Debate about North Korea with Doug Bandow from Cato

I had a spirited email debate with Doug Bandow from Cato over his essay starting with this message:

I do not understand Cato's advice to wait out the fall of an insane North Korean regime with a nuclear weapon and long range missile capability. Do you think the NK regime will just quietly collapse? This regime will not go away, and it's willing to use nuclear blackmail to stay alive. Do you want to wait until Los Angeles is vaporized? NK hasn't mastered the technology to obliterate LA yet, but you advocate we sit, wait and talk while they master it. Would Cato advocate that families sit, wait and exercise diplomacy with the Manson family too? Cato is advocating classic victimization strategy, and its guaranteed to blow up in our faces - literally. It's patently absurd to claim that NK's ongoing development of nuclear and missile technology is no threat to anybody (though you contradict yourself about that later in the essay). We should destroy every aspect of NK's nuclear program so they can't threaten us with a nuclear bomb. South Korea has 20 times the GDP of North Korea or more by now. It can take care of itself. This article seems to have been written by an apologist for both North Korea and China. You would think a libertarian think tank would strongly advocate for freeing the people of North Korea and China from oppressive regimes, but you do just the opposite, advocating the status quo while both regimes get more dangerous.

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Originally Posted by Cato If we can deter the two greatest mass murderers in human history, we can deter kim jong-il. If you think liberating north korea would be a cakewalk. I suggest you organize and lead the expeditionary force.

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Originally Posted by LIW I'm not talking about liberating North Korea by force, but I expected every libertarian would take a strong moral stand for freedom in North Korea, China and everywhere else. Your essay took a firm stand for the status quo in North Korea and China. It also took a stand for allowing Kim Jung Il the time to develop the capability to hit the US with a nuclear weapon. I can't comprehend either of those positions. Do you think we would have allowed the Soviets to get the bomb if we could have stopped them? Same with China? The only reason we were stuck deterring those countries is we had no other option. And North Korea (and Iran) should not be confused with them. Neither regime has a future without nuclear blackmail, and we have far better options than depending on deterrence.

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Originally Posted by Cato We debated bombing the Chinese to stop their nuclear program and chose not to, correctly in my view. You overestimate the ease of stopping North Korea and are blithely advocating triggering a potentially devastating war on the Korean peninsula. Awfully easy to do sitting in the US. My South Korean friends, especially those living in Seoul, would beg to differ. I've written about the tragedy of North Korea's human rights abuses. http://spectator.org/archives/2008/0...n-prison-state http://spectator.org/archives/2005/0...ng-north-korea

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Originally Posted by LIW I'm sure they would, but the President is the president of the United States, not the world. His responsibility is US security, not policing the world. We're in this predicament because we've provided security welfare to South Korea for decades. The South Koreans can take care of themselves without the US being there, and the world be safer if we had brought our troops home long ago. The only threat that North Korea poses to the US is the threat of a nuclear missile, and it's the government's job to keep us safe from that threat. North Korea poses a tremendously different threat to South Korea, and it's the South Korean government's job to keep its people safe from that threat. The US should reduces its forces in the region to the minimum necessary to keep NK from developing a nuclear missile that could hit the US.

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Originally Posted by Cato Kim Jong-il is evil, not insane. And he wants his virgins in this life, not the next. He will not attack America. The government will keep us safe as it did from the Soviet Union, which could have destroyed America, for decades--deterrence. I don't know anyone who studies Korea who believes that the North Koreans plan on committing suicide by attacking the US.

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Originally Posted by LIW I'm not willing to risk Los Angeles on the opinions of anybody when we have it in our our power to stop NK from being able to threaten Los Angeles. North Korea is not a country with 1 billion people and a land mass comparable to ours. We have a far more overwhelming advantage in technology than against China. We don't have to allow this crazy or evil nation, take your pick, to put a nuclear bullseye on our backs. You're argument is analogous to sitting in the same room with a tiny, crazy or evil, cripple who is putting together a gun that he's made very clear he's going to put to your head, and instead of stopping him, you allow him to complete it and declare you trust him not to shoot. I hope you would agree, that would be nuts. And allowing NK to develop a nuclear weapon that could destroy a US city is equally nuts. If a country threatens a nuclear attack on the US, we have to take it seriously. If we can take away their ability to carry out that threat, we have to do it. To do otherwise is the height of hubris, as if we're all knowing and untouchable.

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Originally Posted by Cato Then we should nuke India, China, Russia, and Pakistan, since all have the theoretical capacity to attack us. And how can we trust any of them--Putin, Hindu nationalists, semi-failed regime in Islamabad, and rising China? We can't. So by your standard we should destroy them all. The issue is not trust. It is the ability to respond with overwhelming force. A truly mad foreign policy is one that doesn't distinguish between real and theoretical threats, doesn't recognize that deterrence is a proven policy against the worst murderers in human history, doesn't recognize that there are limits to American military power, and doesn't consider the cost of triggering an unnecessary war in which we would be involved as worthy of consideration. I'm amazed that a resident of the most powerful nation not only in the world today but the world in history is frightened by a small impoverished backwater that would be wiped off the map if it struck America.

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Originally Posted by LIW You're intentionally misrepresenting my position. I never advocated nuking anybody, but your sarcasm helps make my point. We have no options other than deterrence with Russia, China, India, etc. because they are already nuclear powers with the ability to strike the US. We also had no viable option to keep them from becoming nuclear powers. We didn't even know India and Pakistan had developed them because our "experts" were wrong. We have a far superior option with North Korea because right now it is a small, impoverished backwater that can't threaten the US with nuclear weapons. We should take away its ability to ever do so. But your policy is exactly backwards. You are advocating a policy that would transform that small, impoverished backwater into a dangerous rogue nation empowered by nuclear blackmail. It enables the current NK regime to hold the entire world, especially South Korea, a non-nuclear power, hostage. It will enrich the NK regime and empower it to imprison its population indefinitely. You would sentence South Korea to "Give us everything we want, or Seoul goes up in smoke. If the US interferes, Los Angeles goes up too." Everything that results from your policy is devastating. I don't think pacifism in the face of an emerging nuclear threat, that we have the option of stopping, is consistent with libertarian ideals or even survival. I don't think a policy that empowers the current NK regime to continue oppressing its own citizens indefinitely is libertarian either. That policy isn't practical either. Your policy fails no matter what perspective you view it from. I strongly advocate we keep NK a small, impoverished backwater as long as the current regime reigns by denying it further entry into the nuclear club for our own security and so the current regime will collapse and the people of NK will have a chance at freedom. I've enjoyed this debate, and appreciate your time. I understand and appreciate your fear for your friends in South Korea, but we can't allow personal feelings to lead us to bad policy. That's the hallmark of liberals, not libertarians. I hope you come around.

Interesting how his first response was to misrepresent my position, and his final response was to grossly misrepresent my position. I didn't expect that from Cato. I have never advocated using US forces to liberate North Korea, but Mr. Bandow set up that strawman to knock down. That's the hallmark of a person who knows he can't win on the merits of his arguments, and therefore standard technique used by liberals, not libertarians.