By Bernard Rowan
At university, I pursued a course on American foreign policy with the late Harry Howe Ransom. We began by studying diplomacy, the work of Harold Nicholson and various other topics. I authored a thesis on the idea of consensus in foreign policy. At that time, and still in my mind, I believe that history shows the rational use of consensus serves the cause of reason and reasonableness in foreign affairs.
Unfortunately, consensus can’t change an enemy’s mind. It can’t alter the realities of power that obstruct peace. A determined enemy isn’t convinced by entreaties of reasonableness in many instances. There are other realities in international relations that limit what foreign policy by consensus can accomplish in a particular context.
These matters come to mind when reading Kim Jong-un’s recent pronouncements that North Korea no longer will seek peaceful reunification with South Korea. On the one hand, this means little, as North Korea has never sought peaceful reunification with the South. Its operative policies don’t incline to reason or reasonableness as a historical fact. Reunification has been the entreaty, while power projection, autarky and totalitarian fantasies have been North Korea’s real policies.
However, for the North Korean people, Pyongyang’s “radical departure” isn’t brinkmanship or clever diplomacy but a further stunting of the country’s potential. Changing North Korea’s constitution signals the consummation of Kim’s power as a regime leader. That Kim feels empowered to do what his father and grandfather never did is telling. Changing the fundamental goals of the North Korean state shows Kim as an autocrat. North Koreans have no voice in their government and are left as puppets in dramatic pageants.
Kim also finds his pulse emboldened given the ongoing support of China, Russia and Iran — among others. That triumvirate of the Brave New World that must never be, continues to ramp trade, illegal and otherwise, and to cooperate in the new bipolarity as the Axis of Autocracy. While little by way of consensus really exists between this four-headed hydra, their work to destabilize the world of democracy, peace and progress grows.
Grand pronouncements such as Kim’s gather would-be clients and partners, all seeking their own power projects and pursuits in a kind of Hobbesian sycophancy. When we see Kim confidently parading his daughter around like one of his, for-a-time, trusted officials, we’re intrigued by it all — instead of seeing his behavior as the debasement of a child. Kim Ju-ae is the good and adorable face of a coin that has Kim Yo-jong as its opposite. It makes good media fodder. It’s propaganda. The idea of a regency by Yo-Jong until Ju-ae is of age sounds like half a dozen cable television programs of late, and a good many disasters in history.
North Korea now spends more on defense than its own people. In the idolatry and mass fantasy that constitute the Kim regime, on a scale much grander than his father and grandfather, Kim literally mortgages his daughter’s future to prop himself up. The continuation of the autocrat is the reason for everything that unfolds in North Korea. Soliloquy, egocentrism and self-immolation all blend into the surreal and bogus regime that is Pyongyang.
Consensus is fleeting and subject to many variables, including the ends of policy, the means of policy and the information context. How allies arrive at a unified policy in the face of a determined adversary, autocrat, lunatic or whoever isn’t easy. The alliance for democracy will need to continue the sober and prudent exercise of their mutual and international relations in the face of Kim’s regime. Fleeting and ultimately futile in the long term, its half-life continues to the detriment of the North Korean people, the region and the world.
The fundamental reason for Korea’s division will remain the stasis-to-conflict between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China. The latter thinks its star is rising. Of course, this only increases the chances of conflict over time. For the alliance for freedom, it will be vital not to cave to hype or to China’s rise. It will be critical to unite around a consensus of policies among South Korea, the United States and Japan, among many other regional and international partners. This will be the kind of consensus that the enemies of freedom will try to pull apart. But that, my friends, is our world for today and tomorrow.
Bernard Rowan (browan10@yahoo.com) is associate provost for contract administration and academic services and professor of political science at Chicago State University. He is a past fellow of te Korea Foundation and former visiting professor at Hanyang University.
Kim Jong-un and need for consensus
26
0
21.01.2024
By Bernard RowanAt university, I pursued a course on American foreign policy with the late Harry Howe Ransom. We began by studying diplomacy, the work of Harold Nicholson and various other topics. I authored a thesis on the idea of consensus in foreign policy. At that time, and still in my mind, I believe that history shows the rational use of consensus serves the cause of reason and reasonableness in foreign affairs.
Unfortunately, consensus can’t change an enemy’s mind. It can’t alter the realities of power that obstruct peace. A determined enemy isn’t convinced by entreaties of reasonableness in many instances. There are other realities in international relations that limit what foreign policy by consensus can accomplish in a particular context.
These matters come to mind when reading Kim Jong-un’s recent pronouncements that North Korea no longer will seek peaceful reunification with South Korea. On the one hand, this means little, as North Korea has never sought peaceful reunification with the South. Its operative policies don’t incline to reason or reasonableness as a historical fact. Reunification has been the entreaty, while power projection, autarky and........
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