On North Korea and surprises.
I’ve been thinking about the summit with North Korea and wondering if president Trump is getting good advice. I have no reason to think he’s not, other than remembering a couple of instances when we Americans didn’t get good advice. The first instance that came to mind was reading about the lengthy negotiations prior to the Vietnam peace accord, how frustrated we were on things taking so long, and that was just to agree on the shape of the table. Once in Paris, our delegation, all eager to get the deal done and over with—after all, our boys were still dying—were stumped to find their counterparts busy at their Paris villa planting a new garden with their favorite Vietnamese hot peppers and herbs. Afterwards, when during the first meeting one of the Americans delegates, already frustrated, indicated the need to hurry, one of the North Vietnamese delegates mentioned how ironic it was that we had all the watches and they had all the time.
Clearly, we weren’t prepared for that first meeting.
Then, there was the last gulf war.
It seems to me we go into meetings, or countries, expecting our way of thinking to prevail, exploiting logic and economics as a carrot to move their stubborn ass forward, not to mention a big stick, only to find that to the many burros of the world, there are other carrots that make them move and not usually the obvious ones.
I can imagine it might be hard to find people who understand North Korea, both the culture and the language, who speak English well enough to communicate with the president or the state department. It seems to me the only people qualified for this job would be Korean born and raised Americans. Perhaps someone born on an American base in South Korea. None other need apply. There is a lot that can be learned about a people from books, mentors, and maybe living in their country for a decade or two, but in the end, that road turns out to be narrow and limited.
“One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.” Good advice from Will Durant: think of the Trojan horse. I won’t go into the “clever thing to say” part, as there seems to be no bag limit on the number of people falling from up high by shooting themselves in the foot with their mouth.
Doing nothing, however, is not always the best option. Sometimes it is best to act. Then and there is when a subtle difference comes into play: preparing against a surprise is called training, as opposed to preparing for a surprise. That’s called education. We have a good opportunity to make friends with North Korea, perhaps the best we’ve had in a long time. I hope our people are educated well enough to pull this off.
mt