John Bolton grumps today in WaPo about the release of the two reporters from their twelve years of hard labor in North Korea: Clinton’s Unwise Trip to North Korea
In Pyongyang’s view, the two reporters are pawns in the larger game of enhancing the regime’s legitimacy and gaining direct access to important U.S. figures. The reporters’ arrest, show trial and subsequent imprisonment (twelve years hard labor) was hostage taking, essentially an act of state terrorism. So the Clinton trip is a significant propaganda victory for North Korea, whether or not he carried an official message from President Obama. Despite decades of bipartisan U.S. rhetoric about not negotiating with terrorists for the release of hostages, it seems that the Obama administration not only chose to negotiate, but to send a former president to do so.
The first thing that strikes me is that in the great annals of quid pro quos, the North Koreans got very little while two women got their lives back. Did the Great Leader get a propaganda event? Yes, but then again he already controls the media of his country and feeds his people whatever he wants to feed them anyway. Did he get some international attention? Yes, but he is pretty good at doing that as it is (to wit: consider various rocket tests in recent months). Beyond that,I am not sure what Kim really won in this interchange. Clinton was not even on an official visit and was not acting on the behest of the administration (although, clearly, the fact that his wife is Secretary of State is not an insignificant background fact here).
Still, at the end of the day, the question has to be something along the lines of the following: was it really worth the imprisonment in harsh conditions of two American citizens to withhold this visit from Kim Jong Il, whose behavior is such that applying normal rules of rational cost/benefit don’t apply anyway?
Bolton might have a point if Clinton went over with specific concessions from the Obama administration in exchange for these women. However, simply showing up and asking for their release hardly qualifies. Although, granted, in Bolton’s world this was an act of weakness, and he always seems to see foreign policy solely in terms of a zero sum strength/weakness game:
Negotiating from a position of strength, where the benefits to American interests will exceed the costs, is one thing. Negotiating merely for the sake of it, in the face of palpable recent failures, is something else indeed.
However, this strikes me as a non sequitur insofar as it is wholly unclear to me how this event diminishes US power or enhances North Korea’s. Further, he is assuming that the Clinton trip equaled US-NK negotiations over nuclear programs, which assumes facts not in evidence (the WSJ editorial board makes similar assumptions). Of course, the reason he makes such assumptions is because it bolsters his argument. But again, there is the whole facts not in evidence problem.1
Further, I would note, the “strength” über alles approach that was in place under the previous administration did not stop the North Korean or Iranian nuclear programs and it produced two wars that continue to this very day with no specific ends in sight. This is to say that strength isn’t a relevant factor in international relations (it most certainly is), but rather the view that Bolton holds about these relations, where every move is to be seen as adding or subtracting from an abstract reservoir of American “strength” that will apparently reach a critical mass if we have enough will and then force our enemies to capitulate to our desires is sheer fantasy.
At the end of the day, there is a very practical calculus here: Kim Jung Il got an uncomfortable photo op (see the photo here) with Bill Clinton on the one hand and two women got their lives back on the other. The latter wins the day in that comparison.
Update: Daniel Drezner notes at his Foreign Policy-based blog:
At the end of the day, the two journalists were released without any change in official U.S. policy. A fake apology from a former U.S. president might be worth something in Pyongyang, but it doesn’t really amount to much.
Although he concludes:
I’m therefoe betting that beyond providing fodder for Maureen Dowd during the dog days of August, this little rescue mission is going to complicate nuclear diplomacy with North Korea for a spell.Sphere: Related Content
- According to CNN, “White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters in Washington before the announced agreement that Clinton was not carrying any message — written or oral — from Obama.” [↩]
August 5th, 2024 at 11:57 am
Good points, Steven, but you let Bolton’s eliding of “negotiating with terrorists” and a non-negotiating non-state event with a state actor go unmentioned.
As far as I know the “decades of bipartisan U.S. rhetoric about not negotiating with terrorists for the release of hostages” never was applied–beyond the narrow circles in which Bolton runs–to unofficial visits to foreign states to secure release of US citizens held prisoner for alleged violations of said state’s law.
I’ll bet Bolton is really gearing up about now about those American hikers on the Iran-Iraq border. (Which makes me wonder: who goes for a hike on the Iran-Iraq border, anyway?)
August 5th, 2024 at 12:15 pm
I had meant to deal with that as well, but forgot to get back to it.
And I, too, have wondered about the thought process behind a hike on the Iran-Iraq border as well.
August 5th, 2024 at 3:21 pm
I wish I could remember where I read it, but I saw somewhere that some White House officials were looking for a way to get the American journalists released, but to do so in a way that allowed the North Koreans to do so without appearing to knuckle under to US intimidation … but also to do so in a way that did not undermine US interests. Having a former president go to Pyongyang seems about the right measure.
August 5th, 2024 at 4:01 pm
This was a single event based on the situation at hand. Foreign Policy, Diplomacy and other actions are not pulled from a play book and actioned. In Asian society an apology of wrong doing (which the girls probably guilty of) is standard face saving for N. Korea that saw nothing to gain from this. The girls were not valuable enough to change the game and if they were put in a hard labor camp they were nothing but bad press on top of everything. Giving up the girls solved a problem for Kim and required very little from the US. The only additional observation is that probably nothing has really changed but 2 lives. I say thats a win.
August 5th, 2024 at 7:08 pm
I knew Kim was a short little dude, but that picture of him next to Clinton… It really doesn’t do him any favors.
(Yes, I know it’s completely off the subject, but that’s the only thing I can really concentrate on.)
August 5th, 2024 at 8:02 pm
Or does the photo reinforce the view that Americans are gangly humanoid monsters?
Our citizens are back, there has been no other loss of significance, so, a good day.
August 5th, 2024 at 8:07 pm
Dispite Boltons armchair second guessing, I think the incident turned out spendidly
1. The two women are release unharmed
2. North Korea allowed them to leave instead of holding them captive to use at some future negotiations
3. American was able to get them out without agreeing paying anything or giving up any ground.
4. The two sides were able to meet face to face instead of communicating through 2nd parties.
The event has been diffused.
The woman are free
All turned out well
Now I’m interested in hearing how the two women ended up in North Korean to begin with