Sputnik.png DPRK and the Bomb: Carrying on With a Failed Policy Alexander Mercouris, Sputnik, 8 February 2016 News that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has launched a satellite into space has caused consternation in the West. DPRK has been under sanctions for decades. During that time its nuclear and ballistic missile programs - which the sanctions were intended to prevent - have proceeded apace. Western governments are left wringing their hands. All they seem able to do is threaten still more sanctions while demanding China take steps to bring DPRK to heel. Why China - which is not threatened by DPRK - should do this is not explained. China is never offered anything in return. It is simply assumed that is what China should do. Meanwhile there are threats from South Korea and Japan to acquire nuclear weapons of their own. How that is supposed to persuade DPRK and China to become more amenable is again unclear. The West's failure to dissuade DPRK from developing its capability is often called "a failure of diplomacy". This is a mischaracterization. Diplomacy has not failed with DPRK. It has not been attempted. No Western leader has travelled to DPRK. No Western leader has met the DPRK leader Kim Jong Un. There are no regular diplomatic exchanges between Western governments and DPRK. Such diplomatic contacts as exist happen no higher than ambassador level. Instead of talking to DPRK Western leaders shout at it. They are then surprised it shouts back. How Western leaders think they can persuade DPRK to do or stop doing something without talking to it is a mystery. What makes it even stranger is that when diplomacy was tried with DPRK it actually worked. A framework agreement was reached in 1995 which caused DPRK to freeze its nuclear program in return for a promise the US would normalize relations and supply DPRK with light water reactors. The US reneged on the agreement. The light water reactors were never supplied and the normalization of relations never took place. The DPRK nuclear program which had been frozen for eight years accordingly in 2003 resumed with a vengeance. Western leaders have learnt nothing from this. They continue to threaten DPRK with more and more sanctions as DPRK accumulates more and more weapons. None of this should be taken as a defense of the DPRK regime. Dislike of the regime should not however be used as an excuse for a policy that has utterly and completely failed. It is now too late to get DPRK to give up its weapons. Western plans for regime change in DPRK, Western gloating in the 1990s at the supposedly imminent fall of its regime, sanctions going all the way back to the Korean War of the 1950s, the characterization of DPRK as part of the "Axis of Evil", and the US practice of overthrowing governments around the world it doesn't like, have convinced the DPRK that their nuclear weapons are vital for their own security. However it should be possible to agree with DPRK arrangements to limit its weapons. That would call for confidence-building measures and steps to integrate DPRK in the world economy, which would require abandoning the sanctions policy and establishing a dialogue with DPRK. Since that would be condemned in the West as "appeasement" it probably won't happen. Instead we will get more of the same. Doing the same thing again and again whilst expecting a different result has been called insanity - something Westerners regularly accuse DPRK of. On the facts insanity is however something to be looked for in places other than Pyongyang. From: <http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20160208/1034390234/north-korea-and-bomb. html> http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20160208/1034390234/north-korea-and-bomb.h tml -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
