Monday, May 25, 2009
Nork nukes
In testing a second nuclear weapon, the North Koreans have indicated that it does not matter to them who is in the White House, or what resolutions are passed by the U.N., and that Kim Jong Il will continue to do pretty much whatever he wants. No sanctions, no harsh words, and no angry letters will have much of an effect.
As AP reported:
"Appearing on the White House steps, Obama said that its latest nuclear underground test and subsequent test firings of short-range ground to air missiles 'pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action.'"I won't even bother to embed the relevant "Team America" scene, but for those who never tire of viewing it, it is here (NSFW).
I also won't bother to make snarky comments about where President Obama's magic wand might have gone -- the one that was supposed to make everybody like us again -- although his campaign promise to have direct talks with North Korea without pre-conditions does not matter, and the same can be said of President Bush's efforts during the previous administration. Any military solution that might have even been considered under the Bush administration would have put at risk a great many South Korean lives, simply because of the sheer volume of conventional weaponry lined up on the north side of the DMZ.
The best scenario for breaking the standoff would probably include the Chinese tiring of Kim Jong Il's antics and reducing Chinese support of the North Koreans, but the Chinese to not want to see a mass refugee problem occur, with hundreds of thousands of North Koreans streaming north into China.
There is no good military solution to North Korea's intransigence, and there is no good diplomatic solution that does not include a significant Chinese role. Unless the Chinese actually enjoy having Kim Jong Il rattle the cages of the U.S. and Japan and, for that matter, everyone, wouldn't it be in the long-run economic interests of China to use its good offices to persuade the North Korean leadership to climb down from its paranoia and do away with the nuclear program? One indicator of those long-run interests is the extent to which China would like to expand trade with South Korea. Most likely, it is wishful thinking on my part.
6 Comments:
By 
Kinuachdrach, at
Mon May 25, 10:45:00 PM:
Yes, E81 -- indeed it is wishful thinking on your part. Not everyone in this world wants to be your friend, no matter how much you would like them to be.
It is a little distressing to see the US President standing around like a limp-wristed European, wittering about the UN Security Council sending a really, really strongly worded letter. Please!
But the real impact of this may be quite different. Anyone with cash to spend now has a bona-fide supplier of tested nuclear weapons. Anyone! Starting with Iran. The world really has become a much more dangerous place -- and the danger could come from any direction.
By JPMcT, at
Mon May 25, 10:52:00 PM:
"the same can be said of President Bush's efforts during the previous administration"
Bush was constrained by the unpopular war in Iraq, but not by his personal ideology. That made him more of a threat to North Korea than Obama, who brings a teleprompter to a gunfight.
The provocative actions by the North Koreans have clearly escalated since January. They have taken a careful look at Obama and made their decision.
It will be of interest what, if anything, will follow from the Yuppie-filled situation room at the White House over the next week.
These guys are not teen-aged Somali pirates....
By Georg Felis, at
Tue May 26, 12:12:00 AM:
In this movie, Kim has placed himself in the role of the Crazy Guy With a Gun, South Korea and Japan are playing the Hostage, and the US is playing the role of the SWAT team. CC will be doing the movie review shortly.
In short, Kim is crazy. Not just the normal Hollywood crazy, where you collect bottlecaps and talk to the flowers, but full psychosis in bloom, the kind of crazy that would entitle him to a fine white-painted room and an endless parade of thoughtful PhDs with thesis to write in any other country on the planet. And he has a whole upper crust with him, any of which could be picked out and randomly killed just because the Supreme Leader suddenly takes a dislike to them. There are only a few ways this could go.
1) The Stall: (otherwise known as the Castro defense) Keep him talking, keep a low pressure on him, do not drop bombs, do not take major action, and eventually he will drop over dead and we will have somebody more sane to deal with.
2)The Explosion: (Known as the Kuwait blunder) Eventually Dr. Evil gets his Doomsday Device loaded and pointed at a major city. When his demands are not met, he shoots it. If he's very unlucky, it works. When the radiation dies down, North Korea goes into the third option.
3)The Collapse: (or the Enron/Zimbabwe) A complete collapse of authority and organization sweeps the country. Power plants fail, gas stops flowing, trains stop, cities go into massive starvation and flood into the countryside, neighboring countries get floods of starving refugees, Hollywood celebrities go on TV begging for money. Even China refuses to get involved, seeing how much it would cost to fix.
Some questions just don't have good answers, like "How do we deal with North Korea?"
By JPMcT, at
Tue May 26, 12:33:00 AM:
"Some questions just don't have good answers, like "How do we deal with North Korea?""
Finish the sentence:
How do we deal with North Korea (or, insert any hostile foreign power here)....after we have stupidly dismantled our foreign intelligence services over the past 15 years because we didn't want to seem like "meanies" to the rest of the world?
Answer: We DONT! We just hope they can't build big bombs and accurate ICBM's.
What a winning strategy. Who needs enemies when we have Congress?
By 
, at
Tue May 26, 08:00:00 AM:
Anything effective needs to be done behind the scenes. China is the key player -- what they do or don't do is a tell about what they're really about.
I hear that Kim Jong Il is ill and won't be around for long -- so that a succession struggle is starting. Many pick the #3 son -- think Michael Corleone in the Godfather. #3 son apparently has all dad's wonderful qualities -- without his love for Western cinema and basketball.
Link, over
By , at
Tue May 26, 08:11:00 AM:
I just tripped over this in wikipedia -- you can't make this up. Back in 1978, Kim Jong Il had a South Korean movie director -- and his estranged actress wife -- kidnapped from Hong Kong in order to jump-start the North Korean movie-making industry. Shin Sang-ok made seven films with Kim Jong-il as an executive producer, including an homage to Godzilla, one of Kim's favorites. Kim saw the monster as a metaphor for capitalism -- but many see the director mocking Kim himself.
Link
