Mr. Kim's Scam?

A sobering reminder to those (including myself) with rising expectations whenever NK discusses "engagement." North Korea has perfected its gamesmenship over three US presidents now. As the Post editorial writes, the scam goes something like this:

Pyongyang raises tension by firing off missiles, ejecting inspectors from its nuclear facilities, testing bombs and promising to produce more. Then it turns conciliatory, suggesting it might be willing to freeze its nuclear program and even begin to dismantle it in exchange for economic and political concessions. Next it begins talks, collecting as much in cash and diplomatic recognition as it can from Washington and its Asian allies. Finally, it breaks off the process before it has taken any irreversible step to give up its weapons or the means to produce them.

Hard and Human Security: North Korea and Iran?

I met my former dissertation adviser at a conference in Baltimore earlier this month, and shared with him my research ideas related to North Korea. He was OK about the use of network analysis, but troubled by a study focusing on just one country. He sees a fixation on one country as a bad career move. Instead, I should make NK one case of a larger theoretical problem. Iran immediately popped to mind.

Iran and NK are both nuclear proliferaters with dubious human rights practices where the US focuses almost exclusively on the former and treads lightly on the latter. However, Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi has made a pointed case that supporting democracy (i.e. the opposition) and human rights (those arrested or beaten after the June election unrest) can result in both moral and tactical benefits.

But paying so much more attention to Iran's nuclear ambitions than to its trampling of democracy and freedom is a mistake both tactical and moral. The Post writes:

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "is at the lowest level of popularity one can imagine," Ms. Ebadi said. "If the West focuses exclusively on the nuclear issue, Ahmadinejad can tell his people that the West is against Iran's national interest and rally people to his cause. But if the West presses also on its human rights record, he will find himself in a position where his popular base is getting weaker and weaker by the day."

Ms. Ebadi suggested that the nature of Iran's regime is more crucial to U.S. security than any specific deals on nuclear energy. Iran's people are not as wedded to the nuclear program as the regime wants outsiders to believe. A democratic government would be unlikely to build a nuclear bomb, she said, and even if it did, the weapon would not be a threat in the hands of a government that would not view America or Israel as enemies. By contrast, she argued, even a seemingly ironclad nuclear agreement with Mr. Ahmadinejad might be of little value: "Imagine if the government actually promised to stop its nuclear program tomorrow. Would you trust this government not to start another secret nuclear program somewhere else?"

Hmmm...we could ask this same question about trust in signing an agreement w/Kim Jong Il. Unfortunately, in NK there is no visible opposition to work with. We only have the regime to work with. However, as with all governments, hard-liners and moderates do exist within the regime. If there's a way to identify and sway moderates, and perhaps open the country to the outside, could a more credible nuclear deal be struck?

Relevance of NATO

A few weeks we talked about "security communities" in my grad seminar on the role of ideas and identity in IR. Thanks to a North Atlantic identity, NATO endures even in the absence of a Soviet threat. Anne Applebaum, however, seems to disagree. She writes:

The fact is that the idea of "the West" has been fading for a long time on both sides of the Atlantic, as countless "whither-the-Alliance" seminars have been ritually observing for the past decade. But the consequences are now with us: NATO, though fighting its first war since its foundation, inspires nobody. The members of NATO feel no allegiance to the alliance, or to one another.

Applebaum's evidence is found in the way that countries frame the Afghan War. She notes that countries are not discussing the Afghan War as an international operation. Rather, national governments and the media portray sacrifices in nationalistic terms rather than as a collective enterprise. I suspect this is partially for domestic consumption, and perhaps elites privately concur that this is an international concern.

Political Science: Methods and the Policy-Academic Divide

In light of Senator Coburn's mission to end NSF funding for political "science," a friend/colleague decided to start an open forum on his f.b. The debate revolves around 1) the usefulness of political science research to the real world and 2) the types of methods we use. This debate was featured in a NY Times article. In addressing issue #1, my friend writes:

I also think Political Science could do more to address relevant policy questions and make our findings more accessible to the general public. My friend suggests the academic rules of the game should slightly change in the following ways:

1) Graduate students should be encouraged to take classes in policy analysis and media communication in which they learn to write concise and jargon-free memos. Such exercises will help them explain their research to both media representatives and policy makers;
2) Graduate students in Political Science should be encouraged to do policy relevant research;
3) Faculty should positively value the media and policy outreach of assistant professors and include achievements in these areas in the tenure review process;
4) Departments of Political Science should welcome back both assistant and tenured professors who temporarily depart from academia to pursue public service in government and other important work with international organizations, since they bring valuable experience to both teaching and research.

Since I'm at a DC-based university, I've thought quite a bit about these questions - especially as I apply for research fellowships. Joseph Nye's op-ed in April on about the lack of policy relevance in poli-sci research was particularly apt. I am largely in agreement with my friend, but at the same time, we need not always look for convergence...even in the natural sciences and engineering, there is both basic and applied research. the "big picture" theoretical questions in the social sciences are equivalent to basic research. Some researchers will be more interested in basic, others in applied. And then there are those who connect the bridge. it's this middle category that our discipline could promote.