In the middle of our military’s fight to restore stability in Iraq ten years ago, leaders in U.S. Central Command - the U.S. combatant command responsible for directing the fight - asked rhetorically, “Where does all this end?” Given the hyperbolic rhetoric from both sides of the current North Korean dust-up, it’s only sensible to ask this same question: “Where, and how, does the North Korean crisis end?”
- One hopes it doesn’t end in military confrontation. While it is still unlikely that neither the U.S. nor North Korea will deliberately initiate a military strike on each other, the risks of miscalculation by Pyongyang grow with each Tweet or U.S. bomber fly-by. Particularly in the wake of North Korean attacks against the South in recent years - torpedoing a destroyer, shelling a disputed island, sowing land mines south of the DMZ - Seoul has now given on-scene commanders authority to retaliate.
- Similarly, if a U.S. military asset is attacked by the North, as occurred in 1969 when a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was downed in international airspace with the loss of 31 Americans, U.S. commanders will respond quickly. It doesn't take great imagination to envision where this might lead.
To reduce the risk of miscalculation, adversaries in less emotionally confrontational times have resorted to dialogue or established "hot lines" to facilitate communication. But in the current environment, those sensible paths are blocked, at least over the near-term.
- It's not as if the White House hasn't tried. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson emphasized in China last weekend that the U.S. was in "direct communication" with the North Koreans; but by Tillerson's own admission, these were "probing" attempts, with no signal from Pyongyang that they are willing to actually sit down and talk.
- There here have been other, direct attempts by Secretary Tillerson and his team to begin a dialogue; one effort early in the Trump administration was abruptly cut short when Kim Jong Un assassinated his half-brother with poison gas in Kuala Lumpur; other more recent attempts, using the "New York Channel" (i.e., Pyongyang's UN emissary) have gone nowhere; Pyongyang has simply ignored the outreach.
At some point over the coming months, however, expect a diplomatic push that results in an agreement to sit down with the North Koreans - - bilaterally, or, more likely, in a multi-party format.
- This will require at the very least that Mr. Trump modulate his "Little Rocket Man" Tweets. Encouragingly, over the last week, he seems to have done so. It will also require Chinese help on the sanctions front - one of the reasons Tillerson was in China last weekend, and a primary reason why Mr. Trump has been relatively gracious in his dealings with Xi Jingping despite the welter of commercial and security disputes on the two parties' platter.
- But how might this diplomatic push, if launched, end? In all likelihood, in bitter disappointment. Some insightful approaches from national security experts have surfaced recently on how to walk back from the brink. One of the most thoughtful was offered by Brookings Fellow Michael O'Hanlon, who proposed a freeze on North Korean testing in exchange for modifying - not canceling - U.S. and South Korean joint military exercises. Over two decades of painful experience with the North suggests, however, that despite how rational proposals like O'Hanlon's seem, they will all become dead-ends.
So, on the question of "Where Does This End," we are left with the sobering answer: a North Korea recognized globally as the ninth nuclear weapon state, armed with nuclear weapons capable of hitting the U.S., and deterred from attacking the U.S. and its allies by the strength of our nuclear and conventional forces and the credibility of our public assurances. Put simply, this is why the North Korean crisis, now and into the foreseeable future, will remain the number one geopolitical risk this country faces.
