I’m not a Rolling Stones fan. There’s something a little dark about their music. I prefer the Beatles, who offered more light and love to listeners. But when it comes to hope for a peaceful way out of the Korean War, the songwriters for the Stones may have given us the key to ending it.
The war started in June of 1950 when Kim Jong-un’s grandfather sent his army south to unify his country, which was divided in half at the end of World War II. He almost succeeded. The United States stopped him. But instead of putting things back the way they were, US forces pushed north to eliminate Kim the elder and his communist government. They almost succeeded. The People’s Republic of China stopped them. The fighting ended in 1953—at the same dividing line where it started—but the war did not.
To make a really long story ridiculously short, the North and the South, the United States and China continuously prepare to carry on the fight. They’ve packed an unimaginably large amount of military hardware into Northeast Asia and ostentatiously practice using it. The balance of forces has been tilting against North Korea for quite awhile. China isn’t the reliably militant communist ally it was in 1950. The North’s economy is tiny and crippled by UN sanctions. But it has one thing going for it: nuclear weapons.
The Kim family dynasty sacrificed a lot to get them. The idea that the grandson is going to give them up before there’s major changes in the current situation, including a formal end to the war, is wishful thinking.
The United States and China have nuclear weapons too. Theirs are legal. North Korea’s are not. The Kims signed a treaty promising they wouldn’t make them. The United States and China signed the same treaty promising they would get rid of theirs but, whatever. For a long time now the United States has been ratcheting up the pressure on North Korea, first to stop them from trying to make nuclear weapons and, now that they’ve succeeded, to give them up. Things got pretty tense a few years ago. Fighting words were flying. Missiles too. Then the Olympics happened.
I love the Olympics. It’s one of those moments we’re all reminded we can love our own countries and compete with people from other ones without hating and killing them. In that spirit the leader of the South invited the leader of the North to meet and talk. There’s been a lot of meeting and talking since then. But every time the talk gets round to ending the war some cranky US somebody or another tells the North, “Only if you give us your nuclear weapons first!” He got sent off to Mongolia before the last meeting and things seemed to get better.
China’s leader, just back from his first visit to North Korea, seems to have put a new deal together. I call it the everybody chills plan. North Korea freezes its nuclear weapons program; the bombs and the missiles, but gets to keep what it’s got. The United States relaxes its military posture but gets to keep its troops in the neighborhood and parade them around as long as it does it more politely. China and South Korea get to help North Korea improve its economy, but UN sanctions that put some limits on what kind of help they can provide and how North Korea uses it remain in place.
Lots of good things could happen if everybody chills. First, no war or threats of war. That’s not a small thing. If they can keep that up for awhile everybody may get more comfortable with the idea of putting it in writing. Second, North Korea can sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Just saying no to nuclear testing is always a good idea. Third, the UN can get its inspectors back in North Korea to make sure its nuclear arsenal isn’t getting bigger or better. That seems like a real plus to me. Finally, and most importantly, the poor people of North Korea can catch a much-deserved break. Nobody has suffered more from all of this than they have.
Yeah, North Korea gets to keep its nuclear weapons. That’s not good. The United States and everyone else threatened by those weapons will still have to worry about them. But that’s where the Stones come in. When it comes to North Korea, as to many things in human life, you can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.