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How the hawks would handle
Asia
The following are
excerpts from the recently released book An End to
Evil: How to Win the War on Terror by hardcore US
neo-conservatives Richard Perle and David Frum. Perle is
the well-connected former chairman of the US Defense
Policy Board, while Frum is a former White House
speechwriter. These excerpts deal specifically with
Asia. Given Perle's very close relationships with senior
hawks in the administration of President George W Bush,
these positions probably quite accurately reflect what
Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon civilians are
arguing at the highest levels in the administration.
North Korea
The South Koreans, to
speak plainly, favor a policy of appeasement of the
North ... the top priority of South Korea's current
government has been to ensure that the United States and
Japan join them in appeasing Kim Jong-il. To that end,
they wish to keep as many American troops as possible
deployed as far forward as possible, so that Americans
share their vulnerability to North Korean artillery.
In Korea, the surest way to avoid war is to
prepare to fight it ... The leaders of China appreciate,
perhaps better than we do, that a second Korean war
would end with the destruction of the North Korean
regime, the unification of the whole peninsula under a
democratic government in Seoul, and an unfriendly army
deployed on China's borders. China went to war in 1950
to prevent such an outcome. If China wants to avoid
unification today, it will have to use its influence on
its client to prevent war.
Any new agreement
with the North Koreans must begin by acknowledging that
North Korea cannot be trusted to honor its promises.
[The authors propose a checklist:]
First no
agreement is worth having if it does not provide for the
immediate surrender by North Korea of all the nuclear
material they are known to possess before North Korea
receives a single dollar in new American aid: not a
phased surrender, not an incremental surrender, but a
total and complete surrender.
Second, North
Korea must close its missile bases [which can be
verified from the air].
Third, North Korea must
submit to the permanent presence of an International
Atomic Energy Agency inspection team, but a team that
operates by stringent new rules. The inspectors must be
based in North Korea, must be allowed to go anywhere at
any time, and must be allowed to remove North Korean
nuclear scientists and their families to neutral
territory and interview them there.
On those
terms, the United States can probably live with the
risks of North Korea ... but we fear that it is unlikely
that North Korea will accept such terms ... If those
fears are correct, then the United States must ready
itself for the hard possibility that our choices really
shrink to two: tolerate North Korea's attempt to go
nuclear - or take decisive action to stop it.
Decisive action would begin with a comprehensive
air and naval blockade of North Korea, cutting it off
from all seaborne traffic, all international aviation,
and all intercourse with the South. South Korea will
object, but it needs to be made to understand that, as
in Cuba in 1962, a blockade is its best alternative to
war. Of course, North Korea's land border with China
will remain open. That's good. It underscores our
central contention, that the North Korean nuclear
program is a Chinese responsibility, for which China
will be held accountable.
Next, we must
accelerate the redeployment of our ground troops on the
Korean Peninsula so they are beyond the range of North
Korean artillery and short-range rockets. Third, as we
reposition troops, we should develop detailed plans for
a preemptive strike against North Korea's nuclear
facilities. Of course, it is true that we do not know
where all these facilities are. But we know where the
most important one is; and just as a surgeon will wish
to remove a malignant tumor even if he suspects that
there may be others that cannot be located, so we should
not hesitate to hit the bomb factory we can find, even
if other facilities may be hidden underground.
But we hope - and this hope is, we think, well
founded - that a credible buildup to an American strike
will persuade the Chinese finally to do what they have
so often promised to do: bring the North Koreans to
heel. In return, the Chinese get peace on their
frontiers and a North Korean government friendly to
them. It may be that the only way out of the decade-long
crisis on the Korean Peninsula is the toppling of Kim
Jong-il and his replacement by a North Korean communist
who is more subservient to China. If so, we should
accept that outcome. However menacing China may become
over the long term, it is much more sane and predictable
than communist North Korea has been. And a more
pro-Chinese North Korea would also probably institute
more rational economic policies, thereby saving millions
of North Korea people from famine and misery.
China
Since the pragmatists in the
Chinese Communist Party prevailed over the Maoist
diehards in the mid-1970s, American policymakers have
hoped that free trade, foreign investment and economic
growth would transform China into a reasonable open,
stable and peaceful society. Nor is it yet possible to
dismiss those hopes as misplaced ... Whatever hope we
may have that China will move toward greater openness
through a process of economic-leading-to-political
reform, we will have to deal with a deep-seated Chinese
determination that their great and ancient civilization
should recover its place as a great power.
Because we hope that China may still evolve into
a more open society, it is important for the United
States to support a policy of open trade with China,
including permanent normal trade relations and China's
entry into the World Trade Organization ... The United
States should make it clear to the Chinese that
Americans want a sustainable, friendly relationship with
China, provided that the Chinese respect American values
and American interests in the world and in the region -
including the freedom of Taiwan. While we cannot
determine the ultimate relationship between Beijing and
Taipei, we can - and must - insist that the relationship
be settled peacefully. [The authors go on to praise Bush
for his April 2001 statement that he would do "whatever
it took to help Taiwan defend herself".]
We and
the Chinese can be friendly. But a friendly relationship
will not be possible if China uses its growing economic
and military power to intimidate or impose its will on
our Asian friends and allies. And we will find it
difficult to warm to the Chinese if they are not with us
in our war on terrorism or if they continue to abuse the
basic human rights of their citizens.
Our Asian
policy should be clearly set out:
A defense partnership with Japan, Australia and
other willing Asian democracies as intimate and enduring
as the NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization]
alliance ... China should know that any attempt to bully
any one of its democratic neighbors will be resisted by
all of them - no ifs, buts or exceptions.
A credible military guarantee for Taiwan ... The
Chinese will howl. Let them. Defensive weapons pose
problems only for aggressors.
A regional defense system against ballistic
missiles, possibly based on naval platforms. This would
go a long way toward neutralizing North Korea's nuclear
arsenal.
Greater South Korean responsibility for its own
defense.
South Asia
Impoverished
Pakistan has become a favored destination for Saudi
Arabia's poisonous philanthropy. Saudi-funded religious
schools drill boys to memorize the Koran in its original
Arabic, a language few of them will ever understand.
They learn no trade or skills, no math, no science, no
Western language - only deadening rituals and murderous
prejudice. If they fail to recite correctly the texts
they must learn by rote, they are beaten. They are
allowed no contact with women. By the time they
"graduate", they are unemployable, deformed
personalities. Meanwhile, in city slums and
unelectrified villages, Saudi-funded imams preach
jealousy and rage to populations baffled by their
country's backward slide and repeated military defeats.
Nor is the Pakistan military immune to the
allure of Arab cash. Men of [President General Pervez]
Musharraf's generation were already mature by the time
Saudi money began to infiltrate Pakistan. They seem to
have been able to accept it without being unduly
influenced by it. The next generation may have other
ideas - and bombs that are today Islamic in name only
may some day end up as weapons of jihad.
America
does not have the power to persuade subcontinental
Muslims to choose tolerance and compassion over hate and
jihad. But we can do our part to rescue the
subcontinent's people from the poverty and conflict that
have made them so receptive to fanatical versions of
Islam. Nobody appreciates the importance of military
power in the war on terrorism more than the authors of
this book. But South Asia is one place where
non-military power can do the most good ... Above all,
we must liberate and protect Pakistan from the malign
influence of Saudi missionaries. To those ends, we
should:
Accept the subcontinent's nuclear weapons as an
unwelcome but unalterable fact and drop all remaining
sanctions against India and Pakistan.
Broaden our direct military-to-military
relationships with Pakistan and India and also
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, to encourage the promotion of
Western-oriented officers, to teach effective and humane
counterterrorism tactics, and to introduce reliable
controls to prevent nuclear weapons from falling into
unauthorized hands.
Increase US aid to the subcontinent and focus the
money on providing a more appealing education than the
local Islamic colleges offer.
Promote peace by promoting subcontinental economic
integration ... We should offer not only Pakistan but
also Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India ... a comprehensive
free-trade agreement with the United States - provided
they sign the same agreement with one another.
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