By Rachel Wagley
America can’t wait for China on the Korean Peninsula.
“Who are you?” General Matthew Ridgway asked my grandmother in 1951 on the tarmac of a U.S. base in Korea. Ridgway had just replaced General Douglas MacArthur and was making the rounds – even introducing himself to the young woman in charge of two U.S. service clubs. Who are you? It is a question that a good commander asks of his subordinates to understand, value, and evaluate the people serving behind him.
It is also a question a good commander asks of his enemies. It is impossible to beat a formidable opponent – for Ridgway, North Korea – without knowing its calculations and motivations, and understanding how far it will go.
Sixty-five years after Ridgeway’s tenure in Korea, the United States is still facing down the same enemy. The protracted stalemate suggests that the United States has yet to fully learn how North Korea thinks and how far it will go. Since 2006, North Korea has tested four nuclear devices without fear of repercussion.
The latest test on January 6, 2016 kicked off the new year with a stark reminder that without a more studied U.S. policy, North Korea will continue its nuclear provocation and development. In his State of the Union address on January 12, U.S. President Barack Obama downplayed the threat of rogue regimes across the world, arguing that international dynamics are static, that regimes like North Korea aren’t growing stronger. But North Korea’s advancing nuclear capability renders the president’s claim demonstrably false.
Read the full story at The Diplomat