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Since there's very little the United States can do to respond to the North Korean missile tests, other governments are driving events. Japan wants immediate sanctions against the North Koreans, but it's unclear who's ready to impose them. South Korea, fearing how the paranoid North Korean regime might lash out if faced with economic or military collapse, isn't willing to endorse harsh measures. China is happy to broker any negotiations, since it accrues more prestige and influence in Asia in the process. Other major powers are notably silent. The North Koreans lose nothing by threatening further missile tests.
It shouldn't be surprising, therefore, that the United States has agreed to bilateral talks with North Korea. The fig leaf of respectability is the six-nation talks that are supposed to happen simultaneously; for the North Koreans, the real goal is one-on-one talks with the United States. By proving that they can force the US government into bilateral negotiations, Kim Jong Il gains leverage with everyone else. Unless American leaders can figure out how to change the situation, the North Koreans will maintain the diplomatic initiative.
Is lack of US diplomatic leadership necessarily bad? Perhaps the South Koreans are right in thinking that the North Koreans will eventually re-integrate with the South. From this perspective, patience is more important than immediately responding to North Korean provocations. Maybe the Japanese need this opportunity to assert their national security interests, without having to look to the United States for approval. Or, maybe, the future of East Asia still depends on an external superpower capable of playing balancer.
We're in the thick of a volatile time for the Korean Peninsula, so it's hard to say where the current road leads. Whatever happens in the two Koreas, there is one bad outcome that is hard to deny: the global campaign to curb the proliferation of nuclear and missile technologies has suffered its most serious blow since the end of the Cold War.
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