Editor’s note: This commentary is by Haviland Smith, of Williston, who is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe as well as the Middle East. His other writings can be seen on rural-ruminations.com.
It is extremely important that the current American administration fully understand the realities that govern the behavior of the North Korean government. What we are addressing here are North Korean realities, not behaviors ascribed to them by an American administration designed to enable or promote American policy, so often inappropriate, for that country. That may work in the corporate world, but it most certainly will not in international relations.
Kim Jong Un has only one goal in life. That is to continue in power. In order to accomplish that, he has a few very basic goals to meet. He must see to it that there are no unwanted changes in North Korea. Perhaps that is why he keeps killing select relatives and senior regime officials.
Because there is a continuing call in the West (particularly in America) for regime change, he must maintain the one true element of international power that he now controls – his nuclear arsenal and its delivery systems – and he knows it.
America presents him with the only real threat to his power. It is a threat because it has one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world, because the party now in power there often champions North Korean regime change and possible military action, and because its leadership is often duplicitous, unpredictable and irrational.
Given the factors that truly motivate Kim, how do you suppose he sees America as a negotiating partner? He has to see America against the background of its Iran policy – more than willing to unilaterally pull out of a negotiated international position that the rest of the world has fully accepted and judged to be working well.
And then there is Libya. He has heard two of the president’s closest advisers say that is what they want for North Korea and reminded the world that it ended not only with regime change, but with the murder of the Libyan leader. Not exactly what Kim is looking for!
And before he heard President Trump’s recent complimentary words about himself, what were his concrete views of American policy? He heard himself continuously referred to in a most hostile way by the American leadership. Throughout his entire life, he has watched 28,500 American troops maneuver alongside South Korean troops in exercises practicing an attack against him and his country.
He has endured extremely tough sanctions designed to force him to the negotiating table, yet North Korea has shown itself willing to endure tough sanctions to preserve its nuclear and missile assets. Pyongyang has even enshrined its nuclear status in its constitution and declared that it will not surrender its nuclear weapons under any circumstances.
So what does America want? What is its real policy for North Korea? If we were really serious about negotiations, we would start with discussions at the working level and move on, if possible, to an agreement that both parties could sign. Under no circumstances would we start at the highest level with no agreed upon paper to sign.
For conspiracy buffs, we might be watching a clever operation designed to force an impasse in the relationship which could then be turned into the rationale for an armed attack on North Korea. That is something that has been promoted by some of the president’s closest advisers. In this respect, the way the game is being played by the American side could be a way to get to the attempted overthrow of the North Korean government. However, unlikely this scenario may be, we have heard threats from the highest American levels that are implicit warnings that such an attack has not been ruled out.
Whatever the reasons for the quite extraordinary way the game is currently being played, we must not forget that the real motivation on both sides makes “winning” at a negotiating table virtually impossible for anyone.
