North Korea Isn't Our Problem
The U.S., overstretched already, should treat Kim Jong Il as a regional crisis and let China take the lead.

By Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman, ANATOL LIEVEN is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington. JOHN HULSMAN is a scholar in residence at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.

October 11, 2006

THE UNITED STATES is bogged down in what appears to be an unwinnable war in Iraq; it is facing very unpleasant options in regard to neighboring Iran's nuclear program; senior NATO officers say that the situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating fast; in the former Soviet Union, Georgia and Russia are moving toward military confrontation, with the U.S. seemingly unable to restrain either; in large swaths of Latin America, new nationalist and populist movements are challenging U.S. interests.

And now the totalitarian regime in North Korea has defied the international community by testing a nuclear bomb — and the U.S. appears to have neither military nor effective economic measures with which to respond.

If all this does not prove the reality of American overreach, what does? If U.S. power is to be placed on a firmer basis, its exercise must be more limited. Certain commitments will have to be scaled back or even eliminated if the U.S. is to be able to concentrate on dealing with its most truly vital challenges and enemies.

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