What's the plan?

I recognize that both of these could be technically true, that Bush was inexact in his wording, but, still...... (WaPo)

President Bush on Friday defended his response to the budding crisis spawned by North Korea's missile tests, saying he will not "get caught in the trap of sitting alone with North Korea at the table."

Or maybe Saturday's plan is better. (AP)

A U.S. envoy expressed support for China's proposal to hold informal six-nation talks on the North Korean nuclear threat and offered to meet bilaterally with the North on the sidelines of those discussions.

For some reason, this is starting to remind me of the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam where the principles broke down over a dispute about the size of the table.

The North Korea situation is a different version of the same mistake that has been made in the battle over terrorism. Certainly an element of the efforts to combat Islamic terrorism is to neutralize the individuals who are currently committed to that course, BUT, the long term answer is to change the conditions of the relationship that is spawning terrorism in the first place. Hearts and Minds, Drain the Swamp, choose whatever catchphrase you like to reflect the broader idea.

The problem isn't that North Korea has nukes, the problem is that they have separated from the world society and have no incentive to "play along." The solution is not about forcing N. Korea to do what we want, the solution is to alter the larger situation to where it is in their interests to do what we want.

Despite all the tough sounding rhetoric, the solution to N. Korea goes through Beijing. Much like Russia supporting Iran, it's in the Chinese interest to have the North Korea situation fester, eating up US attention and resources. It is a rather low cost way for the Chinese to siphon US strategic influence. So long as we're hostile, it's in the Chinese interest to let us run down our strength battling with the gnats in N. Korea.

What we need is diplomatic imagination. We need someone to step outside the binary world of "the enemy" to find a multi-dimensioal solution that benefits all of the players. One key element, perhaps the most important element, would be a reassurance that the US will reenter the global community and abandon its overtly aggressive unitary foreign policy.

(This post could be rewritten changing North Korea and China to Iran and Russia. With a few wrinkles, it's the exact same problem.)