Essays in Idleness

There are conflicts that cannot be resolved peacefully. Perhaps this does not come as news to gentle reader. By “peacefully” I mean with the consent of all parties. Not all wars, not all defeats or regimental extinctions, involve much bloodshed. The Soviet regime, for instance, collapsed with only a murder or two, by trigger-happy border guards; it was peace that allowed the Soviet Union to accumulate many million corpses. Did their defeat require a war? Yes, I would argue: that Cold War, which the Western powers remarkably fought and won. You stand your ground and it happens, sometimes, that your enemy loses his nerve. Reagan, Thatcher, JP-II and others contributed largely to that final act, in which the Communists embraced pacifism and appeasement. Let the other side do that, then magnanimously accept their capitulation.

Unfortunately the successor regime of Vladimir Putin has recovered some spunk. And Red China, having mastered certain economies of scale, under the aegis of its more deft Communist Party, can find no reason to retreat from its Stalinist (in the sense of a nationalism of convenience) aspirations to a permanent and central place in the world, to which China (with or without totalitarian rule) would be anyway entitled by size.

The Korean War was never resolved. We are still working with a ceasefire dated 27 July 1953. The line that divides the two Koreas is only an armistice, yet like the arbitrary line that divided Canada from USA (1783, with adjustments) it is sufficient to create two polities which will “evolve” in different ways, even if the people were much of a muchness. The “Martian” (in two senses) North Korean polity has weirdly been given sixty-four years, by Western irresolution.

“Speak softly and carry a big stick,” is the socially-approved Yankee approach to diplomacy. “Shoot the dog to scare the monkey,” is the nearest Maoist equivalent. “Wave the stick and shriek like a maniac” would seem to be Mr Trump’s current compromise in the interesting cultural exchange between Far East and Far West, as their interests collide across the Pacific. Except China, and of course North Korea, we have other Rim powers on our side, and the Russians merely fishing in troubled water — unable to rival the kind of subsidies from China that keep the Pyongyang regime afloat. (“Why don’t you shoot them to scare us?” is an eccentric approach not yet tried.)

I find the pragmatism of the Chinese most encouraging. I’m sure they’d never trust Kim Jong-un with the sort of ICBM technology that might be accurate and effective. They’d rather stay alive, and in power. They will cling to North Korea for as long as they can find advantage in it. But they also have a lot of face to save, so I can understand the occasional American attempt at subtlety. The preferred solution is for Peking [stet] to puncture that little fat Kim boy [stet]. What, I wonder, is the best way to inspire them?

The North Korean missile inventory, which to my mind does not seriously threaten either Guam or any protected species in Alaska, is troubling for other reasons. They pass technology under the table with Iran, and worse, could incinerate heavily populated bits of South Korea and Japan in a hit-or-miss way. In diplomatic terms, the consequences of that would be “too unpredictable.” That little Kim is mad, goes without saying; most politicians are. Perhaps not all become quite so psychopathic; most lack the opportunities. Alas, Kim was never house-trained. Even the mad can be taught to beg under carefully-staged conditions.

The trick, to my mind, as a former international affairs pundit, to whom no one ever listened, is to rhetorically ignore China (Mr Trump: restrict your entertaining tweets to domestic affairs!) while keeping the usual secret channels open. Call in another aircraft carrier fleet, pile defensive measures into South Korea (get some “Iron Dome” from Tel Aviv), return a few nukes to their abandoned peninsular silos (that was Bush’s bad, not Obama’s); load the Japanese up with the same. (There’s money to be made in this, incidentally.) Aim so much at North Korea that their own generals begin to wet themselves, then shoot down a “missile test” to help them imagine a coup. Let the porous State Department leak the extravagant details to the U.S. media. I think the need for a regime change would then spontaneously occur to the other side.

Shrieking like a maniac is optional.

So is piously hoping it will end well.