Guest Post by Scott Adams
One of the most useful things I learned in business school was that you can usually make a deal whenever the parties involved don’t want full control of the same limited resources. That’s why a peace deal in Israel is impossible – because both sides want the same land. But that’s a rare situation (fortunately).
The more normal situation is the one we see with North Korea and the United States. The United States doesn’t want the same limited resource that North Korea wants. And China has their own interests. That kind of situation almost always means you can reach a deal if you look hard enough.
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At the moment, we have about 75% of what we need for a nuclear deal with North Korea. Both the United States and China are putting unprecedented economic and military pressure on North Korea, and that means North Korea will start to get flexible. But without the remaining 25% of what is needed for a deal, no breakthrough is possible. North Korea is unlikely to agree to anything that makes it seem as if it caved to pressure from the United States. You have to solve for that to get a deal. That is the missing 25%.
So let me tell you how to do that.
I’m about to suggest a somewhat impractical idea just to make the point about how deals get made. This is what I call the “bad idea” that is intended to generate some creativity toward a better idea.
So here’s the bad-idea form of the deal:
1. North Korea abandons its Nuclear Weapons program and agrees to international inspections.
2. In return, China agrees to provide military protection to ensure the continuation of the current North Korean government.
3. South Korea gives up its side of the Demilitarized Zone and declares it North Korean territory but permanently occupied by Chinese forces.
You don’t need a DMZ buffer zone if China is the military player on the other side of the fence from South Korea. And with this deal structure, the leader of North Korea gets to say he expanded his empire and found a way to keep the country safe from invasion forever.
4. Trade deals and aid would become available to North Korea upon signing the deal.
5. The United States agrees to remove forces from South Korea, as they would be an unnecessary expense once China takes over the DMZ.
I’m guessing there are plenty of reasons why giving South Korea’s side of the DMZ to North Korea, on the condition that it is occupied only by Chinese defensive forces, is a bad idea. But I think you see the deal format.
In my example, South Korea really gives up nothing by gifting its side of the DMZ to North Korea. That land was useless. And once occupied by Chinese forces, tensions should drop to nearly zero. China has no reason to attack South Korea, now or ever.
While South Korea would be giving up nothing of actual value, it would look like a big win for North Korea because they would be gaining territory and permanent Chinese military assistance. And that gives them a story to save face.
In persuasion language, you need to give North Korea a “fake because.” They probably already want peace, but they don’t have a good public excuse for why they would cave to pressure and settle for it. Giving them something that has little value but can be exaggerated to seem like it has great value becomes the “fake because.”
I’m not predicting we’ll see a deal that involves the DMZ land ownership. But any workable deal with North Korea would have a “fake because” in the design. Until you see that, don’t expect much progress.
I have yet to have one person articulate a sound reason for North Korea to do anything we ask. We have a history of attacking them, not the other way around. We have a history of invading countries whose leaders or political systems we disapprove of, not the other way around. We have a history of dropping nuclear weapons on civilian populations, not the other way around. We have our military parked on their border not the other way around. We have imposed economic sanctions on them, not the other way around.
So once more for clarity’s sake; who is the bad guy again? A nation that desires to be free and independent of US military/political/social expansionism has every reason on Earth to arm themselves to the teeth and be prepared for an inevitable offensive action from the world’s #1 enforcer of the might equals right doctrine.
We don’t have a history of attacking them.
The Korean war started when NK and China invaded SK On June 25 1950 , and we weren’t involved until the UN authorized the defense of SK two days later and we went in for that purpose along with something like 20 other countries in one capacity or another.
A cease fire was declared on July 27 1953 and we have honored it in spite of NK violating it so many times they aren’t even worth counting any more. We have not attacked NK and neither has SK or any other country since the cease fire was declared.
NK has been threatening SK, Japan, the US, and Europe frequently and is developing missiles and nuclear weapons to do it in spite of treaties and UN condemnations and has never presented a peaceful attitude or position to the rest of the world.
You should know this, it’s been pointed out to you before.
Repetition does not make something true.
The 38th Parallel is the line that divides North Korea from South Korea. The United States Armed Forces advanced to the Yalu river in November of 1950. At no time in the history of the United States of America have North Korean forces launched an attack against the United States.
When I stated that “we have a history of attacking them, not the other way around” I was basing my assessment on historical facts, not legalistic UN mumbo-jumbo.
Furthermore Korea (as well as parts of Manchuria) had been a unified people according to Samguk Yusa for over four millennia until the United States and The Soviet Union split it in two parts without the permission of the people of Korea. Justifying American involvement in the Korean conflict because the “North invaded the South” is colonial era thinking and you know that’s a no-no in the modern, post-Western era.
And get a name already.
At least read history before you comment on it.
The internet makes it readily available and easy to do.
Interesting & sad story.
There is a historical theory that N.Korea was being held in check by Stalin because he was afraid Truman would start a war over Korea.The Russians turned one of our embassy people,who gave them our codes,and they became convinced that Truman would remain neutral so they turned NK loose.
Think of the lost lives because of one traitor.
Anonyhole, maybe it’s you who should read some history. What you puked up was the product of court historians who write the approved, pro-politician version of what actually happens.
How about this- Start acting nice or the only war you’ll have to fight is against your own starving people when we start dropping TVs, radios, food, and guns to them.
A Soviet GRU defector once wrote how the Soviets made a huge push using their surrogates in the USA (essentially all leftist protestors in the US were organized by the Soviets in one way or another) to stop Voice of America TV from being broadcast into the Soviet Union. The Politburo knew if Soviets could get US TV, order would break down as the truth was visible every day in every home. The NORKs greatest weakness is the 70 years of abuse of their own people.
I would agree with your idea of leaving people alone to determine their own future and I’d like to give the world a coke and all that, but North Korea doesn’t actually share that belief. Rather, their paranoid control freak leadership is so desperate to keep power, they’ll do anything to keep their people enslaved and use any threat to scare the rest of the world away.
I don’t know when the point of diminishing returns was passed, but I think many years ago the NORK military was rendered obsolete as the West kept growing and improving, while they stayed the same. Ever since then, every year they didn’t mount their invasion, their huge military became more and more a quaint 1950s-era Soviet antique suitable for parades and bullying their own people.
I think their primary interest at this point is not national reunification, or even war with the West, but keeping power over their own people. To hold onto power, they have to starve their own people to death, prevent cultural and political change, and wall themselves off from the world at all costs, lest cell phones, internet, entertainment media, communications, and interaction with foreigners lead the people to realize how badly they’ve been screwed by their leaders. It’s kind of sad, really. I used to be aghast at how many South Koreans don’t view them as an enemy anymore, and I thought it was some kind of leftist baloney, but I think now a lot of South Koreans probably just pity the North and wish they would stop abusing themselves.
If North Korea were Switzerland or Belgium, it would be one thing to surround them with rings of steel and constantly sanction them, but they’re not. They’re the folks who invaded the South first. They’re the ones who dug giant tunnels under the DMZ and filled them with entire armies of tanks, waiting for the GO! word. They’re the ones who cross the DMZ constantly to harrass the South. They’re the ones who hacked up those unarmed tree trimmers in the 70s. They’re the ones who launch rockets at Japan. They’re the ones who shoot up the South Korean side for any/no reason. So they’re not exactly innocent.
N Korea has oil/natural gas off both coasts,though nobody knows how much.They also don’t have the technology to bring it up.
Why not assistance w/oil/gas exploration/retrieval,along w/agricultural assistance,in exchange for no wmd.
They don’t have the technology because they choose to do their technological development in the areas of ICBM’s and Nuclear warheads instead.
China has the technology to do the oil development but NK isn’t seeking their aid so I doubt they’d be interested in our help.
Since when does the US gov ever look for a peaceful settlement with an adversary? How does that buy more weaponry? How does that not break eggs to make an omelet? How does that enhance the power and influence of the state? Get real.
The problem with Scott Adams “deal” is that nothing is in it of for the glorious USA Empire.
For example, under this scenario we abandon our bases in South Korea because South Korea no longer needs our protection. But, but, but, empires never give up their bases unless they are overrun by the enemy, e.g,, South Vietnam.
Also,under Scott’s plan, China would be the new big dog on the Korean peninsula, replacing The Empire.
So not only would we give up part of The Empire, but we would give it up to one of the other big dogs.
Yeah, that’ll work. I’m sure that deal is only days away from being signed.
The US Deep State (so called Federal government) doesn’t want peace. They want everything they can get their hands on, and no-one else to have anything. If that means war, great. They aren’t the ones doing the fighting and dying. Plus more money for weapons sales.
The U.S. will never give an inch. Not just because we don’t agree with a political system or certain leaders in other countries. Our intransigent nature imo stems from our control freak nature and the owners desire to maintain the exorbitant privilege of King Dollar at any cost.
I agree, Norman, except for the ‘we’ you’re using to describe the state. I’m not part of any ‘we’ you’re describing there. Are you?
A major fail.
#1: North Korea will never voluntarily relinquish its nuclear weapons program. It had a clandestine, parallel program in the 1990s following the 1994 Agreed Framework.
#2: The North Koreans don’t trust China. They know that China (like the U.S. and South Korea) have contingency plans to send thousands of troops to occupy the North if implosion, civil war, a revolution, etc., were to occur. And the Chinese aren’t in it for Korean sovereignty – they’ve historically attempted to control or to greatly influence other Asian countries and North Korea would be no different. If China could annex North Korea and have local North Koreans rule the area while paying taxes to Beijing etc., they’d do it. Far better than a unified peninsula under Seoul’s authorities and U.S. troops right across the Yalu.
#3: Yet further stuff of fantasy. Each square inch the South gives up the North will gobble up never to return it. If the South gives up the DMZ then what does the North get? A strategic advantage further into South Korean territory. What does South Korea gain? An even greater threat.
#4: North Korea doesn’t want trade deals. North Korea wants MONEY without the hassle of commerce, tariffs, taxes, etc.
#5: And with the U.S. military gone, the North Koreans would do nothing at all, ever, to threaten South Korean sovereignty.
One of the absolutely worst and most ignorant articles I’ve seen on TBP.
How about if we quietly tell China that to maintain Most Favored Nation status, they need to get rid of Kim Jong Un. They could demand that he show up for a meeting and then they just kill him (the same way he killed his brother) and announce that he had a heart attack?
Trump may have already done that in private.
NK didn’t try that latest nuke test after Trump met with Xi and NK certainly isn’t known for paying any attention to what we say so there is some other reason for it.
Something to keep an eye on, NK is not going away yet and China has real reason to want them restrained as much as the rest of the world does.
Excellent essay and interesting possibilities. There is one more possibility…
The ChiComs visit Dear Leader and arrest him, offer a lifetime sanctuary in China, and quietly install a new Dear Leader, all prearranged of course and unbeknownst to fatboy.
The ChiComs don’t need nor want this shit. They have more important issues to attend to.
Ya’ know, I’d bet this is something most of the NK high command would love to have happen.
Of course, they keep it a secret to themselves since even the slightest hint that they don’t worship Kim results in instant death.
Quite a nation NK has made itself, isn’t it?
why do you think his brother was killed a few weeks ago in that airport in malaysia?
Two more carrier groups are headed Fat Boy’s way.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-17/us-deploys-two-more-aircraft-carriers-toward-korean-peninsula-yonhap
And perhaps a possible EMP threat from NK
Scott is operating with his own persuasion in the way.
What he just proposed is not, in any way, dependent on the US or even really South Korea.
If China wanted to make a real deal with North Korea they would do it.
First, let the fat boy be declared King, then rename the generals as Marquess, Viscount, Earl, as rank allows.
At least we can then stop pretending that what they’ve got going is even remotely Communist.
BTW- anyone ever watch NORK propaganda? It’s hilarious. Actually, I saw one propaganda film that brutally skewered Western materialism and our culture of celebrity idiocy as well as any Bill O’Reilly could, but the fundamental message was still the North Koreans were fighting for a better world.
I thought it was funny how they try to paint up Americans as living in total poverty and misery. The footage was after Superstorm Sandy and showed lots of people in tents or receiving aid, so they played it up as proof of widespread poverty. They kept saying, “These Americans are forced to drink melted snow,” and I wonder if that’s some sort of insult, or something, in North Korea. They showed a bum sleeping in a subway and claimed he was a Congressman. It was hilarious to watch.