The appropriately abbreviated SoS Clinton announced today that US Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Bosworth will make his first trip to North Korea next week. The Czar finds it interesting, at any rate, that North Korea has its own US Special Representative, which gives Pyôngyang the same level of non-voting representation as the residents of Washington DC.

Bosworth, as link-clickers might read (or you could just take the Czar’s word for it), believes “North Korea is inclined to continue dialogue with the United States and regional powers on its nuclear program.”

The Czar, of course, is not at all confident with Ambassador Bosworth’s enthusiasm. Take, for example, the DPRK’s own Korean Central News Agency, whose Pulitzer-bound coverage of POTUS Obama’s inauguration is slightly more tempered. Okay, you want to click on that link, trust me.

Bosworth added, “I found the North Koreans, I thought, quite inclined toward continued dialogue with the United States….”

Well, again, the Czar is not so optimistic. Yes, they want to talk. And talk. And talk. And stall and stall. No one is confident this will solve much. Nor are the North Koreans, who state that “the U.S. bellicose forces would be well advised to face up to the trend of the times.” The Czar never expected to agree with the KCNA on anything, so this is a bit of a first.

Placating the North Koreans is a losing game. Negotiation with the North is inherently impossible, because negotation assumes that the other party has an equal interest in reaching a satisfactory conclusion; negotiation assumes the other side is reasonable and can identify logical gain. The sad truth, the very trend that our State Department would be well advised to face up to, is that North Korea is the deranged parent holding a gun to his own head while screaming to the police below, as his family cowers in terror at his feet. We had the opportunity to contain the damage, at least, until the late 1990s. However, kindly smiling and asking them to put down the gun and let the kids go, at least, provided them time to get a vastly longer range weapon and bigger payloads. We can neither reason nor contain. We can only watch and wait for now, and continuously remind them that anything less than conformity to the wishes of the US, Japan, China, and of course the South is unacceptable.

As for Ambassador Bosworth’s gleeful goal of equal diplomacy with the North? “Now obviously I was not there speaking for the United States, was not there as an official representative….” Let us hope not. The last time we tried to let them off the leash, they demonstrated their defiance by letting millions of their own people starve to death.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.