As evidence emerges that the gunmen who caused the carnage in Mumbai were operatives of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, one question reverberates: Was the Pakistani government responsible for the Mumbai terror attacks?

This is the wrong question to ask. During the late 1980s and the 1990s, the Pakistani government created terror organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba as tools of asymmetric warfare against Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. In recent years, however, the jihadis, like the magic brooms in Goethe's tale, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," have taken on a life of their own; along with the government, the army and the intelligence services, such groups now comprise one of the main centers of gravity within Pakistan.

Several factors have enabled them to reach this point. The jihadis have been armed and trained by elements of the Pakistani military and security services, and are funded by a sophisticated international financial network. In addition, they enjoy street popularity, and remain a useful means of combatting India's presence in Kashmir. Consequently, the Pakistani government has balked at opportunities to shut them down.

As a result, the militants are now in a position to conduct their own policy. Like the Goethe's magic brooms, they often act against the interests of their creators, attacking security personnel, assassinating government officials and seizing territory within Pakistan, as well as launching attacks on India that could trigger a regional war. The question, then, is not whether the Pakistani government was responsible for the Mumbai attacks, but who will now play the role of sorcerer and rein in the jihadis.

In theory, either the Pakistani or the Indian government could do so. But Mumbai has shown that neither side is up to the task. The Pakistani government cannot prevent militants from using its soil to strike India. The Indians are completely unable to anticipate or repel such attacks. In addition, they lack the military capabilities needed to clear militant strongholds within Pakistani territory.

The situation requires a radical re-thinking of South Asia's security. Both sides must adopt policies that transcend their traditional comfort zones. The Pakistani government must forswear militancy, end support for the jihadis and accept international military and financial assistance in crushing them. The Pakistani government needs to recognize that the costs of supporting militancy outweigh its benefits, and that Mumbai may be the last chance to get control of the situation. If the government does not act against the militants now, then it may lose control of the state, or find itself drawn into a catastrophic conflict with India in the wake of another terrorist attack.

The Indians, for their part, must start to take their own security more seriously. In 1991, after suffering a major financial crisis, the Indian government came to terms with the failures of its socialist development model and adopted a free-market approach to economic growth. Similarly, India must use this crisis to wholly revamp its security infrastructure. If it fails to do so, the country's impressive economic expansion of recent years will be for naught. Simply put, international corporations will view the country as being too dangerous and refuse to do business there.

The road to real improvement in India will be long and complex, but the Indians can start by properly training and equipping their police and domestic security personnel, who were outgunned and outwitted for nearly three days in Mumbai by just a handful of terrorists. Simultaneously, New Delhi must address the legitimate concerns of its own Muslim community, including the long-aggrieved Kashmiri population, so that overseas terrorists do not find willing collaborators within India.

Finally, there is another player in this subcontinental drama: the United States. The United States, which has forged a strategic partnership with India, can quietly and privately nudge New Delhi to address the internal tensions in Kashmir. More important, however, the United States must use its leverage as Pakistan's largest source of bilateral assistance to press the Pakistanis to end their support for the jihadis. It cannot continue to provide Islamabad with billions of dollars to fight the war on terror while Pakistan-based militant groups conduct operations like the Mumbai attacks. If Pakistan is to continue to benefit from American largesse, it must demonstrate a tangible commitment to ending support for such organizations.

None of these steps will provide an overnight solution to the problems laid bare by the Mumbai attacks. But, in time, they can help South Asia to create its own modern-day sorcerer, and deal with the militant forces that Pakistan has unleashed over decades. If the region fails to do so, its story, unlike Goethe's, will not have a happy ending.

Sumit Ganguly is the director of research of the Center on American and Global Security at Indiana University, Bloomington, and an adjunct senior fellow of the Pacific Council on International Policy. S. Paul Kapur is associate professor at U.S. Naval Postgraduate School; the views he expresses in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. government.

The Mumbai terror attacks, apparently carried out by Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant groups, highlight one of the most pressing challenges facing the new Obama administration. Though it is officially a key ally in U.S. anti-terrorism efforts, the Pakistani government has been unable or unwilling to control Islamist militancy within its borders. Large swaths of the country are now in the hands of the jihadis, including reconstituted elements of the Taliban. These groups are wreaking havoc both in Pakistan and abroad. Combined with Pakistan's collapsing economy and arsenal of at least several dozen nuclear weapons, this is the recipe for disaster.

Observers have suggested that, to ameliorate this situation, the United States should lead a renewed effort to solve Pakistan's dispute with India over the territory of Kashmir. The resolution, according to this reasoning, will significantly reduce the militants' incentives for violence. There is even talk of appointing former President Bill Clinton as special envoy to lead such a project.

Not a good idea

Despite its intuitive appeal, this would be an unfortunate South Asia policy for the United States. American efforts to mediate the Kashmir dispute would be ill advised for three reasons:

First, Islamist militants seek nothing less than complete Pakistani possession of Kashmir. Such a solution is out of the question. To allow Muslim-majority Kashmir to secede from the Indian Union on the basis of religion would badly undermine India's efforts to build a cohesive state out of the multiplicity of ethnic and religious groups within its borders. India has flatly rejected such an approach for more than 60 years and will not agree to it now. Thus, American efforts to devise a solution acceptable to both New Delhi and the militants would, at best, be wasted.
At worst, such a policy could convince the militants that violence has been effective, coercing the United States into bringing India to the bargaining table. This could embolden the jihadis further, resulting in even more terrorism in Pakistan and abroad.
Second, American intervention in the Kashmir dispute would greatly annoy India. After decades of mutual indifference, Washington and New Delhi now view each other as strategic partners, with a host of common economic and security interests. The Indian government has made clear that it considers Kashmir a bilateral issue to be resolved solely with Pakistan. U.S. interference would demonstrate callousness toward Indian concerns on this sensitive issue and could squander much hard-earned good will.

Kashmir improving

Third, proponents of American intervention ignore recent improvements in Kashmir. Left to their own devices, India and Pakistan have launched a peace process and implemented a series of confidence-building measures. As a result, violence has declined, and Indian forces have adopted a less aggressive posture in the region.

Of course, such improvements are tenuous. They could fall victim to events such as the Mumbai attacks, which were undoubtedly intended to undermine the improved security situation and increase regional tensions. Nonetheless, given recent progress, it would be inadvisable to jettison Indo-Pakistani bilateralism in favor of third-party diplomatic intervention.

Observers are correct to note the dangers emanating from Pakistan and the importance of South Asian stability to United States security. South Asia is no longer a strategic backwater; it is a region to which the Obama administration will have to pay close attention, as events in Mumbai have dramatically demonstrated. In crafting its South Asia policy, however, the administration should remember that less can be more, particularly regarding Kashmir.

S. Paul Kapur is associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and a faculty affiliate at Stanford University"s Center for International Security and Cooperation. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. government. Sumit Ganguly is professor of political science at Indiana University-Bloomington and an adjunct senior fellow of the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles. They wrote this article for the Mercury News.

The small band of terrorists who attacked Mumbai last week killed nearly 200 people, wounded several hundred more and stoked tensions between India and Pakistan. The attacks have brought attention to the countries' long-simmering dispute over Kashmir and the diplomatic balancing act the United States must play between the nuclear-armed neighbors. They also expose major flaws in India's national security and highlight Pakistan's ineffectiveness in dealing with terrorist groups.

Paul Kapur, a faculty affiliate at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation and an associate professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, is an expert on international security in South Asia. He's the author of Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia, and his work has appeared in journals such as International Security, Security Studies, Asian Survey, and Asian Security.

In an interview with Stanford Report, Kapur discussed the group that was likely behind the attacks and how he expects the situation to unfold.

American and Indian officials say there's evidence linking the attacks to members of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Who are these people, and what would be their motivation for hitting Mumbai?

Lashkar-e-Taiba is one of a number of militant groups that have been fighting against Indian control of Kashmir. India doesn't control all of Kashmir but controls part of it, including the Kashmir valley, which is especially prized.

These types of groups have been active since the late 1980s. There was a spontaneous--and mostly indigenous--uprising against Indian rule in Kashmir as the result of Indian ineptitude and malfeasance. The Pakistanis took advantage of the situation and got involved with the insurgency and started backing militant organizations with arms and training and financial and logistical support. It was an opportunity on the Pakistani side. By supporting the insurgency, they could potentially get the territory from India and bleed Indian resources.

What does that say about Pakistan's responsibility for the attacks?

There does seem to be strong evidence that Lashkar-e-Taiba was involved, and the attackers did come from Pakistan. But that doesn't mean the Pakistani government was directly involved with this operation. My guess is they probably weren't.

Events like this show that the Pakistani government is either unable or unwilling to quash militancy within its territory and to stop terrorists from using Pakistani soil to launch attacks on its neighbors.

Even if the Pakistani government now is not directly pulling the strings of these groups, the groups exist largely because of Pakistani support in the past. So now the genie is out of the bottle. The big danger is that a group like this could trigger an Indo-Pakistani crisis and conflict without the direct involvement of the Pakistani government.

But that doesn't mean the Pakistani government was directly involved with this operation. My guess is they probably weren't.

What does this mean for relations between India and Pakistan? Do you expect India will launch a military response?

It's certainly possible. If you think about the last time there was a major Indo-Pakistani militarized crisis, it was after a failed attack on the Indian parliament-also involving Lashkar-e-Taiba-back in 2001. That attack failed. About five people died, and it was over in the space of a morning. Nonetheless, the Indians were so outraged that they mobilized about 500,000 troops along the international border, and there was a major standoff that lasted almost a year.

That was-in my view-a lot less provocative than Mumbai. This attack killed almost 200 people, wounded hundreds more, lasted almost three days and targeted the financial hub of India. There's going to be a lot of pressure domestically for the government to act in a forceful way.

The unfortunate thing is that things were getting better between the two sides. Since that last crisis in 2001-2002, a peace process had begun and there was really a thaw in Indo-Pakistani relations. Kashmir had actually gotten more stable, and the general sense was that the regional trajectory was a positive one. Ironically, it may be that some of that progress is what motivated the Mumbai attacks. Part of the goal of an operation like this would certainly be to derail improving relations in the region.

Both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. How will that factor into how the countries deal with each other?

Nuclear weapons will create incentives for the two countries-even in the event of a crisis-to behave somewhat cautiously so the situation doesn't spin out of control. But the problem is that nuclear weapons also greatly reduce the margin for error. In the event of a miscalculation, the cost could be catastrophic.

America is an ally of both these countries and has relied on the Pakistanis to combat the Taliban along the border with Afghanistan. What's at stake for American diplomacy in this situation?

It's very tricky. The U.S. relies on Pakistan as a major ally in the war on terror. We've been pressuring the Pakistanis to pay attention to the northwest frontier and the border with Afghanistan and get that area under control. One thing the United States does not want to see is an Indo-Pakistani conflict, which draws Pakistani forces away from that mission in the northwest and back to the east to combat the Indians. From the standpoint of U.S. goals in Afghanistan, it would take resources away from that struggle, and so the United States very much wants the current situation to be resolved in a way that doesn't involve a major confrontation.

The problem is that it's going to be hard for the U.S. to say to the Indians, "Hey, you shouldn't retaliate against these guys," because this is exactly the argument that the United States makes in justifying its own retaliation against terrorists. If a country is unable or unwilling to keep its territory from being used to launch terror attacks, then U.S. leaders have claimed to have the right to go in and deal with the situation.

There are reports that India received warnings about the possibility of terrorist attacks on Mumbai. What did government officials do with that information, and why wasn't more done to beef up security and counterterrorism measures?

It's not clear that they did anything. They may have ratcheted up security for a short time and then let it return to normal levels. One of the things that's going to come out of this in the weeks and months ahead is an examination of the effectiveness of the Indian security services. Obviously, there's a huge intelligence failure here. But at a tactical level, it took almost three days to get a handful of terrorists out of three or four buildings. It wasn't a shining moment. The Indian security forces bravely did their job. But in terms of their effectiveness, my sense is that there were some pretty serious shortcomings.

Security officials and cleanup crews are now combing through the carnage in Mumbai, following last week’s terrorist attacks in the city. As the citizens of this vast metropolis seek to restore some semblance of normalcy to their lives, it is important to probe the sources of the violence in Mumbai, and consider the attacks’ implications for regional security in South Asia.

How and why did the Mumbai attacks occur? Information at this stage is still incomplete. Nonetheless, a few points seem clear.

There is considerable evidence that Pakistan-based entities were behind the Mumbai attacks. The sole surviving terrorist is Pakistani. He claims that the attackers trained with the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba for months inside Pakistan prior to launching their assault. And Indian officials have determined that the terrorists took a boat from Karachi to the Mumbai coast, leaving behind cell phones that had been used to call Pakistan.

None of this directly implicates the Pakistani government in the Mumbai attacks. It does, however, suggest that Pakistan bears some measure of responsibility for recent events; the Pakistani government is either unable or unwilling to prevent its territory from being used to launch terrorist attacks against India.

In fact, Pakistan has a long history of supporting anti-Indian militancy. For example, during the 1980s, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) began to provide training, arms, and financial and logistical support to insurgent groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. This transformed what had been a mostly spontaneous, local uprising into a low-intensity Indo-Pakistani war. Despite repeated Indian diplomatic entreaties and military threats, Pakistan has never fully ended its support for such groups.

These outside links notwithstanding, the complexity and organization of the Mumbai attacks suggest that they also employed local Indian support. Thus, even if the operation originated in Pakistan, the terrorists may well have had the assistance of disaffected Indian Muslims.

Since independence, many Muslims have thrived in India, availing themselves of educational opportunities, achieving high levels of prosperity, and blending into the country’s vast, pluralistic society. On a day-to-day basis they have faced little religious discrimination.

Less affluent segments of the Muslim community, however, have not been so fortunate. They have long endured discrimination in aspects of everyday life ranging from employment to housing opportunities. Past generations acquiesced in these humiliations. Today’s lower middle class Muslims, however, are better educated and more politically aware than their predecessors, and thus less prone simply to accept their fate.

Against this social backdrop, two incidents have helped to spur a process of Islamist radicalization within India. The first was a spate of anti-Muslim riots that swept across much of northern and western India after Hindu zealots destroyed the Babri Mosque in 1992. Hundreds of Muslims died at the hands of Hindu mobs while the police looked on. The second episode was a 2002 pogrom in the state of Gujarat that occurred after Hindu pilgrims died in a train fire allegedly set by Muslim miscreants. Few, if any, individuals involved these incidents have been prosecuted. Not surprisingly, these two episodes helped to radicalize a small but significant minority of Indian Muslims.

The Indian government has failed to devise a set of policies to address these social roots of Islamist zealotry. In addition, many of India’s state-level police forces have not mustered the requisite intelligence, forensic and prosecutorial tools necessary to suppress the resulting violence. Instead they have resorted to the random arrests of young Muslims, employed tainted evidence, and abused draconian anti-terrorist laws. Such actions have only worsened the situation, making it easier for foreign militants to recruit domestic sympathizers inside India.

What are the Mumbai attacks’ implications for South Asian security? The Manmohan Singh government has sought to avoid confrontation with Pakistan in the wake of several recent terror attacks with potential Pakistani links. Instead, it has preferred to maintain regional stability in hopes of achieving continued economic growth. The Mumbai attacks, however, undercut this rationale for restraint; by attacking international targets in India’s financial hub, they threaten to inflict significant harm on the Indian economy. Also, considerable domestic political pressure for strong anti-Pakistani action is likely to emerge, both from the opposition Bharatia Janata Party (BJP), which has long accused the government of being soft of Pakistan, and from ordinary voters outraged by the attacks.

In 2001, a failed assault on the Indian parliament by Pakistan-backed militants managed to kill only five people and was over in the space of a morning. In response, India mobilized roughly 500,000 forces along the Indo-Pakistani border, triggering a major militarized crisis with Pakistan. The Mumbai attacks killed and wounded hundreds, and lasted for nearly three days. Given the scale of the violence, as well as the economic and domestic political factors discussed above, the Indian government will be hard-pressed to avoid a reaction similar to 2001 – particularly if the evidence from Mumbai continues to point toward Pakistan. Given that both India and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons, the stakes in any ensuing confrontation will be enormous. Nuclear weapons will give both sides strong incentives to behave at least somewhat cautiously, in order to prevent a crisis from escalating too far. But they will also leave less room for error, making the costs of miscalculation potentially catastrophic.

Will a serious Indo-Pakistani crisis emerge from the Mumbai attacks, or will the Indian government manage to continue its policy of restraint, even in the face of such a brazen provocation? The pieces would appear to be in place for a serious regional confrontation. But only the coming days will tell for sure.

Sumit Ganguly is the director of research at the Center on American and Global Security at Indiana University, Bloomington, and an adjunct senior fellow at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles.

Paul Kapur is an associate professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and an affiliate at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

President-elect Barack Obama will inherit an Iraq that has experienced substantial improvements in security, but remains rife with unresolved internal issues. If not handled carefully, Iraq's fragile progress could dissolve and the country could become a dangerous foreign policy minefield for yet another American president. Here are the top 10 issues the next administration must address:

1. Determination of Objectives: The Bush administration invested vast resources in the hopes of achieving maximalist aims in Iraq. Though the results in Iraq have clearly fallen short of those aims, the Obama administration needs to formulate a policy that is more comprehensive and nuanced than "end this war." What can the U.S. realistically achieve? What are the outcomes that the U.S. can or cannot live with? How does Iraq fit in to a cogent strategy for the broader region, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran?
2. Approach to Withdrawal: The Status of Forces Agreement moving forward between the U.S. and Iraqi governments, combined with the urgent need for reinforcements in Afghanistan, will shape the contours of withdrawal. But what if Baghdad wants to change the schedule? Will changing conditions on the ground affect the pace and process of withdrawal? Is Washington willing to extend or accelerate the current "time horizon" if the security situation significantly deteriorates?
3. Management of the Security Transition: Earlier attempts to transfer security responsibility to Iraqi forces in 2006 encountered many problems. Do current assessments of when provinces will be ready for transition accurately reflect conditions on the ground? Can the U.S. effectively "thin out" its forces, while maintaining robust enabling capabilities (intelligence, air support, medical evacuation) in critical areas?
4. Development of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF): America must help the Iraqi forces foster competence and professionalism and prevent the reemergence of sectarianism in the ranks. To make this happen, U.S. military advisors will likely be needed for years to come, particularly to help develop support capabilities that the Iraqis currently lack. Is this advisory effort effective as currently organized and prepared? How will advisors be allocated to meet growing demands in Afghanistan as well as Iraq? Can the Defense Department accelerate its Foreign Military Sales program to provide the ISF with badly-needed equipment?
5. Sunni Reintegration: The Sunni Awakening and Sons of Iraq groups are facing an uncertain future as they transition from American control to Iraqi payroll and command structures. How can the U.S. help ensure that Sunnis are reintegrated into Iraqi society so they have a stake in the political system and do not return to the insurgency?
6. Status of Kirkuk: Kirkuk, the oil-rich city of northern Iraq claimed by both Kurds and Arabs, will be a flashpoint for continued conflict. What role can the U.S. play to minimize the potential for re-escalation of Arab-Kurd violence over Kirkuk? Should U.S. policy emphasize indefinite postponement of this issue, broker a territorial compromise, or encourage Iraqis to "give" the city to one side and focus instead on sharing oil revenues?
7. Dealing with Iranian influence: As Iraq's neighbor, Iran has a natural interest in influencing Iraq's domestic affairs. However, Tehran's political obstructionism and support for militants ultimately undermines Iraqi as well as American interests. How much and what types of Iranian influence in Iraqi affairs can the U.S. tolerate? How can the U.S. help Iraqis counter the most destabilizing and pernicious Iranian influences?
8. Future of Political Relations with Iraq: How does the U.S. envision its relations with an emerging sovereign Iraq that is likely to exhibit erratic behavior on the international stage? How and to what extent should America insert itself in Iraqi politics? Should the U.S. government actively seek a balance of power between Iraq's major factions, so as to spread the risk and avoid linking itself to the fortunes of any one group? Or should it remain on the sidelines, so as to extricate ourselves as best we can?
9. Economic Development: Iraq's economy is currently 90 percent dependent on oil exports, resulting in substantial volatility in revenue. How can the U.S. help Iraq diversify its economic base? How can the U.S. encourage greater foreign investment in the Iraqi economy beyond the energy sector? What incentives could Baghdad provide provincial and local officials to improve transparency and revenue sharing mechanisms?
10. Return of Refugees: Huge numbers of Iraqis fled to Jordan and Syria to escape sectarian violence. Does Baghdad owe those nations financial aid? As refugees return, what is the best way to handle this influx? Is America committed to reestablishing the mixed-sect districts that existed prior to 2006? Is a level of sectarian separation necessary to keep the peace?

No panacea exists for Iraq's remaining ills, and no amount of planning will account for all of its complex and sometimes contradictory dynamics. But with America's direct influence likely to wane as its troop presence diminishes, it is increasingly important to anticipate the full spectrum of difficult issues and choices ahead, in order to devise the best way forward for the United States and Iraq.

Brian M. Burton is a research assistant at the Center for a New American Security and a graduate student at the Georgetown University Security Studies Program. John Paul Schnapper-Casteras is a predoctoral fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation.

In the waning days of the Clinton administration, the momentum for engagement with North Korea, building from the earlier agreement to freeze its nuclear program and a moratorium on ballistic missile launches, accelerated to the brink of full-scale normalization of relations. The U.S. presidential election in 2000 brought that diplomatic freight train to an abrupt halt.

Will the 2008 election bring yet another dramatic change in U.S. Korea policy?

The answer, based on the published positions of the two candidates and conversations with his senior Asia policy advisors, seems to be NO. There are important differences of emphasis in the approaches of both candidates, which I will discuss, but the bottom line is that both men are likely to pick up where President George W. Bush leaves off.

There are two fundamental reasons why U.S. policy toward Korea – and more broadly in Northeast Asia --- will not change dramatically. First, Asia will continue to suffer from a deficit of presidential attention. The arc of crisis – Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan -- will necessarily still command, as it has for almost 8 years, the attention of senior American policymakers. Even that will have to fight for space with the growing global financial crisis.

Second, both candidates agree on the broad outlines of an Asia policy, one that does not depart radically from the one pursued by the Bush administration. As a senior McCain advisor put it to me: “There is not a huge difference on Asia between Obama and McCain.” Privately, Obama advisors also stress that there will not be a huge break with current U.S. policy.

Both campaigns are critical of the lack of attention paid to Asia and the need for the U.S. to be more proactive to strengthen existing alliances and to join the discussion about new forms of regional integration. Both candidates support the need to engage, rather than confront, a rising China. Both men call for the U.S. to pay more attention to management of our alliances with South Korea and Japan. And both Obama and McCain support the North Korean nuclear negotiations carried out by President Bush in his second term, although privately both campaigns are critical of the deal that has been struck.

If there are differences, they can be found in two areas – support for the Korea US free trade agreement and the willingness to directly engage North Korea and its regime.

Free Trade and the KORUS Free Trade Agreement

If there is one single issue regarding Korea on which Senators Obama and McCain clearly part company, it is the future of the free trade agreement negotiated with the Bush administration. Senator McCain is an unambiguous supporter of the FTA, not only as a trade pact but also as a symbol of the broader partnership between the U.S. and South Korea.

Senator Obama also supports free trade but is critical of this and other agreements, such as NAFTA, for failing to ensure market access and the protection of labor rights and the environment. Privately, Obama’s advisors understand the symbolic value of the FTA to the alliance, but they plan to ask Seoul to reopen talks on market access, particularly for the automobile industry. Their position reflects the importance of trade unions and the role of some key states – Michigan most of all – in the election outcome. Even if Obama loses, the Democrats are likely to strengthen their control of Congress, making approval of the FTA difficult under any circumstances.

Negotiating with Pyongyang: Back to the Future?

Both the McCain and the Obama camps publicly back the Bush administration’s negotiations with Pyongyang, but both are also privately critical, though for different reasons.

The Obama team is heavily populated by former Clinton administration officials who were involved in the negotiation of the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea. They see the current deal as an inevitably flawed bargain, the result of the refusal of the administration to seriously engage the North directly until it had crossed the red line of nuclear weapons testing. With little leverage, not least the credible threat of coercion, we are left with containing the plutonium production of the North, and hoping that a grand bargain down the line can yield full denuclearization.

Obama recognizes the need for “close coordination and consultation with our allies South Korea and Japan,” as one of his advisors put it in a published interview, and supports continuing the Six Party Talks. But the emphasis is clearly on direct talks with North Korea, though conducted with a principled toughness that the Bush administration has not exhibited in its final months in office.

That readiness to conduct direct negotiations, up to conclusion of a peace treaty with Pyongyang and full normalization of relations, is where the two candidates part company. The Republican nominee is clearly uncomfortable with direct dealings with Pyongyang – his position resembles the first term of the Bush administration more than the second in that respect. His advisory team combines realists, mainly veterans of the Powell State Department, and neoconservatives, reproducing the divisions that thwarted coherent policy-making in that first Bush term.

In the end, the views of McCain himself may be decisive. He was an opponent of the Agreed Framework, an agreement he characterized as “appeasement.” He maintained this stance into the Bush administration, vocally opposing any direct negotiations with the North Koreans as long as they maintained the right to develop nuclear weapons. He has been critical as well of the main deal struck by President Bush in his second term – “I didn’t believe in the KEDO agreement that President Clinton made and I don’t believe in this one,” he said in January.

McCain, according to an interview with one of his senior Asia advisors, would “seek a return to the core principles of denuclearization known as CVID, or complete, verifiable, irreversible, dismantlement.” The demand for CVID was the watchword of the Bush administration’s earlier stance, in effect a call for Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear option as a first step. But that demand was dropped after Pyongyang called the Bush administration’s bluff by exploding a nuclear device in October, 2006.

McCain also wants to “broaden our policy goals related to North Korea” beyond nuclear issues, to including human rights, economic and political reform, and reduction of the conventional military threat from North Korea, goals also set out at the outset of the Bush administration. McCain has repeatedly referred to the North Korean regime, and its leader, Kim Jong Il, in harsh terms and embraced a policy of “rogue state rollback.”

Realistically, however, McCain offers no credible, practical means to reach these goals. He reserves, as does Obama, the option to use force. But concretely he comes back to the strategy of pressing China to bring North Korea to heel. Unfortunately the Bush administration also relied on China and found there were clear limits to Beijing’s ability to control or its willingness to press its North Korean client. In the end, McCain may have little option but to follow Bush to Pyongyang’s doorstep.

One Caveat – Events Matter

Despite the powerful impetus to maintain continuity in U.S. policy toward the Korean peninsula, no matter whom is elected in November, there is one important caveat to keep in mind – events matter. Unplanned, and unforeseen, developments could force Korea to the top of the President’s agenda. Already we have seen the reports of Kim Jong Il’s serious illness trigger fresh concerns about a possible collapse of political authority in Pyongyang. A simultaneous rush by China, South Korea and the United States to fill a vacuum of power in the North could upset all calculations. For South Korea, and President Lee Myung-bak, it is always best to prepare for the unexpected.