NY Times on Iraqi cousin marriage

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The Iraqi practice of cousin marriage reinforces a social system based on family as the primary criteria, rather than integrity as the recognition of reality.

NY Times Op-Ed: Iraq Doesn't Need More US Troops, it needs more Iraqis in control

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Foreign Policy: Saudis Think About the Bomb
The Guardian says that Saudi Arabia is considering a nuclear strategy, either an alliance with a nuclear power, a plan to buy the bomb from Pakistan, or to somehow get Israel and Iran to give up their nuclear programs.

The Saudis provided a lot of money to Pakistan while Pakistan was developing their nuclear program. Saudi has also recently stationed F-15s in the northwest of the country, in striking range of Israel.

Selling a nuclear weapon for cash would also be very attractive for North Korea, in fact export is, in my opinion, the most likely reason that the North is developing nuclear weapons.

We must stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons to our enemies by any means necessary. We wasted a year dickering with diplomacy over Iraq that produced nothing. Time is not on our side.

What If?

What if my policy had been followed in 1994--North Korea hands over the Yongbyon plutonium to the IAEA, the US pulls out of South Korea, the North pulls back from the DMZ.

The US finds evidence of their uranium enrichment program, and in October 2002 the North admits they have an active program. Today, the US would be free to coerce the North without the threat of effective retaliation against the US or against US allies.

"Can you name an instance in which a totalitarian state has been starved into oblivion?"
No, because we've never tried it.
Reminiscent of an old Marxist saying that "real" Marxism has never been tried. The fact is that Soviet Russia had next to no trade with the outside world in the 1920's and 1930's, during the worst decades of the Leninist-Stalinist terror. China had no support from the West until the 1970's, through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Cuba has been under US sanctions for 40 years. North Korea is known for good reason as the Hermit Kingdom. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia were only dislodged by a Vietnamese invasion.

Not only has the strangulation policy not had any unalloyed success--it has not enjoyed a shadow of a success.

Dealing with international threats requires thinking long-range, which means looking beyond narrow concerns of "rice shipments" and "selling nukes."
You're right, I'm obsessed by trivial, narrow concerns. Let me explain exactly how short-range my thinking here is: North Korea has, say, enough plutonium for 100 weapons, numbers that enable them to sell nuclear weapons to any cash-and-carry buyer and still have a North Korean nuclear deterrent. We cut off all aid and trade from the US, we even impose a blockade of the North's coasts, and the North keeps building bombs. The Islamic Nutburger Front deposits $1 billion into a North Korean offshore account. The North smuggles a finished bomb out through China, it is shipped to somewhere in Indonesia, where it is loaded on a container ship. (We would NOT know that that had happened.) A few weeks later, Seattle goes up in a nuclear fireball. That's where I see your policy taking us.

But I'm not thinking long-range. I'm not looking beyond the "narrow concern" of nuclear weapons in the hands of Islamic fanatics. Seattle may become a radioactive hole, but gosh darn it, we never sanctioned those North Korean bastards, before we nuked 'em good.

Didn't we Objectivists used to say something about a philosophy for living on earth, and a primary orientation to the facts of reality?

I'm sorry if I'm a little snippy. I just take offense at "selling nukes" to Islamic fanatics being dismissed as a "narrow concern."

BB:Presenting NK with an ultimatum could eliminate its nukes short of war, but then that wouldn't actually be negotiation--so I'm all for it. But for such an ultimatum to work, it would need to be credible. So we would need actually to be willing to fight and win such a war. If you don't think it's possible to do this--and therefore possible to convey that it's possible--no ultimatum will work.
We can fight and win such a war, at horrible cost. If our ultimatum creates the impression that we're ignoring that cost, then it creates the impression that we are bluffing. My ultimatum recognizes that the loss of Seoul would be horrible, and tries to avoid war if possible on that grounds. I did everything I could to eliminate the North Korean nuclear program through Plan A, diplomacy. I concede everything but the essential issue, the North's ability to sell nukes to al-Qaeda. If that fails, then Plan B is war and the loss of Seoul. No one will take your threat of war seriously if it is accompanied by fairy tales about eliminating the North's artillery in a preemptive strike

The Real North Korean Threat
North Korea has, say, enough plutonium for 100 weapons, numbers that enable them to sell nuclear weapons to any cash-and-carry buyer and still have a North Korean nuclear deterrent. We cut off all aid and trade from the US, we even impose a blockade of the North's coasts, and the North keeps building bombs. The Islamic Nutburger Front deposits $1 billion in a Swiss account. The North smuggles a finished bomb out through China, it is shipped to somewhere in Indonesia, where it is loaded on a ship with a short-range nuclear capable missile. (We would NOT know that that had happened.) A few weeks later, Seattle goes up in a nuclear fireball. That's where I see the confrontation policy taking us. Where am I wrong?

Item to remember: there is a significant difference between a North Korea with a bomb or two, without the capacity to make more for the next few years, and a North Korea with a dozen bombs and the capacity to produce them at will.

If North Korea has a single bomb, or two bombs, then they will hoard it as their final deterrent against a US attack, or their best offensive weapon in a campaign to conquer the South.

If North Korea has plenty of bombs, and plenty of nothing else, they will sell the bombs to anyone with the ability to pay for the bomb and sneak it out without the US noticing.

Which says to me that we should get as much plutonium and uranium out of North Korean hands as possible, by any means necessary.

In response to a critique of my North Korea position, which is detailed in this series:

http://www.capitalismcenter.org/Initium/10-19-02.htm
http://www.capitalismcenter.org/Initium/01-11-03.htm
http://www.capitalismcenter.org/Initium/01-12-03.htm
http://www.capitalismcenter.org/Initium/01-22-03.htm
http://www.capitalismcenter.org/Initium/03-11-03.htm

BB is Ben Bayer, whose critique can be found here.

JB is my inestimable self, being quoted by Mr. Bayer. (He referred to a dissertation chapter, so I don't think it's Dr. Bayer yet.)

JB: America's primary interest on the Korean peninsula lies in preventing North Korea from selling nuclear weapons to our more active enemies.

BB: Maybe it's half of the primary interest, but let's not forget that NK has ballistic missiles that can strike the West coast.
The North isn't going to nuke Seattle for fun—they would have some reason to nuke or threaten to nuke Seattle. The only plausible reasons are 1) as part of a strategy to conquer the South or 2) to deter or avenge a U.S. attack on North Korea's nuclear facilities. Both of those problems are much more easily managed than the risk of the North selling the weapons for cash to people who would nuke us or Israel for fun. That is why it is the primary threat from North Korea.

BB: Why doesn't John think we could remove the NK artillery threat to Seoul with a preemptive strike to their artillery positions, and then threaten to retaliate against Pyongyang if Seoul is targeted?
Because the North has too damn many artillery pieces within firing range of Seoul. By the time we hit them all, hundreds of thousands of SK's are already dead.

According to a site called sciscoop, (reliability unknown) an "administration official" says: "In the first hour of a war, North Korea could rain between 300,000 and 500,000 artillery shells onto metro Seoul and other points in South Korea..." Randall Parker of Parapundit gives the number of artillery pieces at 10,000.

http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/asia/Halloran111498.html
Details the war plan from 1998 for winning a war against North Korea.

This is the age of Google. Do a little research. Using Tracinski and Kurtz as your sources isn't very impressive. Neither has any particular military or foreign policy expertise, or has special knowledge through journalistic connections.

BB: Negotiation with a blackmailer is appeasement only if the blackmailer keeps his leverage." What the heck does that mean? Apparently that if NK gives up its nukes, then it's no longer in a position to blackmail us.

Exactly. Why is giving in to blackmail impractical? Because it invites further blackmail. If the instrument of blackmail is removed, the blackmail game ends.

BB: OK, that's great, but how do you get him to put down the gun?!?

By presenting him with two options: 1. Complying with your ultimatum, 2. A war which would destroy him. It helps if your proposal can be spun as something besides your enemy's surrender, making him more likely to choose option 1.

BB: Because we withdraw our troops, we'd be less likely to endanger SK by our retaliation?

Yes.

BB: Why, because if we remove our troops, NK will no longer see SK as a worthy target?

Yes. You are the Northern generalissimo. Would you rather fight the United States with South Korea as an anxious neutral desperately trying to mediate the conflict and avoid the collapse of the North, or the United States and South Korea at the same time?

BB: And of course, even a military withdrawal wouldn't mean SK would cease being our ally, and NK would know that.

Yes it would. And the North would know that. In reality, the South has already ceased being our ally. An ally shares (and percieves) the same strategic interests and coordinates actions to further mutual security. South Korea is a client, or protectorate, enjoying increased security because of the US as their pusallinimity reduces our freedom of action. Without US troops in Korea, the South remain neutral in a US-DPRK war to avoid the destruction of Seoul.

BB: Withdrawing our troops would only make NK's retaliation against the South more likely.

No, it makes a Northern attack on the South somewhat more likely. That's not our problem. I am an egoist.

BB: I agree that the destruction of Seoul would be horrible. But first I think it could be prevented by a preemptive strike against NK artillery positions,
Do you have any evidence for this? What basis do you have for thinking that? Just about everything I've seen on the issue says the opposite.

As for the issue of buying time, buying time is only appropriate if the situation will change in your favor in the time you buy. In my proposal, assuming that we start finding the evidence of the North's cheating in, say, the third year after the agreement, the following improvements have occurred:

1. North Korea has handed over what the US estimates as their current uranium and plutonium stocks to the US or the UN or the IAEA or the Girl Scouts or whoever. Their known nuclear plants are dismantled, concreted over, or what have you. Their nuclear program is limited to the facilities and materials they were able to conceal in this round of the confrontation.
2. US troops are not in South Korea where they can be easily attacked by North Korea.
3. The France of the Far East, South Korea, is no longer in any moral position to restrain the US from attacking the North.
4. As a bonus, Seoul should be out of NK artillery range.

BB: And by the way, the idea that multilateral negotiations are somehow better than bilateral ones is also ridiculous. What is the difference?

It's a way of keeping score, of tracking who is more desperate to resolve the crisis, which means who will give in to the other.

BB: And the question is: should we risk New York, or should we risk Seoul?

No, the question is how can we best reduce the risk to New York. There is no solution with zero risk of vaporizing New York.