In the end, not even Japan lifted a finger against the North Korean rocket, which has launched. You gotta love appeasement. Shame on all of us for allowing this regime to continue doing what it does to its own people and to the world.
"I urge North Korea to abide fully by the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council," Obama said in Prague, Czech Republic, calling on Pyongyang to refrain from further "provocative" actions.
This is a joke, right? North Korea has already violated at least two UN Security Council resolutions (see here and here). It will continue to make demands and give nothing in return. At the very least, we should contemplate closing off all diplomatic and trade/aid relations with the country. When will we learn that the best way to deal with a spoiled, potentially dangerous child is through firm discipline, quickly, consistently, and judiciously applied? If "Go to your room!" doesn't work, ready the leather belt. The country obviously isn't ready to reason with the world, so speak to it in the language it understands. We've been patient since 1953.
I give North Korea full marks for playing us all for fools. We are fools, and the starving, oppressed North Korean population continues to pay for our foolishness.
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4 comments:
I can't say I disagree with you, but what do you think should be done? What, short of direct military action, or the plausible threat thereof, would actually be effective?
Charles,
It's an agonizing question, but I'm convinced we have to do whatever it takes to provoke systemic collapse. A passive way to do this would be to break off all diplomatic relations with NK, and to encourage Japan to do the same. It would be too much to expect China and South Korea to get on board with such a measure, but I don't think we need them for such a move. I also don't see Russia's immediate relevance in this; NK is mostly a Chinese and SK problem.
Personally, I disagree with the school of thought that says we should separate the human-rights dimension (food aid, etc.) from the political dimension (nuclear threat, etc.) in our dealings with NK. Although I respect the arguments (cf. Andrew Natsios, The Great North Korean Famine), I think the best way to provoke collapse is through the quick buildup of internal pressure.
I think the collective ire is there, waiting to be tapped. It's not as though North Korean citizens are totally unaware of where they stand in the global scheme of things; Kang Jeol-hwan's The Aquariums of Pyongyang makes that clear. NK citizens are often poignantly aware of what's happening in the outside world, but it's also plain that they haven't felt enough pressure, yet, to get up and stage a revolt.
In terms of food aid, the US government is capable of moving vast amounts of food in comparison to the NGOs out there. So if we were to break off communications with Pyongyang-- covering our ears and humming loudly, if you will-- we would dry up most of the food aid from the West right there. Were we to encourage Japan and other countries to do the same, NK would go nuts. In the short term, this move would hurt the NK citizens, but if it provoked collapse sooner rather than later, it would be worth it.
There's no pretty way to do this, and that's partly the West's fault for having allowed the situation to fester to this point. People are going to die in large numbers no matter how the situation resolves itself, but in my opinion, it's better to have the situation come to a head now, while SK is economically strong (compared to NK, I mean), and to end up with either a unified peninsula (you and I might not live long enough to see this become official) or two Koreas sporting Western-style democracies and free-market economies, with amicable exchange of goods and information across the former DMZ.
The problem with provoking a war, especially these days, is the tendency for South Koreans to blame the US for everything bad that happens to it-- to keep pretending that SK remains a passive victim in all this (conveniently agreeing with NK propaganda that portrays SK as the US's bitch, so to speak). In the meantime, the US needs to stop with the empty rhetoric and either say nothing at all, or back its talk up with action. Both the GOP and the Dems have been limp-wristed on this score, with everyone generally favoring the prolongation of the status quo because no one wants to contemplate what an NK governmental collapse will mean. This makes US policy little different from, and no nobler than, SK policy.
NK provocation of Japan could lead to Japanese remilitarization-- a redrafting of the Japanese constitution to include more hawkish language about the role of Japan's military. But NK is playing it smart right now: they knew they'd get away with the missile launch, and that even Japan would end up doing nothing when the crucial moment came. I had hoped the Japanese would attempt to shoot the missile down, but I'm sure they are painfully aware of the diplomatic repercussions with South Korea, which would temporarily take North Korea's side to berate Japan for warmongering. If war did erupt as a result of Japan's actions, Japan would end up being blamed for the mess, no matter the truth of such an accusation. And as mentioned above, the same applies to the US. An outsider who provokes (or is seen to provoke) war on the peninsula will be a scapegoat in the peninsular mind for decades to come.
Anyway, clamping the blood vessels around the heart is the best solution I can come up with, short of cutting the heart out directly. I think war should be the final option (i.e., it should be on the table, but only for use in extremis), and that continued diplomacy, especially in its current form, is pretty much a sick joke. The West (particularly the US) needs to grow a spine.
What are your thoughts on this?
Kevin
Joshua's recent post is getting a lot of play in the Koreablogosphere. In it, he offers an insider's view of options against NK that don't involve war. Much better than anything I could have articulated.
Kevin
Ack, another piece for me to read! I don't have the time to go through the entire OFK piece right now, so I'll just make some quick comments and then maybe pick this up later.
As far as provoking a collapse of the government in North Korea, I really don't see that happening. More specifically, I don't see a popular uprising succeeding in NK--any overthrow of the government would have to have the support of the military. The problems there are that a) the military probably has little reason to betray the current administration, and b) if there is a military uprising, we have no guarantee that the resulting situation will be any better than what we have now.
Any civil revolt would be put down so swiftly and brutally that it would make your head spin--the oppressed in NK know this, and are probably thinking that it would be better to stay alive (even in the present conditions) than to die to no end.
Perhaps I'm just being overly pessimistic, but I really don't see popular uprising as an option in NK.
I will definitely have to give the OFK article a read later on and see what he has to say.
(I do agree, by the way, with two things you said in particular:
"People are going to die in large numbers no matter how the situation resolves itself"
and
"The West (particularly the US) needs to grow a spine."
The latter can apply to more than just the NK situation.)
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