This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, June 11th, 2009.

I'm Caleb Brown.

North Korea's nuclear tests and probable harsh imprisonment of two American journalists

leaves American diplomats with a tougher job than ever.

How should the United States?

Its diplomats and those closest to those journalists respond, if at all.

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Doug Bandau comments.

There have been a lot of news reports

about how current the network that employs these two journalists and Al Gore, the

founder of the or nothing at all and this is a shock to many people.

It makes an awful lot of sense.

You're dealing with really a criminal regime that is dedicated to trying to extract as much as it can from the United States.

The worst thing you can do is to, in essence, raise the price.

That is, if they perceive that there's enormous concern for these two women,

if they perceive the US government is desperate to get them

back. The North Koreans are going to ask an awful lot to get them. In the end of the

day the only way we're going to get them back is through diplomacy. So I think

they're it's very smart. They're trying to downplay it. Don't turn it into a crisis.

It's a humanitarian issue. And then you have a much better chance of getting them back relatively quickly and unharmed.

Well, as they say, these two young women are likely pawns in a much bigger game.

What's it stink?

Yeah, I mean, this is all about politics and has essentially nothing to do about justice.

...