M D Nalapat
US
President Donald Trump has followed his instincts while dealing with Kim
Jong Un and not depended on the stale, failed advice of those under
whose watch the North Korean issue was allowed to balloon into a deadly
threat.
Since
the close of 1939-45 intercontinental war, countries across both sides
of the Atlantic fashioned international constructs designed to protect
their privileges and advantages even after de-colonisation.
The
Bretton Woods system does not even make a pretence at being
even-handed. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde’s primary task is
to rescue the euro from itself, while that of the World Bank is to
ensure that US business continues to dominate global commerce. In the
UN, a majority of three of the all-powerful Permanent Five members of
the Security Council are from a single military alliance, NATO, while
the ICJ, the WTO and other so-called “international” organisations in
practice gravitate to the stands regarded by the Atlantic Alliance as
favourable to itself. Unity across both sides of the North Atlantic has
been the foundation of the reality of Europe enjoying a premium on its
actual strength. This premium comes from the manner in which North
America and West Europe control the post-1945 “international order” and
bend it in directions favourable to themselves.
Worryingly
for the Europeans, Asian economies are outpacing them by substantial
margins, and are today far more important to the economic health of the
US than Europe has been since the close of the 1990s. Thus far, the
Atlantic Alliance has survived because of the fact that what is termed
the Washington Beltway (the equivalent of India’s Lutyens Zone)
continues to place the interests of the Europeans above those of the US.
Had they done the latter, there would have been a faster and smoother
transition from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific alliance than is the
case at present. While Barack Obama talked of a “reset to Asia”, the
Clinton machine sabotaged such a move. Only President Donald Trump has
sought to actually implement such a necessary shift in US strategy Only
if Russia is the Numero Uno rival of the US will it make sense to have
France and Germany (indeed, the entire Atlantic Alliance) at the core of
the US policy. However, from the earliest years of the present century,
it is China that has assumed that role. The country has continued its
upward trajectory in economic heft and has by now emerged as the Second
Superpower, with a strong likelihood that it will be the primary
superpower within 15 years. In the vast reaches of the Indo-Pacific
(which from the start have been defined by this writer as the entirety
of the Pacific and Indian oceans), the only way the US can remain ahead
of China in power projection and influence is by a close military
relationship with India. And if the security challenge presented by
North Korea to the US is to be eliminated, Washington will need at the
least a neutral Russia and a friendly Taiwan on its side. Only such a
coming together of select Asian powers with the US can ensure that China
does not intervene militarily (openly or otherwise) in the eventuality
of a military decapitation strike on North Korea (the DPRK). While Bill
Clinton and George W Bush (especially in his first term) could have
taken out North Korea’s nuclear and missile assets without significant
collateral damage, except to North Korea itself.
However,
by now Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un has operationalised a war machine
that has the capability to inflict around two million casualties in
Japan, South Korea, US military assets in the Philippines and parts of
the US such as Guam and very soon Seattle and Los Angeles. The hand
bequeathed to President Trump by his predecessors is a weak one, and
made still weaker by the sabotage (motivated by their desire to retain
the primacy of the Atlantic Alliance over US policy) of Trump’s efforts
at making Moscow an ally of Washington, something that was on offer
throughout Bill Clinton's two terms but which was rejected by him out of
the Arkansan’s consideration for European interests over those of the
United States Donald Trump is accused of “frequently changing his mind”
when the reality is that he sets an objective, keeps it secret except to
his closest advisors, and then goes about altering tactics to meet
changing circumstances. His objective in Asia is to isolate China by
bringing as many significant powers as possible into the US rather than
the Chinese camp. Were he to “do a Vietnam” with the DPRK and make that
country a friend of the US the way Hanoi has become, it would be a coup
that would immediately make East Asia a safer place. If the military
option (and its casualty levels) is taken off the table, the only other
option is to make North Korea a friend so that Pyongyang has no longer
the need to provocatively flex its nuclear and missile muscle at the
security alliance of Japan, the US and South Korea.
Rather
than act in a “reckless” manner, the way he is described by Atlanticist
media and analysts, President Trump has shown immense skills in “giving
face” to Kim Jong Un in a way no other country has done with him, his
father or his grandfather. A Kim visit to Washington (to howls of
protest from the “Depose Trump” capitol gang) would deepen the process
of engagement such that a start could be made on the de-nuclearisation
of the Korean peninsula. How do those who find fault with Trump’s astute
diplomacy at Singapore expect Supreme Leader Kim to make moves towards
downscaling confrontation if he continues to be regarded as an outcast?
Ridding the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons may take years, perhaps
more than a decade. However, ensuring that North Korea converts itself
into an opportunity (for business and other linkages) and not a threat
to some of its neighbours could get accomplished even by the close of
2018, provided Donald Trump follows his instincts on the matter of
dealing with Kim and not the stale, failed advice of those under whose
watch the North Korean issue was allowed to balloon into a deadly threat
to not just Japan and South Korea but the US itself.
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