Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, discusses North Korea’s acceptance of a deal to halt uranium enrichment and weapons testing in exchange for US food aid; why nobody should expect N. Korea to abandon their nuclear program or give up anything of military significance; closing US bases in S. Korea and Japan so the regional powers can resolve their own problems; and why China is more interested in trade than starting wars with its neighbors.
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All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton and our first guest today on the show is Doug Banda from the Cato Institute.
He's got a good old archive at antiwar.com as well.
Welcome back to the show, Doug.
How are you doing?
Doing okay and yourself?
I'm doing good.
Good to talk to you again.
Yes.
So, uh, there's a big headline today.
I guess it's, uh, ABC news here is reporting, uh, the U S says North Korea to suspend nuclear activities.
And this comes on the heels of a, uh, report that came out, I guess late last week that, uh, or maybe early last week that, uh, they had opened up some new talks with the North Koreans.
And, um, when they say nuclear activities, I wonder, does that mean all nuclear activities are going to give up their nuclear weapons?
Or they're just going to stop reprocessing their plutonium or enriching uranium or what does it all mean?
Do you think?
Well, apparently right now it's the question of uranium enrichment, uh, and they, they're going to let inspectors in to show that they've decommissioned the old reactor, young, beyond the old, but that's basically old news.
And that's the old Soviet era reactor that produces the weapons, great plutonium, right?
That's right.
That's where they blew up the, um, you know, the smokestack a few years ago.
So that, that one isn't terribly special.
I mean, I think that this is, it's nice for them to do this, but all this of course is reversible.
They're not talking about giving anything up.
They're simply talking about halting what they're doing.
And of course they could restart that at any time if they wanted to.
Well, do you see it as a positive confidence building measure or anything like that?
Or just they're only doing the absolute most minimal so they can, but trying to make a big deal out of it or what?
Well, my, you know, they're getting some food aid out of it.
So it wouldn't surprise me.
At least part of this is, you know, they're pretty desperate.
You know, they're people basically, uh, you know, can't, uh, you know, feed themselves.
This is supposed to be the big year when they show how important they are.
So the, you know, at the, at the, the worst, this could just be a play for food and then they might decide to change their minds later, they, you know, they like to talk, so it might very well be that they want to try to get involved in negotiations.
I would simply be very skeptical about what's going to come out of it.
You know, the reality is, you know, that we've been at this, you know, a long time before, it's not clear to me that they have a leadership in place.
It's going to be willing to make any hard choices about giving anything up.
Uh, is there really anything like a pretty good estimate of how many nuclear weapons they've succeeded in making over the last few years?
No, I mean, basically all we really know is that they have enough nuclear materials where they conceivably could have made, you know, 10, 12.
I mean, those are the kinds of numbers people throw around.
We don't know that they have, you know, they had the one nuclear test, which was pretty much a fizzle, you know, so we really don't know kind of what their capabilities are.
I think we should assume that they're able to make them, but we really don't know, and I mean, there's no particular evidence they've miniaturized them that, you know, they could put them on a, a warhead, even if they had it.
My guess is that they're, they're probably very rudimentary, whatever their capabilities.
Now on the, um, uranium enrichment program that was only revealed like what a couple of years ago, do, do we know whether they were making weapons grade uranium enriching up to weapons grade, or they're using that to fuel their reactor, which produces plutonium, which they use to make their nukes?
Well, the assumption was that, uh, you know, that they were using this for nuclear weapons purposes.
I mean, this goes back to, you know, they allegedly admitted this to the Bush administration way back, you know, a decade ago, and then that really led to a breakdown of relations.
Only a couple of years ago, did they basically admit that they did have a program?
I mean, what they, you know, I think we clearly, it was kind of the alternative mechanism to try to get, you know, nuclear materials.
You know, it's a tougher way to do it.
Uh, you know, and again, we don't really know how far they've gone, but it would certainly suggest that they had to have produced more nuclear materials for weapons purposes.
All right.
Now, so if somehow you're on the national security council, your policy would just be to what let the Chinese take responsibility for working out whatever problems the world has with North Korea at this point and just hands off or what?
Yeah, look, I'm happy.
I'd be happy to talk to the North Koreans, but I'd say there's no, they don't get any money or, you know, food out of the United States.
So if Americans NGOs want to help them out, let them, we should say, this is very clearly South Korea's problem.
It's China's problem.
We should pull our troops out of South Korea.
So they're, they're not, you know, we're not kind of stuck in the middle of it all, and we should make very clear to China that, you know, this is going to be an issue for them, that if there's proliferation, if things are unstable in East Asia, it's primarily a problem for them.
We're a long ways away.
It's time for China to take a bigger role here.
Yeah.
They have the most clout in Pyongyang.
You know, they may not be able to force anything, but if they can't do it, nobody else can.
Well, now, um, I guess the best devil's advocate position I've heard on this one would be Andrew Bacevich, who is very over American empire and would like to wind it down in my fantasy where Ron Paul becomes the president.
I like Bacevich for secretary of defense.
Uh, only thing is he said on this show a couple of times that he would leave the empire in Asia, at least for now, because what you just said that, you know, this is South Korea's problem.
This is Japan's problem, China's problem, that that's what we don't want is that right now.
Um, I guess, you know, America's the, the, uh, Dutch boy with his finger in the dike.
And that if we got our troops out of Japan, out of Korea and told all these, uh, well, these three different nations really work out your own problems, they're all going to work it out with an arms race and maybe a war and that right now America is keeping all things being equal, a peaceful, uh, state of, uh, of affairs.
So I guess, uh, you know, what's your argument for that?
Well, I don't see any evidence that any of them want to go to war.
I mean, you know, all of them have problems with one another.
I mean, the Japanese Chinese relationship is messed up going back to world war two Japanese and Koreans.
It's messed up over colonial stuff.
You know, there's actually greater tensions now between South Korea and China.
They all have reasons to worry about one another.
You know, the question of course is, should we be in the middle of all that?
I mean, we don't really change any of that.
You know, and the question is, do we want to be stuck there?
I mean, ultimately the question is, do you want to, are you prepared to lose Los Angeles to protect Tokyo?
If there happens to be a conflict with China, I think we should withdraw over time.
You know, we should make it clear, you know, to these countries what's coming, but we need to make it obvious.
I mean, ultimately it's up to them.
They're all strong countries.
They should be cooperating together.
If anybody's going to try to contain China, it doesn't have to be us.
It should be one of these other countries or a collection of them.
Well, and you know, there's a lot of effort to contain China going on right now.
It seems like, but I always wonder whether that's just the tail wagging the dog, you know, somebody needs some jet fighters sold and they need a credible enemy, say one that actually has jet fighters that could, that they could feel the response, uh, you know, to fight against so they can, you know, play out their top gun fantasies or whatever.
But is China arming up in a way where you would think they need to be contained at all?
I mean, it seems to me like they're just a better and better trading partner all the time is all China is.
Well, they've been kind of getting a little rough in terms of, uh, your claims say in the South China Sea and naval claims.
They've, you know, kind of pushing around in terms of, uh, Philippines and Japan over some claims over islands.
I don't think they want war, but they are being rather assertive.
And I, so my view is it's not America's job to tell anybody else what to do, but if these other countries are worried about that, then they should be building up.
They shouldn't be coming to America.
And in fact, that's what's been happening.
A lot of Southeast Asian countries are now building submarines.
And to me, that's all the good.
I know if they want to, if they're worried about China's Navy, it shouldn't be our problem.
It should be their problem.
So, you know, let them do that if they think it's necessary.
Hmm.
Well, and do you think there's enough ground for, I mean, I understand that there's disputes over mineral rights and oil rights off the coast of this and that island and whatever, but, uh, does it seem to you that the, you know, putting yourself in the shoes of the various parties, that there's enough common ground that all of these nation states could be at peace and trading with each other without any American influence involved at all, that they have every reason in the world to just go ahead and get along rather than fight.
Yeah.
I mean, the last thing any of them really need is war.
I mean, look, China, you know, has been at war at various times with several of its neighbors.
I mean, it has no desire to go through that again.
Now, these are all countries which are doing well because of economic growth and prosperity and trading amongst each other.
You know, bad things can happen, but they can happen whether or not we have troops there.
And if bad things happen, far better that we not have troops there.
So we aren't in the middle of things, right?
Well, and that's the thing too.
Even, uh, Donald Rumsfeld, he was a hawk on, on, uh, North Korea, but he wanted to get our troops out of there.
I don't know if it was because he was afraid they would be a troop wire or because he just wanted them out of the way because he wanted to start bombing from the air or what?
Oh, I think part of it was that he looked at that and wondered why the South Koreans weren't defending themselves.
I mean, if there's anywhere on earth that, you know, we have an ally that could defend itself at South Korea, they have like 40 times the GDP of North Korea.
They sure don't need us in terms of defending them.
All right.
Well, thanks very much for your time, Doug.
It's great to talk to you again.
Happy to be on.
Take care now.
Everybody, that's Doug Bandow from the Cato Institute.
