Dangerous Times Ahead

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Some 57% of Americans polled said they think the economy is the issue in
2004.  This trend if it continues will push Bush into another war, sicne
there is no visible cure for the slow economy under current neocon
ideology, except that more pain will be good the the long run.

Iran and N. Korea have become real dangers.  The news from the first
trilateral meeting in Beijing is decidedly ominous.  The Russian foreign
ministry called it by predicting "ctastraphic" deevelopment.  NK now
says openly its has nuclear weapons, and taunts the US if the US is
prepared to push for a demonstration.  This is a direct chaleenge to
Bush's premptive doctrine.  A premetive strik on NK will start a nuclear
war.  On the other hand, not launching a pre-emtive attack will render
the premptive doctrine bankrupt.

China is deparately trying to prevent a nuclear war in Asia but its
relationship with NK went back to the Korea war, and many of the
generals in both countries were junior officiers in that war. They
formed a bond in the trenches that the civilain politicians of the two
countries could not match.  There is a soldarity between the two
miliataries that contraints maneuvouring room of the civilian
leaderships in both countries.  Disarming the NK military is an option
that the civilian politician cannot deliver.  Also, there is no way
China will tolerate a regime change in NK along US lines. The US
strategy of regime change in both NK and Iran requires a posture of
total war to accomplish. Unlike the case with IRan, there is no credible
basis to link NK will the War on Terrorism.  As for nuclear terror, the
doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction has been worked out by Herman
Khan 4 decades ago.  It would still work for NK.  But premptive strike
is the doctine that renders MAD impotent.

The issue for the 2004 presidential election is whether the US wants a
president who will lead it into World War III.  The Dems have not caught
on, but the game is still in its early stages. By the time of the Dem
convention, the war issue will be unavoideable, if not earlier.

Dangerous times ahead.

Henry C.K. Liu