What's With All the Left Wing Bloggers at the Ath?

Recently, the Athenaeum has become something of a refuge for left wing bloggers. It's a shame, but it looks to be a trend.

Take a recent sampling. This semester alone we have several such bloggers.

Andrew Sullivan

Marcy Wheeler

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Matthew Yglesias

It's not like the Right doesn't have equivalent figures of equal or greater merit, but something tells me their invitations won't be forthcoming. Why not? I'm not suggesting that we disinvite some of the left wingers, but maybe more balance is in order. We could even do some kind of panel.

Take some of the greatest conservatives out there: Glenn Reynolds, Matt Drudge, Michelle Malkin, Amanda Carpenter, Ed Morrissey, Rush Limbaugh, etc and bring them to campus.

And we haven't even discussed the libertarian side of blogosphere.

Ken Masugi CMC '69 Defends Palin's Foreign Policy Experience

Author's note: This post will require a bit of a set up before I get to Ken Masugi's National Review article on Sarah Palin and her foreign policy experience. If you just want the article, scroll down and look for the bold.

I got into a frank discussion with a friend today about Sarah Palin, John McCain's running mate in which he announced that he would be voting for Barack Obama because he thought McCain had put this country in danger with his choice of Sarah Palin. He says the Governor displays little interest or intelligence on the matters of foreign policy.

Though I made a point of noting I was for Mitt Romney as VP, I naturally protested and pointed out that she had more experience as a governor, a businesswoman, and a mayor. She's done more compromising and deal-negotiating than Obama and Biden combined.

But then I was struck by something: since when was a vice president expected to know anything about foreign policy? Scholars of the Constitution know that most vice presidents are rarely brought into some of the bigger policy questions. John Adams found the job tiring and dreary, while Truman knew little about the atomic bomb before he ascended to the presidency.

Insofar as I can tell, the Constitution affords only two roles to the Vice President -- to inquire daily into the health of the presidency and to break a tie in the Senate. Given our last two vice presidents who took on extra constitutional roles and left us with bigger government, I find a return to this kind of constitutional vice presidency refreshing.

I suspect, however, that much of the dislike of Palin has little to do with her qualifications but with her lack of oratory skills, which were sorely lacking in a recent interview with Katie Couric. As we've had a president whose malapropisms have become the stuff of high selling calendars, it is understandable that many want a smooth-talking president. (I'll concede that Obama is a good speech giver, but I have my doubts given his failures when he isn't speaking on a teleprompter.)

But I've been wondering: should appearance on television disqualify a candidate for higher office? If so, we might be disqualifying some of our finest presidents. Harry S. Truman's nasally voice led him to give few speeches, while Calvin "Silent Cal" Coolidge rarely said more than a few words in public. (He was more of a writer and thinker, anyhow.) Similarly, the great statesman Abraham Lincoln was known for his high, squeaky voice and would probably unelectable today. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, spoke with a lisp. He so despised public speaking that he sent his "State of the Union" speeches to Congress to be spoken by a member of the House in his stead.

Of course I suspect much of the attack on Palin seizes on her supposed lack of oratory as somehow evidence of her stupidity, inferring no doubt, that if you're good at crafting a phrase, you must be good at leading a country. This is a dangerous precedent to set as some of the nation's greatest orators have been some of the least faithful to the Constitution. LBJ? FDR? Woodrow Wilson?

I don't believe that it's a bad thing for people to believe you are dumb, though, provided you actually aren't and with Palin, the jury seems far from decided. Indeed, when the press determined that Reagan was a dunce, they helped strengthen his hand as he was able to talk with Gorbachev and go over the press to work out deals with Tip O'Neil. Better to blow them away than to appear bright and deliver little. Jimmy Carter, for all his cleverness, wasn't much of a president.

Outside of the coasts, I judge that not much of a premium is placed on good oratory or communication skills in Middle America. People who can give ten point plans often don't grace the prairie or frontier states. There's more of an emphasis on what you've done than what you can say. Where you grow up can heavily influence what you think of the country and our relations to the world. New Yorkers who live next to Ground Zero might have a different view of terrorism than a farmer in Montana and yet that kind of diversity is often omitted from the constellation of diversities that our progressive friends so love.

I would wager that Senator Obama's cosmopolitanism comes from his Hawaiian upbringing, while President Bush's Texan roots probably goes a long way to explaining his fascinating relations with Hispanics.

Here's Ken Masugi's view on how where you grow up can influence your foreign policy upbringing. (I have italicized my favorite paragraph.)

September 29, 2008, 7:00 a.m.

Viewing Russia from Your Window
Reach for your inner Alaska, Governor.

By Ken Masugi

It was not Sarah Palin but her double Tina Fey who said “I can see Russia from my house.” In her interview with CBS’s Katie Couric the real Alaska governor noted “That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It’s funny that a comment like that was. . . .

“Couric: Mocked?”

Declining to elaborate, Gov. Palin should instead have stuck to her geographic guns and wiped smirks off of faces!

Americans do have different perspectives about the world, based on where they live. Let’s start with the old, false, but widely held tale that midwesterners are isolationist, because they don’t live on an ocean, which would widen their view of the world and America’s responsibilities in it. Nonsense: Midwesterners tended to be isolationist because of the high concentration of ethnic Germans, who weren’t eager to shoot Uncle Fritz in either World War. The old political journalist Samuel Lubell pointed this out years ago in his Future of American Politics.

But that stereotype aside, we can note many examples of how geography affects political consciousness, some quite familiar. Americans in the original 13 states may have a distinct historical consciousness shaping their view of the country. Southerners, as displays of the Confederate battle flag remind us, may have a different view of the Civil War than their fellow citizens. Westerners, especially those who are near the Mexican border, view illegal immigration more intensely than those who live elsewhere. See the anecdote-rich How the States Got Their Shapes for less well-known political consequences of State boundaries.

In Harvey Mansfield’s edition of Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic Democracy in America, there is a map (p. xvi) showing the American continent, Amerique Anglaise. Alaska is labeled as Amerique Russe. (Keep in mind Tocqueville’s famous conclusion of Russia and America dividing the world between them, based on their radically different visions of politics.) Signs of Russian presence — in forts and Orthodox churches — can still be found throughout the state. In World War II Japan occupied some of the Aleutian Islands, where fierce battles were fought and Alaskans were taken prisoner and shipped to Japan. Hundreds of Aleut Indians were relocated, their villages razed, ostensibly to protect them from Japanese capture. More recently, Soviet and Russian planes have tested Alaskan/American air space. And Alaska is home to our only ground-based ballistic-missile defense site.

Everyone agrees that Alaska remains our last frontier state, even boasting an independence party and a liberal drug policy. Could its geography promote attitudes about foreign relations as well as domestic politics? Indisputably, state history and geopolitics shape the political consciousness of citizens. But do they inform the political awareness of its governor?

We don’t know the answer to this crucial question; the campaign will tell. But that geopolitics exists in every state and has shaped political attitudes and awareness is beyond dispute. “I can see Russia from my house” may in fact make a great campaign slogan, if it signifies a profound understanding of America’s place in a dangerous world. Gov. Palin needs to reach for her inner Alaska, stick to her guns, and turn her hunters into prey.

— Ken Masugi is co-author, co-editor, or editor of seven books on American politics, including two on California.

Victor Cha on "Winning Asia" in Foreign Affairs

Here's another Foreign Affairs article from Dr. Victor Cha.

Inside the Beltway and on op-ed pages across the United States, it has become increasingly popular to lament the demise of U.S. influence in Asia. Power transitions, resurgent Asian nationalism, and poor policy choices in Washington have supposedly undermined U.S. leadership in Asia. According to critics, the Bush administration has been distracted by Iraq, has failed to deal adequately with China's economic and political rise, and has alienated many Asians with its singular focus on counterterrorism. The lack of U.S. leadership after the Cold War, detractors charge, has made Asia ripe for conflict.

But the conventional wisdom is wrong. The United States' position in Asia is now stronger than ever, and Asia remains at peace. The United States has achieved a pragmatic, results-oriented, cooperative relationship with China, and it has expanded and strengthened its alliance with Japan just as Tokyo and Beijing are improving their bilateral relations. This confluence of events has created an emerging U.S.-Chinese-Japanese partnership that greatly enhances regional stability. Washington has also improved its defense relationship with South Korea and successfully facilitated the shutdown of North Korea's bomb-making capabilities through the six-party talks. Finally, the United States has steadily improved its relations with Southeast Asian nations, largely by building on the goodwill it created by leading the humanitarian response to the tsunami in 2004.

Few commentators in Japan, South Korea, or the United States will give any credit to the Abe, Roh, and Bush administrations for these accomplishments. Rather than conceding that the Bush administration has made progress, naysayers in Washington tend to attribute Asia's good fortune to benign neglect while the administration's neoconservatives were busy focusing on Iraq. But they are wrong. President George W. Bush's Asia policy has worked.

WHO'S ASIA'S DADDY

Contrary to the dire warnings issued by many Asia pessimists, China is not eating the United States' lunch in Asia. Beijing is indeed building its military capabilities, pressing for free-trade agreements, and increasingly occupying central positions in various regional organizations. But those who argue that these moves signal a power transition, whereby China is displacing the United States as the region's new benefactor, are mistaken. A power transition may come to Asia someday, but not anytime soon.

Critics who predict an American sunset in Asia are missing a fundamental point: in order to be a region's benefactor, a leading power must be willing and able to provide for the region's public good. After World War II, the United States became the world's undisputed leader, first by providing markets for the recovering European and Asian economies but also by offering international security. Today, China offers a vast market to other Asian countries, but it has not proved itself as a provider of public goods. Beijing's response to the 2004 tsunami, for example, which killed 280,000 people and displaced over 1.8 million, was slow, feeble, and parochial (China initially provided only $60 million and one medical team). Meanwhile, within 48 hours of the disaster, the United States had enlisted Australia, India, and Japan and organized the largest emergency relief mission in modern history. It sent over 16,000 U.S. military personnel, two dozen ships, and 100 aircraft as part of its immediate $346 million relief package, followed by an additional U.S. commitment of $600 million. This rapid response gave UN agencies both the time and the infrastructure they needed to mobilize and get on the ground. No other nation, and no international organization, could have coordinated such a response. Faced with a crisis of unprecedented magnitude, the world reflexively turned to the United States for leadership. Whether the United States covets this role or not, it is still the only true leader in Asia.

WASHINGTON'S NEW COMRADES

Far from being supplanted by China, the United States is enlisting Beijing's help. The Bush administration's China policy, which was once confrontational, has evolved into a hard-nosed but cooperative dialogue. Its goal is to turn China into a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system, as Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank and former deputy secretary of state, has put it. The Chinese leadership has welcomed this effort because it demonstrates the United States' acceptance of China's rightful place in the world, implies that China's growth is not threatening, and leads to cooperation on numerous global issues. The respect accorded to China through the stakeholder concept has allowed Washington to raise difficult issues such as democratic values. Because the United States is not imposing its values, China seems more open to discussing the need for greater political liberties as it seeks its proper place in the world.

This effort has paid off. High-level diplomatic talks, led by Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and his Chinese counterpart, Dai Bingguo, have produced cooperation on counterproliferation efforts, such as those aimed at North Korea and Iran, and on devising a post-Kyoto climate policy that focuses on programs that are both energy efficient and pro-growth rather than on unrealistic reductions of emissions. The dialogue has been less successful on human rights and China's policy toward Africa, but U.S. persuasion and the spotlight of the Beijing Olympics are likely to compel changes over the coming year. The U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, which seeks to manage difficult issues such as currency valuation and intellectual property rights, has made some progress. The yuan has appreciated by 9.4 percent since mid-2005, and Beijing is beginning to clamp down on software piracy. Tensions with China over trade remain high: 27 percent of current U.S. antidumping orders apply to Chinese goods, the U.S. trade representative has authorized four cases against China in the World Trade Organization since last year, and Congress is threatening to slap tariffs on all goods made in China. Nevertheless, these talks signal a U.S. commitment to manage trade tensions through negotiations, rather than through trade wars.

Discussions between President Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao constitute the least formal but most important aspect of U.S.-Chinese relations. From early on, the Bush White House understood that the most effective way to get things done in China was to go to the very top. When agreements are made at this level, both sides take their commitments very seriously. For this reason, the administration worked to cultivate relations with Hu and his predecessor, Jiang Zemin. This channel was particularly important in garnering support for a firm UN Security Council response to Pyongyang's October 2006 nuclear test and in setting the diplomatic course toward the agreement last February that shut down North Korea's only known operating nuclear reactor.

The strength of the U.S.-Chinese relationship pays dividends in quiet but critical ways. Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has been pushing the envelope on independence in the run-up to the March 2008 elections in Taiwan (for example, Taipei recently applied for UN membership), yet China has not responded militarily because it is confident that Washington considers such antics a risk to peace in the region. Similarly, Beijing has remained conspicuously quiet about former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's much-publicized steps to upgrade Japan's military capabilities. China's poise stems from the current healthy state of U.S.-Chinese relations and an overarching fear of Japanese rearmament without the United States' presence as Tokyo's security guarantor. When U.S.-Chinese ties are strained, Beijing sees U.S.-Japanese cooperation as an effort to contain China, but when U.S.-Chinese relations are good, Beijing tends to view the U.S.-Japanese alliance as a check on Japan's regional ambitions. Today's goodwill has resulted in unexpected U.S.-Chinese-Japanese cooperation, which stabilizes Asia. The United States still talks tough about China's arms buildup (which is intended to intimidate Taiwan), expanding defense budget, and drive for an antisatellite capability. But today, these difficult discussions constitute only one part, rather than the entirety, of the relationship.

JAPAN'S GLOBAL ALLIANCE

The U.S.-Japanese alliance has reached an unprecedented level of intimacy. Beginning in his first term, President Bush chose to reinvest in Japan as the United States' key ally in Asia and to overhaul its military posture there. This base realignment -- the most significant in 30 years -- includes moving 7,000-10,000 U.S. marines from Okinawa to Guam, transplanting dangerously congested facilities in Okinawa to less populated areas, and creating joint training facilities in Guam. The changes will enable greater interoperability between the two militaries, give the United States more mobility in the Pacific (thanks partly to a U.S. nuclear carrier based at Yokosuka), and reduce civil-military tensions with Japanese host communities, thereby ensuring long-term domestic support for the alliance.

Washington and Tokyo are also advocating a "global alliance" that would focus on common values such as liberal democracy, free-market economics, the rule of law, and respect for human rights. As a result, Japan has taken unprecedented steps into the international arena. It has deployed ground forces in Iraq for humanitarian operations, flown C-130 supply missions, and become the second-largest donor to Iraqi reconstruction, with an assistance package valued at nearly $5 billion. In support of coalition forces in Afghanistan, Japan has deployed two naval vessels in the Indian Ocean, which provide critical water and refueling services. At the Bush-Abe summit last April, Tokyo committed to continuing its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as stepping up assistance to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in eastern Pakistan, a suspected al Qaeda haven. Japan has also joined the United States in efforts to improve the business climate in Indonesia and supported France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in nuclear negotiations with Iran. These are hugely important and unprecedented steps by Japan, and they represent a new norm in Japanese foreign policy.

As Japan expands its security profile to become more of a global player, it is doing so wholly within the context of the U.S.-Japanese alliance, which acts as a constraint on more ambitious Japanese rearmament. This should be comforting to other states in the region. Moreover, both Abe's October 2006 visit to Beijing and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's wildly popular visit to Japan last April helped thaw Chinese-Japanese relations, which had turned chilly under Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi. Historically, Asian states have become concerned whenever the United States has grown close to Japan in order to contain China or close to China at the expense of traditional U.S. allies and smaller regional powers. The situation today -- a cooperative U.S.-Chinese relationship, a strong U.S.-Japanese alliance, and good relations between Japan and China -- is a viable equilibrium.

BUSH LOST KOREA?

The situation is similarly hopeful on the Korean Peninsula. Five years ago, policy wonks, pundits, and academics on both the right and the left were openly predicting the end of the U.S.-South Korean alliance. Anti-American demonstrations in the streets of Seoul in 2002 and the election of the leftist Roh Moo-hyun as president in 2003 suggested that the two allies were drifting further and further apart. Critics blamed Bush for branding North Korea part of the "axis of evil" and thereby encouraging young South Koreans to view the United States as a greater threat to peace than North Korea. They predicted that Bush would botch the policy toward the Korean Peninsula entirely -- losing an ally in the South and the nonproliferation battle in the North.

However, these gloomy predictions have not come true. Washington and Seoul have made significant strides in improving relations. The allies have agreed on a major base-restructuring agreement that includes the return of over 60 U.S. camps to the South Koreans, the relocation of U.S. Army headquarters away from the center of Seoul, and the return of wartime operational control to South Korea by 2012. The two governments also defied all expectations by signing a far-reaching free-trade agreement (FTA) in June 2007. South Korea is the United States' seventh-largest trading partner, with trade between the two countries valued annually at over $78 billion, making this the largest bilateral FTA ever signed by the United States. Despite some congressional opposition, the accord will likely be ratified given that Congress has never undermined an FTA negotiated by the U.S. government.

On the diplomatic front, the White House has overseen the creation of an informal but highly effective channel between the two countries' national security councils and the creation of a formal new dialogue between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her South Korean counterpart. These changes have expanded the scope of the U.S.-South Korean alliance beyond the peninsula to other areas of mutual global concern. Much like Japan, South Korea has become an important coalition partner in Iraq. It has provided the third-largest contingent of troops there, performing tasks ranging from humanitarian operations to protective missions for U.S. and UN agencies. South Koreans are also providing medical and logistical support in Afghanistan -- where they have been targeted by Taliban terrorists -- and participating in peacekeeping operations in Lebanon. This state of affairs is a far cry from the doomsday scenarios announced five years ago.

Likewise, the situation in North Korea today appears to be progressing, even though the nuclear standoff with Pyongyang has not been resolved. The United States has worked with China, Japan, both Koreas, and Russia to create a denuclearization road map, embodied in a September 2005 joint statement and the February 2007 implementation agreement. In July 2007, North Korea shut down the Yongbyon nuclear facility, which it had used to make plutonium for nuclear bombs. In addition, it admitted inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the facility for the first time in five years. The aim of the six-party talks is to obtain a full declaration of nuclear materials from Pyongyang (including highly enriched uranium, plutonium, and nuclear devices) and the disablement of all North Korean nuclear facilities and activities by the end of 2007. Meeting this interim objective would bring North Korea closer to disarmament than it has ever been. The ultimate goal is to permanently dismantle all nuclear facilities and the existing weapons by the end of 2008. In return, North Korea would receive energy assistance and the United States and Japan would begin to normalize relations with North Korea, with a view toward final-status peace talks.

Despite progress toward these goals, critics outside the U.S. government and across the political spectrum charge that the Bush administration has acted unilaterally and inconsistently in its policy toward Pyongyang. In the eyes of liberals, Bush erred by labeling North Korea "evil" and pursuing a policy of "regime change" that failed to pressure Kim Jong Il into obedience and therefore led to the October 2006 nuclear test. Conservatives, led by former UN Ambassador John Bolton, criticize Bush for being inconsistent. In their view, the administration had the right get-tough mindset for dealing with Pyongyang but unwisely gave up its strong financial instruments and a UN Security Council resolution pressuring Kim to temporarily shut down Yongbyon -- even though the latter would have been only a symbolic victory guaranteeing nothing in terms of validating North Korea's denuclearization intentions.

These criticisms mistake tactical shifts for inconsistent strategy. Despite the charges of inconsistency and a directionless policy, voiced most recently by Michael Mazarr in these pages, three core principles have systematically guided U.S. policy toward North Korea over the past seven years. First, the United States has remained committed to a peaceful diplomatic solution. Despite speculation that the Bush administration has seriously considered coercive options and regime change, peaceful diplomacy was always considered the only practical solution. No high-level White House official ever advocated or presented the option of regime change to any Asian counterpart.

Second, Washington has long believed that the North Korean nuclear problem must be handled through a multilateral approach. After the breakdown of the 1994 U.S.-North Korean nuclear agreement, U.S. policymakers insisted that key regional players with material influence over North Korea be involved, especially China. Beijing's hosting of the six-party talks has forced China to take ownership of the problem. Indeed, China's own reputation has come to depend on its ability to bring about nuclear disarmament in North Korea. At each critical point in the crisis, U.S.-Chinese cooperation has been vital. The Chinese lent unprecedented support to UN Security Council Resolutions 1695 and 1718, which imposed economic sanctions and a luxury-goods ban on Pyongyang after it conducted missile and nuclear tests in 2006. In addition, the Chinese government and the Chinese military establishment turned a cold shoulder to North Korea after the tests, and Beijing has since pressured Pyongyang in material ways that do not show up in trade figures but have had a real impact. Any future U.S. administration would be wise to ensure that China stays tough on North Korea.

The third principle behind U.S. policy has been to negotiate with the purpose of testing North Korea's intent to dismantle its nuclear program. A popular criticism is that U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill was given the green light to negotiate seriously only after Pyongyang's nuclear test. This does not accurately reflect the record of past U.S. diplomatic outreach to North Korea. As early as October 2002, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly confronted North Korea about its covert acquisition of materials consistent with the pursuit of a nuclear weapons program based on highly enriched uranium. He explained how denuclearization could bring it a more fruitful economic and political relationship with the United States. In the course of 2004, North Korea stalled and then rejected a proposal by the United States, Japan, and South Korea to trade denuclearization for security assurances. In September 2005, Pyongyang accepted a similar deal that included the promise of energy assistance and the possibility of diplomatic normalization. Since the resulting September 2005 joint statement, which declared that North Korea would "abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs," the Bush administration's singular focus has been to test whether Pyongyang is serious about this commitment. In this spirit, secret meetings between the United States and North Korea were held in Berlin earlier this year, leading to February's implementation agreement.

Conservatives in Washington, led by Bolton, were outraged in May when the Bush administration agreed to release $25 million of North Korea's frozen assets held at Banco Delta Asia in Macao. Pyongyang refused to shut down the Yongbyon reactor until it received these funds, and critics saw the concession as a sign of weakness from an administration distracted by Iraq and desperate for a foreign policy victory. But in fact, this decision was another sign of Washington's unusual political will and patience in pursuing a long-term goal: moving beyond a temporary IAEA-monitored shutdown of the Yongbyon reactor and permanently disabling the facility.

The United States may engage in normalization talks with North Korea or discussions involving China and both Koreas on a peace treaty officially ending the Korean War, but it will not conclude either of these discussions without complete nuclear disarmament. Conservatives should rest assured: no U.S. administration, Republican or Democratic, will normalize relations or conclude a peace treaty with a North Korea that is a nuclear weapons state. Bush administration officials have not suddenly become wide-eyed optimists when it comes to North Korea; they have pursued a systematic diplomatic strategy designed to test Pyongyang's intentions. If Pyongyang proves to be serious, then the six-party forum can move on to the final phase of nuclear dismantlement in 2008. But if Pyongyang does not implement the most recent agreement, the other five parties must be prepared to adopt tougher measures.

ASIA'S NEW REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE

Over the past several years, a U.S. vision for a new regional architecture has begun to take root. It has none of the fanfare of organizations such as the East Asian Summit, which is a new regional structure in search of a purpose. The U.S. view on regional organizations in Asia has always been driven by results rather than rhetoric. The U.S. plan -- although less formal and more incremental -- involves deep engagement with Southeast Asian states, a security system in Northeast Asia, and a network of interconnecting bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral institutions to deal with security problems. Academics steeped in power transition theory, which holds that rising powers and declining powers are prone to conflict when their capabilities converge, might argue that these U.S. efforts clash with Chinese aspirations in Southeast Asia. But in fact the opposite is true. Washington looks forward to China's assuming a major role as a real problem solver in the region.

Skeptics complain that the United States' fixation on its bilateral alliance structure is "prehistoric" and stands at odds with efforts to build Asian multilateralism. But when the 2004 tsunami put hundreds of thousands of lives at risk, the only response that worked was a multilateral relief effort fashioned by the United States in conjunction with its allies Australia, India, and Japan. Not bad for a dinosaur.

U.S. alliances in Asia are a necessary part of the future regional architecture. But the United States is branching out to create new multilateral structures. The largest and most well established of these networks is the six-party talks, which are chaired by China. This is the first multilateral security forum in Northeast Asia, and its members hope that it will become the basis of a broader Northeast Asian peace and security regime that would include a four-party forum to discuss a formal end to the Korean War. Canberra has promoted a U.S.-Japanese-Australian strategic dialogue to address issues such as missile defense, nuclear proliferation, maritime piracy, climate change, damage to the environment, disaster relief, and UN reform. In a similar vein, former Prime Minister Abe personally proposed to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, and President Bush the idea of a quadrilateral grouping of their countries focused on disaster preparedness and relief. At the September Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney, Australia, President Bush proposed the formation of an Asia-Pacific democracy partnership, to involve these four countries as well as Canada, Indonesia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and South Korea.

The United States remains committed to existing regional organizations as well. Washington has recently doubled its financial commitment to APEC, the premier institution in the region devoted to trade liberalization, sustainable development, the environment, and security. Critics, such as the new secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Surin Pitsuwan, contend that the United States' focus on counterterrorism has led to alienation between the United States and ASEAN members, but they are about three years behind the curve. U.S. policy immediately after 9/11 did indeed focus on counterterrorism -- and succeeded in disrupting planned terrorist attacks and the operations of Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Sayyaf, and other organizations sympathetic to al Qaeda in Southeast Asia and in saving an untold number of American, Filipino, and Indonesian lives. But any serious analyst will notice that more recently the United States has avoided an exclusive focus on counterterrorism and has bolstered its engagement with ASEAN. President Bush inaugurated an annual meeting of ASEAN leaders and met with them for the third time at this year's APEC conference. He has also created a U.S.-ASEAN enhanced partnership to address issues ranging from drug trafficking to good governance. To expand trade with the region, Washington has created a network of bilateral FTAs and trade and investment agreements with Singapore and other ASEAN nations. Last year, Washington surprised critics and supporters alike by announcing a U.S. commitment to building a free-trade area of the Asia-Pacific region.

The United States also signed a strategic framework agreement on security cooperation with Singapore in 2004 and utterly transformed its ties with Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami by resuming comprehensive military-to-military ties and launching a $156 million education initiative. Washington led a multilateral effort in 2005 to contain avian influenza throughout East Asia (including in Myanmar, also called Burma) and to cope with HIV/AIDS in Vietnam. U.S.-Vietnam relations were bolstered by President Bush's visit to Hanoi in November 2006 and the recent visit of President Nguyen Minh Triet to Washington. The Bush administration has declared Thailand and the Philippines major non-NATO allies and continues to provide top-quality military training to several Southeast Asian countries.

In a quiet and unassuming way, the Bush administration has left Asia in good shape. So much for those academics, such as Paul Bracken, Kent Calder, and Aaron Friedberg, who once predicted that Asia would be a cauldron of conflict after the Cold War. Those predicting regional rivalry in Asia never anticipated Washington's adaptability and the centrality of U.S. alliances in Asia's new architecture. In addition to strong U.S. engagement with ASEAN and APEC, the new regional architecture is a patchwork of overlapping and interconnecting bilateral, trilateral, and quadrilateral relationships and five- and six-party networks. Bush bashers do not give the administration enough credit, nor even acknowledge that it has followed a consistent strategy. But few would be willing to trade the current situation in Asia for that of any other period in recent history.

CAMPAIGNING AGAINST ASIA

Unfortunately, there is a real risk that the situation could deteriorate. The presidential primary season in the United States threatens to disrupt the delicate balance that Washington has created in Asia. The candidates' views are already gravitating to two extremes. Republicans are focusing on China's alleged attempt to displace the United States in Asia and the threat China poses to Taiwan. On the Republican side of the aisle, discussions of cooperation with Beijing will likely be overtaken by discussions of China's defense budget, missile buildup, growing submarine fleet, and antisatellite capabilities. At the other extreme are the trade protectionists. They focus on China's $233 billion trade surplus with the United States, its $1 trillion-plus reserves of foreign exchange, its undervalued currency, the inadequate quality of its exports, and the perceived threat China poses to U.S. workers. Pending legislation proposes to designate China as a currency manipulator and slap a uniform tariff on all Chinese goods sold in the United States unless it dramatically revalues its currency. Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have already opposed the FTA with South Korea in an effort to play to campaign crowds in the Midwest, where people fear the loss of more manufacturing jobs.

This electoral posturing could have unintended consequences: in Asia, a polarized debate in the United States could be viewed as the new reality. Beijing's impression that President Bush is a lame duck, coupled with the harsh tone on the campaign trail, may prompt Chinese leaders to ignore the Bush White House and focus on laying down some markers with the next U.S. administration. They may, for example, abandon their restrained position on Taiwan and revert to the aggressive behavior of the past. Faced with an environment of disintegrating U.S.-Chinese relations, Beijing might also feel the need to openly oppose any attempt by a future Japanese government to expand Japan's military.

Before any lasting damage is done, debates on Asia need to move back to a pragmatic political center instead of being driven by alarmists on the left and the right. It will be incumbent on the new administration, Democratic or Republican, to keep Asia on an even keel by building on the accomplishments of the Bush White House. Its guiding principle should be that U.S. and Asian interests are best advanced when the parties invest in their bilateral alliances based on common values, pursue free and fair trade, and enlist regional partners for multilateral solutions to difficult security problems.

For example, the United States must maintain the balance between its pragmatic working relationship with China and its deepening cooperation with Japan. With China, it will need to forge a broad-based relationship in which it can have a tough dialogue with Beijing on military issues but at the same time push China to contribute to resolving global problems such as nuclear proliferation, climate change, and ballooning energy needs. Meanwhile, the United States should continue to encourage Japan to step up its international involvement, as Japan has done in Afghanistan and Iraq, while quietly pressing for more deregulation and economic reform, which has helped spur Japan's economic recovery.

A key component of U.S. leadership in Asia is Washington's support of free trade. The next administration will need to continue supporting current FTAs in the region and seek the renewal of fast-track trade promotion authority in order to negotiate new ones, including multilateral FTAs that could pave the way toward a regionwide free-trade zone. FTAs with Australia, Singapore, and, most recently, South Korea have increased U.S. exports -- from dog food to airplanes -- to Asia. Yet Congress is opposing ratification of the South Korean FTA, and presidential candidates are pandering to campaign crowds in opposing it too. The fact is that breaking down trade barriers in Asia (particularly in the service sector, which accounts for some 80 percent of U.S. GDP) will help the U.S. service and industrial sectors expand their global market share; while this will lead to new jobs in Asia, many will be created in the United States as well. Without these FTAs, the United States will operate at a comparative disadvantage as the European Union and China negotiate their own agreements in Asia.

The next administration should also turn the six-party forum into an embryonic Northeast Asian peace and security regime. The first critical step in this regard would be the creation of a Northeast Asian security charter -- a statement of core security principles, norms, and understandings about the promotion of peace and prosperity. These principles should include mutual respect for sovereignty, support for a nonnuclear region (with the exception of China and Russia), and a commitment to strive for pragmatic cooperation despite historical animosities.

The next U.S. president can contribute to Asia's new architecture by continuing to support both U.S. bilateral alliances and regional multilateral organizations in order to reduce tension and build confidence. Three initiatives would be especially useful: a U.S.-Japanese-South Korean discussion regarding the transfer of operational control over U.S. and South Korean forces to Seoul, base realignments, and a possible Seoul-Tokyo security declaration; a U.S.-Chinese-Japanese forum to discuss Japan's national security agenda and China's military budget; and a U.S.-Chinese-South Korean forum to discuss the future of the Korean Peninsula.

Furthermore, the next administration needs to allot the appropriate time to meet with Southeast Asian leaders. As both Bill Clinton and Bush showed during their trips to Asia, the payoff of face-to-face diplomacy is huge in terms of goodwill and support for the U.S. agenda. Finally, the United States should not be bashful about discussing the values it shares with Asia and promoting Bush's proposed Asia-Pacific democracy partnership (with China as an observer). Although such topics have been declared too controversial in the past, times have changed. Some of the world's most successful democratic transitions have taken place in Asia, including in South Korea and Indonesia, and even China acknowledges the relevance of democratic ideas to its own rise in the world. The United States should encourage the view that the trend toward democracy is inexorable.

Bush bashers have made good sport of criticizing every aspect of the current administration's policies. Yet Asia has now discovered a long-sought formula for stability that includes engaged U.S. leadership, constructive U.S.-Chinese-Japanese cooperation, and a commitment to free trade. These detractors should abandon their universal condemnation of the White House and admit that the Bush administration's record in Asia is far better than its record elsewhere.

Victor D. Cha Reading Before His Athenaeum Talk

I'm very happy that the Keck Center has brought someone who is actually qualified to speak on North Korea. Their last speaker was nothing less than a disgusting North Korean apologist, Bruce Cummings. We won't get that with Cha.

Victor D. Cha has written a great article about North Korea, one of the world's modern evil states. Here's the first article about N. Korea.

Korea's Place in the Axis Foreign Affairs May, 2002 / June, 2002, Foreign Affairs

METHOD OR MADNESS?

ON JANUARY 29, President George W. Bush announced what seemed a new U.S. policy toward the Korean Peninsula -- and threw observers worldwide into confusion. In his state of the union address that night, Bush outlined the steps to come in his administration's "war on terrorism." Among them was a tough new approach to what he termed an "axis of evil": North Korea, Iraq, and Iran.

The President's speech seemed, at first, to bring new clarity to the U.S. security agenda, signaling the high priority the administration placed on countering links between terrorists and rogue nations that seek chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons to threaten the United States and the world. The only problem was that, at least with respect to North Korea, this new posture seemed to contradict the strategy suggested by the Bush administration seven months earlier. In June 2001, a comprehensive policy review authorized by the White House had recommended that Washington hold unconditional talks with Pyongyang on a wide range of issues, including the posture of North Korea's conventional military, its ballistic missile program, and its suspected nuclear weapons program.

This recommendation, in turn, had been at odds with a previous set of Bush remarks on the subject. In March 2001, he had scorned the "sunshine," or engagement, policy of South Korea's president, Kim Dae Jung, and expressed skepticism about North Korea's supposedly peaceful intentions. And these remarks, finally, had broken with still another proclamation of U.S. policy -- this one by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had announced earlier the same month that the Bush administration intended to pick up negotiations with North Korea where the Clinton administration had left off.

In light of these zigzags, it is hardly surprising that Bush's state of the union address caused a lot of head-scratching. And indeed, several months afterward, for many the question remains: Does the administration know what it is doing on North Korea? Does it actually have any policy at all, or is the topic a football grabbed by whichever internal faction has the president's ear at a particular moment?

These questions are of more than bureaucratic interest, for a confluence of trends suggests that the situation on the Korean Peninsula will not remain quiet for long. U.S. relations with North Korea are currently guided by the 1994 Agreed Framework, in which Washington offered heavy fuel oil and help building nuclear energy plants in exchange for Pyongyang's promise to shut down its nuclear weapons program. This agreement is about to reach its critical implementation stages, testing the intentions of both countries and sparking debates within the United States over whether it should revise or abandon the accord. Engagement, meanwhile, has already become a hotly contested issue in South Korea, where the upcoming presidential election in December 2002 had led to acerbic criticism of Kim Dae Jung's policy by his most prominent harder-line opponent, Lee Hoi Chang. Complicating matters still further, normalization talks between Japan and North Korea have remained frozen since the winter of 2000, and Pyongyang's rhetoric about Tokyo is growing ever more aggressive. International aid workers are projecting another food shortage in North Korea, just as donor fatigue is setting in. And most ominously, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's self-imposed moratorium on ballistic missile tests also ends this December. Experts argue that the North is most belligerent when it has nothing to lose. If they are right, some kind of crisis looks likely on the Korean Peninsula, and so having a clear and well-thought-out policy in place could be critical.

Bush's critics argue that there is a serious gap between the new "axis of evil" language and the substance of U.S. policy toward North Korea. At best, they argue, the divide reflects Bush's unwillingness to admit openly that Bill Clinton's effort to engage Kim Jong Il made sense. At worst, the "axis of evil" puts the administration on a collision course with North Korea during the second phase of the war on terror.

In fact, however, the critics are wrong on both counts. The president's speech involved neither the unceremonious dumping of the engagement strategy nor a simple desire to distinguish himself from Clinton while actually following in his footsteps. A close reading of the state of the union address and other administration moves suggests that the Bush team is stumbling, in its own peculiar way, toward an approach to North Korea that is neither the twin nor the opposite of his predecessor's, but rather a buffed-up cousin. And when the dust settles, most people -- including the administration, its critics, and the general public -- might just realize how well-suited this strategy is to the complex realities of North Korea.

"Hawk engagement," as one might call the administration's developing approach, differs from traditional models more in its philosophy than in its practice. It certainly stands apart from South Korea's sunshine policy, but less by its short-term execution than by its assumptions, rationales, and potential endgames. Kim Dae Jung, as well as some Clinton officials, sees engagement as a way to build transparency and confidence and reduce insecurity. Hawk engagement, on the other hand, is based on the idea that engagement lays the groundwork for punitive action. Hawks are skeptical that North Korea can be induced to cooperate but are willing to use engagement to call Pyongyang's bluff. The goal of the sunshine policy, furthermore, is limited to achieving peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas. Hawk engagement, in contrast, offers a true vision of how to shape the future of the Korean Peninsula in a way that best suits America's larger strategic interests -- both during unification and beyond.

HAWK ENGAGEMENT

THE BUSH TEAM claims that there are five elements in its new policy that are distinct from Clinton's: insistence on improved implementation of the Agreed Framework; verifiable controls on the North's missile production and exports; a way to address the posture of conventional forces; a demand for reciprocal gestures in return for compromises with the North; and close coordination with allies. Only one of these components -- the focus on conventional forces -- is actually new. All the others had been discussed by Clinton's Korea policy blueprint (created by former Defense Secretary William Perry in October 1999) and in the Republicans' own blueprint (penned by Richard Armitage, now deputy secretary of state, in March 1999). But there are other differences between Bush's view of North Korea and Clinton's that are even more important.

Bush's emerging strategy of hawk engagement can best be understood by juxtaposing it with the standard rationale for engagement with the North, exemplified by Kim Dae Jung's sunshine policy. Kim's strategy rests on the idea that North Korea's threatening posture arises from insecurity. Abandoned by its Cold War patrons, economically bankrupt, politically isolated, and starving, North Korea sees the pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles as its only path to security and survival. Engagement can reduce this insecurity and end the proliferation threat. Various carrots -- economic aid, normalized relations, reduced security tensions -- are supposed to give Kim Jong Il a stake in the status quo and persuade him that he can best serve his own interests by giving up on the pursuit of dangerous new weapons.

Hawk engagement breaks with this logic in several respects. It acknowledges that diplomacy can be helpful, but sees the real value of engagement as a way to expose the North's true, malevolent intentions -- thought to include not just the desire to develop nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, but ultimately to expel U.S. forces from the peninsula, overthrow the regime in Seoul, and reunify Korea under communist rule. Hawk engagement aims to thwart these goals by dealing with Pyongyang in the near term but also laying the groundwork for punitive actions against it later on.

Supporters of the sunshine policy view engagement as the best way to discern and improve the intentions of the reclusive Kim Jong Il today. Hawks, however, see engagement as the best practical way to build a coalition for punishment tomorrow. Such a coalition is critical to putting effective pressure on the North, but maintaining it will require its members to agree that every opportunity to resolve the problem in a nonconfrontational manner has been exhausted.

Recent history shows just how important it is to assemble and maintain such regional support for action on North Korea. In 1994, when the North refused to comply with international inspections of its nuclear facilities, the United States sought to impose sanctions on it. But the sanctions were resisted, not only by China (which would have vetoed any attempt to impose them through the UN Security Council), but also by Japan, which was reluctant to curb remittances to the North from Koreans in Japan and argued that such a coercive strategy was premature.

Hawk engagement provides a way to convince allies that noncoercive strategies have already been tried -- and failed. As the Armitage report explains, "the failure of enhanced diplomacy should be demonstrably attributable to Pyongyang."

Hawk engagement would also let the United States turn today's carrots into effective sticks for tomorrow. Merely continuing to impose the more than 50-year-old embargo on North Korea, for example, is unlikely to lead to a change in its behavior. Were Washington to lift sanctions, however -- letting the North get a taste for what it could gain by cooperating -- then a threat to reinstate the sanctions would likely have a much more dramatic effect. Indeed, this pattern has already played out at least once. In June 1999, North Korea detained on spy charges a citizen from the South who was visiting Mount Kumgang as part of a new inter-Korean joint tourist venture conducted by Hyundai, a South Korean conglomerate. Seoul retaliated by suspending further tours. These tours, however, represented a new and substantial source of hard currency for the North. Pyongyang quickly realized that the propaganda value of capturing a supposed spy from the South was vastly outweighed by the cash these tours were generating -- and sheepishly released the tourist after soliciting a token confession. The Hyundai tour, formerly a carrot to get the North to engage, had become an effective stick with which to influence Pyongyang's behavior.

HELPING HANDS

HAWK ENGAGEMENT not only endorses such joint ventures, albeit for different reasons than those of more optimistic North Korea watchers, but it also embraces humanitarian aid -- again for its own reasons rather than the standard ones. Aid groups normally view engagement as a necessary evil: one must tolerate Kim Jong Il's regime in order to help his suffering population. Hard-liners, however, look beyond the immediate effects of providing piecemeal aid to relieve short-term hardship. Hawks recognize that aid can act as investment in the will of the North Korean people to fight their regime.

Humanitarian assistance can do this in two ways. First, it can hasten the government's demise. North Korea currently faces the same dilemma regarding reform as have other illiberal regimes in the post -- Cold War era. These countries need to open up in order to survive. Yet opening up can unleash forces that the government may not be able to control, and that may ultimately lead to its overthrow. Hence aid to North Korea, provided in conjunction with engagement mechanisms like the Agreed Framework, inter-Korean trade, tourism, and investment, can all help nudge the North down the slippery slope of political reform. This strategy may seem to improve the North's economic situation in the short term, but it can also create a dangerous "spiral of expectations" among the North Korean populace. And as history has shown, revolutions in repressive states generally occur not when conditions are at their worst, but once they begin to improve.

The provision of humanitarian aid can also help prepare for Korean unification by winning over the hearts and minds of Northerners. Hard-liners have traditionally held that hostility toward and isolation of the North is the most direct route toward ensuring its collapse and absorption. But this overlooks what will perhaps be the most important factor in the success of reunification: the North Korean people. The conventional wisdom is that after the repressive regime falls, North Koreans will look to Southerners as their saviors and elder siblings. This overly optimistic view, however, underestimates the degree of enmity, confusion, and distrust between the two countries, and the amount of blood they have shed fighting one another. A policy of hard-line coercion and isolation that drove Pyongyang into the ground would only make matters worse, frightening the populace and reinforcing decades of demonization by Pyongyang of Washington and Seoul.

Engagement and aid, on the other hand, convey a more compassionate image of Americans and South Koreans. As Bush stated at this February's summit in Seoul, although Washington despises Kim Jong Il's despotic regime, it has "great sympathy and empathy for the North Korean people. We want them to have food. And at the same time, we want them to have freedom." The presence of sacks of food scattered around North Korea imprinted with "United States," "Republic of Korea," and "Government of Japan" would reinforce that message. Although coercion has traditionally been more attractive to hawks, since it seems the fastest route to the North's capitulation, engagement will better prepare for the hawks' desired objective: the reunification of the Korean Peninsula.

PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH

ANOTHER WAY hawk engagement differs from more traditional approaches to North Korea is by being compatible with missile defense. Critics argue that the Bush administration's unswerving enthusiasm for developing and deploying ballistic-missile defense systems is wholly at odds with a policy of engaging North Korea. How, they argue, can you talk peace and prepare for war at the same time?

Such criticism ignores the fact that missile defense can actually strengthen the credibility of engagement strategies. After all, engagement is most effective when undergirded by robust defensive capabilities. This demonstrates to an adversary that the decision to engage is the choice of the strong, not the expedient of the weak -- and that other, more aggressive, options exist. Progress on missile defenses would only enhance this logic by further boosting the United States' defensive power. On this point, the Armitage report was very clear: "One cannot expect North Korea to take U.S. diplomacy seriously unless we demonstrate unambiguously that the United States is prepared to bolster its . . . military posture."

By pursuing both engagement and missile defense simultaneously, Washington can encourage Pyongyang's better behavior and also neutralize Kim Jong Il's one strong card: his ballistic missiles and the threat they pose to other countries in the region. Of course, questions remain as to technological feasibility and the type of defensive system that could best handle the North's missile threat while incurring the fewest negative consequences. But the larger point remains that engagement and missile defense are compatible -- and complementary. Neither option is sufficient: deploying only missile defense systems would do little to solve the peninsula's tensions, whereas engagement alone would remain vulnerable to future acts of brinkmanship by Pyongyang. By pursuing missile defense, finally, the Bush administration also ensures that engagement will not be interpreted as appeasement or capitulation by critics at home or in Seoul.

The last distinct principle of hawk engagement is its insistence on the exchange of tangible compromises. This emphasis was demonstrated by Bush's inclusion of conventional force reductions on the bilateral agenda with North Korea. Although mentioned by earlier U.S. policy proposals on North Korea, the issue had never been given much attention before. By giving it much more prominence now, Bush has made clear his intent to test the seriousness of Pyongyang's supposed desire to improve relations.

Underlying the decision to put force reduction on the agenda is the hawkish belief that Pyongyang has thus far not really conceded much that it truly values. Most negotiations until now have required the North to make only potential, rather than actual, sacrifices. The missile talks at the end of the Clinton administration, for example, included a North Korean promise to give up future production, testing, and export of Taepo-Dong missiles in exchange for compensation from the United States -- but would not have affected Kim Jong Il's currently deployed No-Dong missiles. Forcing Pyongyang to limit its conventional forces in exchange for engagement would truly test the regime's resolve, by targeting assets that Kim greatly values.

The emphasis on real, not hypothetical, quid pro quos can also be seen in the administration's behavior toward North Korea in the context of the new war on terror. The White House's tepid response to Pyongyang's signing of two UN antiterrorism conventions in the aftermath of September 11 offers a good example. Advocates of traditional engagement would have interpreted such moves as earnest signs of North Korea's willingness to improve ties. But hawks in the administration are holding out for more concrete and verifiable steps.

STANDING ON SHOULDERS

IF HAWK ENGAGEMENT makes such sense, why was it not employed by the Clinton administration first? The answer is not that Clinton was naive or lacked the necessary moral fortitude, as some Republicans like to argue. Proponents of engagement under Clinton understood the policy implications very well. Nonetheless, Bush, for several reasons, is in a better position than was his predecessor to wield engagement as a both a carrot and a powerful stick.

Ironically, this flexibility is largely due to the success of Clinton's engagement and South Korea's sunshine policy. These measures provided Pyongyang with new benefits (such as food, energy, and hard currency) that Bush can now implicitly threaten to withdraw. By contrast, when Clinton started making overtures to the North in 1994, there were no antecedents (in terms of tangible benefits) on which he could build or existing perks he could threaten to cut. The policy that Republicans once so vehemently criticized, in other words, has now enabled their hawkish version of engagement.

Another question is whether the Bush administration is any more ready than its predecessor was to use force against North Korea. If hawk engagement exposes the evil intentions of Pyongyang, what will follow? Bush officials, while insisting that their Korea policy is distinct from Clinton's, have so far refused to comment on what could be the greatest difference -- that is, their willingness to use force if engagement fails. Given that eventuality, however, the White House would face three options.

If engagement reveals North Korea to be intractable, the most bloody and least desirable of Bush's strategies would be the actual use of force: a military campaign to coerce or terminate the regime in Pyongyang. Fighting could erupt once the North demonstrated its intention to build up its weapons despite the carrots offered, once it became clear to U.S. allies and regional powers that Washington had exhausted all avenues for cooperation, and once a coalition had been rallied for action. Responses could include preemptive military attacks, massive retaliatory strikes, the establishment of food distribution centers off North Korea's shores and borders, and guarantees of safe havens for refugees. This option implicitly assumes that early unification of the peninsula would be not a daunting cost to be avoided, but an investment in the future.

Washington's second alternative would be to face down the North with a strong show of American and allied resolve. This strategy would aim not to oust Kim Jong Il but simply to neutralize the threat posed by his weapons proliferation. Such a strategy, of course, would depend on the willingness of Pyongyang to cry uncle rather than go to war. This premise is by no means certain, however, for the North is not likely to remain passive if it decides it has nothing left to lose.

Bush's third option if Pyongyang calls his bluff would be "malign" neglect: an attempt to further isolate and contain the regime. Washington would rally Seoul, Tokyo, and other interested regional powers to push Pyongyang into a box and turn their backs on it -- not relenting until Kim Jong Il gave up on his proliferation campaign. The United States and its allies would hem in North Korea militarily and intercept any vessels headed in or out of the country suspected of carrying nuclear- or missile-related material. To further weaken Pyongyang, Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo would also guarantee safe haven for refugees who made it out of the North, and would offer financial incentives to Moscow and Beijing to do the same. To ratchet up the pressure, the United States and South Korea could also reorient their military posture on the peninsula, focusing it more on long-range, deep-strike missions in the hope that this realignment would force the North into pulling back its offensive weapons so as to better defend the capital.

All three of these strategies share certain assumptions. First among them is the bet that either Pyongyang will cave in to pressure, or that Washington will have a coalition ready for coercion if it does not cave in. The second part of this wager -- that the failure of a good-faith attempt to engage the North will make it easy for Washington to assemble a coalition -- is plausible. The first, however, is less so. The Clinton administration seemed far more worried about it than the Bush team is, which raises the question of whether the current administration's assessment of North Korea is based on credible evidence -- or merely wishful thinking.

FAST FORWARD

IF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION is indeed set on pursuing hawk engagement, a number of implications follow. First, Washington will try to speed up the engagement process. Of course, this means getting Pyongyang to agree on an agenda for engagement, and that may not be easy. North Korea has already rejected several U.S. offers to resume talks, complaining that Washington is trying to unilaterally set the agenda and arguing that the United States should compensate it for the slow implementation of the Agreed Framework. Once negotiations do begin, however, the Americans can be expected to push for shorter timelines. Hawk engagement is more impatient than standard models. President Bush underscored this point in his state of the union speech, when he warned, "Time is not on our side. I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as perils draw closer and closer."

Standard engagement reasons that, with greater interaction, North Korea will slowly begin to open up and reform -- and that Washington should therefore wait patiently for these changes to occur. Hawks, however, have much less faith in this outcome, and see engagement largely as an instrument for revealing Pyongyang's unreconstructed intentions. Given this lack of faith, ousting the communist regime before it can build up its arsenal further starts to seem like a much more urgent priority.

Washington can also be expected to have a low tolerance for Pyongyang's brinkmanship. This may be the biggest difference between hawk engagement and standard models in the short term. If the North decides to embark on a new round of belligerence, the United States may well choose to punish it. Standard models of engagement emphasize the importance of showing great patience for the target state and constantly sending it positive signals. This administration, however, is less likely to give Pyongyang the benefit of the doubt if it starts to misbehave.

If Pyongyang truly is intent on improving relations with Washington, it will have to bear the burden of proving its good faith -- through concrete measures. North Korea will have to show skeptics in the administration that they were wrong to expect the worst. Here Japan and South Korea can play a valuable role, helping convince North Korea that it must move beyond smile summitry. Seoul can do so through the secret talks it conducts with Pyongyang. Tokyo can also help with measures such as technical assistance for international inspections of North Korea's suspected nuclear waste sites.

BEYOND THE PENINSULA

THE FINAL DIFFERENCE between hawk engagement and more traditional alternatives is that the hawkish model offers more than mere short-term policy prescriptions. Rather, it presumes a distinct view of how developments in Korea could best suit American interests, both toward reunification and beyond. Hawk engagement not only foresees reunification but accepts that it may pose real problems for the maintenance of America's long-term power and position in the region. A united Korea might be inhospitable to a continued U.S. military presence, might result in growing Chinese influence over the peninsula, and could lead to the political isolation of Japan in the region. Hawk engagement seeks to complement current Korea policy, therefore, with other policies designed to promote a more America-friendly post-unification environment. It is crucial, hawks believe, to promote stronger relations between the two main U.S. Asian allies, Japan and South Korea, and to consolidate the trilateral Washington-Tokyo-Seoul relationship.

To accomplish this goal, four tasks are necessary. The first is to use current tensions with North Korea to build security cooperation between Japan and South Korea. Throughout the 1990s, the threat of North Korean implosion or aggression drove the unprecedented security cooperation between the two nations, involving cabinet-level bilateral meetings, search-and-rescue exercises, port calls, noncombatant evacuation operations, and academic military exchanges -- all despite the deep historical mistrust between Seoul and Tokyo. These formerly taboo activities (past South Korean presidents vowed never to engage in security cooperation with their one-time colonizer, Japan, even during the Cold War and despite the North Korean threat) built confidence and created an entirely new dimension to Seoul-Tokyo relations beyond political and economic ties.

The second task is to infuse the U.S.-Japan and U.S.-South Korea alliances with a meaning and identity larger than the Cold War. History shows that the most resilient alliances are those that share a common ideology that runs deeper than the shared external threats that brought the alliance into existence. Washington must therefore deepen its alliance with South Korea and Japan, moving it beyond its narrow anti -- North Korea basis. Already the allies have started talking about "maintaining regional stability" as their broader purpose -- but they can do better than that. A host of other shared values can be drawn on (such as common preferences for liberal democracy, open economic markets, nonproliferation, universal human rights, anti-terrorism, and peacekeeping). Grounding the alliance on ideals, not just an outside threat, would not only give the relationships some permanence but would also prevent the alignments from being washed away by shifting geostrategic currents.

Washington's third long-term task is to somehow consolidate the trilateral U.S. -- Japan -- South Korea alliance as a a way to reaffirm the U.S. presence in the region -- without offering any unconditional security guarantees. The United States has always been the strongest advocate of better Japan -- South Korea relations, but the likelihood of Seoul and Tokyo's responding positively to these American burden-sharing entreaties has been highest, counterintuitively, when Washington has been perceived as less interested in underwriting the region's security. The U.S. position in Asia should therefore be reduced enough to nudge the allies toward consolidating their relationship -- but not reduced so much that Japan and South Korea choose self-help solutions outside the alliance framework. What this probably means in practice is a greatly reduced American troop presence but a maintenance of the nuclear umbrella over the region.

Washington's fourth task is to consolidate the trilateral alliance without irking China. Efforts at trilateral cooperation should be as low-profile and transparent to Beijing as possible. Seoul-Tokyo security cooperation, for example, should focus not on military assets, but rather on transport platforms (for preplanned disaster relief, for example). The United States, meanwhile, could also shift its military presence in the area to one based primarily on air and sea power, with less pre-positioning of material and fewer ground forces south of the 38th parallel.

ENDGAME

THE NORTH KOREAN regime under Kim Jong Il is despicable. Pyongyang starves its people, maintains gulags nightmarish even by Stalinist standards, and generally violates almost every value the United States and the free world claim to uphold. Given the war against terrorism, however, trying to topple Kim's regime directly would run counter to American interests. The attempt would distract the United States from its missions elsewhere, further complicate already fragile relations with China and Russia, and possibly suck the U.S. armed forces into another bloody quagmire.

But this does not mean that continuing the sunshine policy of engagement as practiced by the Kim Dae Jung and Clinton administrations is necessarily the best course to take. For all its apparent maladroitness, the Bush administration is groping toward a new version of engagement that might work better than its predecessor. This strategy would not use engagement without an exit strategy, but rather as an exit strategy. If the administration can articulate and implement its approach more coherently, it might just find that, over time, its critics will come to agree.

Pitney on The Debate

I try not to blog about Government Professor John J. Pitney as to blog about everything he says would quickly swamp both my time and this blog. Nevertheless, I must make an exception over his recent op-ed at National Review Online. He does a little analysis of the debate and examines Senator McCain's missed opportunities.

More important, he missed chances to score points on Obama. Here are a few: Early in the debate, Obama asked rhetorically: “The question, I think, that we have to ask ourselves is, how did we get into this situation in the first place?” Instead of talking abstractly about greed, McCain might have said: “Senator Obama wants to know how the trouble started. He might ask his close adviser Jim Johnson, who headed Fannie Mae and got an exorbitant pay package.”

Obama promised that we would deliver a tax cut to 95 percent of Americans. McCain could have said: “Senator Obama has made a lot of promises. In 2005, he promised that he wouldn’t run for president. In 2007, he promised that he would work aggressively to ensure public financing of the presidential campaign. In 2008, he promised to fire any staffer who attacked Governor Palin’s family. He broke all those promises. And now he promises to cut your taxes. Right.”

Obama claimed that he “stood up and opposed this war” when it was politically risky. McCain might have replied: “In 2002, Senator Obama said he was against the war. Two years later he said, ‘There’s not that much difference between my position and George Bush’s position at this stage.’ Then he went back to opposing it again. So he was against the war before he was for the war before he was against it. Senator Obama should compare notes with Senator Kerry.”

Obama listed a number of energy options, including “clean-coal technology.” That line was perhaps McCain’s greatest missed opportunity of the night. “It seems that the real debate here is between Senator Obama and his running mate,” McCain might have said. “A few days ago, Senator Biden said — and I quote — ` We’re not supporting clean coal.’”

“And by the way, Senator,” McCain could have added, “your running mate claimed that he was the first person to support solar energy 26 years ago. Actually, the first major legislation on solar energy came years before that, and Senator Biden had nothing to do with it. At least he didn’t claim that he was the inventor of solar energy. That was God.”

There are more debates to come. Perhaps McCain is holding some one-liners in reserve.

Here's to hoping McCain reads National Review Online.

Translating Pomona's Green Language...

A recent op-ed in Pomona's The Student Life by Ms. Camille Cole asks the titular question of if a sustainable Pomona is possible.

While pointing out that President Oxtoby of Pomona has a slush fund of $15,000 with which to pay for the dreams of the greens, Ms. Cole suggests an unending and far more expensive list. I quote her,

We can continue to do more by encouraging more students to ride bikes, by converting where possible to native plants which need less water, by continuing to construct LEED-certified buildings, by making more carpool vehicles available, by converting at least in part to solar water heating, and by continuing to brainstorm as many ideas as possible.

Just another indication that the greens have an unending list on the road to their expensive salvation...

Protections For Me, But Not For Thee, Or A History of Walker Wall

The recent issue of The Student Life describes a recent controversy over Walker Wall, the so-called free speech wall of Pomona's campus. (Sarah Higley, "Message on Walker Wall Targets Dean of Students," September 26, 2008)

Again, the title of this Student Life piece is misleading. No one was "targeted" but rather criticized. I quote the opening paragraph,

"On the weekend before classes started, unknown persons wrote "F--- Feldblum" repeatedly over Walker Wall. Campus Security painted over the words because they targeted a specific individual."

. . .

"'It was hurtful,' she said, but added that her main concern was that there was student discontent that she had not heard about."

Ms. Higley continues by mentioning the 1996 campus "task force" which "examined issues about messages on Walker Wall." She mentions that the task force "endorsed the continued use of the Wall as a free public forum while calling on the students themselves to take the lion's share of responsibility for maintaining its integrity."

Perhaps Ms. Higley forgot to mention the infamous "Nuke the Monsters" wall writing after the attack on our country, seven years ago. I am referring, of course, to the Claremont Independent's editorial, "Un-American Violations of Free Speech" from its October/November issue. Allow me to quote it in its entirety so that you might see the hypocrisy of Pomona College's speech policy. I have bolded the relevant sections.

In an argument between people favoring an aggressive and long-term war on terrorism ("hawks"), and those favoring no retaliation in order to return to peace ("doves"), which side seems more likely to try to suppress the views of the other?

While we at the CI believe the dove sentiments at this college -- whether expressed through quotations from pacifists or by stating that the "wrongs" that America has done to the third world justify these attacks -- are wrong, both pragmatically and ethnically, we honor the rights of those expressing these sentiments. Ironically, it is those who preach peace through tolerance who do not respect the rights of hawks to free speech.

One CI staff member, a Pomona student, tired of the dovish sentiments on Walker Wall, purchased a few cans of spray paint and decided to make her viewpoints known. Under a quote from Mohandas Gandhi that read, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world behind," she wrote, "Justice is blind." On another section of the wall, she wrote the simple word "Justice," something that all people, not just conservatives, should want. In addition, after a large section of the wall that has been taken up with the statement, "The Collage is for peace, she wrote the politically incorrect statement, "Nuke the monsters."

All of this banter would have passed unnoticed by us had a dove not decided that our staff member's feelings needed their authorship to be made public -- something that contradicts the unsigned free speech traditions of Walker Wall. Next to the statement, "Nuke the monsters," the dove wrote, "What do you think?" followed by our staff member's Pomona College email address. Next to the single word "Justice" was an arrow prompting others to send their comments to the same address.

While the other responded to the hawkish comments were reasonable (the word "justice" in "Justice is blind" was crossed out, and the word "HATRED" was written in its stead; next to the single word "Justice" were the words "OR VENGANCE [sic]"), writing our staff member's email address--not once but twice--and encouraging others to send mail to her is simply unacceptable. If someone wants his statement on Waler Wall to be quasi-anonymous, that should be his prerogative. If someone wants to claim authorship of his own statements, that too should be his prerogative. To list someone else's email next to her comment without permission, though, violates the American tradition of anonymous free speech that an open-minded college community should allow and encourage.

When our staff member approached a suspect to ask her whether she knew anything about the email addresses written on the wall, she admitted that she had done the deed because she felt our staff member should be "held accountable for her views." No doubt this dove had visions of our staff member's inbox being flooded by comments denouncing her as an intolerant enemy of peace who has no place at a college as open-minded as Pomona. Fortunately, no such email messages were received. Perhaps this example is a testament to the tolerance of the majority of Pomona students.

Following the incident, the CI staff member and some of her friends blacked the email addresses out with spray paint. She then informed her faculty advisor of the situation. In a statement that is all too familiar to conservatives in America's elite colleges today, the faculty advisor told her that she should be more sensitive to the feelings of others when expressing her views.

While the Claremont Independent believes sensitivity is a good thing, the ways in which a person expresses his or her view -- whether conservative or liberal -- shouldn't be dependent on the feelings of others. American free speech is a rough and tumble business, and sometimes we might be offended by what others have to say. That is when we respond with our own free speech. Violating the anonymity of another in hopes of holding her "accountable," though, is little more than attempting to suppress what she has to say. This type of behavior is not only indecent, it's un-American.

Ms. Higley forgets that other students were actually targeted. She either did not know that story -- itself troubling -- or kept it out.

Praise for the CC, CI in FIRE's Weekly Roundup

Last month, Charles Johnson wrote an article for the Claremont Independent, discussing independent filmmaker Peter Musurlian and how CGU threatened him with a lawsuit. Musurlian uploaded a video on YouTube of a CGU talk featuring Turkish Diplomat, R. Hakan Tekin:

The lecture, "The Role and Challenges of Turkey in a Globalizing World," took place on June 10 and was open to the public; Musurlian, who filmed the talk for a local news network, felt he had every right to be there. "I was filming openly and even asked a question," Musurlian said, calling the experience "very pleasant." "I never expected to be intimidated by CGU's attorney."

But intimidated he was. After a stern conversation with Berra, Musurlian created a website, Claremontgenocideuniversity.com, where he put up all of his correspondence with the Santa Monica lawyer, the promotional material used before the lecture, and an open letter to President Klitgaard reminding him of the press freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment.

FIRE's Brandon Stewart wrote an article on September 5 in The Torch on Charles's article and the worrisome trend of free speech violations at the Claremont Colleges. FIRE has been instrumental in defending individual liberty on college campuses across the country. By monitoring the situation here at the 5C's, FIRE reminds the administration that the Freedom of Speech is explicitly protected on college campuses -- public and private -- by California's Leonard Law.

In another article in The Torch, Peter Bonilla praises the Claremont Conservative and the success of FIRE's speech code widgets. Bonilla points to the beneficial exposure of FIRE's widgets on the Claremont Conservative's home page. He writes,

Finally, as Brandon noted earlier in the week, FIRE's work was discussed at length in an astute column in The Claremont Independent by Claremont McKenna College student (and CFN member) Charles Johnson. Since Brandon has already written a nice treatment of the article this week, I'll merely point you to his post and advise you to give Johnson's article the thorough read it deserves.

I would be remiss, however, not to point you to the Claremont Conservative news blog, to which Johnson contributes, and which also features his article. There you'll find Claremont McKenna's Speech Code Widget, as well as the widgets for Harvey Mudd College, Pomona College, and Scripps College. (Pitzer College, the fifth of the Claremont Colleges, is not rated.) Since posting the widgets on the Claremont Conservative, views on the colleges' Spotlight pages have increased dramatically, a testament to the widgets' ability to raise awareness of America's college speech codes. Other students would do well to follow the Claremont Conservative's lead.

The Claremont Conservative is grateful to FIRE for helping protect freedom of speech at the Claremont Colleges. Like FIRE, we will continue to monitor the situation.