Russia says Moscow and Beijing could provide North Korea with security gua

[ze_dscherman]

Russia says Moscow and Beijing could provide North Korea with security guarantees

A senior Russian official said Wednesday that Moscow and Beijing may offer North Korea security guarantees as part of an international effort to ease tension over the North's nuclear programs, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov's comments came in the midst of separate consultations held by Russian diplomats with envoys from North and South Korea. Talks were to be held in Washington with U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials.

"The two countries might offer additional guarantees, if guarantees established by the United States fail to meet North Korea's expectations to the full," ITAR-Tass quoted Losyukov as saying.

SNIP

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/08/13/international0801EDT0518.DTL

Edit: Full headline added

[chenGOD]

1. It's a nice gesture...

but I'm not sure North Korea is worried about Russia and China attacking.

From the article: "North Korea's wish to have security guarantees looks absolutely logical and there is every indication it will be insisting on them," Losyukov told ITAR-Tass, the state news agency. "Russia and China have an identical vision of the situation."

So 3 out of the 6 participating nations definitely want Security Guarantees, and South Korea probably ain't too far off the "identical vision". Think shrubco will pay any attention?

[Capt_Nemo]

2. It's not that what they're talking about

They are talking about China and Russia as providers of a
security guarantee to NK against other powers...

[chenGOD]

3. Umm I don't really see where you got that.

The article didn't mention any kind of guarantees against other nations. You think that China and Russia are guaranteeing North Korea that they will form a coalition against any attacking power?

[Minstrel Boy]

5. Korth Korea wants a non-aggression treaty with the US, and

ITAR-Tass reports that if this is not forthcoming, then China and Russia might offer security guarantees to Pyongyang.

I don't see how this can be read any way but that Russia and China are considering providing North Korea with a security agreement against US aggression. Neither Russia nor China are threatening North Korea, and neither want to see a united Korea with American troops on their borders.

[chenGOD]

6. Well...

The article actually said additional security guarantees, but ok I'll concede that.

I don't think that a united Corea will have American troops.

[David__77]

9. It does mean guarantee against US attack...

Obviously Russia and China would never attack N. Korea. That would not happen. They mean that they would guarantee its security against external forces, in this case the US.

[Dancing_Dave]

18. Bush better respect it, or we're all toast!

The Bush Adminitration seems to be sailing towards a direct confrontation with both China and Russia...our best hope is that there is no oil in North Korea, so why would the Bushies flirt with global disaster? Is there some potential for CIA-mediated drug production North Korea I don't know about?

[private_ryan]

4. probably to defend NK if we attack

that's the only way that would make sense. We have one with Taiwan

[0007]

7. I've read the article twice

and still can only assume what they're talking about.

[ewagner]

8. If....

If this is a guarantee of NK's security against aggresson from others, we're right back into the balance of power business again. However, with the close ties of dubya and his "buddy puddy-poo" NK has to be a little bit suspicious.

What do you think?

edit:keyboard is a lousy speller!

[David__77]

10. Almost laughable...

As if China and Russia would really engage US forces in N. Korea. I don't believe it. There was however a plan by China to invade N. Korea and rush up to the south border to stave off a US invasion. The Communist Party of China leadership concluded that it would be operationally troublesome though, and N. Korea could be expected to resist fiercely.

[Minstrel Boy]

11. Laughable? Well,

let's hope the Pentagon braintrust doesn't share your sense of humour. But I have my doubts. Nothing distinguishes those folks more than their arrogant presumptions.

[teryang]

12. Agreed

The Chinese would definitely fight to keep American forces out of N.Korea. Any who don't think they would don't understand China nor the significance of Russian support. The Russian contribution would be to provide the higher end technology, either by licensing or direct delivery. They wouldn't fight. The Chinese are a party to the Armistice. If the Armistice is violated by American invasion of these sphere of interest in N.Korea there will be a major war. Obviously, all the neighboring countries are eager to avoid this.

[Minstrel Boy]

13. a lesson of history

Hitler didn't believe the UK and France would go to war to honour their security agreements with Poland. And the geopolitical value of North Korea to China - and to a lesser degree, Russia - far outstrips that of Poland to Britain and France in 1939.

Since the US is already waging World War III (or, according to James Woolsey, World War IV), miscalculating where great powers and potential adversaries will draw their line in the sand is perilous. Never more so given the over-extension of American forces.

One of PNAC's stated goals is the encirclement and neutralization of China, with the intention of precipitating "regime change" in Beijing. Surely the Chinese know this as well as we do. They don't want to hasten a conflict with the United States, but I believe they see one as all but inevitable. They will not tolerate the prospect of a united North Korea, with the American military deployed on the Yalu River.

[teryang]

15. I agree

However, the notion that China didn't or wouldn't invade until American troops approached the Yalu is not true. Chinese troops began pouring into N.Korea immediately after US forces crossed the 38th parallel.

[Character Assassin]

16. Perhaps you might elaborate on NK's geopolitical importance to China

And the geopolitical value of North Korea to China - and to a lesser degree, Russia - far outstrips that of Poland to Britain and France in 1939.

Other than sharing a border, which itself is a conduit to another problem, the only real issue of any weight that I can see is NK's potential nuclear capabilities, which China is not exactly pleased about.

In fact, if anything, NK has been a thorn in China's side for the past 10 years or so.

[Sterling]

17. An American army on its door step is not something

Russia or China are going to like seeing as how we countinue to tighten the noose on both of them.

Would Mexico be of strategic imterest to the US? Or maybe Nova Scotia?

[Minstrel Boy]

19. I believe China's greatest concern re Korea

is a united penninsula garrisoning US forces. That would pose both an economic and a military threat.

North Korea is a buffer which helps check American interests in the region. Beijing doesn't need to be enamoured of Pyongyang to believe that preserving something like the status quo is in its best interests.

[Character Assassin]

20. That goes against current economical evidence

...a united penninsula garrisoning US forces. That would pose both an economic and a military threat.

With a united Korea, why would the US still station troops there. NK, the reason they're there, wouldn't exist any longer.

And how could it be construed as an economic threat? China does more business by magnitudes with SK than with NK, North Korea's fiscal instability has bankrupted some Chinese companies that have traded with North Korean counterparts and North Korea is a source of over 300,000 refugees in Chinese territory, because some North Korean nationals have been crossing the border in search of food.

A united Korea would be in China's best economic interest.

[Minstrel Boy]

21. But China would still be there,

and so would US troops.

[Character Assassin]

23. Why would US troops still be there if the country were united?

Technically, US troops are in Korea as a part of the UN presence, which has to do with the state of armistice, since ther is no peace treaty.

China has nothing to do with their presence.

[Minstrel Boy]

24. Because it's not about Korea,

it's about containing China. That's the PNAC thinking. From page 19 of "Rebuilding America's Defenses": "Raising US military strength in East Asia is the key to coping with the rise of China to great-power status.... Indeed, in time, American and allied power in the region may provide a spur to the process of democratization in China intself" (pg 19).

[Character Assassin]

25. It doesn't make sense, strategically

A land war in Asia between China and the US borders on absurdity on many different levels. Keeping ground troops there would do nothing if such an unlikely event occured, as the supply line and logistics issues for the US would be insurmountable.

PNAC or no PNAC, keeping them there after their mission has been completed and Korea became unified would be a political mountain that I don't think even the numbnuts currently in the White House (and it might not be him when/if it happens) could bumble his over.

[teryang]

26. The strategic sense

Is division of the peninsula. A united Korea really isn't in the interest of the great powers. Historically the peninsula has been a strategic threat to China offering inroads to invasion. The old honest broker policy of the US was abandoned at the beginning of the twentieth century which enabled Japanese occupation (they forced the Russians out), annexation of Korea (in 1915) and the subsequent Japanese conquest of Manchuria and mainland China.

A divided Korea is the resumption of the honest broker policy of division of great power influence after the Japanese interregnum. Attempts by one great power to dominate the peninsula will result in war. The US is opposed to unification policies which would lead to our ouster from the strategic peninsula. Unlike our arrangement with Japan in 1902, we don't have the Philippines to fall back on. Ouster of our position on the peninsula would be regarded as an invitation to competetion for dominance in Korea by its more powerful neighbors.

It took the S.Koreans decades to get the Yongsan golf course and the Naija hotel back from the US. You think the Pentagon wants to give up the one hundred other pieces of real estate it has in S.Korea? The US doesn't have a plan for force deployment in E. Asia post unification. Its system of alliances in NE Asia is based on the "N. Korean" threat. Your right without N. Korea there is no reason for the US presence in S. Korea. That is the problem to the neocons because they do not want to ever leave the Korean peninsula. US remilitarization of the Philippines would be a fall back position.

[David__77]

27. Chinese factional dispute...

A group of Chinese military and party figures would certainly wish to confront US forces--and this would be enormously popular among the people of China. But, the party hierarchy is much more committed to reunifying with Taiwan and maintaining high economic growth rates. That's their objective, period. They want to avoid being in the spotlight. They figure that in 20 years or so, they'll be a moderately develop country, and can then be a "force" in world affairs.

[DeathvadeR]

14. Noone confronts anyone directly anymore.....

I'ts all about getting your way by making others fight.

[DoYouEverWonder]

22. I think China and Russia

may be responding to this little report from Sunday's Globe and Mail, regarding W & Co's possible plans for the next phase of Shock & Awe.


N. Korea next to hear U.S. war drum

Beijing — A senior Pentagon adviser has given details of a war strategy for invading North Korea and toppling its regime within 30 to 60 days, adding muscle to a lobbying campaign by U.S. hawks urging a pre-emptive military strike against Pyongyang's nuclear facilities.

Less than four months after the end of the Iraq war, the war drums in Washington have begun pounding again. A growing number of influential U.S. leaders are talking openly of military action against North Korea to destroy its nuclear-weapons program, and even those who prefer negotiations are warning of the mounting danger of war.

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