The Madman Theory
The immediate response to the North Korean missile tests on July 4th was a round of international condemnations followed by John Bolton putting on his most gamesman-like face for urgent consultation with the United Nations Security Council. Britain and the United States both supported a Japanese resolution to impose tough sanctions on North Korea (to be voted on later this week). But in less than a day, it became clear that China, Russia and South Korea had veered from the script by opposing any sanctions. Now, even the United States is calling for a return to the six-party talks, on hold since November 2005. The Japanese resolution will surely fail. So, what remains?
Right after the tests, there was a lot speculation as to their timing. They not only coincided with the United States’ Independence Day, but also came shortly after a massive series of war games conducted by the US in the Pacific Ocean (the largest since the Vietnam War) as well as the recent freezing of North Korean bank accounts in the Chinese island of Macau. While these events may have a lot to do with the timing of the tests, they are ancillary to the tests themselves.
The real reason North Korea launched its missiles was that it desires a return to negotiations over its nuclear program. Specifically, it wants bilateral talks with the United States. As Bruce Cummings points out, the test was not in any way intended to be a surprise. It was a carefully stage-managed event designed to garner maximum attention. In that, it succeeded despite the failure of the Taepodong-2 test.
Cummings notes that what likely led to the North Korean test “was President Bush's announcement in May that the administration would negotiate directly with Iran over its nuclear program — a move that led the North Koreans to call for talks of their own with the United States. In this light, North Korea's missile brinkmanship is not intended to scare us. Rather, in the ham-handed way that is Pyongyang's specialty, it is meant to invite Washington to make a deal.”
What the tests are not about is an attempt to threaten the United States with any kind of attack. Both Ashton Carter and William Perry (former Secretary of Defense and Assistant Secretary of Defense, respectively, under President Clinton) implicitly recognize this, first in their Washington Post piece from June 22nd, then in their Time Magazine piece from July 8th. In arguing that the United States ought to have blown the Taepodong-2 missile off its platform in a preventative attack before launch, they reason that the North Korean regime would not, in fact, “lash out” in response. The regime must know, so Carter and Perry argue, that any war on the Korean peninsula would immediately result in its own collapse. “Pyongyang’s leaders are bold, but they are not suicidal.”
This, in a nutshell, is the salient point. If the North Korean regime is not suicidal (as any sort of attack on the United States would surely be), then what, exactly, is the threat? Why waste a US missile in a surgical strike if North Korea is so lame as to not even respond to such an attack? Carter and Perry contradict their own argument in the next paragraph by presenting the well-worn bogey of North Korea providing nuclear material to terrorists. It is not explained how that would be any less suicidal than an overt attack by North Korea itself. As ever in the war on terror, Carter and Perry wax eloquent on the “mounting danger” from North Korea, but do not actually argue the point. The danger is stated, but not explained.
Though Carter and Perry are caught in a prescriptive bubble of their own making, the only way out of the bind is the madman theory of international relations, as recently explained by John Judis in the New Republic. “Diplomacy assumes that national leaders act according to the usual norms of reasoning. They design actions in order to accomplish certain ends, and one of these is the preservation of their nation. But what if a nation's leader is or becomes genuinely mad and attempts to carry out policies that will, he believes, lead to the destruction of his nation and, perhaps, the world? Or what if he is so deranged that he has no conception of means and ends, so that he undertakes policies that will lead to the destruction of the world, but has no awareness that they might? Such a leader would be a "madman." And in that case, the ordinary rules of diplomacy would not hold.”
This kind of reasoning has been on constant display since 9/11 as the United States valiantly defends freedom from all manner of madmen from Iraq to Iran to North Korea. It remains the only viable public explanation for why the United States can play any kind of war game it desires (including the non-game variety) while North Korea cannot conduct missile tests that do not violate any international laws. In the war on terror, your opponents must be not merely dangerous, but deranged. Only in this way will the standard, domineering geopolitical interests be made to look like defensive gestures.
Luckily, Carter and Perry are out of sync with the actual negotiators, all of whom recognize that diplomacy is the only option at the moment. Nonetheless, the rhetoric of the madman in Pyongyang has a logic unto itself and is unlikely to abate anytime soon.
Right after the tests, there was a lot speculation as to their timing. They not only coincided with the United States’ Independence Day, but also came shortly after a massive series of war games conducted by the US in the Pacific Ocean (the largest since the Vietnam War) as well as the recent freezing of North Korean bank accounts in the Chinese island of Macau. While these events may have a lot to do with the timing of the tests, they are ancillary to the tests themselves.
The real reason North Korea launched its missiles was that it desires a return to negotiations over its nuclear program. Specifically, it wants bilateral talks with the United States. As Bruce Cummings points out, the test was not in any way intended to be a surprise. It was a carefully stage-managed event designed to garner maximum attention. In that, it succeeded despite the failure of the Taepodong-2 test.
Cummings notes that what likely led to the North Korean test “was President Bush's announcement in May that the administration would negotiate directly with Iran over its nuclear program — a move that led the North Koreans to call for talks of their own with the United States. In this light, North Korea's missile brinkmanship is not intended to scare us. Rather, in the ham-handed way that is Pyongyang's specialty, it is meant to invite Washington to make a deal.”
What the tests are not about is an attempt to threaten the United States with any kind of attack. Both Ashton Carter and William Perry (former Secretary of Defense and Assistant Secretary of Defense, respectively, under President Clinton) implicitly recognize this, first in their Washington Post piece from June 22nd, then in their Time Magazine piece from July 8th. In arguing that the United States ought to have blown the Taepodong-2 missile off its platform in a preventative attack before launch, they reason that the North Korean regime would not, in fact, “lash out” in response. The regime must know, so Carter and Perry argue, that any war on the Korean peninsula would immediately result in its own collapse. “Pyongyang’s leaders are bold, but they are not suicidal.”
This, in a nutshell, is the salient point. If the North Korean regime is not suicidal (as any sort of attack on the United States would surely be), then what, exactly, is the threat? Why waste a US missile in a surgical strike if North Korea is so lame as to not even respond to such an attack? Carter and Perry contradict their own argument in the next paragraph by presenting the well-worn bogey of North Korea providing nuclear material to terrorists. It is not explained how that would be any less suicidal than an overt attack by North Korea itself. As ever in the war on terror, Carter and Perry wax eloquent on the “mounting danger” from North Korea, but do not actually argue the point. The danger is stated, but not explained.
Though Carter and Perry are caught in a prescriptive bubble of their own making, the only way out of the bind is the madman theory of international relations, as recently explained by John Judis in the New Republic. “Diplomacy assumes that national leaders act according to the usual norms of reasoning. They design actions in order to accomplish certain ends, and one of these is the preservation of their nation. But what if a nation's leader is or becomes genuinely mad and attempts to carry out policies that will, he believes, lead to the destruction of his nation and, perhaps, the world? Or what if he is so deranged that he has no conception of means and ends, so that he undertakes policies that will lead to the destruction of the world, but has no awareness that they might? Such a leader would be a "madman." And in that case, the ordinary rules of diplomacy would not hold.”
This kind of reasoning has been on constant display since 9/11 as the United States valiantly defends freedom from all manner of madmen from Iraq to Iran to North Korea. It remains the only viable public explanation for why the United States can play any kind of war game it desires (including the non-game variety) while North Korea cannot conduct missile tests that do not violate any international laws. In the war on terror, your opponents must be not merely dangerous, but deranged. Only in this way will the standard, domineering geopolitical interests be made to look like defensive gestures.
Luckily, Carter and Perry are out of sync with the actual negotiators, all of whom recognize that diplomacy is the only option at the moment. Nonetheless, the rhetoric of the madman in Pyongyang has a logic unto itself and is unlikely to abate anytime soon.
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