of the presidential inner circle, would be the answer to another, more basic question.

This foundation question?  By seeking to put China in the driver's seat is the administration acknowledging that  the US no longer has the ability or will to take the lead in advancing and protecting the interests not only of itself but of close and strategically critical allies such as South Korea, Japan, Australia, and the other, smaller states of the Pacific littoral who increasingly have been looking to us as the barrier against China's more expansionist and aggressive policies?

The North Korean regime took advantage of the visit by a highly qualified American nuclear expert, Siegfried Hecker, to demonstrate just how effective their application of juche has been in the area of nuclear materials production. While the exhibit of their new centrifuge cascade as well as the construction of a new and much larger light water reactor near the site of the decommissioned one at Yongbyon can be interpreted as showing how important China has been in Pyongyang's evasion of the sanctions, it can also be seen as a tribute to juche.

The Hermit Kingdom of the North has been and remains willing to provide only one half the required daily calorie requirement to its citizens, telling them to scrounge for the rest.  In essence and in the internal messages given its population every day, the sacrifice is necessary in the name of juche, the need to maintain sufficient military strength to deter the main enemies and assure national independence.  The result is simple: Nobody is happy, but most all are willing to (literally) tighten their belts if doing such keeps the country sovereign.

To put it in a slightly different way, the linkage of sacrifice with the needs of juche and the constant threats presented by South Korea, the US, Japan, and others of the "imperialist camp," provides North Korea with a degree of monolithic political will virtually beyond the capacity of a Westerner to comprehend or even imagine.  Within the context of a multi-generational cult of personality which has engraved itself on the hearts and minds of nearly every North Korean, the sacrifice-equals-independence driven political will provides the Hermits Of Pyongyang with an instrument of remarkable durability.

The impending succession of Kim Jong-un has put stresses on the leadership mechanism as well as the ties that bind leadership to population.  Unlike the long preparatory period preceding the ascension of Kim Jong-il, the current transfer of both power and legitimacy to the number three son has been taking place at warp speed.  It has been and will continue to be critical for the smooth passing of the mantel of heaven from father to son for the son to win his bones with the very hardline bunch behind the throne.

This has meant that Kim Jong-un be perceived as a tough and shrewed man, a man capable of performing actions which would crush a lesser personality.  The sinking of the CheoAn as well as the artillery stonk on Yeonpyeong island are calculated provocations intended to demonstrate the new kid's capacity and willingness to take risks successfully.

Of course the risks were far more apparent than real.  Neither Pyongyang nor Seoul want to restart the Korean War.  Neither does China.  Nor the US.  All  hands agree that war is not a winner.

The Hermits of Pyongyang must have known quite well before the sinking of the CheoAn that there would be no real repercussions.  As had been demonstrated previously by the tepid responses to the nuclear weapons test and the partially successful test firing of a prototype ICBM, the talk might be tough and the UN sanctions apparently so as well, but where the rubber hits the road the consequences would be nonexistent.  The Hermits knew they could depend upon the Trolls to play the stall game effectively and, if necessary, either veto sanctions or conspire in their avoidance.

The Trolls and the Hermits alike had appreciated the American president as having a diplomatic backbone equivalent to that of President McKinley.  They also agreed in their view that the South Korean government and people were so enamored of peace and prosperity to respond with little beyond a few unpleasant words to the sinking of a warship and the killing of a few dozen sailors.

The artillery fire mission the other day was a small escalation of the CheoAn affair.  The difference resides in the presence of civilian bodies (two) among the dead.  That difference is not sufficient to ignite a war, and all concerned knew this before the first shot was fired.

Right now the primary interest of North Korea other than assuring the succession goes smoothly is the extortion of more food aid from the world generally and the West more particularly.  As an attention getting device the shelling has worked--quite well.  The probability the food will flow in greater quantity has been enhanced particularly as the need for food--even on the terms dictated by Pyongyang which contravene normal policy--has been embraced by one time South Korean foreign minister and now UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Longer term the Hermits of Pyongyang want much more than food aid.  This is why the Hermits insist to every  (in Lenin's famed formulation) "useful fool" who happens by that everything is on the table including the nuclear program provided North Korea is treated with "respect."  What the Hermits leave out of the discussion is that the only goal worth sacrificing the nuclear and other weapons related programs is the reunification of the two Koreas under Northern domination.  The Hermits have been convinced for some years now that the best way to achieve that goal is by slowly and surely reducing the political will of South Korea and its primary supporters.  Combining provocations with stalls is a good tactic in achieving that goal.

China has no problem with the goal of the Hermits.  If anything a reunification on the terms and conditions dictated by Pyongyang would mesh with Chinese regional interests.

Reunification is a long way off at best.  Thus China has short term goals with respect to North Korea.  Most of all the Trolls want transition to go down slick and sure.  No bumps, no surprises, one Kim out and another, younger one in without missing a beat.

Beijing understands the need for Number Three Son to have the correct credentials in the estimate of the assorted powers behind the throne.  Thus they have no difficulties with provocations, even an escalating series of such.  The Trolls have full confidence in President Obama to do nothing beyond words, symbols such as joint naval exercises, and showing continued faith in the UN.  They are also sure the South Korean government is in no hurry to see Seoul as an "ocean of flame."

A companion goal for the Trolls is a burnishing of the perceptions of their power in the region.  By being seen as the key player in the Korean affair it is probable that they will be seen more generally as being what they wish to become--regional hegemon.

By passing the buck to Beijing the Obama administration has given assistance to the Trolls in their goal of enhanced diplomatic and political influence and status in the region.  And, given the contagion of perceptions common in the world, greater influence and status throughout the globe.

To answer the question which is the title of this post: The Obama administration has both underscored the apparent but not necessarily real influence of China on North Korea and passed the buck to Beijing.  By doing so the administration has simultaneously boosted the Trolls in their quest for more influence and surrendered another portion of American diplomatic strength.

Wow!  What a great way to pursue the national and strategic interests of the United States.

Fat Chance!

In yet one more of his accustomed exercises in tough sounding but utterly meaningless rhetoric, President Obama punctuated his appearance at the G-8 meeting by telling reporters, "There have to be consequences for such irresponsible behavior on the international stage." The practitioners of "irresponsible behavior" to whom the always eloquent if not reality connected POTUS was referring are the North Koreans. More specifically the North Korean government.

The sinking of the South Korean corvette, Cheonan, was scarcely "irresponsible behavior." That term applies rather more fittingly to running one's pickup off a cliff while holding a half empty bottle of Jack Black in one hand. Or, being a church organist who moonlights as the piano player in the local bordello.

The sinking by torpedo of a warship falls properly in the category of calculated deliberate act. A calculated, deliberate act of war. To call it anything else is mendacious at best, purely stupid at worse.

(It might help the president clarify his thinking were he to try a little thought experiment. If one of our Navy's billion dollar guided missile cruisers were to end up underwater following an encounter with, say, a torpedo fired by an Iranian submarine, would the Man in the Oval consider it merely "irresponsible behavior?" And, if he were to do so, would his interpretation be accepted by Congress? We the People?)

The Hermit Kingdom of the North made a decision at the highest levels of government. The decision to sink the South Korean naval vessel carried some slight degree of risk, but the regime calculated (quite possibly with the advice and counsel of the Trolls of Beijing) that the benefits accruing to the act far outweighed the potential adverse consequences.

There is that word again! "Consequences." The Obama administration as well as the president personally seem to be much enamored of the word, "consequences." It comes up with nauseating regularity in remarks by the president, by the SecState, by others whenever a government--usually Iran--does something of which we disapprove or fails to do something which meets our approbation.

It's a beautiful word, sort of menacing, in a polite and vague way. It carries a delicate whiff of threat, at least implied threat. It almost seems like an ultimatum, an understated one to be sure, but it has do-this-or-else! connotation which is the heart and soul of the classic ultimatum.

The overuse of the word, "consequences" by the current administration has robbed it of all the unpleasant force it may have possessed once. Experience over the past eighteen months demonstrates that the president and his "team" use the word instead of taking real action. It is not an ultimatum, but rather a substitute for one. Through the combination of overuse and subsequent inaction, "consequences" has come to imply that the irresponsibly behaving state has one more free pass.

Pyongyang, that is to say, Dear Leader, his number three son (and probable successor) and the rest of the top echelon, know perfectly well that no one is going to take any action of substance to inflict "consequences" for the "irresponsible behavior." There is absolutely nothing which can be done, no conceivable "consequence" which can be inflicted on the Hermit Kingdom.

No rational actor, certainly not the South Korean government, would consider even for a nanosecond going to war in response to the killing of forty-six sailors and the loss of an aging small surface combatant. Beyond this, anyone and everyone who is slightly oriented in time and place realizes that no sanction regime over and above all those currently in force will have any noticeable impact on Pyongyang. For reasons which are good and sufficient in their estimate, the Trolls of Beijing will make sure of that.

The realities which govern global politics assure that the Obama statement as well as the words in the official communique issued over the signatures of the G-8 leaders exercise precisely the same impact on Pyongyang as have the now traditional G-8 riots on international policy. Ironically but accurately the rioters have the same effect on high state policy as the presidents and prime ministers of the eight largest economies on Earth wield over the Hermit Kingdom. Zero equals zero.

One has to wonder why the Great Statesmen of the Big Eight bother. They, even President Obama, must know that all the thundering denunciations, all the demands for meaningful responses by the "international community," all the invocations of "consequences," are so much vapid bloviation.

Do they blather the fine sounding nothings because at least they can agree on the softer version of tough talk? Do these heads of the largest, most wealthy, most advanced, most powerful states posture with such monolithic determination over something none can influence because they cannot agree on a way to handle real problems, real rocks and shoals upon which any or all of their ships can founder?

North Korea, Iran, and even Karzai's Afghanistan will do their own thing, in their own way, regardless of the heaving and hectoring of the POTUS or even all of the Eight Really Huge Economies. The three referenced states will continue to pursue their own national interests each in its own way for its own reasons utterly immune to the "consequences." The Eight Biggies know this, for each will do the same--chase after its own subjectively defined national and strategic interest--again without regard to the importuning or promised "consequences."

Mr Obama found this truth to his personal embarrassment with the solid rejection of his plea to borrow and spend more in the American way. Whether Mr Obama's view that deficits are less of a concern than the need for further government spending in support of the "fragile" global recovery is correct is less important to the US in its foreign relations than the simple fact that his position was ignored by the others.

The Other Seven fired a very large warning shot very, very close across the bows of America. The warning is clear. US influence on the policies and behavior of other states, in this case states which are peers of the US by definition, is waning, waning rapidly. The other leaders assembled in Canada have told the US that it is not the "go-to" power it was as recently as two years ago.

Instead of trotting out old, tired, meaningless terms like "irresponsible behavior" or making dire mutters of "consequences," Mr Obama and his Team would be better off--and so would We the People, if he and they meditated upon the implications of being rejected or ignored in his policy stance by our economic peers. They would be well-advised to consider just what the future might bring as more and more countries conclude that they can go after their own national interests without the slightest regard to the views of the US.

This advice is doomed to be fruitless. Not simply because the exalted of Team Obama would never read the Geek's blog, but for a reason far more substantial. Mr Obama and, in all probability, many of those on his "team" have full bore cases of anosognosia. This means that not only does the president not know something critical, but that he does not even know that he does not know it. He is not only ignorant of ground truths governing the game of international politics--he does not even know that he is ignorant of them.

A hopeless case.

The Feckless Dude In The Oval

It is not reasonable to expect the Nice Young Man From Chicago to don scuba gear and swim down a mile in the Gulf of Mexico and plug the gusher with a big wad of recycled campaign speeches held in his mouth. It is, however, reasonable to expect that a man who has expressed an unlimited faith not only in his own competence but in the sovereign ability of the federal government to do all things good and merciful to show a modicum of capability in an area which, unlike oil spills, falls in his sole jurisdiction--foreign affairs.

The barely submerged gusher of animus bellowing black in the waters of Israeli politics over the duplicity--or failure of will--which underlies the American position on the final paper produced by the UN's review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is one sign of the complete and ongoing fecklessness of President Obama and his "team." The US had promised Israel that it would not be specifically targeted, not named, in whatever final document might be generated. Further the President's people promised that if any call for a nuclear free Mideast was issued and Israel was named, the US would block its acceptance.

In the event, the call for a confab on a Mideast nuclear free zone did name Israel. The US did not block it, apparently in one more attempt to distance itself from the Bush/Cheney administration and truckle to Muslim, particularly Egyptian desires.

Making the Obama approach to foreign policy look even more self-contradictory, amateur, agenda driven, and generally opportunistic, the US followed this act of perfidy by denouncing the inclusion of Israel as a named villain. Both the president and his national security advisor were widely quoted as thundering against the mentioning of Israel in a way and a context which was self-evidently pejorative. Interestingly, the MSM did not deign to mention the backstory, the promises and treachery made and committed by the US, by the Obama administration, by the president himself.

(It will be interesting to see how Mr Obama justifies the actions at the UN when he meets with Israeli PM Netanyahu at the hastily called meeting next week.)

The ongoing impotence of the current president's notions of foreign policy is also pathetically evident in the still blooming Cheonan Affair. Being both young and untutored in American history beyond the popular tropes of American racial hostility and greedy Big Business and the glories of federal regulation/intervention, Mr Obama may not be aware that in less than a month the sixtieth anniversary of the North Korean Peoples Army (NKPA) invading its southern neighbor will take place.

This is not an unimportant date to remember, for on the Korean Peninsula the old French maxim, "the more things change, the more they stay the same" applies in full force. Other than the exiting of the Soviet Union from the scene, the dynamics on the peninsula as well as the relations between the two states located there and neighbors China and Japan have not altered in the slightest.

The North Koreans generally and the NKPA in particular recall 25 June 1950 very well. To them that was the day the US and its "puppet regime," South Korea invaded the peace loving territory of the North. Three generations of North Koreans have been led to believe that the Puppets of Seoul and the Puppetmaster of Washington were finally defeated by the NKPA with fraternal assistance from the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) of China. Over the years the Master and the Puppet have schemed and planned to restart the war and reverse the defeat.

That is the truth according to both the now godlike Great Leader and his vicar on Earth, the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il. North Koreans know this truth to their very DNA.

The connections between the NKPA and the PLA have been strong ever since the years when the Chinese "volunteers" crossed the Yalu and administered a face destroying set of defeats to the American, South Korean, and other UN forces as they came very close to the Sino-Korean border. In the years of inconclusive war which followed, the bones of more than one hundred thousand PLA troops were left to molder in the mountains of North Korea. The PLA has not forgotten this--even if the civilian government in Beijing has tended, if not to forget, at least to overlook it.

One of the reasons, perhaps the chief one, for the dithering on the part of the Trolls of Beijing over just how to handle the aftermath of the Cheonan Incident is the split in approach favored by the government and that preferred by the senior command of the PLA. The Men of the Forbidden City justify their wait, watch, temporize, and hope-for-the-best attitude as being based on the fear of tumult in North Korea sending a tidal wave of destabilizing refugees across the border.

There is superficial justice in this explanation. However, it demands accepting the notion that the PLA is not up to the task of crowd control on the border. The PLA has the manpower, weaponry, command and control, and political will to stop any wave, to, in essence, drown the wave in the blood of its constituent parts. Yes, it would be messy. The humanitarians of the world would be outraged. China would get a diplomatic black eye.

So what? As the events of 1989 made clear, outrage is ephemeral. Black eyes are transient in the extreme. What was true twenty-one years ago is even more the case today given the transformation of China from a marginal player in world affairs both political and economic to one of a central, (dare one write, "starring?") role.

If tensions increase between the two Koreas (or if Dear Leader should die leaving a leadership vacuum in his wake) the US might undertake a special operation with a view of pulling North Korea's nuclear fangs. This would set the stage for a direct confrontation between the US and, if not China, at least the not unimportant PLA.

A more likely confrontation scenario would emerge from internal tumult sending the first waves across the Chinese border. In this event it is not unlikely that the PLA would enter North Korea in order to "restore order." The North Korean government would have no choice but to accept this act of "fraternal assistance."

Even if the Chinese intentions were not specifically expansionist, but rather aimed at continuing the status quo in the Korean Peninsula, it is probable that Seoul would be alarmed, to say the least. It is not impossible--or improbable--that a large segment of South Korean opinion would see the stability operation as the precursor to a Beijing dictated form of Korean unification. The outcome of this view would not be one which promotes optimism.

There has been no indication that the Obama administration has made any effort to gain a clear understanding of Chinese intentions or the options under active consideration in the Forbidden City. Certainly, there has been no plain statement from the Oval or Foggy Bottom as to what the limits of acceptable Chinese behavior might be.

The historically challenged Mr Obama would do well to reflect on the consequences of an inadvertent omission on the part of Dean Acheson in a speech. Mr Acheson failed to place South Korea on the US side of a line demarcating our sphere of interest from that of the Soviet Union. This oversight encouraged the cautious Soviet dictator, Joe Stalin, to agree to the plan of invasion cooked up by Kim il-Sung.

The rest, as they say, "is history."

To assure an absence of miscalculation as we approach the sixtieth anniversary of the North's invasion of the South, it is essential to plainly and publicly let Beijing and Pyongyang know where the limits are--and what the consequences of violating the limit will be. This is not a time to send semi-coded signals, to make veiled hints. To do other than speak plainly and bluntly is both to ignore the lessons of history and to run unnecessary risks.

Unfortunately, the record of the past eighteen months shows that the feckless Mr Obama is more likely to dither than decide, more likely engage in mixed messages, than to speak and act clearly and decisively.

Reality Makes Us A Pitiful, Helpless Giant

Reading the new Obama version of the more-or-less annual National Security Strategy document does nothing to obviate the harsh judgement of reality on the US today. No matter how much military power we possess, regardless of our diplomatic influence (if any,) and despite the manifold appeal of our "soft power" appeal, the US has little going for it in dealing with either Iranian intransigence or North Korean aggression.

The Obama vision of American national security is long, very long on lofty sentiments and fine rhetoric so that one suspects the final draft was written by a presidential speech writer and not some person with more than a nodding acquaintance with the concepts of national interest or national security. If inspirational approaches to foreign relations worked in the gritty world of countries pursuing subjectively defined national interests, the Obama rendition would be a winner.

There is very little in the document which excites disagreement. That is due to the "mom and apple pie content" which constitutes the vast majority of the essay's fifty plus pages. Who but the most hardened skeptic can be against diplomacy, collective effort, the need to put our domestic economic house in order, or the strength and resilience of "our greatest asset," the American people? Who can gainsay the desirability, even the necessity, of the US having a "strong" military capacity? And, who could not second the idea that diplomacy and the military serve to complement each other?

The problem comes not in the assorted sweet smelling, fine sounding, good looking parts but rather in the absence of a viable, real world oriented way of meshing all the parts into a whole which is at least as substantial as would be a mere sum of the parts. There is no overarching strategic plan, no architecture for a building comprised of all the materials individually listed. There is not any compelling statement of American national and strategic interests beyond a roster of four "enduring" factors, some of which actually predate WW II.

Worse, there is no indication of do-not-pass lines. "Adversary" governments are noted in passing with an implicit invitation to change their ways and enter into "engagement" with the US, but no specific behaviors or acts are noted which would demand an American response. Given that one of the purposes of the National Security Strategy document is the provision of guidance for the heads of governments both friendly and hostile, this is a glaring lack.

Not only is there no hint of what may be unacceptable conduct, there is no whisper of just what the US might do if confronted with a hostile act by an "adversary" state. Mention is made of improving "sanctions" and "isolation" with the implication that some international bad actor might expect to be faced by both, but the lack of specificity does nothing to deter. Neither does the oft-repeated refrain of "collective" efforts, of "coordination," of the semi-mythic "international community" and its companion, 'international institutions." Such importuning does little to weaken the spine of an ambitious, bad acting government.

(If the old saw holding that a camel is the horse as designed by a committee, then the rabbit is a lion after action by the UN or similar "international institution.")

The contretemps currently faced by the US in the matter of the Mahdi Bomb is a fine example of just how ineffective a reliance upon current international fora is. The UN is not alone in carrying responsibility for the glacial pace at which actions are considered and taken or the way in which Great Power patrons can act to protect their clients. All international institutions which are not bound together by a tight and comprehensive weave of coinciding national interests, basic values, shared history, and cooperative economies are identical in ineffectiveness with the UN.

The challenge presented to the US and other civilized states by North Korea is an even more stark example of how the real world comes into sharp conflict with the honeyed words of the new Obama vision of US national security. North Korea is guilty under the UN Charter of an act of aggressive war. There is no realistic doubt of Pyongyang's culpability no matter how much the Trolls of Beijing may wish otherwise.

What will the UN do about this affront to its very reason for existence? Not much. Everyone who is at all oriented in time and place already knows that. Knows that the fine words of Secretary of State Clinton regarding the "duty" of the "international community" to do something by way of "punishing" the Hermit Kingdom of the North are so much vapor. Knows that as long as China pursues its national interest above all other concerns, the fanatical leadership of North Korea has a remit to cause no end of international harm.

There is nothing reprehensible in the Chinese posture. Nothing intrinsically "wrong" let alone malign in Beijing's priority upon maintaining stability in North Korea. To do otherwise would be to open its territory to unacceptable consequences.

More than any other government, the Chinese know that North Korea will not give up its nuclear capacity. It is the paranoid state's only sure deterrent against the rise of South Korean revanchism or a new 21st Century form of the irredentism which propelled the first ruler of the South, Syngman Rhee, from calling for a "March to the North" in the period before the North invaded South Korea in June 1950. Beyond that, possession of the bomb is Pyongyang's only trump card in the diplomatic game.

The Chinese came to realize perfectly during the course of the Six Power Talks that the North would not abandon the bomb without suitable compensation. And, the only suitable compensation would be reunification on terms favorable to the North. That is reunification under Northern domination. With this understanding firmly in place, the Trolls of Beijing were not and are not displeased that failure in their great diplomatic initiative, an initiative which was intended to show Beijing as the regional hegemon, was averted by the Cheonan Incident.

The challenge for Beijing is to avert another diplomatic failure, this time of even greater magnitude while preserving peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula without simultaneously alienating South Korea too much. Meeting this challenge is a real poser for the Trolls.

Time, however, is very much on their side. Also on their side is the unthinkability of war between the two Koreas. A war, even one which is of short duration and results in a clear victory for the South (and their American ally) would be too costly for Seoul to contemplate. Even though the Northern military is weak today compared to even a decade ago, it has the capacity to inflict totally unacceptable damage and loss of life on the South given that all of the Seoul-Inchon metroplex lies within range of Northern rockets and tube artillery.

There is no doubt that American air and naval firepower could quickly decapitate the North even considering the hardened facilities available to the Kim Crowd. Likewise, the feeble Northern electrical grid and food distribution system could be taken out quickly and completely with fatal results to the Northern capacity to wage war.

All of this and more is true. And irrelevant. The South cannot afford--Asia cannot afford, the rickety world economy cannot afford--the results of a short, sharp war. And, this includes China.

The greatest anxiety within Beijing must be that of the Pyongyang leadership engaging in a Great Adventure of the suicide-or-victory sort. The capacity of the North to pull the trigger of the gun aimed squarely at the head of both Koreas is their greatest possible trump. There is and has been a long standing belief in Pyongyang among the little men in oversized hats who surround Dear Leader that the decadent South would capitulate rather than see Seoul-Inchon turned into the "lake of fire" promised by the North Korean Peoples Army.

At the same time the Northern population has been and is imbued by a myth of their own hardihood, resilience, and capacity to both endure and overcome the greatest vicissitudes of life. They truly believe (with a very great deal of historical justification) that they could overcome future devastation as they did that of the Korean War or even the famines of recent years. The "Long, Hard March" is central to the defining mythology of North Koreans for the past three generations. Its power should not be underestimated.

The Chinese are not given to underestimating it. The close relationship between the Chinese and North Korean military forces has transmitted a full appreciation of the power and pervasiveness of the myth, which surpasses in extent and potency even its Chinese equivalent. Reinforcing this is the awareness in Beijing that North Korea recovered far faster than the South from the effects of the Korean War. At least until the final years of the Sixties, the GDP of the North exceeded that of the South and the per capita income of the people of the North outstripped that of the South almost until the Age of Disco was upon us.

In short, there are palpable reasons to both believe the North is convinced it can recover and flourish from a war and fear the consequences of this belief. As a result, the Trolls of Beijing have good reason to feel anxiety about the calculus of their client should too much pressure be exerted--even rhetorically--upon the North. With reason they fear that a Pyongyang Death Ride may be seen in Pyongyang as a Ride to Victory, and the northern leadership may be encouraged to be adventurous.

The world view as well as the vision of what constitutes American national security as well as the means by which that security can be achieved contained in the new Obama formulation shows no relevance to the requirements dictated by reality in the Korean Peninsula. It also shows no appreciation of what might happen to good intentions, the best of intentions, if a critical Great Power finds its self in opposition for reasons of self-defined national interest.

The US and the world have been down the road described in the Obama formulation before, twice before. The administrations of both Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt made the same miscalculations regarding the permanence of alliances, the coinciding of national interests, and the identity of national interest definitions among Great Powers. At Versailles and nearly thirty years later with the notion of the "Four Policemen," these two Democratic presidents believed without foundation that all countries were equally rational, were equally given to defining national interests in the same way, and were equally given to viewing the world through the same set of glasses.

They were wrong. The international institutions which bore their imprint proved to be inadequate to the tasks when finally placed to the test. President Obama has not read the historical record, or, if he has, somehow has convinced himself that with him in charge, matters will turn out differently.

Right now, it appears that the mullahs of Tehran and the Dear Leader in the Hermit Kingdom of the North are in the process of teaching the Nice Young Man From Chicago just how wrong he is. The sorrow and the pity of this is that the rest of us have to sit in the lesson as well.

Sure, The North Did It--Now What?

The MSM is all over the forthcoming report by the international panel investigating the sinking of the South Korean corvette, Cheonan, which will provide the "objective and scientific basis" for pointing the finger at the Hermit Kingdom of the North. From the information leaked to the media it appears as if the accusation of Northern culpability is well founded.

While no person at all grounded in the realities of modern ship building and handling as well as the state of play in regional politics could have concluded otherwise, it is reassuring to find out that the scene of the crime was rife with high quality forensic materials. The sinking is clearly the result of a torpedo hit. The torpedo is of a type furnished to North Korea by China during the eighties.

The North Koreans had an excellent motive for sinking the Cheonan. It was not, as some pundits have averred, a vengeance strike for the sinking by South Korean patrol boats of a Northern small surface combatant. Rather the sinking was motivated by a strong need in Pyongyang to assure the Six Power Talks remain in hiatus while sparing North Korea and its patrons in Beijing the embarrassment of taking direct responsibility.

The Chinese have indicated an ambivalent attitude toward the sinking ever since it took Beijing a full month to offer pro forma condolences. The Men of the Forbidden City also have more fundamental ambiguity regarding their relation to the Hermit Kingdom of the North and the continuation of the face-losing Six Power Talks which, after all, were a Chinese invention.

In a real sense North Korea is a tiger which the Chinese mounted back during the Korean War when they sent their legions of "volunteers" to rescue Pyongyang from disaster and protect their industial northeast against any potential US/UN air threat. First for reasons of an ideological nature and then for motives of a more practical sort, such as the need to protect social and economic stability from a flood of North Korean refugees, Beijing has had no choice other than that of propping up the decrepit dictatorship of Dear Leader and his father.

At the same time North Korea has become ever more dependent upon the subventions provided by Beijing. At one time, back when there was a Soviet Union, Pyongyang could play its two patrons off against each other as both Moscow and Beijing jockeyed for leadership of the "Socialist Camp." Since the implosion of the Soviet Union, China has been the sole source of whatever passes for economic stability in the North.

The tiny anemic tiger and its giant rider cannot abandon one another without unacceptable losses and damage. For the North Koreans the disaster of a Chinese abandonment would be almost instant governmental collapse and chaos or a spasm of war directed against the South with consequences massive and bad for both North and South. For the Chinese the consequence of letting the North go would be either internal Northern chaos or the (perhaps literal) fallout of war on the peninsula. Neither is desirable from the perspective of Beijing--although the second would be far less so.

Even if Pyongyang does not launch a spasm attack, any collapse in the North would result in a flood of people crossing the Tumen and Yalu rivers with a very negative impact on China. The northeast is China's rust belt and has seen more than a few outbreaks of social unrest in the past ten years. An influx of North Koreans would be an exacerbation which Beijing cannot contemplate with equanimity.

The North Korean regime is not one given to compromise. Nor is it given to abandoning its only diplomatic card, the nuclear program, without a payoff of truly stupendous nature. Even the largess promised by the US, South Korea, Japan, and others in previous efforts to defang the North Korean nuclear potential proved to be insufficient in the eyes of Dear Leader and the coterie surrounding the throne.

It is possible that the only payoff which would convince Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear quest, dismantle its miniature atomic arsenal, and act as if it were a mature and responsible government would be the reunification of the peninsula under terms highly favorable to Northern dominance. This is a price far too high for the South Koreans--or the US and Japan--to pay.

It may even be a price too high for Beijing to continence given the capacity of the South Korean economy and technological inventiveness. Beijing is well aware that South Korea like Japan has an off-the-shelf capability to become a nuclear weapons possessing power. It is also well aware that the ruling oligarchy with or without Dear Leader or a blood successor is not predictable in its behavior, so a North Korean dominated peninsula with a nuclear potential and a very productive infrastructure at present would be a game changer in regional dynamics.

As a result it is debatable that the Trolls of Beijing really, really want to see the Six Power Talks resume given that they are doomed to fail--and China resents being linked so intimately with a diplomatic failure of global proportions. So, if as a result of the Cheonan sinking the South Koreans reject reopening the talks, China will not be upset no matter how much rhetoric to the contrary spews from their foreign ministry.

This leaves the question of what the South Koreans can do to balance the books. War is not an option as even the rumor of the remotest possibility of war would spook investors so that capital would flee the South at an awesome rate of knots. If the evidence presented by South Korea is "objective and scientific" enough to impress both Beijing and Moscow, there is some chance that the Security Council would impose yet more sanctions on the North.

That, of course, would be a big "so what?" in the eyes of Pyongyang. The Hermits are secure in knowing that Beijing cannot let the North go down the tubes no matter what sanctions might be considered. If nothing else Beijing can always invoke "humanitarian" considerations to continue trade in essentials such as food, energy, and the exchange of raw materials for manufactured goods. And, the Hermits have a ready clientele for their top end products such as missiles and missile components--to say nothing of nuclear energy related technology. And, the record shows, the North with Chinese assistance can readily break any UN imposed quasi-blockade.

North Korea committed an act of mass murder on Southerners. It has been recognized as just that by South Koreans generally and the younger generation in particular. With the identification of the murder weapon as one of Chinese manufacture, the ire of the Southern population will include China as well as the trigger pullers in Pyongyang. This political reality complicates the matter of a Southern response.

It would take a gesture of an unprecedented nature on the part of Beijing to both cool animus directed against it but also to facilitate the ability and willingness of the South Korean government to heed Chinese admonitions to remain "calm." Just what that gesture might be remains to be seen, but the proposition that Beijing is considering that option cannot be dismissed lightly or quickly.

In a very real sense the ball is resting firmly not in the court of Seoul nor in that of Pyongyang but in that labeled "Beijing." There is no doubt but the Chinese want "calm" in the neighborhood. What also must not be doubted is that it is up to them to do all that is possible to assure that desired condition ensues.