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Pyongbang!
Summary --
What North Korea hoped to gain from its failed missile launch -- and how Washington can avoid falling into its negotiating trap.
Related
Essay, Nov/Dec 2009
By exposing them to the truth about their impoverishment and about the prosperity of their South Korean cousins, the United States can encourage North Koreans to change the regime in Pyongyang.
Essay, Jan/Feb 2005
Two years ago, Washington accused Pyongyang of running a secret nuclear weapons program. But how much evidence was there to back up the charge? A review of the facts shows that the Bush administration misrepresented and distorted the data--while ignoring the one real threat North Korea actually poses.
Essay, Mar/Apr 2003
Pyongyang's belligerent behavior should not obscure other dramatic conciliatory steps North Korea has taken in recent years--steps suggesting that, even now, a solution lies within reach. The trick is to craft a plan that does not reward the North for its misdeeds. In such a plan, all major outside powers should guarantee the security of the entire Korean Peninsula first. This will remove Pyongyang's excuse for nuclear proliferation--and break the deadlock on the world's last Cold War frontier.
Comments
North Korea
Thanks for sharing that. As usual I found a great deal with which to agree but I wanted to flag a couple of points of disagreement. My starting point is that for several years the DPRK could argue that their actions, esp. re. their nuclear program were largely defensive and responsive to the hard line of the Bush administration. But given the progress of the Six Party Talks and the positive US moves in the last months of Bush and the openness of Obama to continued talks, there is now no such justification. This launch was a clear effort to show that the military is in charge, that the DPRK 'can't be pushed around,' and that the North has 'good quality missile technology for sale.' As such it demands a tough response.
I do think the US and its closest allies should consider financial sanctions...even if China won't go along. But I think the terrorism list would be a mistake--a missile launch is not a terrorist act and the actions with Syria are still in a haze. I'd argue that the list should be kept in reserve--for use at a later time should it be necessary.
And I really can't imagine that a US et al. effort to provide food and winterizing for every North Korean has a snowball's chance in hell of getting approved by the North. They barely let in the minimally functioning aid groups from the US and UN now. I can't imagine a few thousand Habitat for Humanity folks wandering around the boondocks, hammers in hand, being welcomed by this regime.
That all said, thanks for a nice analysis and some good thinking as usual.
T.J.
Nuclear Korea
Interesting analysis. However, I must argue that it claims Kim Jong-Il to be more aggressive than he likely is. History has shown authoritarian dictators, along with any ruling class, to share a single commonality; a desire to stay in power. No state or regime has taken actions that it believed would likely lead to a change in power or annihilation of the state.
President Bush's famous 'axis of evil' speech put N. Korea, Iran, and Iraq into a single category in U.S. foreign policy, at least if you ask a North Korean or Iranian. The N. Koreans and Iranians, more specifically Kim and Khaminei, witnessed what happened to Hussein's regime in 2003. Nuclear weapons are their most accessible method of deterring what they likely see as the greatest threat to their respective regime's continued existence.
The nuclear programs of these states create a security dilemma; we see their intentions as aggressive and many argue aggressive action needs to be taken to defend ourselves, whereas they see nuclear weapons as necessities for their continued existence. I do not believe a nuclear North Korea poses an imminent threat to U.S. national security: any ICBM launch would be immediately and massively retaliated against by the United States, leaving Kim either dead, powerless, or most likely state-less.
E.J.W.
North Korea and Diplomacy
Resolution of issues through diplomacy is a far reached process when dealing with the recluse Communist country. Here are the facts. The talks to end the Korean War began in July 1951 at Kaesong and would drag on for over two years. In the election year of 1952, the end of the Korean War was a hot topic among the candidates running for office. Former Supreme Allied Commander; General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower ran on a ticket that he would pay the Far East a visit. After his inauguration in January 1953, he kept his promise and went to the Korea not discuss a strategy but a truce. Soon direct warnings were made to Moscow and Peking China that if no resolution was reached, he (Eisenhower) would employ nuclear weapons to do so. To ensure that Moscow, China and North Korea knew he meant business, in May 1953 US bombers were given orders to strike dams on the North Korean border which resulted in disastrous flooding. Soon a fresh urgency came to the talks at Panmunjom, until then they had been a mixture of futility and farce. By the time the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, 575 talks had been held in a short period of two years. Now today more than a half century later, the country remains an armed camp. United States aircraft and ground forces still serve a principle guarantor to South Korea against attack from the Communist North.
North Korea is impoverished and angry and will do whatever it has to do to feed its people. Also the country has a serious agricultural disadvantage, a harsh climate that is roasting in summer and freezing in winter. The Communist government has inhibited the influx of technological growth and economic prosperity contributing to the country inability to produce the subsistence to meet the demands of its people. Yet with these existing conditions, one might ask why the country is so defiant and such a hard-lined Communist regime? The answer to that question lies with one of North Korea's neighbors, Japan. Korea enjoyed a precarious independence for hundreds of years, but in the last years of the 19th century the country became overshadowed by Japanese Imperialism. In 1910 Japan swallowed Korean completely, and for 35 years it was a colony ruthlessly ruled from Tokyo. When Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt met to settle most the globe in the last stages of World War II, Korea fitted in their discussion only a footnote. The three almost off-handedly declared that the Japanese colony would get it's independence in due course. By the summer of 1945, negotiations between East and West had frosted fast, Soviet armies swept over Eastern Europe- the stage was set for the Cold War.
In 1968 North Korea seized the USS Pueblo on the high seas and kept the crew imprisoned for almost a year as negotiations dragged out. Then on New Year's Eve 1968 Navy Commander Lloyd Bucher brought his crew all but one home to their families in San Diego, Ca.
Analysts believe that the only country that has the ability to persuade North Korea to refrain from it nuclear weapons program is China. While still somewhat a Communist country, China is evolving towards a democracy in terms of economics. The famine situation in North Korea has given China a glimpse of what their society could be if they remained Communist in terms of economics.
Meanwhile as world leaders attempt to find a diplomatic solution to resolve the situation in North Korea, diplomacy drowns in bitter rhetoric.
Andre Grisham
United States Navy (Retired)