Awkward Utopia

The text of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War may be austere, but its wisdom is timeless. One of my favorite passages from it states:

… to gain a hundred victories in a hundred battles is not the highest excellence; to subjugate the enemy’s army without doing battle is the highest of excellence.

In other words, to achieve victory without firing a shot is the best solution, if possible.

It is no doubt in this spirit with which the past two United States Presidents have tried to preserve stability in East Asia. Unfortunately, North Korea’s dictator has taken advantage of these willing suitors. First, Kim Jung-il took advantage of President Clinton’s craven desire for legacies of peace and made a deal that gave Kim Jung-il food for his army — although one can certainly suggest that we didn’t live up to our part of the bargain either. (Or when he gave Kim a Michael Jordan autographed basketball…) What did Mr. Kim give up? As we found out when he tested his nuclear weapons: nothing.

Now President Bush seems to be falling into the same trap. Desperate for some kind of legacy of peace, he is negotiating with a known terrorist. Despite the constant betrayals, we expect him to dismantle the very thing that brings us to the negotiating table: nuclear weapons! And what does Kim Jung-il expect in return? In addition to the usual humanitarian aid, he expects North Korea to be taken off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. If President Bush allows this, his folly will be the worst in the region since the 1950s.

All our lives are immeasurably poorer for the lack of progress, trade, and life caused by Truman’s historic errors in preventing General MacArthur from bringing liberty to the people of East Asia. Now we must make no mistake: North Korea will remain a state sponsor of terror for as long as its six million inhabitants are beholden to a lonely, brutal man with a twisted devotion to Cognac.

North Korea’s relationship with terrorism is as well documented as it seems to be forgotten. In 1976, North Korean troops surprised American troops who were cutting down branches off a tree in the De-Militarized Zone with axes. They brazenly murdered American servicemen with axes. In 1987, a North Korean agent planted a bomb on a Korean Airlines flight that killed over two hundred innocent people.

Thankfully, there is hope.

On December 19th, South Korea elected its first conservative President in 10 years, which hopefully spells the end for the disastrous Sunshine Policy and a renewal of respect for human rights in North Korea and the role that the U.S. played in preserving South Korea’s freedom. Also, in February, the New York Philharmonic will play the American national anthem, Dvorak’s 9th Symphony, and other stirring melodies in Pyongyang. This is the inspiring sort of diplomacy and leadership that we can show, extending our hand, and waiting for one to be extended from their side in similar good faith. Finally, groups such as Liberty in North Korea, whose activists are primarily students, are bringing North Korean tyranny back to the forefront of discussion with thoughtful, well-crafted protests.

President Bush surely desires following Sun Tzu’s advice by destroying North Korea’s regime without firing a shot. But appeasement merely begets more evil. We must not yield so close to the hour of righteous triumph.