在冷战结束之后，朝鲜金家一直不停跳脚，搞得世界一惊一咋。说世界一惊一咋，其实就是美国在关注甚至操控。而美国关注操控的原因和理由，其实就是三个：
第一是朝鲜的核武动作，第二是美国对韩国的保护义务，第三就是美国在全球的战略定位——在亚洲特别是东亚“维稳”，其实主要就是防止中日韩朝的武装冲突甚至全面战争。这个三条，第三是美国的全球战略核心，第二第一都只是连带。 俺几年前写过《朝鲜和伊朗：中美面临世纪抉择〉 2010-08，文章主旨是让中国转变战略思考，只要中美不在世界战略上根本对立，中美如果有战略共识与合作，中国将获得在朝鲜半岛问题上的主动权，所谓朝鲜问题，实际上就是平壤北朝鲜问题，将不是那么复杂。其实美国人也早开始往这个方向思考。到现在，美国的有识之士甚至已经超越了所谓中美对立的世界格局来看朝鲜问题了。他们认为，即使中美无法进行战略合作，美国也完全可以改变战略，从朝鲜半岛脱身，认识到所谓朝鲜问题，根本就不是美国的问题。今年三月，里根总统前特别助理，现为卡托研究所高级研究员的道格-班都，就发表了一篇文章，公开宣布了“北朝鲜不是美国的问题”。 文章说，所谓的朝鲜民主主义人民共和国，在一个怪诞的共产主义王朝统治下，民生凋敝，老朽不堪，民众冒死外逃。其军事力量同美国比较，实在是无法相提并论。可是这个国家居然让美国的决策者和分析人员恐惧不安，美国居然要花费上十亿美元在阿拉斯加建立反导弹拦截体系来防范朝鲜的导弹核武。他们声称朝鲜的核武与导弹对韩国有着极大的威胁，因此美国必须协助韩国保卫自己，同时防止平壤再发动一场朝鲜战争。 班都说，这些想象的场景是很可怕。可是这其实都是北朝鲜的超级渲染和宣传。自从1953年停战以来，平壤已经有过七次这样特大的战争挑衅宣传造势，可是一次也没有成真，金家两个元首相继自然去世，没有选择自杀，相信这个金胖小三不会也不敢自杀。这样的把戏其实不难看透：金家一切都是做给自己国内的臣民看，这种所谓天谴式的威胁，不过是一个恐惧自己死亡的政权在看见墙上的死亡告示而弄出的声响动静，其他一切都是过度解读。这就引出一个最根本的问题：为何这是美国的问题？ 这个问题是美国自找的。如果美国不在韩国驻军，不要去保障韩国的安全，朝鲜就几乎同美国不相干。朝韩分裂对峙是二战结果，又是冷战中朝鲜同毛中国和苏联结盟造成的。韩国面对毛中国与苏联支撑的平壤政权的威胁无法自保。如今这都是过去式。朝韩分裂成两个国家已经70年了。冷战也结束二十多年了。韩国与朝鲜现在并非依附互相直接对立对抗霸权的战略棋子。朝韩开战，最多是一个人道主义灾难，不会是大国争霸的世界战略性横祸。韩国在任何国力指标方面都远超朝鲜，有两倍于朝鲜的人口和40倍的国民产值。韩国完全有能力自卫抵御和反击朝鲜的任何侵略进攻。而美国在韩国的军事存在除了协助韩国自卫，并没有特别需要的战略功用，比如遏制中国。不但很难想象中国要去攻打侵略韩国，就是中国占领了韩国也消化不了。而把韩国绑在同中国敌对的战车上作为美国盟国，比如协助防卫台湾，这种战略目标意图和前景实际上让韩国人集体神经崩溃。 因此，是美国从韩国撤军的时候了。美国现在捉襟见肘，经济困顿，华盛顿都要破产了。美国纳税人实在没有必要去为一个既富裕也够强大人口也不少的盟国提供国防福利。 如果美国军队撤走了，朝鲜将不再对美国有特殊兴趣。平壤统治者是罪犯，但是他们不是傻子。他们对美国发出恐吓威胁，是因为美国在韩国的军事存在。如果没有这个军事对峙，他们对美国的兴趣就几乎同对欧洲差不多。 当然，对朝鲜的核武，美国还是有着全球的安全利益和关注。但是，美国如果从韩国脱身了，朝鲜的核武就只是对邻国的直接威胁，美国没有必要专门来帮助朝鲜的邻居对付朝鲜核武问题，费力不讨好。说实在的，美国应该告诉北京，如果朝鲜坚持搞核武，美国将不反对韩国甚至日本搞核武自卫。如果这让中国很不高兴，又咋的？让中国自己拿出办法去制止朝鲜搞核武。无论什么情况，美国可以袖手旁观。在1945年美国有充足的理由卷入朝鲜，现在已经沧海桑田了。 可能没有任何比对付处理朝鲜核武问题更令人头疼的事了。美国面临的问题成堆，朝鲜问题可以从这个堆里剔除。美国早就应该把这个放射性烫手山芋交给其他国家了。
North Korea Is Not America’s Problem
By Doug Bandow
This article appeared on American
Spectator (Online) on March 20, 2013.
The so-called
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is
impoverished and decrepit. Its people are starving and risk death to flee their
tragic land. The country is virtually friendless and suffers under a bizarre
system of monarchical communism. Pyongyang’s armed forces are dwarfed by those
of the U.S., the globe’s premier military power.
Yet the DPRK has
struck fear into the hearts of otherwise sober American policymakers and
analysts. The administration announced plans to spend a billion dollars to add
14 interceptors to the missile defense in Alaska to guard against a North
Korean attack. Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter rushed to Seoul to
consult the South’s government. The
Washington Post’s David Ignatius worried: “Counting on
North Korean restraint has been a bad bet. It may be wiser to assume the worst
and plan accordingly.” The International Crisis Group observed that “North
Korea has taken a number of recent steps that raise the risks of
miscalculation, inadvertent escalation and deadly conflict on the Korean
peninsula.” “Seoul, let us remember, can very well defend
itself.”
The Associated
Press’s Foster Klug warned: “Recent Korean history reveals a sobering
possibility. It may only be a matter of time before North
Korea launches a sudden, deadly attack on the South. And, perhaps more
unsettling, Seoul has vowed that this time, it will respond with an even
stronger blow.”
Worse, declared
defense analyst Steven Metz: “Today, North Korea is the most dangerous country
on earth and the greatest threat to U.S. security.” Indeed, the DPRK foreign
ministry might be proved right when it “asserted that a second Korean War is
inevitable.”
The Heritage
Foundation’s Bruce Klingner argued that the U.S. needed “strong military forces
to protect” itself from the North and denounced planned military budget cuts as
undermining “U.S. military capabilities and credibility.” The ICG urged “U.S.
officials, including the president,” to reaffirm “that the U.S. will fulfill
its alliance commitments, including robustly against any North Korean military
attacks.”
In Metz’s view
this would be no minor affair. Rather, “The second Korean war would force
military mobilization in the United States. This would initially involve the
military’s existing reserve component, but it would probably ultimately require
a major expansion of the U.S. military and hence a draft. The military’s
training infrastructure and the defense industrial base would have to grow.”
It’s a
frightening picture, and it seems almost as wildly overblown as the DPRK’s
rhetoric. After all, though the North’s wild gesticulations are unsettling,
this is the seventh time Pyongyang has renounced the 1953 ceasefire reached.
War has yet to erupt. While one cannot take anything for granted, there’s no
evidence that Kim Jong-un and those around him have turned suicidal after the
death of his father.
The DPRK’s
behavior almost certainly reflects other considerations. Almost alone is Sheila
Miyoshi Jager of Oberlin College, who argued that the North’s “apocalyptic
threats” are primarily intended for a domestic audience. She added: “it would
be a mistake to read into them anything more than the noises of a dying regime
that clearly recognizes the writing on the wall.”
However, there’s
a more basic question. Why is any of this America’s problem?
One need not
blame the U.S. for the DPRK’s behavior to recognize that America is involved in
Korean affairs as a result of its own choosing. If Washington did not guarantee
the ROK’s security and station troops in the South, the North’s behavior would
be largely irrelevant for the U.S.
America’s
involvement in the Korean peninsula dates to the end of World War II.
Washington’s intervention in the Korean War grew out of the larger Cold War.
The U.S. stayed for decades because the South remained vulnerable to a
threatening North allied with both Maoist China and the Soviet Union.
None of these
circumstances still apply.
The division of
the Korean peninsula lies almost seven decades in the past. The circumstances
which drew America into that region’s affairs are long over. The Cold War ended
more than two decades ago; the struggle between the two Koreas is no longer
tied to a global struggle with a dangerous hegemonic adversary. War on the
peninsula would be a humanitarian tragedy, not a strategic disaster.
Washington’s
ally has more than recovered from the Korean War. The ROK has sped past the
North on most measures of national power. Indeed, South Korea has some 40 times
the GDP and twice the population of the North. Thus, the South is capable of
defending itself.
Nor do American
forces on the Korean peninsula perform any larger role, such as helping to
contain the People’s Republic of China. Seoul doesn’t mind being defended
against unlikely contingencies involving the PRC — which has no interest in
attacking the ROK, a country that would not be easy to swallow, let alone
digest. But Seoul would not make a permanent enemy of its neighbor by helping
America to protect, say, Taiwan. A U.S. request to use South Korean bases in a
war against Beijing for such a purpose likely would lead to a collective
nervous breakdown in Seoul.
It is time for
U.S. forces to go home. And to terminate the American security guarantee for
the ROK. Washington is broke. It can’t afford to continue providing defense
welfare to populous and prosperous allies. And there’s no longer any security
justification for U.S. taxpayers to subsidize South Korea’s defense.
If Americans
came home, Pyongyang no longer would be interested in the U.S. The Kim family
dictatorship is criminal, not stupid. It threatens Washington because
Washington’s military confronts North Korea’s forces. Otherwise Kim & Co.
would have as much interest in America as it has in Europe.
The U.S. still
would have a general interest in encouraging nonproliferation. But a nuclear
DPRK is primarily a problem for its neighbors, not America. There’s no reason
for Washington to take on the thankless task of dealing with Pyongyang.
Indeed, Washington
should inform Beijing that if North Korea develops a growing nuclear arsenal
America has no objection to South Korea and Japan creating countervailing
weapons. If that displeases China, so what? Let the PRC apply real pressure on
Pyongyang to abandon the latter’s nuclear plans. In any case, Americans should
wash their hands of the issue.
There may be no
more frustrating experience than dealing with the DPRK. The U.S. has many
problems, but North Korea need not be one of them. Washington had reason to get
involved in Korean affairs in 1945, but the justification for doing so
disappeared years ago. It’s time to transfer the problem of the radioactive
North to others.
Doug Bandow is a
senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President
Ronald Reagan
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