On August 7, 2017, prior to the latest N. Korean nuclear test, Siegfried Hecker gave an interview in which he called for talking to N. Korea as a step to defuse the tensions. Talk is not negotiation, which he said was premature. Hecker’s expertise informs the entire interview. For months, Hecker has been calling for talks between the U.S. and N. Korea in an effort to prevent miscalculation from both sides and avert nuclear war on the Korean peninsula. In June, Hecker said that N. Korea can produce and probably has produced tritium, a necessary component of an H-bomb.
Hecker’s recommendation is sound. It’s actually the only rational option, and it flows from a reasonable appraisal of the N. Korean leader and his aims. In direct opposition to Hecker is John Bolton, who calls for war now.
There are only three options to consider: talks, threats and sanctions, and war. Threats and sanctions accomplish nothing and they motivate the N. Koreans to greater efforts in their weapons programs. There are really only two options, talk or war. (Actually, there is the option of unilateral U.S. withdrawal from S. Korea, ending the threats and washing one’s hands of the whole matter, but this has zero probability for the empire.)
N. Korea is now a nuclear power in possession of a nuclear deterrent. The U.S. cannot change that fact without attacking N. Korea, which will trigger both a conventional and nuclear war of great magnitude, unless it’s willing to talk; and even with talk, negotiation, and mutual concessions, N. Korea may not want to give up its nuclear capability.
The U.S. empire will either accept a significant limitation on its power by talking to N. Korea or it can launch a war that may crack the empire wide open and destroy its legitimacy and power throughout the world. War is unnecessary. After all, the world has lived with nuclear bombs for a long time and through a period when major powers contemplated attacking one another with mighty nuclear arsenals and destroying major population centers while poisoning the planet. A way to live with N. Korea and even resolve the problem of the two Koreas can be found.
The voices of John Bolton and others of like mind who are urging war need to be strongly rejected. A U.S. attack means that the U.S. prefers the means of war to the means of peace, and it means that the U.S. prefers war as an end to peace as an end. Are these what America is about? Are these the values that define America? Are the values of war what you want?
9:46 am on September 4, 2017
