The Practical Realist

North Korea has just successfully tested a “good” nuclear bomb. Their scientists know they’ve figured out the technological hurdles, and it now becomes an issue of scaling up the process so that a greater arsenal can be stockpiled. This is, to put it bluntly, just about as great a threat to global security as one can imagine.

Even a nuclear-armed Iran would have to give pause before attempting to “wipe Israel off the map”. Its people may have no great love of Israel, but they understand the principle of mutually assured destruction.

By contrast, the people of North Korea are so thoroughly crushed and cut off from the outside world that there is no legitimate expectation they would ever attempt to rise up against a government willing to bring about nuclear war and its certain retribution. This means that a sufficiently deranged North Korean leader probably would order a nuclear first strike once he had the ability.

Consider for a moment that Kim Jong-Il is believed to be in terrible health, and he has no successor publicly named. In his mind, he may have nothing to lose and everything to gain by hitting us and our allies with the biggest weapon his scientists can give him. And deployed with their increasingly sophisticated long-range ballistic missiles, such a first strike could conceivably be against our own western shores.

The trouble is, how do we deal with a proven nuclear state that is essentially a medieval fiefdom existing in modern times? Negotiations have proven almost fruitless. I concede that they did stop production at their Yongbong facility. That was their outward pretense at good faith, and so their stockpile of nuclear material is not as great today as it could have been.

Yet clearly the laboratory research never stopped. There is no way that the 6 weeks since the 6-party talks broke down was sufficient time to prepare a new nuclear weapon test. They simply needed the talks to fall apart before they could conduct it. That the latest test happened so quickly, and so successfully, we must conclude that the research program never even paused. And the bogus satellite launch last month was merely the North Korean way of sabotaging talks once that test was ready.

I think a military solution may now be the only credible option. We have legitimacy on the international stage because we attempted negotiation with good old fashioned carrot and stick diplomacy. We can point to multiple UN resolutions to demonstrate our sincere efforts at multilateralism. And while I dread to contemplate what war with North Korea could bring about in human cost, I think that we have proven all other methods are doomed to failure.

So, if it is to be war, how should a war with such a state be waged?

The first clear action is to halt humanitarian supplies. South Korea, China, and UN aid shipments are essentially propping up the country, as the assumption has been that a humanitarian crisis there would send waves of refugees out into the region, destabilizing nearby countries. And that’s a valid concern. So, prior to the cessation of humanitarian shipments, the most likely border crossings should be identified and transit routes prepared to assist the expected refugees’ journey to the nicest refugee camps that can be fashioned in a short amount of time.

The purpose of these refugee camps will be to both provide for basic needs like food and shelter, as well as to introduce these people to the outside world. There should be high-quality recreational facilities for playing, and lots of bathrooms with hot showers and fluffy towels. There should be outdoor movie screens that show fun, family-friendly movies every evening the weather will permit. And while not the Ritz-Carlton, these camps need to be demonstrably more enjoyable than whatever their old lives were.

Back in North Korea, the initial air-strikes should be targeted at the political leadership, and their emblems of authority and prestige. The people need to see that we are not seeking to hurt them, only their leaders.

The follow-up ground invasion should proceed with a simple dictum: ‘join us and be fed - fight us and die’. Every territory established under the rule of the occupying multinational force will see full resumption of humanitarian aid, as well as a few perks, such as road repairs and free clinics. The goal is not to kill an enemy, but to replace a regime, and do so with as many survivors among the population as possible - military and civilian alike.

In the end, I think the civilians will flock to areas controlled by the coalition, leaving the leadership increasingly alone and irrelevant. Plus, unlike Iraq, we won’t disband the army once the leadership is out of power. We’ll simply raise their wages and turn them to the task of rebuilding and improving their own country.

And rather than try to build a brand new democracy, our goal should be to facilitate reunification of the Korean peninsula, leaving the South Korean government to rule the entire country. Once our presence is no longer needed in fighting the army of North Korea, our troops should begin withdrawing from the region. If there is an insurgency, and I think it would be unlikely, it need not be our problem.

I don’t imagine it will be cheap, but in the long run I think we’ll be better off fixing North Korea than defending ourselves against it.

On the one hand, I strongly support the goal of universal coverage for all Americans. And I agree it has to be affordable to everyone. But the Obama plan, high-minded though it may be, has some serious shortcomings showing up in the deliberations in Congress.

They say they’re going to require all Americans to get health insurance. And they want to subsidize coverage for families making under $88,000 per year. That might sound good, but it’s going to drive up costs by piling everyone into the same broken system we have now. When more money is available to pay for a particular good, but no new supply is created, it will become more expensive. You’ve simply altered the supply and demand curve.

Real reform will come when public health care is managed by a national health system of some sort, one where every level works exclusively for the benefit of the patient rather than profit. The fundamental shortcomings of the health care system we have today are that it makes more money from sub-standard care than it does from superior care, and that costs go up at every stage of delivery for administrative and procedural reasons that do not improve patient outcomes.

For those who have been priced out of the current system, the proposed plan will get them into the health care system at a point other than the emergency room. That alone will be a positive, since about 40% of emergency room visits can be treated ahead of time by preventive care, and at a much lower cost. But the underlying problems that cause health care to be so expensive and at the same time so ineffective are being ignored. And with the subsidies and mandate, we’re essentially throwing the health insurance industry a few hundred billion dollars in taxpayer money that we can ill afford to spend.

If this bill passes without major changes, then the best I can hope for is a wash, where my health insurance premiums plus my taxes add up to about the same as they are now. But except for the uninsured, I suspect most of us will probably get screwed when one or both increase.

A public plan would help, since it would be sure to have lower administrative costs and be able to place some sort of cap on provider costs, but it won’t improve the standard of care. And simply placing a cap on those costs doesn’t do anything about the fact that a hospital makes a lot more money when people have to be re-admitted because they didn’t get the treatment they needed on their initial visit.

On March 30, I wrote that it looked as if Geithner was going to hang on to repayments of TARP funding in order to continue lending it out until it was gone. http://pr.hbblogs.com/2009/03/30/that-feeling-youre-being-had/.

Today I read that Geithner is finally being completely up front about that reality: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090513/ap_on_bi_ge/us_bank_rescue

I have to know - will we ever get this money back into the federal coffers? Our federal budget now borrows 46 cents for every dollar it spends, and yet we’re going to continue pissing this money away as if we don’t need it. Doesn’t anyone in DC understand that eventually we have to repay our creditors?

Obama’s budget for the fiscal year ending October 1 is now at $3.6×10^12. I don’t know about you, but a quick calculation revealed that this budget means that my household’s share (assuming each American is responsible for 1/300,000,000th of it) is now EQUAL to my household’s income.

How the heck are we going to pay for this? I’m willing to pay some extra taxes, especially if the increase is offset by a reduction in my health care costs. But I can’t afford a 100% tax rate. And my household’s share of the current national debt is now larger than most mortgages.

If the GOP wants an issue to help bring them back into power, they should devise a plan to cut the debt somehow. But short of defaulting on it, I just don’t see how that’s possible.

We’re all hoping so desperately that the economy will recover and everything will get fixed. It’s a nice dream, but it reminds me of the gambler who’s way down, praying that he’ll hit a lucky streak and break even before the bookie tells him it’s time to pay up.

Maybe this whole democracy plus capitalism is inherently unsustainable? Or maybe it’s just our military hegemony that makes it fall apart.

There has been much fuss over the recent memos from the Bush administration that appear to authorize the torture of terror suspects. While I’m perfectly willing to admit that the techniques used sounded unpleasant, I also heard quite a few safeguards deliberately written in so as to prevent any lasting harm to the interviewee. What I have not yet heard is whether anyone died from this torture or suffered permanent physical damage. Honestly, the techniques seemed designed not to even cause much pain. Slapping stings for a moment or two, and I know having water up your nose is incredibly uncomfortable, but as torture techniques go, they all seem rather tame. Forced nudity? Uncomfortable positions? Sleep deprivation? I can understand why John Yoo at the Justice Department thought these techniques fell short of actual torture.

Perhaps I’ve simply been desensitized by the media, but when I think of torture, I think of hot pokers being shoved into sensitive areas, the use of dental equipment without anesthetic, or stretching someone out on a rack. I don’t think of being forced to hold still in a painful position or of being slapped in the face.

The problem, as I see it, is that the definition of torture is far too subjective. Is causing any pain while questioning someone really torture? Is any level of fear-inducement unacceptable? Here is what the Geneva Convention on torture actually says:

For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

Obviously, we have to keep our international treaty obligations, but what exactly are those obligations? Do you know where the line between severe pain or suffering and moderate pain or suffering lies?

I also understand the argument that if we torture, eventually our soldiers will be captured and tortured as well. But against Al Qaeda I have little reason to believe that any captured American soldier would not be tortured, regardless of how we treat our own captives, so in asymmetric warfare that particular argument loses some of its weight.

If the Geneva convention on torture is to have any legal authority, then it needs to include precise language delineating the difference between torture and non-torture. If we did torture, then we have got to have prosecutions. And if we didn’t, then we need to move on and leave this painful chapter in the past.