Strategic impatience on North Korea

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/Korea/KOR-01-170314.html



Strategic impatience on North Korea
By John Feffer
Mar 17, '14

It's not easy for North Korea to grab headlines these days. Over the last couple weeks, Pyongyang launched several short-range missiles and rockets. They barely caused a ripple. The world has been focused on the showdown in Ukraine, the nuclear negotiations with Iran, and the Oscars.

North Korea also barely registers on the US policymaking agenda. Washington no longer holds out hope that the young leader Kim Jong-eun is a bold new reformer. At the same time, he seems to have adopted the same combo policy as his father - one part engagement to two parts aggressive rhetoric - in relations with neighboring countries. So, the Obama administration continues with its approach of "strategic patience". This is just a fancy name for ignoring North Korea and hoping the problem just goes away.

But of course North Korea doesn't just go away. It still possesses a nuclear program that is considerably more advanced than what the Iranians have. It likely has a robust supply of the same chemical weapons that Syria has been pressured to give up. And there are enough territorial disputes between North and South to spark the kind of conflict that is currently unfolding in Crimea.

A major flaw in the approach the United States has taken toward North Korea is the "all-or-nothing" attitude. Either North Korea agrees at the beginning that it will give up its entire nuclear program or all bets are off.