OxBlog

Saturday, October 26, 2002

# Posted 4:56 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

PAPER TIGER DIPLOMACY: Yesterday, I took Charles Krauthammer and William Safire to task for criticizing Clinton's paper-driven North Korea policy without suggesting an alternative. Yet as Josh observed, the point that both authors was trying to make was not that we need a different North Korea policy now, but that Clinton should have been tougher back in 1994.

That said, I don't think that Josh's clarification takes much away from my point, i.e. that it is disingenuous to criticize either the United States' past or current North Korea policies without suggesting an alternative. According to Josh, Krauthammer and Safire implied "that, having engaged [North Korea] in 'paper diplomacy' so long, the problem is now a damned difficult one." I'm not so sure. Was there an alternative in 1994 that doesn't exist now? As Safire pointed out, North Korea deters the United States via its conventional threat to South Korea's civilian population. As should be self-evident, that threat was no less menacing 1994 than it is now. So what was Clinton supposed to do? The answer: exactly what Bush is doing now -- negotiating.
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